Chapter 3
“What? What do you mean? We can’t pass through?”
With an expression that suggested this was preposterous, Isis roughly pushed open the small side door leading to the driver’s seat.
The driver’s flustered voice came through.
“W-well, young master. It seems a carriage ahead has its wheels stuck in a puddle, blocking the road.”
“What? What nonsense is that? We’re already dying for time here. Tell them to pull it out right now!”
“Umm… that… because of the weather, the ground is so muddy that pulling it out won’t be easy.”
“Then can’t we just go around it?”
“The road is too narrow to pass by.”
“Hah, this is really something else.”
This won’t work, that won’t work.
Finally losing patience with the driver who kept saying nothing could be done, Isis flung open the carriage door.
And just as he was about to jump out…
“Ugh. W-what?”
Startled by something, Isis awkwardly stepped backward.
“What an obstinate young master who can’t take a hint. I said you cannot pass.”
A tall man stood in front of the open carriage door.
The initial surprise at the suddenly appearing man passed quickly.
Isis’s eyebrows rose sharply, and his purple eyes narrowed as they looked the man up and down.
Perhaps due to the humid fog filling the forest, the man wore a hooded robe.
Because of it, only his lips were visible, making it difficult to see his face.
But judging by the Imperial Palace entry badge on his robe and his attire, he too seemed to be on his way to the banquet.
‘Looking at his clothes, he seems to be from a humble family.’
Just as Isis’s eyes narrowed trying to make out the man’s face, the carriage seemed to shift slightly.
Clunk.
With another noise, the carriage felt like it was tilting, and soon after, another urgent voice rang out from the driver’s seat.
“Y-young master! It seems our carriage wheels are stuck too!”
Unfortunately, it seemed the spot where Isis and Letricia’s carriage had stopped was also sunken ground.
“Damn it…! Can’t you even handle the reins properly! Hey, you there, stop blocking the door and move aside!”
To deal with the urgent situation first, Isis pushed past the robed man and jumped out of the carriage.
But during all this, Letricia remained frozen in place, unable to move.
Though she desperately wanted to escape this rectangular space.
Even though the outside air flowing in had started to ease her breathing slightly, her startled muscles remained stiff and unresponsive.
“Aren’t you getting out?”
Just then, the voice of the mysterious robed figure, who apparently hadn’t left the carriage front, came from beside her.
“In a bit… I’ll get out in a bit, so don’t worry about me.”
“If you stay seated like this, the carriage will sink deeper due to your weight.”
Along with a deliberately languid low voice, a large hand appeared before Letricia’s eyes.
“Take my hand and come out.”
“…Just a moment…!”
Letricia was about to grab the man’s outstretched hand when she noticed how badly her own hand was shaking and tried to withdraw her arm.
But the man was faster in grasping Letricia’s hand than she could pull away.
Unlike his cool voice, the man’s large hand was quite warm. Perhaps because of this.
When their palms met and his long fingers wrapped completely around the back of her hand, the trembling seemed to subside a little.
“Come out slowly. There’s no need to rush.”
“…Thank you.”
After unexpectedly receiving the man’s help to exit the carriage, Letricia looked around.
Though the thick fog made it difficult to see clearly, as the driver had said, there was a tilted carriage ahead and another black carriage behind it.
It seemed they had gotten stuck trying to pass through before Letricia and Isis’s carriage.
“The palace is right there… then this…!”
Hearing Isis’s scattered shouts, Letricia pulled out the sedative container from her sleeve.
Once the man’s large warm hand had left hers, her fingertips had started trembling terribly again.
If Isis noticed this state, who knows what he would say, so she needed to compose herself before he returned.
But…
Click. Click.
Due to the trembling, her hands kept slipping around the flat container’s lid.
When she finally managed to open the lid with difficulty,
“If I were you, I wouldn’t take that.”
With those words, the robed man covered the opened medicine container with his hand.
“This is a sedative, isn’t it?”
Then he came close enough that she could feel his breath.
As he tilted his head as if checking something, the cool scent emanating from him mixed with the bitter scent of the sedative.
“You’ve already taken a sedative, haven’t you?”
