Chapter 26
I didn’t answer right away.
I wasn’t sure what kind of person he was yet, and I didn’t want to provoke him in any way.
“You’re smarter than I thought. If you had said Margaret back then, I really might have done something.”
Was it because he was saying it with a smile? The words seemed like a joke, but also like the truth. So I couldn’t gauge his intentions.
“The first person I meet on this island happens to be Margaret… Isn’t that a bit suspicious?”
I remained silent this time as well.
I wish Enoch would just openly suspect and despise me, but I couldn’t read Kaiden at all.
“But it’s strange. It’s definitely the same face as before, but why does it feel so different?”
I decided to calmly observe what he was doing for now. In any case, he was tied up. And he didn’t seem to have any intention of threatening me any further than that.
“The current you is more my type… Keuk!”
Suddenly, Kaiden was hit by something and pushed aside.
Surprised, I looked up and saw Enoch standing there. He seemed to have kicked Kaiden.
“Margaret. Come here.”
Enoch reached out his hand to me. Without a moment’s hesitation, I took Enoch’s hand, got up, and slipped behind him.
Yes, it would be better to leave dealing with a loose cannon like Kaiden to Enoch.
It seemed that the part Enoch had kicked just now was near Kaiden’s injured chest. I had just treated him, but blood was seeping out of the bandage.
But I wasn’t going to treat him again this time. He was being spiteful.
Kaiden frowned deeply, groaned in pain, and glared at Enoch.
“Lord, it’s been a while.”
Enoch greeted Kaiden with a bland greeting.
‘Lord’ is a title used to refer to an archmage. It was like adding ‘Sir’ to knights.
Enoch stretched out one arm in front of me, as if to protect me standing behind him. He glanced back to check on me, then turned his gaze back to Kaiden.
Kaiden, who was sitting with a face distorted in pain, looked back and forth between me and Enoch. Then he let out a hollow laugh.
“Ha, Your Highness looks very well?”
Kaiden slowly got up and leaned against the cave wall, scanning me and Enoch in turn.
Then he clicked his tongue in annoyance.
“Enoch, the Crown Prince, is protecting Lady Flone… I’ve seen it all.”
Even though his wrists were tied, Kaiden didn’t seem intimidated by Enoch at all.
“Watch your words? Margaret is the one who treated your wounds.”
At Enoch’s reply, Kaiden looked at me with a disbelieving expression.
“Margaret treated my wounds?”
It was understandable that he was surprised. I would be a little surprised even if an ordinary noble lady had treated his wounds, but Margaret treating his wounds was even more so.
Enoch suddenly pointed out an irrelevant part of Kaiden’s words.
“Margaret, have you ever allowed Lord to call you by your name?”
“No.”
I hid behind Enoch, peeked out, looked at Kaiden, and denied it.
“How rude.”
Enoch muttered with an unpleasant expression, and Kaiden shrugged as if he didn’t care.
“Is it important to be polite when you don’t even know if you’re going to live?”
Enoch answered coldly with a face that seemed like he wouldn’t be shaken by anything Kaiden said.
“No. It’s not important right now. But it will be different if you get out alive.”
Only then did Kaiden shut his mouth. He looked back and forth between me and Enoch again, then clicked his tongue and slumped back down.
I asked him with a dissatisfied expression.
“How did you get hurt?”
Kaiden had taken off his robe and shirt, and his body, visible under the bandages, was surprisingly firm for a mage.
He glanced over his wounds and sighed.
“How did I get hurt… I was attacked by a Monster. You know this is an island full of Monsters, right?”
Then he ruffled his hair, stared at me, and smiled.
“Well, it’s okay as long as you’re okay.”
And with that one sentence from Kaiden, I realized that he was the cause of the ‘huge roar’ I had heard when I encountered the monster.
Thanks to him, I was safe, but did he sacrifice himself knowing I was in danger?
‘Eh, probably not. Kaiden hates me too.’
