Chapter 47
At Allen’s cold rejection, Freddy was left embarrassed.
“Haha, so you’re saying you’ll wait until she chooses you herself? That doesn’t really sound like something that should come out of the mouth of a man who leaves kiss marks on her every night.”
“…This is a kind of warning.”
Allen spoke again as he kissed Roni’s wrist. His eyes were fixed on the sleeping Roni.
Was it a warning telling her never to run away from his side?
The Crown Prince cleared his throat at Allen’s words. But since the young lady being “warned” didn’t notice at all, it hardly had the intended effect.
No, however you looked at it, it didn’t feel like a warning—rather, it was just a man in love who couldn’t contain his feelings and let them spill out everywhere.
And Allen seemed to know that himself. No one was more aware of how deeply he had fallen for her. And he had no desire to hide it. If anything, he wanted everyone around Roni to know it.
Allen’s gaze turned toward Freddy. He could excuse the 7th Prince for being around her because he was still young, but Freddy lingering near her was far more irritating.
Allen stepped closer, turned Freddy around, and pointed at the door.
“If you have nothing more to say, please leave.”
Even though Allen himself was hardly the only uninvited guest here, he remained calm. Freddy wanted to insist on saying more, but Allen wasn’t willing to give him that chance.
He opened the door and immediately shoved Freddy outside. Freddy stumbled as he was pushed out and complained,
“Only the Duke would dare treat me this poorly.”
“I didn’t realize you wanted me to treat you this way. I’ll make sure to continue from now on.”
—Bang!
For a while, Freddy said nothing, just staring blankly at the closed door.
“Ha… this won’t be easy.”
At last, he let out a sigh. Allen was someone he desperately wanted as an ally—so how could he win him over?
His mind began churning again. He wasn’t the sort to give up easily. Soon, a sly smile curved his lips. Watching Allen’s expression soften only in front of Roni gave him an idea.
If he could bring her to his side, Allen would have no choice but to follow. And since Roni and Khan were on good terms, it was a viable strategy.
He had failed repeatedly in direct confrontations, so he would have to attack from another angle—through the daughter of Sharligan, his greatest weakness.
“The Duke will become my man.”
Freddy’s eyes glinted sharply.
“Isn’t this basically a case of miscalculating the dates?”
Sophie, who had grown quite close to Roni, grumbled as she kicked a stone at her feet. Sophie turned out to be a better person than expected. Though her manner of speaking was rough and easy to misunderstand, inside she was rather soft-hearted.
Once the misunderstanding was cleared, their friendship had blossomed quickly. Sophie found Roni surprising the more she spent time with her. Most noble girls relied on their family’s prestige and subtly looked down on others.
Sophie, used to such gazes, found it strange that Roni treated her with respect simply because she was the youngest. Letting go of her initial wariness, Sophie began to approach Roni sincerely.
Looking at Roni’s drawings, Sophie realized she wasn’t untalented at all. If anything, it was her own prejudice that had blinded her, and she felt embarrassed about it.
Still, too flustered to give wholehearted praise, she only said they were “decent,” feigning aloofness. But Roni understood her meaning well enough. Though she wondered why Sophie had to grumble her compliments instead of just saying, “You’re good at this,” she could feel Sophie’s sincerity.
“You’re right. I wonder if there even are any monsters out here.”
Roni agreed with Sophie, her face bored. She hadn’t even seen a monster’s corpse yet. At this point, she actually wanted to see something—after all, she couldn’t draw what she hadn’t seen.
Otherwise, she might end up sketching an imaginary monster. Truthfully, she already had her suspicions.
The day she saw Allen single-handedly clearing out monsters, she guessed he might be the reason. Maybe it was all his doing.
But she couldn’t bring herself to ask him. If she did and he said no, she’d look like a fool who had jumped to conclusions.
As she fiddled with her gloves absentmindedly, Sophie asked,
“By the way, Roni, what’s with those gloves?”
“Oh, I got bitten by a bug. It looks ugly, so I’m covering it up.”
Recently, Roni had been at war with insects. She had even changed rooms, but she was bitten again. She worried that if Khan heard she’d been bitten once more, he’d flip the hotel upside down, so she wore gloves to hide it.
Back in Korea, mosquitoes bit her often, and making a fuss over it seemed silly. Strangely enough, these bites weren’t painful or itchy.
