Chapter 47
Delcan returned to the Kingdom of Bonia without even looking back.
He was the one who confessed, and I was the one who said it wouldn’t work out.
So why does it feel like I got dumped?
I lay down on the bed to sleep, but a sudden thought made me sit up.
“Is black hair just too unfamiliar…?”
That used to be a popular trope in old dimensional-travel novels.
A girl with black hair goes to another world and seduces all the men…!
“Hehe… this is reality, though.”
Novels are novels, after all.
In reality, a black-haired foreigner was definitely a strange existence.
If something is too unfamiliar, it can even provoke fear.
And Delcan freaked out and ran away as soon as he found out I was the Saintess.
“Honestly, it worked out better.”
After being confessed to, I had indulged in endless fantasies about things going well with Delcan, so my standards had skyrocketed.
In this world, the only person more handsome than Delcan is His Majesty.
So I’m confident I can become a single sturdy zelkova tree that won’t be swayed by any handsome man ever again…!
From now on, romance is gone from my life, and all that remains is stanning His Majesty.
My bank account is full, so I’ll live a rich fangirl life and die happily someday…!
Goodbye, Delcan. Be happy….
“I’ll live just looking at His Majesty’s face…!”
Clatter. Clatter.
Just as I was pledging my pink future, an intruder appeared.
When I turned my head, the box on the bedside table was moving.
“Grrrr….”
A sleepy, grumbling sound came from inside.
The box, which had been quiet for days, would occasionally twitch like this when it was alone with me.
No matter how much you shake, there’s nothing I can do for you…
“Want holy power?”
Actually, there was something I could do.
When it moved too much, it would fuss and clatter all night, making it impossible for me to sleep.
While trying various things to quiet it down, I happened to find one solution.
I brought the ring to the box.
As the white holy power flowing from the ring seeped into it, the box soon stopped moving, and soft breathing sounds came from inside.
I don’t know whether it’s my holy power or the holy power from the holy stone embedded in the ring.
It feels like feeding milk to a baby who woke up and is fussing.
I never thought I’d be raising a box instead of a person at the age of twenty.
I poked the box lightly.
“…But is it okay to raise this thing?”
“Oh my.”
When she heard that the delegation sent to Zendal had returned, Sharle immediately went to find Delcan.
Delcan’s quarters were in the royal guard corps building.
When she opened the door, Delcan, wearing a round mask, was sitting at the edge of the bed.
“Why are you wearing that again the moment you got back?”
Whenever Delcan wore this mask outside of missions, the reason was obvious.
He wanted to kill his emotions.
For example, when abuse directed at him went too far. Or when someone insulted his mother by calling her a prostitute.
Each time, Delcan would lock himself in his room, put on the mask, and suppress his emotions so he wouldn’t fight back.
Pretending to conform and living quietly.
That was the survival method young Delcan learned when even his existence was denied by his father, the king.
He had gotten better at dealing with things lately, so he rarely reached for the mask anymore.
So it seemed someone had seriously gotten under his skin on the way back from Bonia.
If it was Ruid, I won’t let it slide.
Frowning, Sharle lifted Delcan’s mask.
That idiot Delcan was surely wearing a blank expression just like the mask.
She flinched.
“…Give me the mask, Sharle.”
Sharle trembled slightly as she faced Delcan’s bare face.
The face she expected was nowhere to be found.
The eyes of a man burning with desire and flushed with heat.
While Sharle was shocked and flustered, Delcan snatched the mask and put it back on.
“……”
Thin sunlight streamed through the closed window shutters, drawing a boundary line between Sharle and Delcan.
Delcan’s breathing in the darkness grew rough.
“Something happened in Zendal, didn’t it.”
Sharle asserted.
“It’s related to the Saintess, right?”
“……”
Unless someone had prejudice against his bloodline, people usually thought Delcan was calm and mature.
But that was actually a personality trained in the royal guard corps since childhood.
During missions: don’t smile, don’t show emotions, don’t speak carelessly, don’t use force carelessly…
Countless “don’ts” had built the current Delcan.
If that self-control, trained for over a decade, was breaking down like this, there could only be one reason.
An instinct he couldn’t control by his own will.
