Chapter 5
“What in the world happened?”
Glenn looked around the Gringen Bridge in confusion. He had worked hard to shake off the pursuers and reached the gorge, only to find soldiers in Imperial Army uniforms lying face down in the snow in a line.
“They were the ones in ambush, Junior Lord. They anticipated we would use this path and planned a surprise attack.”
“And?”
“Uh, so we changed direction and hit them from the rear. A surprise attack on a surprise attack, so to speak.”
“What? Wait, how did you know the Imperial Army was in ambush?”
“Well… that is, the baby…”
“The baby?”
Glenn whipped his head around.
The girl with the dark pink hair was sound asleep in Tanesa’s arms.
As Dunken explained the situation, Glenn’s brow furrowed further.
“Does that make sense? That tiny child led you?”
“Even I feel like I must have heard things, Junior Lord…” Dunken scratched his head.
“Uncle, hit them from the back. A surprise attack from the rear is the best. Backstabbing, you like that too, right, Uncle? Huh?”
“The one with purple hair, he’s Leon Bodapeti. The Empress’s lackey. We have to catch him first!”
“Wait, Uncle. Are you an Aura user? Come on, show me your Aura stats!”
The expressions of Glenn, Tomvel, and the other knights turned strange. Their gazes were fixed on the pink-haired girl.
‘Oh no. I got too excited.’
Arilleti sweated profusely and continued to pretend to sleep.
‘The fury swelled up when I thought of the Empress’s cunning face, and I just… I couldn’t distinguish between what I should and shouldn’t say.’
‘It would be troublesome to be suspected like this.’
The days when she was used like a high-performance clock as the Sage of the White Forest flashed through her mind.
No. If they find out, I’ll just be used again.
She had helped the Junior Lord’s party, but it was half because she wanted to mess with the Empress and the 1st Prince Albert Federka’s faction, and half out of a desire to atone for and repay the people who would have died here in the past. She had no intention of dedicating herself or being loyal to them.
‘Humans are all the same. I shouldn’t trust them from the start. I shouldn’t give them any opportunity.’
It’s fortunate that she regressed to age five. No one would believe that a young child turned the horses around and directed a surprise attack.
Arilleti pretended to stir and buried her face in Tanesa’s arms, which smelled faintly of sesame bread.
Tanesa, who was patting Arilleti’s back, spoke cautiously.
“Actually… I clearly heard it too, Junior Lord. The voice of this child strongly commanding the Vice-Commander.”
No, please don’t, unnie…!
“And she shouted Leon Bodapeti’s name accurately. She must have known he was the commander of the Black Lion unit.”
Twitch!
Arilleti couldn’t help but flinch her shoulder. Countless eyes pricked her back.
After a moment of silence, Glenn Hezeite wiped the bloodstain off his cheek and gave a directive.
“…We can’t stay here, so we cross the bridge. We will rest briefly at the shelter on the other side.”
“How should we deal with these people? Should we kill them, Junior Lord?”
The soldiers, dressed in white assassin uniforms ideal for ambushing in the snow, tensed up.
Glenn glared at them with fierce eyes and gave a chilling command.
“Since we know the mastermind is the 1st Prince Albert Federka, there’s no need to let them live. Kill them all.”
The ominous sound of swords sliding out of their scabbards was heard one after another.
Arilleti snapped her eyes open in Tanesa’s arms.
Kill them all? Even Leon Bodapeti, the Empress’s confidant and the commander of the 1st Prince’s ‘Black Lion’ military unit? He was a valuable chess piece that could be a foothold for a counterattack someday. Was he going to be wasted so pointlessly, without being properly used even once?
Before she realized it, her hand shot out.
“N-noo…!”
Everyone’s attention focused on the small, maple-leaf hand stretched out desperately into the air.
An awkward silence fell, and Arilleti let her hand drop with a thud.
Sigh, I messed up.
Glenn scrutinized the child sitting stubbornly in front of him.
She was too young to be called a child; she was still a baby. He had never seen a baby sit so rigidly straight, but having lived just over three full years, she was a baby, not a child.