Were the bugs here just weak? If only Korean mosquitoes would just suck blood without leaving itchy welts, she thought absurdly.
“Bugs? In a luxury hotel? That’s odd.” Sophie’s eyes widened.
“Haha, maybe my blood just tastes too good to them.”
She was in the middle of making a light joke when—
“A monster has appeared!”
One of the knights up ahead shouted. Roni and Sophie hurried toward the sound. Since protective wards had been cast in advance whenever they entered the forest, there was no need to fear physical attacks.
When they arrived, a huge wolf-shaped monster was locked in combat with the knights, who were struggling.
“A high-ranked monster showing up out of nowhere? Send for reinforcements! There might be more nearby!”
Jack barked orders to another knight and rushed forward. It was clearly a dangerous monster. Sophie added some trivia: when monsters had animal-like forms, they were usually high-ranked. Lower-ranked monsters, in contrast, often looked like grotesque heaps of flesh.
Roni and Sophie kept their distance and watched. The monster was wolf-shaped, towering well above human height.
Seeing the unfamiliar creature and the bloodied, fallen knights, Roni collapsed to the ground. She immediately regretted saying she wanted to see a monster.
“You okay, Roni?!”
“Ah… the blood. It scared me.”
“You can’t be like that. I’ve even seen people split clean in half before.”
“…That’s something I hope I never see in my life.”
Roni squeezed her eyes shut at Sophie’s horrifyingly casual words. Split in half? That was terrifying.
The knights were struggling but the fight seemed nearly over. No signs of other monsters appeared.
Once the wolf monster was killed, Roni and Sophie approached carefully. Scary as it was, she had to look closely if she wanted to sketch it.
But just then—
“This way, my lady!” Jack shouted urgently.
“Roni!” Sophie’s voice rose in alarm as she glanced behind.
Roni instinctively clutched her trembling hands and turned—
Behind her, another massive wolf-like monster, also high-ranked, was charging with fire spewing from its jaws. There was no way such a huge beast could have gone unnoticed until now, yet suddenly it was rushing straight at her.
In an instant, flames engulfed her. The monster snapped its jaws to tear into her, but was blocked by the protective ward she had on.
Still, surrounded by fire, the heat and pain were unbearable. Roni immediately regretted her rashness.
She should have been more careful—but lacking real field experience, she had made a deadly mistake. Strangely, the monster seemed uninterested in Sophie. Its target was only Roni.
“It’s okay! You’ve got the ward. Just stay still and the knights will save you!”
Sophie tried to sound calm as she reassured her. As she said, the knights were desperately trying to pull the monster away. They moved Sophie to safety first.
But then—an eerie creaking sound. Sophie’s face drained of color.
“The… the ward!” she screamed.
Roni looked where Sophie pointed—and froze in horror. Cracks were spreading through the protective barrier.
Had they underestimated the danger and cast only a lower-grade ward? No—that couldn’t be. If Khan had given the order, it would have been the strongest possible ward.
And yet, it was breaking this easily…
The knights too were horrified. None had imagined the barrier would shatter. They realized the gravity of the situation and frantically tried to pry the monster off, but its strength was beyond compare. It swatted them aside effortlessly.
The creaking grew louder. More knights fell, bleeding. Sophie, evacuated to a distance, stamped her feet in helpless panic.
Was this how she would die? If she’d known her death would be this meaningless, she would have swallowed her pride this morning and gone to see Allen’s face.
Even at death’s door, it was absurd that Allen was all she could think of. If someone died during dimensional travel, what happened? She wanted—desperately—to live.
Her body trembled uncontrollably. She couldn’t even collapse; she was frozen stiff, unable to move a muscle, staring at the monster. Truly, in a life-or-death moment, the body froze.
The ward groaned hideously as it crumbled. The monster clung to her, refusing to be shaken off, as if proclaiming, “You are my only target.”
No matter how much they hacked at it—cutting its legs, driving blades into its torso—it would not fall.
Seeing the situation worsen, Jack disappeared to call for reinforcements. But with fire everywhere, even an escape route was gone.
‘Ah… really…’
Her ominous feeling had been right again. If only Shasha were here, she might have escaped. But Shasha was never around—always gone each morning, destination unknown.
Finally—with a sharp shattering sound—the protective ward broke completely.
Sophie screamed.
Roni squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at the monster lunging for her.
