Chapter 5: The Voiceless Speaker

She was starting to feel like a mole.

They descended from the belfry into the cathedral below. How grandiose it was made no difference; with it never seeing the light of day, its dreary atmosphere, and the inability to see what might be lurking in the darkness past the light of the candles, she was filled with a sense of fear.

Rosemarie timidly looked out at the darkness as she walked the complex series of back routes that Ilse led her through. From behind, Heidi and Alto’s footsteps echoed in an odd manner that only served to fuel her dread even more.

“It is time for lunch. Would you prefer to go to your room or the dining hall?”

“The room will be fine for now,” Rosemarie answered Ilse as they walked, choosing to retire to her room instead. She had no idea where Claudio was, but she knew that even if he wasn’t back at the room, he would eventually come back if she were to just wait.

Staring at Ilse’s long braided hair in front of her, she recalled the words the bishop had said to her not too long ago.

—A falling-out with Prince Claudio right now is dangerous. These lands are cursed.

(Should I ask what he meant by that?)

She was clueless as to why he’d uttered those words to her. But his head was human when he did, leading her to believe that he wasn’t trying to deceive them.

As she waited for her chance to ask her question, steeling herself for whatever news it might bring, they reached the door leading from the cramped byway into the more spacious main path.

Past that door, Rosemarie assumed, it would be more difficult for Ilse to answer any questions, so she rushed to speak up.

“Um, Bishop Lancel, may I ask—”

“—Were you waiting for us to return, Prince Claudio?”

As soon as Ilse opened the door, the name of her husband (and the receiver of her headbutt not too long ago) came from his mouth.

Rosemarie tensed up as Ilse moved himself out of the way. There he was in front of them: Claudio, leaning against the wall near the door, his intrepid brow furrowed and his arms folded in quite the displeased manner.

His forehead was tinged pink. Rosemarie’s face tensed up fiercely.

(It’s still red...! Wait, was my headbutt really that strong?)

She started walking over to Claudio, her heart filled with remorse and guilt. Once she did, Claudio firmly grasped her wrist without so much as looking at her.

“Bishop Lancel, my wife has put you out due to my carelessness. I’ll take it from here. Return to your duties, please,” said Claudio, causing Ilse to glance at Rosemarie. He soon bowed, however, and left for elsewhere. Claudio started walking, not watching the bishop depart. Rosemarie followed, being dragged along for the ride, but she finally found the silence unbearable and opened her mouth.

“Um, I am sorry for causing you so much distress. Does your, um, forehead still hurt? And whatever happened to Princess Suzette?”

She tried apologizing and throwing out a couple of questions, but Claudio wasn’t replying. And although he wasn’t, his hand stayed firmly affixed so that she wouldn’t run off again. He must had been awfully upset, an idea that made her flinch as she looked at his back.

When they made their silent return to the room, Fritz was there, and he untensed himself in relief—behavior that was a departure from his usual aloof self.

“Oh, thank goodness. You’re safe.”

“Did something happen?”

Rosemarie started to go pale at the thought of what Suzette might have done in the time she was nonchalantly taking in the scenery from the belfry. When she asked for details, Claudio pulled her in again with the same hand he’d had on her ever since they got back to the room.

“Tell me when Master Edel gets back. Until then, I am not to be disturbed,” Claudio said in a monotone voice, flinging the squirrel on Rosemarie’s shoulder to Heidi and pulling Rosemarie into the bedroom. He finally released his grip on her hand once the door was completely shut.

She softly rubbed at her wrist, which hadn’t reddened but felt a tad odd. Claudio, sitting on the bed, then finally—yet reluctantly—spoke.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No, you didn’t. That aside, um, I am sorry for causing that disturbance in the dining hall.” She hung her head, crestfallen, as she stood in front of Claudio. After a short pause, Claudio asked her to raise her head.

It wasn’t even spoken as an order, but it still pricked at her heart. He was showing consideration for her and her faint-hearted ways. Slowly, she lifted her head, and she saw Claudio’s sullen expression.

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Huh? Oh, well, um... I headbutted you and ran off on my own crying. I also disappeared without informing you as to where I would be going, which was a major inconvenience to you, Prince Claudio.” She couldn’t possibly apologize enough to make up for the latter.

