Chapter 121 - Different Dreams in the Same Bed (2)

Gawain had long since recognized that there was a problem with himself.

But at the time, it was nothing more than food smeared on his mouth and hands or an upset stomach, so he didn't give it much thought.

The first time he grasped the seriousness of the problem was some time after they had arrived in The Capital.

He woke up from his sleep to find his body covered in dirt. There were even bloodstains on his boots.

He belatedly learned that he had followed the prince on some kind of mission the day before, and that the dirt and blood were obtained while carrying out that mission. It was a problem on an entirely different level from simply having an upset stomach or food scraps smeared on him.

To think he had left the castle and even swung his sword while unconscious.

He agonized over it, but there was no solution.

Since nothing else happened after that, he buried the uneasy feeling deep in his heart.

Until the visit to House Yves Saint.

When he woke up, he had become a hero who defeated an imperial Paladin. The cringeworthy title of "Three Indomitable Knights" was a bonus.

And how battered his body had become.

His flesh was full of cuts and stab wounds, and the mana inside his body was boiling in a total mess.

It was natural that his body was a mess since he had fought a Paladin.

The problem was the fact that he didn't remember it at all.

The situation was the same for the comrades who had fought alongside him.

They put their heads together and pondered for days on end.

Then, suddenly, he thought of the First Prince.

The First Prince also knew the fact that they were no match for a Paladin. It was incredibly strange that the prince had put them forward as the Paladin's opponents of all people.

He thought that perhaps the prince might know something.

"So that's why you came to find me?"

At the First Prince's question, Gawain nodded.

"What if I put you forward as a throwaway card for a match you couldn't win anyway?"

Gawain was momentarily left speechless.

It was an unexpected question.

It was a problem they could have figured out with just a little thought, but why hadn't he and his comrades thought of this?

What on earth had he been expecting?

Gawain's face turned bright red, immensely ashamed of his own behavior in trying to find an answer from the young prince.

BOLT!

As he stood up from his seat and tried to leave the carriage as if fleeing,

"No. You came to the right place."

The First Prince caught him.

"Sit down for now."

Pretending to yield, he sat back down and waited for an explanation.

"Do you really want to know?"

"It's what happened to my body. Of course I have to know."

The First Prince confirmed several times if he really wanted to know the truth. He also made the cryptic remark that sometimes ignorance is bliss.

He was suddenly seized with fear, but Gawain braced his heart and asked him to reveal the truth.

"If you really want to."

The First Prince started speaking with a rare serious face.

The truth revealed like that was shocking.

"A specter—I mean, a Death Knight's soul has entered my body?"

As he turned pale and groped his body to check, the First Prince gave a supplementary explanation in a low voice.

He said that Death Knights were not unconditionally evil beings. That they were the holy spirits of knights who had laid down their lives for the Founding King, and they were simply remaining in the world a little longer because they still had work to do.

"I don't know what mission they have that made them decide to remain in this world longer either. But if there's one thing that's certain, it's that they will never be harmful to you."

"Are you seriously saying that right now!"

"If you don't believe me, check your mana. I might not know everything, but your mana capacity probably increased from before. The pain must have lessened, too."

The prince's words were definitely not a lie. Because it was his own body, Gawain knew that fact better than anyone.

But he couldn't accept it.

Because this wasn't a matter of gains and losses.

It was a threat to his existence, a terror that the human Gawain might disappear.

He felt as if his body would be stolen by a Death Knight at any moment. Just imagining it made his heart clench tightly and his body turn cold.

It was a terror he had never felt before.

"I'll say it again, but they won't forcefully take over your body."

"They've already used my body as they pleased several times! I don't even remember it! And you knew and used them!"

CLACK.

The carriage door opened and the prince's female knights revealed themselves. It seemed they had come running after hearing the commotion.

"Your Highness. Are you alright?"

They sent sharp glares with their hands resting on the hilts of their swords. It was a sharp gaze, as if they would cut off his head at any moment if an order fell.

"It's nothing."

"Your Highness."

"I said it's nothing."

The First Prince waved his hand, telling them to step back.

"You said your name was Gawain, right."

Just before the door closed, a female knight whispered quietly.

"If you don't want to regret it later, it would be best not to act rashly."

"Arwen!"

At the First Prince's irritable voice, the female knight bit her lip.