Sharle could feel that instinct, so she immediately understood his feelings.
Delcan was the same as her now.
“Sharle.”
As if letting out an unbearable groan, Delcan’s voice burst out from beneath the mask.
“I want the Saintess.”
Sharle hummed while breathing in the night air.
Delcan, who had said he wanted the Saintess, had locked himself in his room in anguish.
What mattered was that those words had come out of Delcan’s mouth.
“Now Delcan won’t oppose anything.”
If Delcan didn’t oppose her, there was no one Sharle needed to worry about.
It meant no one would stop her even if she started acting in earnest.
Sharle arrived at a small circular fountain in a rear garden far from the main palace.
When she changed the position of a few bricks in the fountain’s basin, the water streams that had been scattering like mist suddenly drooped and faded away.
The water dried up, and the exposed floor cracked with a rumbling sound.
Inside was a spiral staircase leading underground.
“Still works even after 14 years.”
Without hesitation, Sharle took a lantern and descended the stairs.
After her sense of direction and distance dulled, a wide flat floor connected to the last step.
The floor was a floating island suspended in a deep underground pit.
On the wall of the pit touching the floating island stood a massive stone gate like the entrance to a labyrinth.
On both sides of the gate were giant statues holding swords, and beyond the floating island was a cliff so deep its end couldn’t be seen.
When Sharle placed her hand on the stone gate, ancient Bonian letters appeared on its surface.
[Offer the blood of Bonia.]
If the blood was not genuine, the statues on both sides would surely move and execute the unqualified intruder.
Just like that day.
“Sharle, why is it saying it’s not Bonian blood…? I gave it your blood, you’re royalty…!”
“I-I don’t know! You crybaby Delcan! This is your fault!”
“The statues will kill us…!”
“Shut up. Give me your blood too!”
Ten-year-old Sharle had cut the palm of nine-year-old Delcan with a dagger and pressed it to the door.
Delcan’s blood, beading from the wound on his tender palm, seeped into the door.
Delcan lost consciousness, the statues returned to their places, and the door opened.
Back then she didn’t understand, but as time passed and information accumulated, Sharle approached a truth no one else knew.
The current royal family of Bonia, the Attinger family, was a collateral branch.
It was ridiculous.
Who would have known that the wandering dancer the king spent one night with was a descendant of the direct Bonian bloodline?
The king considered that night a disgrace, abandoned the child, and let the dancer die.
‘No matter how much you protect collateral blood, it’s still collateral. What’s so noble about that blood?’
In the end, the one who inherited the direct Bonian bloodline was Delcan, whose existence the royal family tried to hide as a shame.
But Delcan didn’t remember what happened when the gate opened, and the king wanted to bury the dancer’s existence.
So the only one who knew this fact was Sharle.
‘Not that I’ll tell him.’
Sharle didn’t want to dig up that fact and ruin the situation where Delcan was by her side.
‘If he’s direct blood, would his desire for the Saintess be different?’
Even she, whose blood had thinned to nothing, wanted the Saintess this much. How much more would Delcan?
‘If things go well, I can include Delcan in the plan.’
Sharle hummed briefly and took out a small glass vial from her pocket.
When Delcan’s blood seeped into the door, it opened smoothly as if welcoming its master.
A space of brilliant light.
In the center of a space resembling a small lobby stood a huge tree with leaves shining in many colors.
The origin of Bonia.
The first creation of the god Seikan, Kandrian.
Since the Attinger dynasty began, no descendant remained who knew of this place.
Could anyone even imagine that the tree everyone considered a legend was breathing beneath the Bonian royal palace?
As Sharle walked toward Kandrian, the tree rustled its leaves as if sensing a stranger.
“Long time no see.”
But Sharle’s gaze wasn’t directed at Kandrian.
In front of the tree, on a wooden table, lay a thick book without a speck of dust.
It was no exaggeration to say that Sharle’s obsession with studying ancient languages began entirely because of this book.
A history book written in the ancient language of the Kingdom of Bonia.
Expectation filled Sharle’s hazelnut-colored eyes as she slowly read the title.
[The Kingdom of Bonia: The History of the First Saintess]
