Chapter 05
“What in the world happened here?”
Glenn stared around Gringen Bridge in disbelief.
After desperately shaking off their pursuers and making it all the way to the canyon, they had arrived to find soldiers in Imperial uniforms lined up in the snow—face-down.
“They were lying in ambush, Young Lord. They predicted we’d take this route and planned to launch a surprise attack.”
“And?”
“Well… so we changed direction and hit them from behind. A surprise attack on their surprise attack.”
“What? No—how did you even know the Imperial Army was lying in wait?”
“Uh… well, the baby…”
“The baby?”
Glenn whipped his head around.
The little girl with deep pink hair was fast asleep in Tanesa’s arms.
After Duncan finished explaining what had happened, Glenn’s brow furrowed even deeper.
“Does that make any sense? That tiny child led you?”
“I know how it sounds, Young Lord… I almost think I imagined it myself.”
Duncan scratched his head awkwardly.
“Ajusshi, hit them from behind. A surprise attack is best from the rear. Smack ’em in the back of the head. You like that too, right? Hm?”
“That purple-haired guy—him! That’s Leon Bodafetti. The Empress’s lackey. We gotta catch him first!”
“Wait, ajusshi. Are you an aura user? Lemme see your aura stats!”
The expressions on Glenn’s, Tombel’s, and the other knights’ faces turned strange.
All their gazes shifted at once to the pink-haired girl.
This is bad. I got too excited.
Ariletti broke into a cold sweat and pretended to sleep.
Just thinking about that Empress’s sly face made my blood boil…
She had babbled without filtering what she should and shouldn’t say.
If they start suspecting me, I’m in trouble.
Memories flashed through her mind—of being used like a high-performance clock under the title Sage of the White Forest.
No. If they found out, she’d just be exploited again.
She had helped the Young Lord’s party by chance, but only half out of a desire to stick it to the Empress and the First Prince’s faction—and half out of guilt and gratitude toward those who had died here in the past.
She had absolutely no intention of devoting herself to them or swearing loyalty.
Humans are all the same. You can’t trust them from the start. You can’t give them room to use you.
It was almost fortunate she had become five years old again. No one would believe that a child had turned the tide of battle and directed a surprise attack.
Ariletti wriggled as if in her sleep and buried her face into Tanesa’s embrace, which smelled faintly of sesame bread.
As she patted Ariletti’s back, Tanesa spoke carefully.
“To be honest… I heard it clearly too, Young Lord. This child’s voice—bold and commanding—giving orders to the Vice-Captain.”
No, don’t, unni…!
“She even shouted Leon Bodafetti’s name exactly. She must have known he’s the commander of the Black Lion Corps.”
Flinch!
Ariletti’s shoulders trembled before she could stop herself. She could feel countless gazes pricking into her back.
After a brief silence, Glenn Hezeit wiped the blood from his cheek and gave an order.
“…We can’t stay here like this. We cross the bridge. We’ll rest for a while at the shelter on the other side.”
“And what about these men? Shall we kill them, Young Lord?”
The soldiers, dressed in white assassin uniforms suited for hiding in the snow, stiffened.
Glenn glared at them coldly before issuing his command.
“Now that we know the First Prince is behind this, there’s no need to keep them alive. Kill them all.”
The chilling scrape of swords leaving their scabbards rang out one after another.
Ariletti’s eyes flew open in Tanesa’s arms.
Kill them all? Even Leon Bodafetti—the Empress’s right-hand man and commander of the Black Lion Corps under the First Prince?
He was a valuable chess piece. A potential lever for a future counterattack. And they were going to throw him away without using him properly even once?
Before she realized it, her hand shot out.
“N-no…!”
Her small maple-leaf hand stretched helplessly into the air, drawing everyone’s attention.
A bleak silence fell.
Ariletti let her hand drop limply.
Oh no. I’m doomed.
Glenn examined the child sitting stiffly in front of him.
Calling her a “child” almost felt wrong. She was more like a baby.
He had never seen a baby sit so straight-backed, but still—if she was barely over three years old, then baby was the correct term.