I thought about that and took out Kaiden’s pendant from my pocket.
“Is this yours?”
“Oh… It is.”
Kaiden made a reluctant face and stretched out his tied hands towards me. I placed the pendant on his palm.
Kaiden stared at the pendant, then gave me a bland thank you.
“Thanks. It’s important, but I don’t really like it.”
I tilted my head at the incomprehensible words. I didn’t ask, but Kaiden readily explained the reason.
“This is the Magic Power Vessel of the past Magic Tower Lords. To put it in perspective, it’s like an urn. When a Magic Tower Lord dies, his Mana is sealed in this pendant. I heard that the Mana of the Magic Tower Lord from the Ingram Dynasty era, before the Langrid Empire was founded, is also sealed here.”
“You carry around something unusual.”
Kaiden burst out laughing at my bewilderment.
“A kind of custom? It’s one of the legends passed down in the Magic Tower, that the Mana of the Magic Tower Lords contained here has enough destructive power to destroy a country?”
Kaiden put the pendant in his pants pocket. Then he continued casually.
“But no matter how strong the Mana is, it’s useless. Only the mage who created this can release the seal of the Mana, and he died a thousand years ago.”
I understood why it was called a legend. It was the same as an ability that was only passed down in documents and could not be verified.
‘But why is he suddenly telling us this?’
“So now it’s just an object passed down as a symbol and custom of the Magic Tower. When I die, my Mana will be sealed here too. It might be more meaningful to be sealed here than for my Mana to scatter and disappear in vain.”
Kaiden shrugged and answered, then looked back and forth between Enoch and me and asked.
“But how did you two end up here?”
“What about you, Lord?”
At Enoch’s question, Kaiden closed his mouth with a thoughtful expression.
“I was definitely in the middle of attacking the temple…”
Kaiden muttered, narrowing his brows. Even in the midst of all this, he was going to wreak havoc in the temple.
“Well, whatever. I’ll leave once my wounds heal.”
Kaiden answered that way and winked at me.
“Thanks for the treatment, Margaret. It would have been better if I had seen you treating me with my own eyes.”
Kaiden probably intentionally called me ‘Margaret.’ Enoch seemed very uncomfortable.
He didn’t care at all about Enoch’s reaction and smiled at me.
Even though we’re on a deserted island where we don’t know when we’ll die, Enoch is still the Crown Prince of the empire, but Kaiden is really hopeless.
“But you said you’re leaving, where are you going?”
I wondered if I should use honorifics since he revealed that he was the Magic Tower Lord, but I decided to just stick to the casual way I had been talking to him from the beginning.
As expected, Kaiden didn’t care whether I used honorifics or not, and shrugged after ruffling his hair.
“Somewhere on the island…?”
What was that supposed to mean? I thought he knew something. A Bunker, a cabin, or maybe a Gate.
Seeing my disappointed face, Kaiden added.
“It’s suspicious that I suddenly woke up in a place like this… It seems like I warped, but if not, there might be an Escape Gate. So I’m going to search the whole island.”
An Escape Gate? I opened my eyes wide and looked at him.
Was he looking for the ‘Gate’ that would open in a year? He was planning something quite productive.
As expected of a mage, it was excellent that he could think in this direction.
Enoch seemed to be thinking the same thing as me, and was lost in thought.
“I hadn’t thought about the concept of an Escape Gate.”
Kaiden, with a face that said he didn’t care, shrugged at Enoch’s words and looked at me, asking.
“Margaret, want to come with me?”
The moment Kaiden said those words, my vision was blocked. It was because Enoch had blocked my way again.
“What are you trying to do to Margaret again? Stop talking nonsense before I kick you out right now.”
Enoch was quite reliable when he said that.
To be honest, even if Kaiden had asked me to go with him again, I wouldn’t have followed him. Who knows when I’d get eaten alive if I followed Kaiden, without any fear.
