Chapter 34
More Perfectly Painful
"...Let's walk for a bit."
So, all the undefeated hero could say was something like that.
Liana lowered her gaze for a moment before nodding.
Shed was about to step away but glanced back at Liana.
She was wearing a plain white single-layer dress.
Inside the wide neckline, a crescent-shaped birthmark seemed to be faintly visible.
Liana, conscious of his gaze, needlessly adjusted her clothes.
Just then, a warm sensation covered her shoulders.
His jacket, still holding his body temperature, was draped over her shoulders.
Liana was startled and looked up at him.
"I'm fine."
"I'm doing it because it's distracting, don't misunderstand."
His brow furrowed unpleasantly, as if her reaction was excessive.
She, who had been about to refuse, felt embarrassed, and he indifferently turned and walked ahead.
Liana gripped the collar of the jacket draped over her shoulders and followed him.
The large jacket covered her down to her hips, like a gown.
Because of the excessively wide shoulder width, it felt as if she was wrapped in a large blanket.
The remaining body heat was so high that the sensation of it occasionally brushing against her skin felt hot.
With each step, a familiar scent spread from the large garment covering her body.
His pure scent, unmixed with the smell of blood.
The scent resembled a forest, and sometimes a cool valley.
The person who brought the scent of a distant world to Luise Ideana, who was always in the mansion.
Liana looked at the straight back in the white shirt walking ahead.
The scenery surrounding him was old and worn, but she missed it.
She recalled the time when she used to stroll through the mansion with him.
Even then, as now, he walked very slowly, with a pace slower than his leg length would suggest.
As if he was trying to match her pace, as she was not in good health.
Each time the air of Ideana filled her lungs, she felt as if she was slowly walking into the past with him.
Very slowly and gently.
But deeply, like a swamp.
Into a past that could be called a memory, older than the past that remained as a painful scar.
Sunlight wetting her toes, the scent of lemon spreading in the air, the breath of spring brushing her cheeks, the song of a bird like a flute.
Everything had changed, but everything was the same, and Liana felt like she was about to cry.
She thought she had forgotten everything.
She wondered if eight years would be enough to throw a strong perfume into the swamp of oblivion and forget everything.
But, despite the passage of time, the memories touched her senses vividly.
Ideana had too many memories that tormented her. Whether they were sad or happy.
So even a single blade of grass, a gust of wind, a speck of cloud was painful.
Because Shed was in it, it was more perfectly painful.
"I'm glad you're safe, Shed."
When the Mercenary Slave who had gone far away returned alive, Luise Ideana would run outside as if she had been waiting.
The young girl would pretend to look at the spoils that the boy carried and talk to him.
Then, a soft light would flicker in his amethyst-like eyes, and he would tell her about what had happened outside in a gentle voice.
Come to think of it, they always met each other in the midst of life and death.
While she fought the illness that tormented her every night, he lived on the battlefield where blades raged, narrowly avoiding death.
Luise envied his strength to silently endure the trials given to him.
Shed Lupus had a strong body that seemed capable of overcoming any hardship.
She thought of him whenever she faced pain.
Like a star illuminating countless nights, she thought of him whenever she was immersed in darkness.
Luise Ideana often thought.
I hope I die sooner than you, at least.
On nights when she faced death with heart-wrenching pain, she hoped that at least you would live tonight.
"Father says he won't use Mercenary Slaves anymore!"
So she was overjoyed to hear that Mercenary Slaves were no longer needed.
That day, she had a nightmare of having her limbs torn off by Demon Beasts.
But Luise forgot even that deep nightmare and ran to him with light steps.
"Shed, if it's okay with you, won't you work under me?"
Lupus, who was putting down his sword at the words she had mustered the courage to say, nodded with a smile without the slightest hesitation.
Luise Ideana liked that smile.
That smile that could no longer be found on Shed Lester's lips and cheeks.
Just then, Shed, who was walking ahead, stopped for a moment.
It was because he heard the sound of slightly labored breathing from behind.
He was keenly listening to the footsteps coming from behind.
"...Are you alright?"
Shed slowly turned to look at her.
He realized that he was uttering a question that was all too familiar to him, in the same place.
"Are you feeling well...?"
"Yes, I'm much better."
When the boy who had returned from a distant battle asked the young lady he had met after a long time, the girl nodded and smiled calmly.
She always answered that way. That she was much better.
Even if there was nothing that was getting better, the answer was always the same.