Claudio gave a deep sigh and thrust his hand into his bangs.

“It wasn’t an inconvenience. I was just worried. My theory is that many of these people are under a spell, the Princess of Kavan included. You made all of that commotion, and only a few people actually paid us any mind. Master Edel is out right now, checking the other attendants who haven’t left their rooms.”

That meant what she predicted was right all along. Rosemarie clenched her fists.

“In that case, I should still apologize. Princess Suzette was under the influence of a spell, which meant even if she did try to advance on you, I—”

Rosemarie suddenly cut herself off, realizing that the rest of her thought would have made Claudio feel awkward.

“You what?” Claudio stared sharply at her. She shook her head and backed up a few steps.

“I headbutted you, ran off crying, and hid myself.”

“I heard you the first time. Is that what you really wanted to say there?” Despite Claudio pressing the issue, Rosemarie remained firm in keeping her mouth shut.

Claudio dropped his eyes a bit, apparently thinking something over. Then, suddenly, he looked at Rosemarie with a grin.

“—Okay. Let’s just drop it. I’m a little tired, so let me have your hand.” Claudio’s attitude mellowed far too abruptly to not take notice, but Rosemarie complied and put her hand atop his outstretched one. He then squeezed it and yanked her over, flipping her vision upside-down. And before she knew it, Claudio was looking at her while she looked up at him. Behind him was the white ceiling, and behind her head was the soft bedding. Both of her wrists sank into the bedding as he pinned them down.

“Did you think I would just say something sensible like ‘Okay’ and let it be? If you’re not going to say it, I’ll go ahead and say it.”

Her eyes opened wide to Claudio’s indifferent smile. She felt a lump form in her throat, fearful of Claudio preparing to infer aloud what she was thinking; her complexion went practically white.

“—Don’t say it.”

“I was jealous.”

The words that so effortlessly came out of his mouth were about half what she expected.

As she gazed up at Claudio absentmindedly, he awkwardly grinned at her and unhanded her. He then sat down on the bed next to Rosemarie as she lay on her back.

“Even though I made you cry earlier, by the time you came back with Bishop Lancel, you were acting like your regular self. That is what had me jealous.” Claudio kept his eyes on Rosemarie without wavering. Now she understood: the reason he’d seemed to be in such a bad mood ever since they exited the byway wasn’t based in anger. However, as soon as she understood, she felt a prickling in the back of her nose and hurried to cover her face.

“Rosemarie? Are you crying? I would never try to force you to say something you don’t wish to say. I just wanted to startle you a little.”

That wasn’t true. She was sure that everything up until he’d said that was serious, but he probably pitied Rosemarie after seeing her complexion fade. Claudio was being so kind and rushing to find his words—it was killing her.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell Claudio how she really felt—she just didn’t want to make him feel awkward. The fear of hurting herself had been keeping her from telling him aloud.

“I... was jealous, as well. Jealous of Princess Suzette. I was so overcome with disgust at seeing her get so close up to you, Prince Claudio.” The second she’d laid eyes on that scene, her body moved on its own. Fears of inconveniencing him or worrying about public prestige—all of that completely dropped out of her head then.

Rosemarie had been covering her face with both hands, but that was when she realized that Claudio wasn’t reacting at all. This probably proved that her jealousy really had been an inconvenient factor after all. She was terrified to peek out from behind her hands. Eventually she did, slowly looking over in Claudio’s general direction to find him covering his forehead with both hands. His cheeks underneath were faintly red.

“Prince Claudio? Is there something the matter?”

“No, it’s just that—I never expected goading you would actually bring you to say that, so I’m a tad shaken up.”

A “tad” was putting it likely; he seemed quite shaken up. And he even admitted he’d been trying to goad her. Normally, this would be something to get angry over, but it came across as somewhat cute and made Rosemarie chuckle slightly.

“Don’t laugh. If you keep that up, you’re going to go on taking what I said in the good way.”

“Huh? Is there another way that I could take it? Please, tell me.” She sat up in a panic, but Claudio just gave her a mischievous smile.

