Chapter 51

At that same moment—

“Lady Aisha!”

Knox, who had come through the portal without delay, called out for her.

If she had used the portal, then naturally she should have headed straight for the Kreutz estate first.

“......”

He rushed into the estate, but perhaps because of the emergency, the castle corridors were as silent as a graveyard.

Then—

“Sir Knox!”

The butler, Brad, went pale the instant he spotted him walking through the corridor.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the royal palace with Lady Aisha right now? We definitely sent an urgent message—”

So the young lady isn’t here.

Despair crashed through Knox, but he forced himself not to show it.

“Lady Aisha came to the north through the royal palace’s portal.”

“...What? But Lady Aisha is supposed to be at the estate...”

There was no time to listen to Brad.

“If she isn’t here, I’ll go search outside immediately.”

Knox brushed past him in haste and left the castle again, scanning the surrounding area.

Where did she go?

He had jumped into the portal immediately so he wouldn’t lose track of her. He should have at least spotted that little yellow ponytail somewhere. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Don’t tell me she never came straight to the estate in the first place.

From where the portal stood, the Kreutz estate was clearly visible. Aisha absolutely could have found her way here on her own.

His uneasy gaze shifted toward the end of the world.

Far away, gray smoke continued to rise endlessly between the towering ice barriers.

Grrrrrraaaah—

Even from this distance, the faint roars of monsters could still be heard. The subjugation battle was obviously in full swing.

So surely...

She didn’t go there, did she?

Knox desperately tried to deny it, but his pounding heart already knew the truth.

If it were the Lady Aisha he knew, the moment she understood the situation, she would have run straight toward the end of the world to find her father.

She might be a former spy, but she was also a brave five-year-old who would risk her life to honor a promise.

“Haa...”

There was no helping it.

After grabbing a sword from a nearby armory, Knox sprinted toward the end of the world.

A short while later—

After running through the snowy roads for some time, he finally began spotting groups of armed knights in the distance.

“...S-Sir Knox?!”

“Sir Knox, how did you even get all the way out here? And why are you carrying a sword?”

This was the defensive zone supporting the front lines.

Aside from the wounded lying on the ground, the rest of the knights still looked unharmed. Thankfully, the lines hadn’t fully collapsed yet.

“Where is His Grace?”

Knox breathed heavily.

“His Grace is at the front—”

The moment the knight answered—

“Sir Knox! Where are you going alone?!”

Without even sparing time to respond, Knox pushed through the hastily erected iron barricades and crossed the ice barrier.

Guuuuuuuu—

“That way!”

“Behind you—ghk!”

“Careful! The monsters are in a frenzy! Keep your distance!”

Beyond the ice barrier, all he could see was white snow and red blood.

Between those violently clashing colors, monsters five times the size of a human continued roaring madly even with swords buried in their bodies.

Your Grace. Your Grace, please...

No matter where he looked, there wasn’t a single person who seemed remotely at ease.

Rrraaaagh—!

One knight stumbled backward toward Knox after a sudden monster attack.

Knox twisted away at the last second, then ducked low while running toward the front lines to avoid a flying arrow.

This was hell.

He had no idea how the monsters’ frenzy had spread this far, but these were nothing like the monsters he knew.

Every single one of them was abnormal. If stabbed with a sword, they should have at least writhed in agony.

But these creatures moved like they had been hypnotized, continuing to attack until their hearts physically stopped beating.

“Damn it...”

And as he drew closer to the end of the world, the worsening snowstorm made it impossible to distinguish monsters from knights.

Then—

KRAAAAAAH—!

With the monster’s final roar, hot blood splashed across the ground.

Standing in the middle of the battlefield, Knox spotted a familiar silhouette.

A man so tall he stood out even from afar.

Calypse.

“Your Grace!”

At Knox’s shout, Calypse turned around while wrenching his sword free from a monster.

The moment he recognized Knox, shock flooded his face.