Crimson hair cut in neat bangs, paired with green eyes—it was a dazzling combination that made one instinctively murmur, Oh my…
Her cheeks looked as soft as well-fermented dough.
If only she hadn’t maintained such a solemn expression the entire time… if she had made a more childlike face, he might have cooed without thinking.
But the child possessed a presence hard to find in a five-year-old.
It was in the way she looked at him—the man who had rescued her from the snow.
There was something… weathered about her gaze. As if she carried the seasoned experience of old age.
“Come to think of it, we never exchanged names.”
Glenn chose his first words carefully.
“Glenn Hezeit, heir of the House of Hezeit. What’s your name?”
The child’s eyes widened.
He introduced himself first?
While admiring Glenn’s handsome features, Ariletti marveled inwardly. He was the first noble she’d met who had given his own name before asking hers.
As expected of a bold frontier knight.
He knew how to begin a conversation properly.
“Ari-retti. Aril… Ariletti.”
So what? I can barely pronounce my own name properly.
She clenched her cotton-like fist tightly. As if understanding, Glenn slid a sheet of paper and a pen toward her.
“If you can write it, would you? Your name.”
Ariletti wrote her name in large letters across the paper.
Ariletti El Clemens Cadiz.
There wasn’t enough space, so the letters grew smaller toward the end.
“Cadiz?”
Glenn read the surname crammed into the corner of the page. His eyebrows shot up sharply.
“Cadiz? As in the viscount family executed three years ago for attempting to assassinate His Majesty the Emperor?”
There was no benefit in revealing she was the daughter of a family purged for treason, but Ariletti didn’t bother hiding it.
It was better to claim to be a traitor’s daughter than let them find out she was the Sage of the White Forest. That would at least explain why she had been abandoned in the snow.
Anyone with common sense wouldn’t immediately connect a somewhat unusual five-year-old with the Sage of the White Forest—
“Are you perhaps connected to the White Forest as well?”
—Apparently they would!
Ariletti turned pale.
No, be confident, Aril. In this timeline, no one knows you.
Act like a baby. A chubby, harmless five-year-old baby.
“W-what’s the White Forest? I don’t know anything about that… hic.”
“Then how did you know Leon Bodafetti’s name and face?”
“Th-that bad man came to catch my mama.”
That was the excuse Ariletti had prepared.
The House of Viscount Cadiz had been purged for treason, and the viscountess had fled with her daughter in her arms. The knight who chased them probably wasn’t Leon Bodafetti—but no one knew the truth anyway.
Glenn raised a brow as if impressed. The gentle, playful smile he’d shown earlier had vanished without a trace.
“They say you even read Duncan’s aura stats?”
“Huh…?”
“Even among aura users, reading the flow of aura within another’s body isn’t easy. How could a five-year-old like you manage that?”
Did I really say that too?
I did!
Wrapped tightly in a sling against Doris Duncan’s chest, she had been able to read the flow of aura in his sword every time he swung it.
Aura, mana—they all originated from the White Forest.
Handling them was one thing. Reading and sensing them was another entirely.
Ariletti wanted to smack her own loose mouth.
But Glenn wasn’t finished.
“When we first met, you said there would be an attack on July 7th, Year 1357 of the Inabachio Calendar. That’s ten years from now. Were you making a prophecy?”
“Th-that’s…”
“You also said to use mandrake for the Pretty Mad Dog’s lung disease. ‘Pretty Mad Dog’ is a derogatory nickname for the Third Prince of the Bertel Empire. How did you know that?”
“S-so, um…”
“Now that I think about it, there’s more than one strange thing. From the start, it felt like you knew me and my party. You told Sir Tombel not to sell his house, and warned Councilor Sergio not to marry…”
“……”
“Did you know who we were from the beginning? Answer me, baby.”
Being subjected to the full force of an aura user’s presence made sweat pour down her back.
The situation was getting worse and worse.
I’m running out of excuses. What do I do? Should I rewind time one more time?
—Screeeeeech!
Needle’s shriek rang loud enough to split her ears.