“Tell you? Not a chance. Serves you right for laughing.”

Just when Rosemarie was about to press him further, a distant-sounding knock could be heard at the door.

“Oh, your Highness? You’re not assaulting Her Royal Wifeness, I take it? I... hope? Uh, anyway, Master Edel is back.”

“Who’s assaulting who?!” Fritz’s call made Claudio’s face tense up for a good second. He then stood up soon after.

“I swear... he was waiting for the right opportunity to come up to the door, the louse.” Claudio mumbled his discontent under his breath. Then, extending his hand to his wife, he added, “Come on, let’s go.”

Once she saw his hand, the sense of shame Rosemarie had almost forgotten came rushing back. She rose to her feet, straight as a board.

“I-I’ll be fine. I can stand on my own.”

Rosemarie stood up and tried to put her hand on the doorknob ahead of Claudio, but Claudio swooped in and grasped her hand from above. Her shoulders gave a huge jump. Slowly, she looked up at Claudio with doe eyes, only to find him wearing a dauntless smile.

“Don’t run away; I told you I was jealous.”

After hearing that whispered into her ear, Rosemarie shoved Claudio away with some force and dashed into the lounge where everyone else was waiting.

***

“Didn’t look at every guest room, but plenty of people feeling sluggish. But ones who are wide awake are one of two things. Sane or slightly off,” Edeltraud said, their usual droning voice mixed with a hint of perplexment as they reported on the status of the guests.

Rosemarie and the rest of the royal entourage listened to the report as they sat in the lounge in complete silence. After a while of this, Claudio, his arms folded and his expression stern, was the first to speak.

“You brought them regular water that you said was holy water, right? And ‘wide awake and sane’ people didn’t accept it, did they?”

“Yeah. All thought twice about drinking holy water. Guessing they’re attuned to danger or possess bit of mana.” Apparently, mana that didn’t belong to yourself was not something that felt enjoyable at all.

(I wasn’t aware of that, but maybe Prince Claudio’s mana did? Surely it wasn’t of my own.)

Rosemarie looked at her palm in doubt as she sat in the space Claudio left for her on the couch beside him. Claudio let out a small sigh.

“What about the people other than the attendees of the ceremony—like the clergy and the servants? They seemed to be working away in the dining hall as if nothing was wrong.” Fritz, who sat on the back of the single-seat sofa where Edeltraud was seated, raised his hand aloofly.

“My acquaintance said that he didn’t have a drop. Said it was blasphemous to drink holy water. On the flip side, he also mentioned that there are people who drink it because they want to cleanse their body. It seems that those types have their faith deepened to an abnormal degree. And that’s the sorta impression I got at the morning worship, too.”

“Um, well, Adelina said that she hasn’t had a clear mind and felt sluggish ever since she came here a year ago. I think the servants here are forcing themselves to work at an unreasonable capacity.” Rosemarie followed up Fritz’s assessment with some knowledge of her own, and remembered Ilse’s words at the same time.

“Also, as a side note, Bishop Lancel told me that ‘these lands are cursed’...”

“Your Highness, with all due respect, I was listening as well. And I quote, ‘A falling-out with Prince Claudio right now is dangerous. These lands are cursed.’”

Having sharp ears was one thing, but that took the cake. Alto recited the entire remark verbatim, which made Rosemarie a little resentful—but also fearful of Claudio’s reaction. She sheepishly looked over to him. He didn’t so much as look at her, a scornful smile set upon his face.

“Oh? Not even conjugal relations are off-limits to the meddling ways of clergymen nowadays, I see. So be it. Anyway, what did he mean by ‘cursed?’” She was certain that Claudio was disinterested, seeing as how he’d said he was jealous of Ilse, but she was relieved that he skimmed past that matter—which was when she realized.

“So, um, does this mean that Bishop Lancel hasn’t drunk of the holy water? He seemed quite sane to me...”

“If Adelina asked him to take you to the belfry, then he must be in his right mind. I didn’t find him particularly off when I talked to him, either. Then again, honestly speaking, he doesn’t really let his emotions show and seems somewhat suspicious.”

He was right. His mood didn’t fluctuate too radically, but since Rosemarie’s eyes would catch his bird head, he wasn’t completely emotionless.

