Rustle, rustle.
With each step forward, grass and branches brushed against their bodies. Still, it wasn’t as treacherous a path as expected. That was because Klad was leading the way, clearing it for them.
Even now, Klad grabbed a handful of branches blocking the path and pulled them aside to create a narrow gap, waiting for Jake to pass through.
“Hurry up and come. You’re so damn slow.”
“But, Klad. There are too many tree roots, so I can’t go fast. Can’t you pull out all the roots too?”
“Are you planning to travel while making it blatantly obvious that someone passed through here?”
“Fleeing is quite an arduous task.”
After Jake passed through the path that had been cleared in advance, Klad would erase the footprints and restore the branches to their original state, erasing any traces of their movement. Moving like this with every step made their travel time longer than expected.
Jake, who had been walking while looking only at the ground to avoid tripping over tree roots, stopped in place when he felt the earth swaying.
“Klad, my head is dizzy.”
“Are you going to say ‘I’m dizzy, so let’s fight again in ten minutes’ even in the middle of fighting an enemy? Hurry up.”
“But we’re not fighting an enemy right now. My stomach doesn’t feel well either. If I force myself to move and collapse, it’ll delay us even more, so I need to rest a bit now.”
Among Jake’s opinions, this was one of the rare ones that made sense.
Klad let out a short sigh and placed his hand on Jake’s forehead.
“You don’t have a fever.”
“Klad…”
Klad’s hand, which wasn’t even wearing gloves in the middle of winter, was as cold as ice.
Still, when another person’s skin touched him, his body, which had felt frozen solid, melted away softly.
A warm feeling.
There was no way his body could warm up this much just from another person’s touch, so perhaps Klad had warmed his body with magic.
Jake felt drowsiness along with the warm energy and opened his mouth.
“Touching a noble’s body without permission is a grave offense.”
“Ha.”
Is that really what you should be saying right now? Klad glared at Jake in disbelief.
“Even when I’m worried about you, seriously…”
“I hope you understand that in recognition of that sentiment, I’m ending this with just a warning.”
“Why are you acting up now when you haven’t made a peep until now?”
“It’s fine when I grab you first.”
“Ah, yes. Of course you would say that.”
He’d faint if he knew I grabbed his shoulders and shook him this morning.
“From now on, I won’t touch you even if you’re on fire, so just hurry up.”
“When I’m on fire, I’ll permit you to touch me, Klad.”
“No thanks. The fire might spread to me.”
“Then won’t I end up burning?”
“Just don’t do things that’ll set you on fire in the first place.”
Listening to Jake’s nonsense in one ear and letting it out the other as they walked, a suitable clearing appeared.
Klad stopped in that spot.
“The sun will set soon, so it’d be good to prepare to camp here.”
“Camp?”
Jake raised his head and looked up at the sky. The dense trees blocked the sky, with almost no light filtering through, so he hadn’t even noticed that the sun had risen and was beginning to set.
“How are we supposed to camp in this cramped space?”
To Jake, camping meant soldiers who accompanied him preparing tents in advance to make temporary lodgings and cots, spending a somewhat uncomfortable but cozy night. However, the location Klad chose was absurdly too narrow to pitch a tent. Moreover, Klad didn’t have anything prepared for camping.
While Jake was puzzled, Klad lit a campfire on the flat clearing. Jake stood there blankly beside him until Klad settled down and sat next to the campfire.
“What are you doing? Sit down.”
“Beside you?”
“If you don’t like it, sit across from me.”
Jake still stood there looking at Klad. He didn’t seem particularly dissatisfied.
“Is this what commoners’ camping is like?”
“If the clearing were a bit wider maybe, but right now this is the limit. You’ve visited Audrit as a hero before, haven’t you ever camped?”
“Back then, we always stopped by cities or villages to find lodgings, so there was no need to sleep on bare ground.”
“Then stand there all night like that.”
“…”
“…”
Even after saying that much, when Jake still didn’t move, Klad eventually scoured the forest and brought back several large leaves.
Jake only sat down after a cushion made of leaves had been prepared.
“This is extremely uncomfortable.”
“If that’s so uncomfortable for you, just go back to the capital.”
“No, it’s more comfortable than the underground prison, so I can endure it.”
Crackle, crackle.
Listening to the sound of the campfire burning, the sun set in an instant. The forest, which had already been dark, became so dark that you couldn’t see an inch ahead.
