“…….”
“….”
“…….”
“….”
Under the tranquil moonlight that didn’t even weep throughout the night, four silences settled like dense darkness.
Tap, tap.
Only the sound of crackling embers signaled that this place was not a void of nothingness.
In the space set up for camping, the food enthusiasts gathered, rendered speechless as they looked down at a figure splayed beside the campfire. The woman, with outrageously tangled white hair and a face that seemed coated in mud, was a ghastly sight, her emaciated body betraying the plight that had befallen her.
Tap, tap.
Rendler, the old fellow who had finished the emergency treatment, dusted off his hands and stood up. He had disinfected her wounds and applied ointment, then warmed her ice-cold body, tearing a page from the healing spellbook he had kept for emergencies. Though immediate recovery was unlikely, the essential elements for revival would gradually flow back.
Ariel, who had remained silent, now spoke up with a dazed expression.
“So… there were cries coming from the top floor, and when we went to check, Lady Lumia Winterfell was crying all alone…? Is that really what happened? Unbelievable….”
It was no wonder.
What they saw with their own eyes felt too far-fetched to believe, so how could anyone hear it through whispers and accept it as truth?
The king of the snowy plains, the magnificent ruler of the northern region.
The most powerful individual after the king.
Who would dare to believe that the youngest daughter of Duke Logan Winterfell, armed with many illustrious titles, was withering away alone in a forsaken estate in a forsaken land?
To spread such rumors would be fortunate if they didn’t end up tortured for insulting the Winterfell Ducal Family. We, having witnessed it firsthand, had no choice but to remain silent for a long time.
“What on earth happened here?”
As Rendler tied up his first aid supplies and asked me, I had no particular answer to give.
It was the first time I had seen her since the betrothal contest, just like everyone else.
I hadn’t expected to encounter her here.
What on earth transpired in those six months?
No.
For the youngest daughter of Winterfell to come to this land, which had been left in ruins for twenty years, and not far from the northwestern part of the Ducal Castle—how could it possibly be calm here?
It should have been noisy and tumultuous.
There should’ve been a large-scale search carried out by the Ducal family to find their blood. Speculations should’ve been rampant regarding the failed engagement contest of the Third Duchess after just six months. Whatever the reason, it should have been loud.
That would be the norm.
Not the abnormal state of Lumia Winterfell.
That would be realistic.
Not the surreal loneliness of Lumia Winterfell.
Yet, on the way here, I hadn’t heard a single rumor about Lumia Winterfell.
Folks were just bustling about in preparation against the bitter cold, living in relative peace.
“Have you heard any rumors about Lady Lumia?”
I asked the group gathered around, but all I received in response was the expected silence.
“What on earth… could have happened?”
“I don’t know. But it’s certain that something unusual took place,”
Rachel replied to Ariel’s inquiry.
Unusual.
Indeed, something had happened that was so far from normal that the term ‘unusual’ felt inadequate to describe it.
And that incident was likely closely related to the blood-stained handkerchief she was holding tightly, even in her unconscious state.
She had been crying while looking down at that handkerchief.
There are two main reasons why she was crying here, instead of the Ducal Castle: either she was cast out, or she escaped.
If it is the former, then it must mean that Lumia committed some grave mistake that led to her ostracism.
I don’t know what that mistake was, but if her father disowned her, it couldn’t have been anything trivial.
In the latter case, someone else must have committed a great wrongdoing.
And that someone is probably Deron Caelid.
If it weren’t for him, there should be no one else in the Ducal Castle capable of driving the protagonist, Lumia, to such despair.
If Deron is indeed the root cause of this mess, then I must scold myself for being foolish to think that the Ducal family, with eyes wide open, would let him act recklessly.
‘What on earth were you thinking, Deron?’
Moreover,
The shock transmitted to Lumia due to someone’s mistake must have been unimaginably immense, potentially causing her to suffer from aphasia.
So immense that it is beyond comprehension.
I looked at Rendler.
“Do you think she can wake up?”
“I can’t make any guarantees. Her condition seems quite serious.”
“Is that so?”
“For now, the healing spellbook should be taking effect; we’ll need to keep an eye on her until tomorrow.”
Indeed, had we been even a moment late, her faint pulse might have failed to keep beating.