“Hey, who’s Lancel?” Edeltraud jumped into the conversation. Rosemarie tilted her head, confused. The Archmagus tilted their head in similar fashion—confused.

“He is the bishop attending to us. Mage Edel, have you not met him?” Thinking back, she remembered Edeltraud hadn’t yet reconvened with them when Ilse first showed them around.

“Don’t think so. What’s he look like?”

“Hmm, well, he has a very calm yet fragile demeanor, and he has a sharp glare... Oh, he has white hair that is tied back into a neat braid.”

“—Frail man, neat braid, white hair. Hmm... yeah. Haven’t seen him.” Edeltraud’s sleepy-looking eyes squinted slowly. She thought she saw them raise an eyebrow ever so slightly, but it was probably her imagination.

While Edeltraud yawned in lost interest, Claudio mulled over the situation before pulling out the sack containing the Sacred Relic from his breast pocket and letting it roll out onto the table.

“The curse that Bishop Lancel mentioned wouldn’t happen to be a curse from the Hippocampus, would it?” The red and gold Sacred Relic looked to be even redder than when Rosemarie saw it yesterday, and she scooted closer to the edge of the couch in fear. The squirrel, once again riding on her shoulder, snuggled up to her cheek to comfort her.

“The... Hippocampus?”

“Yes. It was part of my hypothesis earlier that the Sacred Relic belonged to the Hippocampus and humans stole it, dipping it in the holy water and leaving traces of mana that exert magical control over those who drink it. Not only magic... but a curse. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was what Bishop Lancel was trying to tell you.”

What was once a hypothesis was gradually shaping into reality. With dread forming over the truth, Rosemarie’s eyes bulged and she fiddled with the base of her neck.

“That would mean, in order to break the spell on everyone, all we need to do is search for the Hippocampus and return the Sacred Relic?”

“Thinking in simple terms, yes. However, if Bishop Lancel knows that, it must mean that the Holy Land’s upper crust is aware of that as well. Perhaps... they have a reason why they can’t return the Sacred Relic...” Claudio said, trailing off at the end of his sentence. He then looked up at Fritz as though he’d come to a realization.

“Fritz, have you gathered the papers I asked for yesterday?”

“Huh? You mean that stuff about wanting a check on the credibility of the chatter heard at yesterday’s little tea party? If you’re fine with some jotted notes, I’ve got them here.”

Claudio took the handful of notes Fritz pulled out of his breast pocket and began to read them, his expression serious. Rosemarie looked to Fritz so as not to disturb Claudio.

“Father Fritz, by ‘tea party,’ do you mean Princess Suzette’s tea party yesterday?”

“That’s the one. A regular gathering of shrewd folks in a proverbial tug of war to learn the climate of each other’s nations. You know, the sort of thing His Highness does sometimes back in Baltzar, while complaining under his breath all the while. But since there was quite a lot of intel flying around, we couldn’t just neglect it.” Even though they didn’t know if Suzette’s tea party would be important at all, there was the chance they could pick up some useful knowledge.

“—Now I see. I’ve figured out the reason they can’t return the relic.” Claudio chucked the stack of notes on the table. Rosemarie tried peeking at them, but there were so many digits, years, and place names written down that she couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.

“What kind of reason?”

“The salt mines in the Holy Land are running dry. In relation to that, the number of worshipers has increased. And they have been gradually on the rise ever since the year they started the Sacred Relic Worship. As well as what the Holy Land townspeople pay to the higher-ups. In other words...”

“It’s about... money?”

“It is. If you take away this so-called ‘white gold’ or ‘miracle salt’ that they make such expensive transactions with, then the Holy Land wouldn’t be able to sustain itself. Right now, it seems that they’re getting a lot of donations from the Sacred Relic Worship and baptism with holy water. That would explain why they can’t afford to return the Sacred Relic.” Claudio tensed his brows, and Rosemarie pursed her lips. She knew that faith alone wasn’t enough to sustain a nation, but she couldn’t stand for them falsifying a Sacred Relic just to line their own pockets.

An oppressive silence befell the room, which was suddenly broken by the sound of clapping.

