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When asked by a colleague who was peeling potatoes with a pocket knife sitting next to him, the soldier pointed to the barracks with a wink. Inside the barracks with the curtains wide open, the Grand Duke sat in his chair with his head bowed.
“Whenever he has a chance, he looks inside that necklace and smiles. Anyone can see that it was a gift from a lover.”
What did you hear? The two whispered that it might contain the face or hair of a young lady of a certain family. Of course, that was a completely wrong prediction.
‘I wonder if they’re listening well and eating well.’
Elliot stared blankly at the smiling faces of his younger siblings in the necklace and smiled along. He was completely unaware of the spread of unfounded rumors of romance.
The witch and Daniel would be by their side, so his worries were much less than during the last expedition. However, he couldn’t stop thinking about his younger siblings all week after he left home. He couldn’t help but miss Luna’s chirping and Luca’s teasing to the point of missing them.
“Do you know how I feel?”
The witch in his head replied to his self-talk.
‘Some people insist that it’s love without expressing it.’
‘I know…’
It must be his fault that the children didn’t understand Elliot’s heart.
“Your Highness, please eat.”
One of the soldiers put a bowl full of stew on the table, and Elliot dipped his usual silver spoon into the stew. But he kept his eyes on the rocket as the meal cooled. At least, this was a compromise with not being able to touch and only looking at it for fear of getting dirty. It wasn’t until long before he closed the locket and tucked it under his shirt. The spoon he took from the cold stew was still shiny silver.
“Ugh…”
Elliot, who scooped a spoonful of the non-poisonous stew into his mouth, made a grimace like someone who had eaten deadly poison.
‘How in the world does this taste…’
From salty to sour to sweet, all kinds of flavors come out, but all of them play separately and none of them harmonize. It was terrible that there was no depth or umami among the many flavors. Besides, the potatoes were undercooked and the meat of the freshly caught deer was as tough as leather. It was really hard for a person with a keen sense of taste to spend a long time on the battlefield. However, it was too much of a luxury to have a cook with them.
Looking down at the muddy stew, Elliot lets out a long sigh.
“The lucky guys.”
It was something he said to my younger siblings at home. They should be eating their fill of the witch’s stew by now.
‘So envy.’
How much he missed the feeling of the well-cooked meat gently crumbling on his tongue and the well-seasoned juices flowing out.
‘I have to finish the subjugation and go back soon.’
He was so preoccupied with the witch beef stew that he forgot that upon returning he had to dismiss her. When he recalled, determined to call himself crazy, he swallowed everything in his mouth, but he heard a commotion from outside.
“Knights! Please save my child!”
Elliot, without hesitation, left her spoon and went out of the barracks.
“What is going on?”
When he went to the entrance of the garrison, the two villagers who begged for holding on to the guards were delighted.
“His Highness the Grand Duke! Are you right?”
“Yes. I heard you were asking for a child, is that correct?”
The couple knelt in front of him and begged. She went to the forest to gather firewood, and her three-year-old son was kidnapped by a group of monsters.
“A cannibal bee?”
Elliot’s face darkened when he learned what kind of monster it was. Man-eating bees, as the name suggests, were bees that feed on humans. It looked like a wasp, but it was the size of a grown man’s thigh. They were just as powerful as their size and were tyrannical. Adults survived by sucking human bodily fluids, and larvae ate humans. If two adults took a small child it was probably to feed the larvae in the nest. But that also meant he was not going to be eaten immediately after being caught, so there was some hope and time.
“Form a search party right away. I will conduct myself.”
The knights threw away what they ate and immediately mounted their horses following Elliot. The thunderous sound of horses’ hooves shook the quiet forest. It was fortunate that they sent a scouting party ahead of time today to locate the man-eating bees. The army ran relentlessly and reached the nest closest to where the child was kidnapped in no time.
“This is right.”
As they got close to the nest, which looked like a huge sand-colored rock, the cries of the children cut through the roar of the horses’ hooves. No orders were needed. Because of the Emperor’s “favor”, the Knights of the Blaine Family were more skilled in subjugating monsters than the Emperor’s direct subjugation squad.