“Why are you—here... Damn it! Move!”

That was all he managed to say.

Calypse shoved Knox aside roughly and instantly froze the monster that had lunged at him.

“...Why are you here?! Didn’t you see the urgent message?!”

The furious roar of the family head made Knox’s heart plummet.

But he had to say it.

Because what terrified him more than Calypse’s anger was the possibility that something might truly have happened to Aisha.

“Lady Aisha came through the portal.”

“...What?”

“Lady Aisha came to the north through the portal! I’ve been chasing after her!”

Calypse’s ragged breathing stopped.

Amid the chaos of the battlefield, he seemed to freeze in place alone, staring at Knox with widened red eyes.

Then—

“...Aisha is here?”

His voice split unevenly, as though he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

Damn it.

Even His Grace doesn’t know. Then where in the world did Lady Aisha—

Right then—

“Y-Your Grace!”

Behind the frozen Calypse, a massive silhouette suddenly rose.

It was the monster Calypse had clearly killed with his sword.

Apparently it had still been alive. Limping on ruined legs, it reached out with a front paw whose blood vessels had burst apart, trying to seize Calypse’s ankle—

And then—

“......?”

The monster abruptly stopped moving.

“...What is this?”

“They were abnormal from the beginning! Stay alert and keep your guard up!”

The same thing was happening elsewhere.

As the monsters that had been fighting to the death all stopped simultaneously, the knights lowered their swords in confusion and looked around.

Then—

The monsters began stepping backward one by one, almost as though they were clearing a path.

Like soldiers saluting a hero returning from war.

“......”

As the path naturally opened, Calypse and Knox followed it with their eyes as though entranced.

And at the very end of that path—

“Father—!”

The young lady stood there holding a tiny poison needle.

“......”

The appearance of the little young lady was profoundly strange.

A bloodstained white snowfield.

And before the child standing there with a poison needle in hand, a pristine white road stretched open through the snow.

Even stranger, every time Aisha took a step forward, the monsters staring fixedly at her retreated another step.

As though they were making way for her.

“......?”

“......”

The surrounding knights exchanged uneasy glances.

Calypse and Knox were no different.

“Aisha!”

But Calypse regained his senses first and hurled aside his sword before running toward her.

“Ahk.”

Her blue eyes widened in surprise at the sudden embrace.

He hugged her so tightly and abruptly that she gasped for breath, but there was no way Calypse could notice something like that right now.

“Why are you here? I told you to stay in the Kingdom until things calmed down. Why won’t you listen to me?”

Even while holding her, he still seemed anxious, endlessly stroking the back of her golden head.

The duke’s unexpectedly emotional reaction silenced the surrounding knights.

Not only had they never seen their duke act emotionally before, but they were stunned to see him cherish an adopted young lady with no blood relation as though she were truly his daughter.

Meanwhile, Aisha tried to say what she needed to say.

“I didn’t come because I wanted to—”

“Regardless, what would you have done if something happened to you? If you came through the portal, you should have either gone back immediately or stayed right there in front of it without moving. There are dozens of people tearing through the Kingdom searching for you right now. If you’d stayed put, someone would have found you. Why did you come all the way here by yourself?”

Of course, Calypse only kept raising his voice instead.

“...Your Grace.”

Eventually, Knox stepped forward quietly.

“There are too many eyes watching. And the situation isn’t over yet.”

As he said that, Knox glanced around.

Wasn’t the situation over?

No.

The situation had already ended.

Because the monsters, having suddenly lost all will to fight, were retreating from the ice barrier one after another.

“......”

It wasn’t because of Aisha.

No. It was obviously because of that cat.

When Knox lowered his gaze sideways, he spotted the white kitten sitting quietly atop the snow.

From the moment it had appeared, it had done nothing except stare at Aisha.

The cat looked utterly unconcerned.

It simply seemed to be waiting for the moment Aisha climbed down from Calypse’s arms.