Chapter 4
* * *
Ricador was about to scold Rierusha, but then he looked at the soap bubbles floating up and down with the monster trapped inside.
Powerful magical energy could be felt everywhere.
It was alien, yet familiar.
“You…….”
Ricador, startled, couldn’t continue for a moment.
Then, seeing Rierusha flinch and tremble in fear at the monster, he burned the monster to ash in an instant.
It was Ricador’s ability.
As if showing his temperament, the savage black flames did not die down for quite a while.
“Damn it, to think I missed something this big.”
Ricador muttered irritably.
“O-older Brother, how did you get heeere…….”
When Rierusha asked with a flustered face, Ricador tilted his head askew.
The boy’s red eyes swept over Rierusha, narrowing.
“That’s what I should be asking. Why are you here? Are you dying to die?”
“…….”
“Do you even know where this is……!”
“Waaah, Brotheeer!”
But Ricador couldn’t finish his words.
Because Rierusha suddenly ran up and threw herself into his arms.
At the action of burying her face in Ricador’s clothes in her filthy state, Ricador flinched, but couldn’t move.
At the sudden unexpected situation, he only stiffened with both hands lifted in the air.
“Hey, you……. Filthy.”
Ricador couldn’t bring himself to push Rierusha away in the end.
Because the child’s relief at being alive was conveyed to Ricador.
Seeing the small hands tightly clinging to his waist trembling, Ricador let out a sigh.
“……Th-thank you for coming to save me again.”
After a long while, Rierusha murmured.
At those words, Ricador made an expression as if he couldn’t understand.
“Again?”
“Yeah.”
Rierusha nodded faintly.
‘This time, too, Brother Ricador came to save me.’
Rierusha’s heart swelled.
Maybe this time, could she live happily with her family?
A vain hope began to bloom, soft and warm.
‘But I shouldn’t have expectations like that.’
Recalling the past where she had to experience expectations and disappointment over and over, Rierusha pulled back.
When she lifted her face away, Ricador’s shirt was stained in the shape of eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
Seeing that, Ricador’s expression turned awkward.
“Hey, you, my clothes…….”
“Sob…… It was so scaaary!”
“…….”
“Thank you for coming to save me.”
Even now, thinking back on what had just happened made her feel wronged.
‘But what did he mean earlier, that he missed something?’
Rierusha tilted her head.
Had he said it when he saw that monster earlier?
Did that mean Ricador came to this forest often?
Rierusha wanted to ask what she was curious about, but just as the last soap bubble popped, she felt all the strength drain from her whole body at once.
She saw Ricador looking at her with a flustered face.
“Huh?”
At the same time, her body swayed, and her vision began to tilt.
She saw Ricador hurriedly reaching out a hand to catch her.
“Are you okay?!”
But instead of Ricador, someone else caught Rierusha.
Rierusha lifted her head in the broad embrace she felt behind her.
‘……Who is it?’
A man wearing a monocle with a long gold chain was looking down at her.
In her fading consciousness, the man’s beautiful voice reached her ears.
“Congratulations on your awakening, Lady Rierusha. From now on, I will serve you.”
Rierusha lost consciousness as her heavy eyelids sank shut.
* * *
“Since when were you watching?”
After Rierusha collapsed from the aftereffects of her awakening, Ricador asked the man sharply.
The man’s identity was Rosinante, aide to the young duke of House Arakrene.
Rosinante, carefully holding Rierusha, made an expression as if he didn’t know.
“Then, Young Master Ricador, is it not class time? It seems you have taken the wrong path. This is the complete opposite direction from where the heir’s lessons are held.”
“Don’t play innocent. You knew from the start this brat was going into the forest, didn’t you?”
“I did not know.”
Rosinante smiled brightly and answered firmly.
Ricador’s brow furrowed deeply in distrust.
Soon, Ricador pulled a bracelet out of his pocket.
“This bracelet.”
“Oh. Young Master, is that to your taste?”
“There were signs it was cut artificially—wasn’t it you? You told me Rierusha went into the forest.”
“……Well. That is something I do not know.”
Rosinante’s sharp eyes, visible beyond his glasses, curved gently as if insisting on his innocence.
Yet contrary to that, a warning flashed—do not ask further. Ricador, who did not miss it, frowned.
Rosinante’s lips curved softly upward.
“Am I not the young duke’s aide? You should know well that I cannot interfere at all in what happens within the family.”
“So you used me.”
“I am wronged.”
Rosinante put on an exaggerated show and shook his head.
But from this moment, Rosinante’s position changed.
Because the restriction of ‘not being able to be involved at all in internal family matters’ had been lifted.
“Then please return safely, Young Master Ricador. I think I should be on my way now.”
Rosinante had a great many things to do from here on out.
First, he intended to deal with the vermin living in Rierusha’s residence.
After that…….
He would have time to set everything right.
Rosinante smiled as he looked at Rierusha, fallen into a deep sleep.
* * *
Flash.
Rierusha’s eyes snapped open as she regained consciousness.
She rolled only her eyes, trying to grasp where this was, when she felt a presence at her side.
“Are you awake, Lady Rierusha.”
“Who……?”
A woman she had never seen before greeted her politely.
Rierusha reflexively flinched and, with a wary expression, gently leaned back.
Because the people in the main castle were not kind to Rierusha by nature.
The woman, not minding Rierusha’s behavior at all, introduced herself.
“Let me formally greet you. I am the dedicated knight, Sona, who will serve Lady Rierusha starting today.”
“My knight?”
Rierusha, quite startled by the woman’s introduction, asked back.
A dedicated knight was someone assigned to heirs who had completed their awakening.
They were beings who moved with the heir’s safety as the absolute priority—something that had not been permitted to Rierusha, either.
Dedicated knights were those who had the duty to protect the heir in any situation.
‘Right, I awakened my ability.’
The ability that had shown no sign even after she turned ten—after returning to being a young child, it suddenly manifested.
Rierusha awkwardly clenched and opened her hand.
The sensation of her body being hollow seemed as if the aftereffects of awakening had not yet fully healed.
‘My wound is gone?’
Rierusha looked surprised when she saw the wound on her elbow had disappeared.
Someone with the ability to heal wounds must have come and gone.
‘If it wasn’t Grandfather’s instruction, this could never happen.’
Since even the clothes she had been wearing in the forest had been changed, it seemed Sona had washed her and changed her clothes.
Come to think of it, Sona before her must also have come on the duke’s orders.
Still unable to believe it, Rierusha asked again.
“……Are you really my knight?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
At the gentle voice and kind attitude, Rierusha made an awkward expression for a moment.
Rierusha carefully examined Sona.
Sona had silver-gray hair braided into a single plait that fell down to her waist.
Judging by her appearance, she seemed to be from a collateral line of House Arakrene.
To think Grandfather had assigned her a knight of this high a rank. She still couldn’t believe it.
“Ttona……?”
Rierusha awkwardly called the name.
At the same time, Sona’s eyes widened.
Then her mouth and eyes opened slowly, and she could see the corners of her mouth trembling slightly.
But the change was only for a moment.
Sona returned to her original smiling face.
“Yes, Lady Rierusha.”
“…Ttona.”
When Rierusha called Sona’s name again and again, Sona, as if making a firm resolve, spoke gravely.
“Yes. Please call me Ttona.”
“Huh?”
“My name is Ttona from now on.”
Sona answered with a more serious face than ever, and handed her the cup of water.