I gazed down at Lumia, lying next to the campfire, with a heavy heart.
The decisions I had made to avoid repeating the unfair fate of my past life seemed to have contributed, albeit meekly, to the current calamity, weighing heavily on my mind.
I don’t know how the original storyline unfolded, but it’s clear that it wouldn’t have led to the protagonist being driven to suicide in this abandoned wasteland, where no one even recognized her.
‘Hmmm…’
Even if I could return to that time, I wouldn’t change my decisions. However, it still felt heavy on my heart that the choices I made to avoid the “romantic fantasy” inadvertently triggered Lumia’s own romantic tragedy.
Just then, Rendler asked me a crucial question, one even more significant than speculating the reasons behind this moment.
“What… will you do?”
The question of how to respond to the sudden variable.
The answer had two options: Should I give appropriate help to this unexpected reunion and then go our separate ways like before, or should I investigate the truth and transform coincidence into inevitability, walking the same path together?
Having witnessed Lumia’s fainting, it was impossible to simply close my eyes and ignore it.
But aiding her blindly without knowing the exact reason for this disaster would also be irresponsible.
Since my decisions could lead the group into serious trouble, it was a moment that required careful judgment.
In a typical situation, the right thing to do would be to safely return her to the Ducal Castle. However, considering how the Ducal family didn’t actively search for their blood and that Lumia seemed to distance herself from the Ducal vicinity, her situation was anything but ‘typical,’ making it difficult to proceed that way.
“Hmmm…”
I rubbed my chin, letting out a sigh, while the gaze of the group fell on me, plunging into thought. However, the information I had was painfully insufficient for making any decisions.
Therefore.
“First, let’s wait until she wakes up.”
There was no choice but to postpone the decision. After all, moving the unconscious Lumia over a long distance would be unreasonable. Our next destination was the Marquessate of Eris, which required passing through the Ducal Territory. It seemed best to wait for her to wake up rather than rashly taking her back to the Ducal region, as doing so could be more harmful than beneficial for both of us.
After all,
The answer to this crisis likely lay with her.
Thus, we decided to remain in this forsaken land temporarily until Lumia awoke.
“How is she?”
“Her pulse is gradually returning, but she’s still unconscious.”
Three days had passed since we arrived in the forsaken land of Bedran, once the residence of the former Baron. It had been three days since I had reunited with Lumia, yet she remained in a deep slumber.
Fortunately, there were signs of improvement. Her breathing was stable, and her slow pulse was gradually speeding up. I wondered if there were any pursuers, but there had been no sign of life over those three days.
‘If there had been any pursuers, they would have caught up by now.’
A Grand Duchess, who had never experienced running away and was pushed to her physical limits, would have found it impossible to shake off any pursuers. Looking around, it was clear that she had left deep footprints saying, “I went this way.” This meant that the Winterfell Ducal family was not searching for Lumia.
It was puzzling.
Lord Logan, a person who valued family honor and prestige, would certainly not welcome news of the Third Duchess’s lonely demise spreading throughout the kingdom. That would bring great shame to the esteemed Winterfell family. It would make him a father who cruelly abandoned his daughter, and it would label the Winterfell Ducal family as one incapable of protecting its own.
Or perhaps, to avoid a greater disgrace, they had chosen to cast off their child, accepting the disgrace of doing so.
Whatever promises were in place or trades made, it was undoubtedly perplexing.
Of course, from the start,
‘No matter how much it’s due to family tradition, it’s still odd to betroth a perpetrator of school violence.’
I couldn’t tell if I, a modern person, simply couldn’t grasp the sentiments of the medieval era, or if the situation at hand was so strange that it defied understanding.
Nevertheless, the only way to resolve all these questions was for Lumia to wake up.
And on the fourth day,
Ariel had gone out to gather vegetables for cooking, Rachel had accompanied her as a guard, and Rendler had gone to collect firewood, leaving me alone to guard the campsite and Lumia’s side.
“……”
“……”
Under a clear sky without a cloud and warm sunlight, I found myself face-to-face with a blinking Lumia. She had the same look in her eyes that I had seen before: one of confusion.
She looked at me as if she couldn’t comprehend what was happening. In disbelief, she stared at me with those eyes, and I silently handed her the things I had to write with as she gazed at me blankly for quite a while.
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