Chapter : 04
I ran straight to the guild without hesitation.
This was a place with no set business hours. I’d been holding back all night, wanting to come here. After all, the streets around here weren’t very safe at night. I couldn’t do anything reckless that might put me in danger just to find him.
Clang.
I pushed the door open roughly and stepped inside, placing both hands on the counter.
“Oh my, Milena! What’s with your eyes? Didn’t you sleep a bit?”
The clerk at the counter looked at me with a surprised expression. I could no longer hide my urgency and spoke quickly:
“Kael didn’t come back yesterday. Do you know where he might be? He hasn’t returned since he went on his mission, and I wondered if there’s been a delay. Or maybe something happened over there…”
“I haven’t heard anything. Hmm… maybe he met a woman? I mean, with a face that good, he could hardly avoid that, right?”
The clerk said it casually. Disappearances were fairly common in the mercenary world. That’s why he could be so nonchalant. But Duke Kael wasn’t originally a mercenary!
“Looks only work if they communicate! You need words too!”
The only words Kael knew in this country’s language were simple ones like “food,” “hungry,” “hello,” and “hi.” I had taught him only the most essential things—after all, he needed to say he was hungry if he wanted to eat.
But none of those words were romantic. Could he have possibly charmed a woman with them? The clerk flinched and muttered:
“That’s true, but you know, sometimes looks speak for themselves. That’s usually how it goes between men and women, isn’t it?”
“Kael has germophobia.”
“Oh! I didn’t know that.”
He hated even touching unknown women. In the original story, that had caused him plenty of problems. He’d often been misunderstood, even entangled with the heroine because of it. Although the original story hadn’t begun yet, his personality remained the same. He still hated messy homes above all else.
Even here, he must have been forced to hold back his temperament, but his core nature could never change.
Spending a night with a stranger?
No way.
Besides, he knew I was worried. He wouldn’t have gone out overnight without saying anything. His face might be a weapon, but he wasn’t the type to use his looks as a tool. He was honest and upright.
“There’s been no word here. Nobody’s come looking overnight.”
“Ha. Can I see the mission order Kael took yesterday again?”
“Are you planning to go looking for him? If something happened, you might be in danger too. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“I still need to find him. Give me the mission order now.”
The clerk hesitated awkwardly, then retrieved Kael’s mission order from the shelf and handed it to me.
It was exactly the mission I had chosen for him yesterday—something Kael could handle without trouble. Something must have gone wrong at the site.
“This is it. I need to get a carriage or a horse and go immediately.”
“And if Kael is injured?”
“I’ll get him back no matter what and have him treated.”
“You two seem really close. Weren’t you just acquaintances?”
“Yes. We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I need to find Kael. Thank you!”
Gripping the mission order, I left the guild. I planned to hire a carriage and head straight there.
As I glanced around the area where carriage drivers gathered, one stopped near me.
For some reason, I felt drawn to it and looked up…
“Kael!!”
Kael was stepping down from the carriage. My heart seemed to drop. He looked tired, staring at me, and I instinctively grabbed his wrist. Apparently, I had been terrified the entire time that he wouldn’t return. Relief brought tears to my eyes.
He had come back.
I was not alone in this strange continent. Duke Kael was still by my side.
Only then did I realize how fortunate it was that I wasn’t left entirely alone here. His presence mattered far more to me than I had realized.
I took a deep breath and poured out my words.
“Where on earth were you last night? Were you still on your mission this whole time? Was it difficult to deal with the wyvern?”
“No, it wasn’t that.”
“Then?”
“…The driver misunderstood my directions. I clearly said to go right, but he went left. We ended up wandering all night, which is why it took this long.”
What… is he saying?
Hearing that, I felt my head nearly explode.
So all this time, he had been wandering around helplessly, lost on the streets, all night?
I held my breath and then shouted, a mix of frustration and sorrow:
“Don’t you understand body language? Just pointing like this—left, right—would have been enough!”
“…Are you angry at me now?”
The person who was usually so cold and indifferent looked at me with sorrowful eyes.
Seeing that, all my energy drained.
Of course, he must have been scared too. He was the one lost, and communication was impossible. Returning must have felt hopeless. At his age, he had almost become a lost child in the world. I wasn’t angry anymore—just overwhelmed with worry.
I sighed deeply and said:
“No, I’m not angry. I was just frustrated.”
Kael looked at me with a guilty expression, then sharply turned his head. See, I had told him to learn the language earlier. Why was he still so slow? In the novel, he was smart and quick to understand—where had the Kael I knew gone?
Ah, when will we get home?
Eventually, we were on our way home, still sulking at each other.
I sighed again.
Honestly, the first thing I should have asked upon seeing Kael was if he was alright, if he was hurt.
What kept me up all night was imagining him getting seriously injured.
He could never know how lonely I felt, thinking I’d be left alone on this vast, harsh continent.
I had imagined staring at a door that wouldn’t open, imagining being left alone at home.
Even though my house in the Louikaron Empire was bigger, the house here felt wide when it was empty. The sofa, where Kael usually sat, was completely vacant.
Feeling the reality of being truly alone, I waited for Kael.
It was a night I felt particularly nostalgic for my family and those in Louikaron who might be looking for me.
Kael broke the silence between us first:
“…Sorry for making you worry. I didn’t mean to, but it seems that’s how it turned out.”
Having heard him apologize, I couldn’t stay petty. Besides, I wasn’t exactly upset—just a little troubled and very worried. Kael had had it worse, wandering around all night here.
“…I’m sorry too, Duke. I wasn’t trying to get angry. It’s just… I guess my emotions got the better of me. I couldn’t sleep, waiting for you.”
“I did explain clearly, but the carriage kept going the wrong way.”
Kael’s gaze darkened. He had always been good with directions, so being taken somewhere unfamiliar must have been frightening. Even someone as cold and indifferent as Kael couldn’t have been unaffected by such a desperate moment.
“You must have been scared.”
Kael gave a wry smile. His calm acceptance of it hurt me in a bittersweet way.