"I'm much better, Your Excellency."
Even now, she uttered the same answer without change.
Shed stared silently at her, who was no different from before.
The old appearance gradually overlapped more clearly on her face, which had been darkly shadowed.
He saw the small beads of sweat on Liana's forehead.
She said she was fine, but she must have been pushing herself.
"Let's sit for a while."
He took her to a small bench nearby.
Liana couldn't refuse and leaned back on the bench.
The breath that had been rapidly rising to her chin gradually began to calm down.
A soft stillness settled around her and him.
"Your, Your Excellency."
Soon, Liana, who had regained her composure, raised her head and called Shed.
Then Shed's gaze turned indifferently towards her.
Liana hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
"What will happen to... Ideana?"
Her question was cautious, like someone touching something that shouldn't be touched.
Shed lowered his head slightly without answering her question.
"...I saw people on the way to Paradel."
"People?"
"People living in Ideana. Of course, I didn't actually see real people, but..."
Liana awkwardly fiddled with the hem of her dress with her fingers.
The villages she had stopped at while coming from Lester Territory to Paradel Castle were all in ruins, and there was no sign of people.
Even the common bandit gangs that would target a large procession were nowhere to be seen.
Nevertheless, Liana had seen 'people'.
"It's not as good as it used to be, but the wheat fields were definitely being managed, and I saw traces of sheep passing by. I also saw orange trees that seemed to have been harvested."
Wheat that was clumsily but regularly planted and grown, grass that had been shortened by the footsteps of sheep, citrus fruits harvested to the height that could be reached.
It was a trace of someone striving to live.
It was a landscape that might have been easily overlooked because it was so natural, but Liana was as happy as if she had met someone each time she discovered such traces.
'Maybe they're hiding from the Heretics.'
Liana guessed the reason why they were not visible.
Since there was a hunter who killed people, they couldn't live in a village that could be easily targeted.
Nevertheless, there were people living on this land.
'I don't have the right to reach out to them...'
Liana clenched her hands on her lap.
She herself had made Ideana like this.
But, she was one of the people who remembered the beauty of this land, and she wanted to restore that light more than anyone else.
Shed looked at Liana, who was talking about Ideana.
Come to think of it, she had an extraordinary love for this land since she was young.
She might have been the daughter of the lord, so it might have been natural, but she liked to read books and discuss with vassals even while sitting in bed.
"Because I can't go outside often, I want to hear about it like this."
She, who had difficulty going out, read an astonishing number of books and writings.
For her, writing was the only way to travel the outside world indirectly.
Thanks to this, the knowledge and wisdom that the young girl possessed was as rich as that of the vassals who took care of the territory, and sometimes her thoughts changed the appearance of Ideana.
And Shed now saw Luise Ideana beyond Liana's eyes.
"I have no intention of abandoning my territory."
Shed replied indifferently.
Then, beneath her long eyelashes, her pensive eyes lifted and met his.
Shed thought that he had seen a faint smile on 'Liana Serpens' lips for the first time.
And in that instant, a hot sensation spread as if igniting a fire from deep within.
The sensation spread throughout his body in an instant.
'What is this...'
Shed avoided her gaze as if fleeing from the sudden unfamiliar sensation.
His pulse was pounding as if he had sprinted.
His whole body tensed up with a strange excitement that he had never felt before.
It wasn't excitement.
It was a sensation so intense that it swallowed up such ticklish and warm feelings.
Shed turned his head and exhaled the rising heat with a hot breath.
But Liana's unique scent strongly stimulated him.
He had to escape from the heat that dominated him.
He instinctively stood up and moved away as if avoiding the spot.
As he took a few quick steps, the sensation quickly subsided as if it had never happened.
But the sensation that had made his fingertips and toes tingle was still vivid.
'What was that just now?'
He was confused.
A strange feeling that he had never felt before.
Just then, a voice calling him was heard from afar.
"Your Excellency."
The boiling body temperature slowly subsided, but he couldn't turn around.
For some reason, he felt like he shouldn't turn around.
"...Your Excellency, is something the matter?"
Liana, who had moved with some difficulty, caught Shed's sleeve while breathing shallowly.
In an instant, Shed quickly brushed off her touch with a keenly felt stimulus.
Her breathing somehow sounded louder than usual.
"Your Excellency...?"
"No, it's nothing."
Shed shook his head.
"Let's go in now."
He started walking towards the mansion again.