“Okie-dokie, everyone, what do you say to putting this talk of gloom and doom off for a second for a tiny break? I think the bad ideas get badder and the good ideas don’t even come to mind on an empty stomach.”

Heidi spoke in a chipper tone as she went over to the corner of the room to pick up a tray of refreshments. Once Rosemarie saw that, her stomach started to growl—noticeably so. She held her stomach and slowly looked over to Claudio, who was looking away with a hand over his mouth. His shoulders were jumping up and down like he was trying to contain a laugh. Rosemarie’s face flushed in an instant.

“Uh, well, you can’t blame her. She skipped lunch, after all.” Fritz attempted to advocate for her with an awkward smile.

Meanwhile, Edeltraud simply rebuked Claudio. “Laughing’s rude.”

But Rosemarie found herself so embarrassed that she couldn’t raise her head to either of them.

“No, I’m sorry. You reacted as soon as you saw the food, so I couldn’t help myself...”

“P-Please stop making me out to be a glutton,” she argued back to Claudio. He gently tapped her on the head as if to say, “Yeah, okay. I’ve got the picture.” As he did, something white fell from his cuff.

“...?” Rosemarie followed whatever it was on its way down, dumbfounded at the clump of white hair that had dropped on the seat. There was far too much here for it be from the squirrel on her shoulder. She found herself looking between Claudio and the clump once, twice, and even a third time.

“Why are you acting so strange all of a sudden?”

“Um... Prince Claudio? Do you happen to have a season where you shed?”

“Do I have a what?” Rosemarie’s non sequitur made Claudio and everyone else’s eyes spring open, but she picked up the white animal hair regardless for display.

“This is your hair... right?”

Seeing that clump brought up in front of him caused Claudio to tense up and touch his own head.

“If you don’t shed, then it might be stress-related—”

“Wait a second. I’m not going bald. I assure you, I’m not going bald. Don’t look at me with those sympathetic eyes, Alto! And you, Fritz! Enough of that obvious chortling!”

While Rosemarie looked on tensely as Claudio snapped at his two aides with a face red with rage, Edeltraud came over and leaned forward. She held out the tuft of animal hair out so that they could have an unobstructed look.

Edeltraud observed it closely for a bit and eventually whispered, “This is goat hair.”

The unexpected answer caused Rosemarie to blink in confusion. Upon a much, much closer look, the white tuft of animal hair had a slight tinge of yellow to it. The mane that she had seen up until a few days ago had a silver-white sheen in the light.

(Prince Claudio’s head doesn’t look like a beast to me now, so there would be no way that I’d see him shedding, anyway. But goat hair must mean that...)

That was when it dawned upon her. “Could it be... the goat from this morning?”

A chill ran down the length of her spine. She hadn’t seen the actual carcass, but since she heard about the condition they found it in, it formed a gruesome mental image.

“A goat, you say? But I didn’t lay a finger on it.” Temporarily suppressing his shock, Claudio cast a suspicious frown on the tuft of goat hair, his expression slightly weary.

“The resemblance to that goat’s pelt is uncanny, I admit. But the question is: when? When did it stick to me? It couldn’t very well stick to me if I never held it in my arms.”

“Remember interacting with anyone that had goat’s hair on them? Or no?” Edeltraud questioned as they held out a hand to Rosemarie. She took the hint and passed the tuft over, and the Archmagus bottled it up inside a tiny glass orb.

“Alto, you touched it in order to move it to the corner of the passageway... Am I right?”

“Sir, I indeed touched it, but I brushed my clothes afterward. I had planned to accompany you to the dining hall, so I checked myself on the off chance that I might need to tidy myself up.” Since Alto was always diligent and serious, he wouldn’t let a single speck of dust on his body go unchecked.

“In that case, when and where could it have happened...? Oh...”

“The only time I can think of is... Hm?”

Both Rosemarie and Claudio looked into each other’s now wide-open eyes. Claudio’s face was sullen.

“The Princess of Kavan.”

“Do you... think so?” Rosemarie tilted her head slightly, brows slanted. The sight of the princess snuggling up and clinging to Claudio popped back into her mind, and she hastily shook her head.