The combination of her crimson hair, neatly trimmed bangs, and green eyes was so striking that it was enough to make one gasp. Her cheeks looked soft, like puffy, fermented dough.
If the child wasn’t constantly wearing such a solemn expression… if she had a more childlike expression, he would have naturally cooed at her. But the child possessed a certain gravitas rarely found in a five-year-old.
It started with the look in her eyes directed at the people who had rescued her from the snow. It somehow seemed to carry the jaded wisdom of an old woman.
“Speaking of which, we never introduced ourselves.” Glenn carefully chose his first words. “I am Glenn Hezeite, the Junior Lord (Sogaju) of the Hezeite family. What is your name?”
The child’s eyes widened.
‘He stated his name and position first?’
Arilleti, who had been admiring Glenn’s handsome features, was impressed. Glenn was the first noble she had met who revealed his identity first when asking for a name. Just like a brave knight from the frontier. He knew how to start a serious conversation.
“Ari-retti. Aril… Arilleti.”
But what’s the use? Even she struggled to pronounce her own name properly.
When she clenched her cotton-ball fists, Glenn seemed to understand and slid a piece of paper and a pen toward her.
“Can you write it if you can? Your name.”
Arilleti wrote her name in large letters on the paper.
Arilleti El Klemens Cardis.
The letters got smaller toward the end of the paper as she ran out of space.
“Cardis?”
Glenn pronounced the family name roughly crammed into the corner of the paper. It was a natural progression for his eyebrows to shoot up into a triangle.
“Cardis? Do you mean the Viscount family that was executed for attempting to assassinate His Majesty the Emperor three years ago?”
There was no benefit in revealing she was the daughter of a family purged for treason, but Arilleti didn’t bother to hide it. It was better to claim to be the daughter of a traitor than to be exposed as the Sage of the White Forest. That way, she could explain why she was abandoned in the snow.
A person with common sense wouldn’t immediately link a slightly peculiar five-year-old to the ‘Sage of the White Forest’—
“Are you also connected to the White Forest?”
—apparently they do!
Arilleti instantly turned white.
No, be confident, Aril. No one knows me at this time.
Act like a baby. A fluffy, harmless five-year-old baby.
“W-what is the White Forest? I don’t know anything about that… Hiccup.”
“Then how did you know Leon Bodapeti’s name and face?”
“Th-that bad uncle came to catch my mommy.”
This was the cover story Arilleti had prepared. The Cardis Viscount family was purged for treason, and the Viscountess fled with her daughter. Although the knight who chased her mother certainly wasn’t Leon Bodapeti, no one knew the truth anyway.
Glenn raised an eyebrow, looking impressed. The gentle, mischievous smile he had earlier was gone.
“You even saw Dunken’s Aura stats?”
“Ah…?”
“Reading the flow of Aura inside another person is difficult even for a fellow Aura user. How could a five-year-old like you possibly do that?”
Did I say that too?
‘Yes, I did!’
She had been tightly bundled in Dunken’s cloth, allowing her to clearly read the flow of Aura on the sword every time he swung it. Aura, Mana—they were all forces originating from the White Forest. Handling them was a separate issue, but reading and sensing them was no problem.
Arilleti wanted to slap her own gossipy mouth.
Glenn’s interrogation didn’t stop there.
“Speaking of which, when we first met, you said there would be an attack on July 7th, Inavacio Year 1357? That’s ten more years from now. Was that a prophecy?”
“W-well, that.”
“You also said to use mandrake for the ‘pretty mad dog’s’ lung disease. The ‘pretty mad dog’ is a derogatory nickname for His Highness, the 3rd Prince of the Bertel Empire. Did you say that knowing what it meant?”
“So, that…”
“It seems more than one thing is strange. Somehow, you seemed to know me and my party from the start. Telling Sir Tomvel not to sell his house, telling Doctor Sergio not to get married…”
“…”
“Did you know who we were from the beginning? Answer me, Baby.”
She was sweating profusely under the full force of an Aura user’s presence. The situation was quickly turning against her.
She was running out of excuses. What should she do? Should she turn back time one more time?
– NOOOOOO!
The Needle’s scream rang deafeningly in her ears.