“How did you…”
“The sedative made from Pefra herb leaves a distinctive scent for a while after taking it.”
It seemed the reason the man had come closer was to confirm that distinctive scent, as once confirmed, he straightened up again.
In the process, the robe covering his face slipped back slightly.
‘…Blue eyes?’
Just as she was about to be caught by the piercing blue gaze revealed under the robe’s shadow, the man pulled his robe down deeply again.
Then, somehow having taken it, he was closing the lid of the sedative container.
“It seems you’ve taken it not long ago, yet you’re trying to take more. Did the doctor who prescribed the sedative not explain the dosage to you?”
The man’s voice, even lower than before, somehow seemed to have an edge to it.
Reminded of Piril’s face as he earnestly stressed following the dosage, Letricia shook her head.
“That’s not it. So please return it now.”
“Will you take more if I give it back?”
What a strange person.
While there are side effects, it’s not like taking sedatives consecutively would kill you.
Even if it did, it would affect Letricia’s body, not his, so why was he being so meddlesome?
‘Another person like Allen or Piril.’
Swallowing a sigh that threatened to escape, Letricia reached for the medicine container in the man’s hand.
“I’ll handle this myself.”
“…”
Contrary to his seemingly stubborn attitude, the man surprisingly released his grip easily.
Just when it seemed it would end there, the man who had been searching through his clothes tilted his head slightly.
“Hold out your hand.”
“…?”
“I’m not going to do anything strange, so don’t be so wary.”
Finding herself holding out her hand to the man, Letricia looked questioningly at what appeared to be a candy sitting in the center of her palm.
“What… is this?”
“It will be more effective than the sedative.”
Roll. As the candy started to roll in her hand, Letricia’s palm reflexively curved to catch it.
‘…And I hate sweets.’
A slight vertical crease appeared between Letricia’s brows as she imagined the sticky sweetness that would cling to her mouth.
But as if reading her thoughts, the man added a brief explanation.
“Though it looks like candy, it’s not sweet, so it should be fine. Take it. Your face doesn’t look good right now.”
Then, as if to demonstrate that what he’d given wasn’t harmful, he tossed one into his own mouth.
“…”
At his action, Letricia’s eyes rolled down again.
Her gaze wandered between the sedative container and the white candy the man had given her.
Then Letricia followed the man’s lead and rolled the white piece into her mouth.
For a moment, she felt wary about eating something offered suddenly by someone whose name she didn’t even know, but then she thought, what did it matter now?
With not much time left anyway. At most, it would just reduce that handful of time a bit more.
With a half-resigned feeling, Letricia rolled the candy on her tongue, and her eyes gradually widened.
“What is this…”
As the man had said, the candy wasn’t sweet at all.
Instead, as it melted in the warmth of her mouth, it released only a cool, clear fragrance, and perhaps because of that fragrance, the trembling in her hands noticeably began to subside.
As Letricia blinked in confusion at its rapid effect, Isis, having finished assessing the situation, approached.
“You there!”
Apparently the situation ahead wasn’t good at all, as Isis’s voice was full of anger as he called out to the man standing beside Letricia.
“Are you the owner of that stuck carriage? What are you going to do about this situation?”
“Do about what?”
“Huh? Are you pretending not to know?”
A vein bulged on Isis’s forehead at the man’s utterly unconcerned response.
“Because of your carriage stuck in the middle of the road, neither I nor these people can move. Shouldn’t you do something about it? If we end up being late to the banquet because we’re stuck here like this, are you going to take responsibility?”
“Hmm. Responsibility, is it.”
Still maintaining his leisurely attitude, the man slowly turned his head while repeating Isis’s words.
Isis’s face crumpled at this behavior.
Suddenly realizing the man was subtly looking down on him, Isis stepped forward.
“You, which family are you from to treat me with such disrespect? Judging by your clothes, you seem to be the child of some humble provincial lord. Do you act this way because you don’t know who I am?”
“Ha.”
At Isis’s question about his identity, the man’s lips twisted.
Then he casually searched through his clothes and tossed something that would prove his identity toward Isis.
Isis’s eyebrows, having somehow caught it, examined the object briefly before shooting upward with a sudden look of dismay.
“What? Why are you here…?”
