At The End Of The Hidden Greenery

Chapter 5

Because of the large amount of blood flowing from her, the miasma was purified at a much faster speed than usual.

It was a bit exaggerated to call this the price of borrowing the dagger, but it didn’t matter. She was going to let it go anyway.

“Ugh, ah… huuuh…”

The man’s groaning gradually faded. She had no intention of improving his condition, so she didn’t want to closely monitor his recovery.

She tried to stay close to see it. Her vision was blurry anyway. Tears flowed and she couldn’t see anything. Her wrist didn’t hurt, so she wasn’t crying because it hurt.

The amount of blood leaking out was greater than the speed of the wound healing. Before long, her head spun. Her legs buckled from under her and she collapsed to the ground. She couldn’t even keep herself from falling despite the danger of stumbling and injuring herself.

Jiwoo fell over like a piece of wood. Soon enough, her vision blackened. She felt someone grab her arm. She just lost consciousness.

Oh, everything… was nothing but a bother.

* * *

Even after she realized that she had fallen in love, nothing much had changed. Jiwoo only followed the crown prince with a more meaningful gaze.

As there was a decree in the empire that the imperial authority and the temple authority join hands to protect the world from evil beasts, the crown prince often visited the castle when there were no battles to be fought.

Jiwoo met the crown prince during a particularly peaceful time. The warm and cozy wind of the empire only raised Jiwoo’s heart, but did not calm it down.

When she came to her senses, Jiwoo was always looking at the crown prince’s back. She eagerly waited for the day he would come to the temple, and if she was dispatched to somewhere far away, she hoped to head to a place close to him.

When she learned this world’s language to some extent and became familiar with the culture here, she even feared that the crown prince would no longer invite her privately. However, even if he no longer needed to teach her, the crown prince continued to meet, and Jiwoo’s heart kept pounding as to when the time would end. As if it was going to break just like that, she viewed her relationship with the crown prince as something on a tightrope.

Then she met him at the dispatch site, it must have been a real coincidence. When Jiwoo, who was working hard, went out to a nearby lake to cool off, she unexpectedly met him.

“Your Highness?”

“……”

His eyes widened and his lips parted slightly. The red eyes that resembled the setting sun that spread behind him, shook. It was a look of surprise that he rarely showed.

“Ah, that’s…”

The crown prince, who was restless with his cheeks blushing, fumbled and opened his mouth like admitting a mistake. With his eyes turned to the side, he covered his mouth with one hand.

“I heard that you were dispatched to this area, Akarna…”

“Yes?”

“…Unknowingly.”

“……”

“In the end, I had to come here.”

The duty of subjugating the beasts and the Akarna’s mission had to overlap. Jiwoo chose this area this time because the crown prince was here.

But, the crown prince acted like a fool who forgot what he was going to say. The crown prince, who always spoke without hesitation with a dignified attitude, seemed particularly foolish today.