Days passed by in this manner. The sturdy horse ran tirelessly despite carrying two people. Even though she was just sitting, the journey was exhausting. Her hands turned bright red and raw from gripping the mane, and her thighs trembled from constant tension. Veronica simply endured everything with an empty mind.
“I’m not eating.”
This was the only thing Veronica uttered during that time. It wasn’t out of petty defiance or lingering resentment; she simply had no appetite, finding it difficult to force down even a piece of jerky. She usually skipped breakfast and lunch, eating only dinner.
Then, one afternoon, they finally arrived at Asseldorf.
Asseldorf was an ordinary city suffering from an influx of refugees. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it, except for the city walls being extended upward. The only problem was, well, the smell.
Specifically, the scent of blood that made her stomach churn from the moment they approached the city gate. She was filled with the eerie sensation of hundreds of faces watching from all around her. It reached its peak when they entered a weapon shop deep in the city.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d choose quickly.”
A low voice broke through her mind, which had been preoccupied with suppressing her nausea. Snapping back to reality, Veronica looked up at Leon’s face against the backdrop of the crowded weapon shop.
He was close. The moment she realized this, she quickly lowered her gaze and scanned the few remaining longswords. Her cursory glance stopped at a scabbard engraved with camellia branches.
The metal plate attached to it indicated it was a mass-produced item by the master craftsman Camellia.
She grabbed the sword as if drawn by an invisible force. Feeling its weight in her hand, she asked skeptically, “Are you really buying this for me?”
“You’ll pay me back later,” Leon answered indifferently. With that, he tossed a gold coin to the busy, exhausted shop owner and slipped out of the crowded store.
Veronica followed him with narrowed eyes, her nerves on edge as she tried to make sense of what was happening. Buying her a weapon? Was he planning to treat her as a companion rather than a subordinate, then? Was he not even considering the possibility that she might attack him and run away?
She had imagined the worst-case scenario. Against someone so overwhelmingly powerful, who knew what might happen to her?
But the man’s attitude hadn’t been that bad. He’d been kind enough to offer his arm when she struggled mounting and dismounting the horse, and was generous enough to give up his sleeping bag for days on end.
While Leon loaded his purchases onto the horse, Veronica ran her hand over the sword that had somehow become hers. She had always wanted a weapon to protect herself. Never in her dreams had she imagined obtaining one this way.
Choosing a blade made by the same craftsman as Benjamin’s dagger was partly an act of defiance. The two men might have been the ones to give her the weapons, but she would be the one wielding them. The thought revived her spirits, like a storm-beaten flower finally seeing the sun.
Their long journey ended at an inn next to the weapons shop. As they approached the shabby entrance, an errand boy with a tired face shuffled out, dragging his feet.
“I’m sorry, but we have no rooms left,” he told them. “We’ve been flooded with refugees for days.”
“One night is all we need. Even the servants’ quarters will do.”
Despite the rejection, Leon calmly handed over a leather pouch. The errand boy opened it, and his eyes widened.
“I-If you don’t mind an old room on the top floor, we can clean it right away. The bed was made for two people anyway. If our inn is full, everywhere else is bound to be worse.”
Leon silently handed over the reins in response to the boy’s sudden obedient attitude. The errand boy, worried Leon might change his mind, hurriedly unloaded their belongings and beckoned to another servant, whispering something. He must have been given an enormous sum.
Watching the excited young men, Veronica became certain the citizens of this city hadn’t truly grasped their situation. If they truly understood the current danger, they would’ve abandoned the city immediately instead of trying to earn enough money to reinforce the walls.
Most likely, accurate news from Bayern hadn’t reached them yet. They’d probably only received vague reports of Bahamut attacks from the sea. Refugees from nearby villages would have spread the word.
Still, that wasn’t enough to make people abandon their lifelong homes. External threats remained hazy until they were right at your doorstep—like people who continued living in places with harmful substances in the soil, insisting everything was fine, until they got sick and died. Evacuation sounded simple from a distance, but it wasn’t an easy decision to make when it was happening to you.
They followed the errand boy into the inn, crossing the bustling dining hall to reach the stairs beside a fireplace. The last available room was on the creaky fourth floor—a small, shabby chamber at the very end of the corridor.
“Please rest while I bring up bath water and fresh sheets.”
The panting servant set down their luggage and withdrew.
The room was sparse, containing only one bathroom, one fireplace, and one large bed.
“I’d like to clarify something,” Veronica started hesitantly. “We’re not sharing the bed, right?”
Leon turned to look at her as he unpacked. The white nape of her neck was still vividly marked by his holy power, holding her in check. The wound would take quite some time to heal, like the scar over his right eye.
He stared at it for a moment before asking with mock surprise, “Oh, were you planning to sleep in the bed too? Just so you know, I’m dying of exhaustion after not sleeping for days.”
As Leon massaged his neck and moved closer, Veronica clutched at her clothes. Despite trying to appear nonchalant, the tips of her ears turned red.
This is troublesome, Leon thought, frowning. Every time she showed such obvious awareness of him, it awakened his sadistic side. It made him want to tease her more, to touch her—like the desire to pick a red plum flower in winter, only to scatter its petals like drops of blood on white snow.
“By the way, is it okay for a priest to kiss women like that?” she finally asked, raising her head defiantly.
Leon tilted his head. As he’d noticed before, she always spoke her mind despite her shyness.
“Would you confess to God after kissing your ten-year-old nephew?” he countered.
“Are you saying I’m a child?”
“You’re not an adult.”
“Twenty is legally an adult under Continental Law.” Veronica immediately flared up. “Besides, you had a… reaction when we kissed, too.”
I wonder if she knows that only children get upset at being called children.
Leon smiled at her inability to explicitly describe his physical reaction. Apparently, her memory of that moment was more detailed than he’d thought.
“Well, that’s because you’re quite my type.”
Leon reached out to examine the wound on her neck more closely. She flinched when he cupped her face to turn it. He lowered his head to check the cut. It wasn’t too deep.
With her face still turned, Veronica murmured softly, “I didn’t know holy knights had specific preferences in women.”
“Didn’t you know? Half the bastards in Kart have priest fathers.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I agree.”
It was filthy and vulgar. Leon laughed self-deprecatingly, knowing that if those filthy, vulgar offspring inherited their fathers’ holy power, they would become priests too. In a sense, it formed a revolting cycle of tainted blood.
Her long eyelashes trembled each time his cold, gauntleted hand brushed over her scabbed wound. He noticed again how small her face was. His hand encompassed her from her chin to her ear.
His eyes traced her flushed face from forehead to lips before he lowered his arm. It’d be problematic to have a “reaction,” as she said, when they hadn’t even kissed.
“Don’t forget to apply medicine to your wound before sleeping,” he reminded her.
“Will you give me some?”
“If you eat a proper meal without starving yourself.”
A strange light flickered in Veronica’s eyes. Her suspicion and wariness also meant she was acutely conscious of him. Just then, a knock from the outside broke the tense atmosphere.
“I’ve brought your bath water,” a servant called.
Breaking their locked gazes, Leon strode to the door first. As he grasped the handle, a small voice sounded from behind him.
“Then please lend me some clothes to change into.”
Perhaps winning her favor would make her easier to handle, Leon thought. Women in love tended to be blind, after all.