Chapter 80
“Hmm?”
Kaiden stopped walking and turned around. Yuanna, who had been following him, looked at him with a puzzled expression.
Diego, who was walking behind Yuanna and keeping watch over their rear, also came to a halt.
“What’s wrong?”
Even at her question, Kaiden just scratched the back of his head and kept scanning his surroundings.
“It feels like someone’s watching us…”
Kaiden stopped mid-sentence. The two of them were blinking at him with blank expressions, clearly not understanding what he meant.
In the end, Kaiden turned back as if it were nothing.
“It’s nothing.”
He thought it was just his own hypersensitivity and continued walking.
Half a day had passed since they left the cabin. Yuanna seemed to be getting tired quickly but tried hard not to show it.
I need to find a place to hide for the night quickly.
Kaiden was lost in such thoughts when Yuanna’s voice came from behind him.
“By the way, Lord Rod is quite unexpected.”
Kaiden didn’t turn around on purpose and cut a tree branch blocking the path with his dagger as he moved forward.
“Seeing you converse with Miss Flone, I thought you had a friendly side, contrary to the rumors. And, surprisingly, you talk a lot too.”
Kaiden was a person around whom rumors as exaggerated as those surrounding Margaret spread.
If Margaret was known as the mad heiress of the Langrid Empire, then Kaiden was naturally considered the madman.
The difference between Margaret and Kaiden, however, was that Margaret had been active in social circles, while he rarely showed himself in public.
When he did appear, it was usually in labs run by wizards or priests—and when he showed up, those places often ended up in ruins, giving people good reason to fear him.
Yuanna continued talking, trying to strike up a conversation with the unresponsive Kaiden.
“You’re unusually quiet today, though.”
“Does it matter? If anything, the more unexpected person here is Sir Diego, isn’t it?”
Kaiden wasn’t exactly quiet; he simply didn’t enjoy mingling with others.
Right now, he was accompanying uninteresting people purely because Margaret had asked him to.
He responded to her annoying questions with a tone as if to say, why bother? and scratched his ear. From behind him came Yuanna’s soft laugh.
“Oh, that’s true. Sir Diego seems to have an awful fondness for cute things.”
At her teasing, Diego protested quietly.
“Please respect my tastes.”
Kaiden thought it might be fun to tease him, and of course, Yuanna didn’t miss the opportunity to grin mischievously.
“Oh, not just your tastes… Sir Diego, you’re surprisingly cowardly too, aren’t you?”
“That’s not true. You’re mistaken.”
As Diego replied with a grumpy tone, Yuanna burst into giggles.
“Mistaken? Who was it that shed tears like chicken droppings, saying they couldn’t eat a rabbit because it was so cute?”
Faced with Yuanna’s playful question, Diego finally clammed up. It seemed he decided it was better to stay silent.
Even Kaiden thought that was a wise choice. He remembered that, despite appearances, Diego always performed his duties diligently. His current demeanor was completely different from his professional one.
They pushed through the rough underbrush and emerged into an open space. Kaiden twirled his dagger skillfully between his fingers before sliding it back into its holder at his waist.
“The sun’s about to set.”
Kaiden propped his chin on his hand and looked up at the sky. Shadows of red began spreading across the previously blue sky.
“This place is too open; we could easily be surrounded by monsters…”
“You’re right, Lord Rod.”
Diego, who had been waiting for this, nodded and surveyed the area calmly.
“It would be better to keep walking a little further. It’s risky, but since the sun is still up, this is the optimal time to check the surroundings.”
“Oh, if we walk a little further, there’s a huge river. For a place to spend the night, wouldn’t it be better near the river?”
At Yuanna’s suggestion, Kaiden took out the compass and map Margaret had given him.
Using the compass for direction and the map for location, he confirmed that it wasn’t far from the place where Yuanna had found the key.
They could probably reach it quickly with just one night of camping.
Kaiden folded the map and said,
“Being near the river is risky too, since an anaconda-type monster could appear anytime, but it would make getting water much easier, so it’s still a good spot.”
As soon as Kaiden finished speaking, the river became faintly visible through the trees.
“The river!”
Yuanna shouted, her face lighting up with excitement.