"Keep my words in mind."

If you don't want to regret it for the rest of your life.

Having left the warning, she apologized to the First Prince and closed the carriage door again.

"She's not a child, what does she have so much to worry about."

The First Prince shook his head. He had a somewhat awkward expression.

"For now, I'll apologize for using them without your permission."

But Gawain didn't think much about what kind of expression the First Prince had.

Because right now, simply resolving the bizarre phenomenon that occurred in his body was important.

"I'll ask for your permission in advance from now on."

"Do you think I'll allow it?"

"If you really hate it, it can't be helped. However, I can't do anything about them popping out as they please. They're guys who notoriously never listen."

"What do I have to do to get them out?"

"It's not like I'm some priest. How would I know that?"

"Will finding a priest solve it?"

"I guarantee you, if you visit the temple, the priests will try to roast you whole on the spot. Saying that a defiled body must be burned."

While conversing with the First Prince, his fear gradually subsided.

Listening to the prince babble on as if it was nothing, he reached the point of wondering if he was making a fuss over nothing before he knew it. Just like the prince said, the losses were small and the gains were large.

Of course, it wasn't that he truly believed that. He only tried to believe that.

"Is there anything else I need to know?"

The First Prince had a thoughtful face for a moment before he opened his mouth.

"Echion."

"Echion?"

"It's the name of the kingdom's youngest Royal Knight who sacrificed himself for the King 400 years ago, and was posthumously appointed as a Paladin after his death."

As Gawain stared blankly, the First Prince shrugged his shoulders.

"I still thought it'd be good for you to at least know the name of the one who entered your body."

"I have no use for it."

Even while saying that, Gawain engraved that name in his mind.

For some reason, his heart tingled.

In the body of one who tried to die for the King but couldn't,

to think there was the soul of a knight who died for the King.

Where else in the world could there be a more coincidental thing than this?

Gawain ended up shaking his head.

* * *

Suddenly, goosebumps rose on my skin.

I looked at Gawain stepping out of the carriage. Faint ripples were gradually spreading out with him at the center.

SWOOSH.

The ripples disappeared again just as suddenly as they had appeared.

"Hm?"

Gawain tilted his head, then soon closed the carriage door and disappeared.

Left alone in the carriage, I couldn't help but chuckle.

"I thought you'd create a Poem of Vengeance or something right away."

I reached out my hand. I couldn't catch anything. I couldn't feel any ripples or tremors.

"It's far too late."

But I knew.

That the ripples had disappeared, but its deep resonance would soon reveal itself to the world again.

Because that was what a Poem of Martial Deeds originally was.

KNOCK, KNOCK.

While I was smiling to myself, someone knocked on the carriage door.

"It is Arwen."

"Come in."

The door opened, and soon Arwen appeared.

With her hair cropped visibly short, she abruptly asked me for forgiveness.

"I acted presumptuously a little while ago."

I wondered why she was apologizing, but it seemed she was bothered by what she had said to Gawain.

"It wasn't like you were trying to tell him everything."

"I really wanted to."

"If it was just in your heart, well."

"I would have said it if Your Highness hadn't stopped me."

Replying to her words indifferently, I could only then see her face properly.

"It seems you have something to say..."

She was usually serious, but at her even more serious expression today, I gestured to her.

She sat on the chair opposite me and looked at me quietly.

"Your Highness. I wish you would put down your burden a little."

"Burden?"

"Are you not shouldering too many things alone?"

"If it's about Gawain's matter..."

"It is not just this matter."

She pointed out my overall attitude.

That I was excessively lacking composure, and that I tried to handle and shoulder too many things alone. So much so that it was dangerous to watch.

There certainly was a part of her words that was correct.

Where had my initial plan gone, that since I had become a human anyway, I would fully enjoy life as a human? Before I knew it, I was living with only the kingdom's independence as my sole ultimate goal.

"Recently, have you ever spent time for yourself even for a single moment?"

I pondered over her question.

And I realized.

I hadn't done anything for myself.

Truly. Not a single thing.

"It has gotten even worse since the former Count Ballorhard ended up like that. Are you not continuously pushing yourself?"

Arwen was looking at me with a pitiful face.

It was an emotion that I couldn't understand.

I fought and became stronger. And I laid the foundation for the kingdom's independence.