To Jake, who was blankly watching the campfire, Klad suddenly held out something.
“Hm?”
“Eat. You’ve been starving all day.”
What Klad held out was hard bread.
It tasted much worse than soft bread but was easier to store—that very bread he’d eaten one per day, every day when he was in the underground prison.
“Don’t tell me, is this the bread I gave you?”
“Yeah. It’ll be hard to get food until tomorrow. If you’re hungry, eat that at least.”
Jake pressed his lips tightly together and looked down at the bread.
“Klad.”
“I’m fine, so just eat quietly.”
“We paid for breakfast together at the inn, but I didn’t receive any meal.”
“…That’s what you were agonizing over?”
This bastard, no matter who he was talking to, had mastered the most effective way to annoy someone without any effort.
An impressive guy.
Klad decided it would be better to spend that time maintaining the campfire rather than continuing the conversation with Jake. When he tossed a piece of dry firewood into the crackling campfire, the flames grew larger.
“Klad.”
“Next time we return to the capital, you can ask for the meal you didn’t get today. Stop it.”
“Here.”
Jake broke the bread in two and held out one half to Klad.
“You, this…”
“Since you’re my servant, it’s natural for you to take care of me first in a lacking situation, but—”
Klad, who had almost been moved for nothing, calmed down at those words.
“Taking care of one’s subordinates is also a virtue of nobility. Even if I starve a little today, I choose to starve together with you.”
“Forget it. Just eat it yourself.”
“But I haven’t seen you eat anything even once since I first met you until now.”
“I’m used to starving originally.”
“Really? Then I won’t force you.”
Jake quickly acquiesced and put the bread in his mouth.
He even held one of the two pieces of bread up to the campfire and toasted it until it was crispy before eating it.
“Ha.”
Watching Jake like that, Klad’s insides burned.
He did refuse. He definitely refused first, but… why is this so annoying?
Klad let out an empty laugh and glared at Jake, who put the bread in his mouth as if he’d been waiting for it.
“Is it good?”
“Of course not. There’s no way this crumbly bread would taste good.”
“For something like that, aren’t you grinning too much?”
“Grinning? I don’t make such undignified expressions.”
Jake ate the entire piece of hard bread with a broad smile. Then he curled up his body beside the campfire and fell asleep.
Warm, full. Even if it wasn’t soft, a blanket of leaves that wasn’t as hard as the underground floor either.
It wasn’t a bad night.
***
Rustle.
The next day, Jake woke up with a rustling sound. Because the trees were so thick that the sky couldn’t be seen, he couldn’t gauge the time.
Jake rubbed his face with his bare hands to do a dry wash, then looked around. A thin cloth he didn’t remember covering himself with was placed over his body like a blanket.
‘Where did this come from?’
He knew that Klad carried a small pouch around his waist. But its size was so small that he didn’t think the bread and blanket could all have been inside it.
Even if he couldn’t know where or how all this was obtained, thanks to it, he was able to spend a night that wasn’t cold.
‘The campfire is out too.’
It was warm enough to feel heat even without a fire, making him doubt whether it was really winter.
Next to the extinguished campfire, various fruits were laid out. Klad must have gotten them.
‘Klad is diligent.’
Jake slowly ate the fruit while waiting for Klad.
Most of the fruits Klad had gotten were ones Jake had never seen before and didn’t know the names of, but they tasted better than the expensive fruits he’d eaten at the Duke’s castle.
Crunch.
Jake, who had been sitting blankly filling his stomach, raised his head at the sound of dry leaves being stepped on.
It was Klad.
“…”
Without a single word of explanation about leaving his spot on his own while his companion was sleeping, Klad sat down and picked up a fruit with a thick peel.
Jake, who had been watching that blankly, finally opened his mouth first.
“Klad.”
“What.”
“Where have you been?”
“I went to check if there are any guys chasing after us. Are you dissatisfied that I left my spot on my own?”
“No. There’s no way you’d leave me behind, so I wouldn’t be dissatisfied about something like that.”
“…”
He was either naive or stupid, readily giving his trust to someone he’d only just met not long ago.
It was something he especially shouldn’t do as a hero carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders, but… well, it wasn’t so bad.
Earning someone’s trust was also quite enjoyabl—
“However, not being within my line of sight when I wake up is not a virtue of one who serves a noble, Klad. Next time, be sure to be by my side at the time I wake up.”
…I just want to disappear from your sight forever.