Just as Kaiden and Yuanna started walking toward it, they stopped. Diego had blocked their way.
“Please wait a moment. There’s a cabin over there.”
Following the direction Diego pointed, they saw a small cabin near the river. It was a very tiny shelter, barely enough for three people.
They looked at each other with puzzled expressions and slowly approached it.
Kaiden carefully examined the surroundings of the cabin.
Giant trees stood like a fortress around it, and bright red flowers were scattered here and there, creating a vivid atmosphere.
“It’s a bit different, but it has a similar vibe to what Margaret made.”
Kaiden murmured, and Diego, who was inspecting the cabin’s interior, looked at him with surprise.
“Miss Flone actually knows how to make a cabin?”
“Miss Flone is really amazing.”
Yuanna turned to Kaiden with admiration. Kaiden nodded proudly as if he had been complimented himself.
“Margaret is quite remarkable, indeed.”
He then drew his dagger from his waist, twirled it in his hand, and whistled.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything dangerous nearby. The cabin looks fine. How about we stay here for tonight?”
Having checked the cabin thoroughly, Kaiden asked Yuanna and Diego.
Yuanna and Diego, who had surveyed the area while walking around the cabin, agreed with a nod.
“That sounds good.”
As soon as Yuanna spoke, they unpacked their belongings inside the cabin. When they had roughly finished, Kaiden stepped outside again.
“I’ll go scout the surroundings briefly and gather something to eat.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Diego’s offer was firmly declined by Kaiden.
“Sir, please stay and guard the cabin. The most important person on our journey is the Saintess.”
Diego nodded in understanding. Yuanna, quietly listening to their conversation, waved and smiled at Kaiden.
“Have a safe trip. We’ll guard the cabin well.”
Yuanna blew a hand kiss in farewell. Kaiden frowned and sighed. She was difficult to deal with, always hard to read.
Kaiden gave a slight nod in acknowledgment and set out, dagger in hand, to scout the area.
The sky had taken on a purple hue. To prepare for potential monsters, Kaiden moved minimally.
After a while, he had caught a small rabbit-like creature and was about to return to the cabin.
Why do I keep feeling like someone’s watching me?
At that moment, Kaiden sensed a faint, strange vibration in the air.
Looking around to identify its source, he spotted a pair of eyes staring at him from afar.
“Damn it.”
The yellow glare shining in the dark didn’t seem aggressive, only observing.
Kaiden quietly gripped his dagger and assumed a stance. It appeared to be a wolf-type monster.
After a prolonged staring contest, the monster eventually seemed to lose interest and disappeared into the bushes.
Kaiden straightened up with a slightly exasperated look.
“What the… that was annoying.”
It felt as though he had been watched by the monster.
Could it be, as he had speculated with Margaret, that the island’s monsters were systematically observing them?
Moreover, this area was home to a large population of tarantula-type monsters. Seeing wolf-type monsters here was a first.
Feeling uneasy, Kaiden decided to report this to Margaret later. He hoped she would praise him for gathering useful information.
Feeling slightly better at that thought, Kaiden hummed a tune as he returned to the cabin.
There, he witnessed a somewhat bizarre sight.
“What on earth…?”
The area around the cabin was now densely covered with red flowers, more than before.
Until he had left, the flowers had not been so overwhelmingly dense. By now, the moon had risen high in the sky, and the flowers seemed to bloom even more vividly as they absorbed the moonlight, in an almost eerie manner.
“Welcome back, Lord Rod?”
Yuanna appeared from the cabin, yawning. Diego followed her, looking somewhat tired.
“Huh? When did these flowers bloom like this?”
Yuanna looked around at the flowers filling the cabin’s surroundings, puzzled.
Kaiden propped his chin on his hand and studied the flowers closely.
The sudden increase in their number, their astonishingly fast growth—there were more than a few suspicious things about them.
“These flowers… I kept noticing them while we were walking here. They’re beautiful… I’ve never seen flowers this beautiful before.”
Yuanna murmured, and Diego glanced at her.
“If you like them, I can pick some for you.”
As he bent to pluck a flower in front of the cabin, Kaiden was startled and hurried to stop him.