The time I spent was never meaningless.

"A person cannot live like that. If you are human, you do not live like that."

But why did Arwen keep saying that I was wrong?

I completely couldn't understand.

My face naturally scrunched into a frown.

* * *

Arwen looked at the First Prince.

The prince was there, tilting his head as if he had heard something difficult.

Watching that sight, something swelled up inside her.

This young prince was wrong somewhere.

She didn't know before she broke the wall. Because it was enough just to follow behind the prince.

Then, it was only after crossing the wall that she came to see it.

Just how many burdens the prince was shouldering alone. And just how much he was overworking himself.

The prince was always running while only looking ahead.

He ran without resting, as if stopping was a sin.

Thinking about it now, the First Prince had always been like that.

He always stood at the vanguard of the battlefield, and never failed to participate in the most arduous fights. He fought so fiercely, as if his own life was of no concern.

He lived with injuries big and small, and ultimately suffered a fatal wound in the battle against the Warlord, barely being rescued while clinging to life.

Waking up after almost a few weeks, the prince, with an unhealed body, rolled in a pool of blood and personally punished the negligence of the northern lords.

Without even having the time to take care of his body, he held meetings day after day to reclaim the North, and as soon as he could hold a sword, he headed straight for the battlefield.

The prince seemed to consider the death of former Count Ballorhard and the fall of Winter Castle as entirely his own responsibility. When he was just a sixteen-year-old boy back then, what could he have possibly done alone?

It was the same now.

They didn't know what might happen once they entered the imperial capital. Even if the emperor suddenly had a change of heart and annihilated the delegation, no one could protest those deaths.

It wasn't that the prince was unaware of that fact either.

If he truly didn't know, there was no way he would have entrusted the stolen imperial military intelligence to the elves who were skilled at moving covertly.

The prince, too, must have been anticipating that, unlike before, it wouldn't be strange if anything happened in the imperial capital.

With their entry into the imperial capital—which could perhaps become a land of death—right around the corner, the First Prince poured all his mental energy into consoling the knights.

While putting up with the complaints of a man who didn't even follow him.

The three-hundred-strong delegation was clinging to a young boy who hadn't even had his coming-of-age ceremony yet, but no one considered this strange. Not even knowing shame.

Of course, she had been the same until recently.

It was funny for her to act like she cared anew now, but she couldn't bear it without saying it even now.

"If the former Count Ballorhard were alive, he would have undoubtedly said this."

Looking at the prince who was still looking at her with an incomprehensible face, she spoke with emphasis.

"That you are doing well. So you should rest a little, too."

The prince was silent. Then, after a long while, he opened his mouth.

"You're saying I'm too impatient? Got it. I'll keep your words in mind, Arwen. Take it easy. Vincent would freak out if he heard it, though."

At the playful answer, Arwen sighed again.

She would have to retreat at this point for today.

Because it wasn't a problem that could be changed in a short period of time.

"Then have a peaceful night."

"You too, Arwen."

She gave a small bow and left the carriage.

"Hm?"

There were a bunch of knights gathered around the carriage.

The knights with heavy faces hurriedly avoided her gaze when they made eye contact with her.

Their faces were filled with shame.

Arwen pretended not to notice.

They seemed to have overheard the conversation inside the carriage.

She merely thought of it that way.

That night, the delegation's camp was unusually quiet.

Only the small footsteps of a certain woman who cherished her master dearly, pacing in front of the carriage all night, could occasionally be heard.

And day broke.

"Then let's depart."

When the First Prince's order fell, the delegation started moving toward the imperial capital.

The formation was tighter than ever, and the knights' gazes were sharp.

A massive citadel revealed itself far away.

And not long after, a group of cavalrymen rushed out of the city gates.

They were the cavalrymen of the imperial capital garrison.

"From this moment on, do not let your guard down for even a single second!"

The Vice-Commander of the Iron Lion Knights shouted sharply. The knights' spirits grew even sharper, and their gazes deepened.

Arwen stood close to the carriage.

Karl Ulrich, Adelia, and the elves.

While they exchanged glances with each other, the imperial cavalrymen arrived in front of the delegation.

"We will escort you to the imperial palace!"

Guided by them, the delegation finally entered the empire's imperial capital.

It was one day, a full five and a half months after they had entered the empire's territory.