As if they had promised, the knights dismounted from their horses ten paces from the nest and moved in perfect order according to their respective roles. Some took out axes, others lit oiled torches.
“Your Highness, the preparations are complete.”
“Great. Let the operation begin.”
The operation began when several soldiers scooped up a large bucket full of valley water. While two knights with axes and shields cautiously approached the cannibal bee’s nest, dozens of knights from behind aimed their loaded crossbows at the nest, surrounding the nest.
Puck!
After checking where the cries were coming from, the engineer hit the nearest entrance with an axe. The moment the nest split open, huge bees came out of the cracks and entrances with a buzzing sound.
Poof!
A few bees shook their stingers menacingly before they were pierced by arrows and plummeted to the ground. As arrows savagely crossed over the nest, the two knights rescued the child, covering their lowered bodies with their shields. Experienced soldiers immediately set fire to the cannibal bee’s nest and killed the escaped bees. In the meantime, Elliot, who received the child from the rear, checked the wound first.
“Ahhh, Mom!”
The child, whose crying face reminded him of Luca’s childhood, seemed fine except for the scratches on his back when he was caught by a bee.
“Yes, Mom-.”
“It’s okay. You’re safe now. Let’s go to Mom and Dad.”
Elliott soothed the crying child and took ten steps back to the soldier guarding.
“Take him to his parents right away.”
One second seems like an eternity to his parents, stamping their feet and worrying about the life or death of their child.
“Yes, right now… Heck, Your Highness!”
The soldier who he handed over the child became contemplative. Following his gaze, he raised his head high to see a bee, pierced by several arrows, still alive, brandishing a huge bee stinger menacingly in the air. It was a queen bee.
The guy who managed to survive the fire and arrows was in a very angry state.
“Your Highness! Be careful!”
Elliot was right in front of her nose, so she couldn’t shoot her crossbow, and the knights started running. But when they arrive, the situation would be over, no matter which side dies.
Elliot was about to draw his sword. He soared high, beyond the reach of the queen bee’s sting, and shot her stinger like an arrow. The place where the sharp needle was directed was not him, but the child in the arms of the soldier.
“No!”
Before he could even think, his body moved first.
The queen bee’s stinger was powerful enough to pierce his armor, and was deadly. Wearing his armor, she was dangerous even to him, but it was sure to be fatal to a child wearing only thin clothes. The moment he jumped in front of the child and blocked her sting, something strange happened.
Pop!
The queen bee exploded in the air.
While everyone stared at the remains of the queen bee, which had been shattered for no reason, Elliot quietly chewed out a curse word.
‘Damn it. I made a mistake because I was in a hurry.’
He used abilities he shouldn’t use in front of others.
“Ugh!”
If he was going to do it after all, she should have done it sooner. That is, before stinging. His left breast throbbed from the bee sting, which had pierced his thick iron armor. As he gripped the poison needle stuck in his chest and frowned at him, the knights turned blue and ran.
“Your Highness, are you okay?”
“Medicine! This way right now!”
Everyone seems to have forgotten about the strange occurrence thanks to the injury. He couldn’t help but be lucky.
“Oh…”
Every time he took a deep breath, a sharp pain squeezed his chest.
‘I can’t die…’
It was foolish to leave his younger siblings alone without any blood-relative in the world while trying to save someone else’s child. However, he couldn’t bear to watch someone else’s child die in front of his eyes. Conflicting emotions, bitterly regretted but not regretted in the slightest, were mixed in a complex way.
“Your Highness, why did you do this?”
The medic, whom he had become quite close to because of frequent treatment of his injuries, hurriedly loosened the leather straps on the armor joints and wept.
“Even so, whoa…”
Elliot paused for a moment in his pain before he spoke.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t get hit in the face? To think that at your funeral, that son of a bitch crown prince would gnaw his teeth saying you were handsome even after death, I mean.”
It was a joke to ease the tension, but the medic’s face became even more somber.