“Um, but would it even be possible for a girl such as Princess Suzette to carry a goat—even if it is all dried up—on her own? I can only imagine either a sorcerer or a sacred beast making that possible...”

“The Hippocampus could make it possible. As rotten as they are, they’re still a sacred beast. Their mana is extraordinary. I am assuming they controlled the Princess of Kavan and used her to plant all of those animal carcasses. To what ends I still have no idea, however...” He put his hand on his chin and curved his lips pensively. Rosemarie watched him, slowly realizing a terrifying fact that made her clutch at the base of her neck.

“—Does that mean that I am being targeted by both the Hippocampus and Princess Suzette?”

“It would seem so, yes,” affirmed Claudio, as if not knowing how to break the news. Rosemarie clutched to the Kaola dangling from her neck in the face of the fear welling from inside her.

As if to break the silence that once again descended on the room, Heidi came back to her senses and finished pouring the halfway-filled cup of tea; she then served it to Rosemarie.

“Here you are, princess. This will warm you up.”

“...Thank you, Heidi,” Rosemarie replied as she picked up the warm cup of tea, the heat helping to relieve her dread-frozen fingers and tense mess of a heart. While she thanked Heidi for her consideration, Claudio picked up the Sacred Relic on the table.

“Master Edel, tell me. Do you think that returning this to the Hippocampus will settle matters?”

“Don’t know. Now that spell has spread so far over the church, might be difficult matter.” Edeltraud grimaced slightly, their pair of sleepy-looking eyes pointed down in lament.

“Even so, if there’s any possibility of us breaking the spell on the Princess of Kavan first, we should try. Master Edel, can I borrow you for a minute?” Claudio rose to his feet and went to exit the room with Edeltraud accompanying him. After a little thought, Rosemarie put down her teacup and chased after them.

“Prince Claudio, I will accompany you. I might be able to break the spell like I did with Adelina,” she appealed to Claudio, containing the slight shivering in her fingers.

“What sense would it make to bring the very person being targeted along with us? You just stay here and...” Claudio was about to shut her down, but seemed to have a change of heart.

“Actually... no. Okay. Come along.” He nodded in agreement.

Rosemarie, who thought it would take a little more back-and-forth, was deflated and looked up at him doubtfully. Claudio gave an awkward sigh.

“I was practically on the edge of my seat when you went to the dining hall by yourself this morning. Now I know what it feels like to be the one left waiting. It would be better to just bring you along than make you go through that.”

“Thank you so much!” Rosemarie thanked Claudio with a broad smile on her face, but Claudio was pensive and discontent, nonetheless.

“But if I had my way, I would not be bringing you with me. Okay? Just make sure you keep that in mind,” he said as both a reminder and a warning, prompting Rosemarie to tense up and quickly nod her head over and over.

***

Suzette’s room wasn’t on the fourth floor where Rosemarie and the others were staying, but on the fifth floor, directly below. Leaving both Alto and Heidi back at the room, they let Fritz lead them there, as he’d served in the cathedral in the past. As they headed there, Rosemarie kept her ears tuned to the sounds around her.

Was that howling noise she heard the sound of the wind? It clearly wasn’t the same sound she heard at the saint’s chapel or in her dream. She could say with some degree of certainty that it was actually the sound of the wind, and with it, the faint sound of the cascading waves.

“You can hear the sounds of the waves here,” Rosemarie said to Claudio, barely above a whisper.

“That you can. Something not possible where our room is, on the fourth floor... It might get clearer to the ears the lower you go down,” he replied to her, keeping his voice concealed as well.

It was noon and it was far too early for the sun to be setting, yet the pathways were devoid of any signs of life. This might have been an unremarkable sight considering the floor contained primarily guest rooms, but the silence was so deafening that it was hard to believe there even were any guests in the rooms they passed by.

“Le’sse here. That one. I think.” At the head of the party, Fritz suddenly pointed about two doors up from them. The white stucco door didn’t look any different from the other guest room doors they had seen before, but there was a slight dissonance surrounding it.

“I assume that door... isn’t properly locked, is it?”

“Yes, I’d assume as well.” Claudio squinted warily. Under normal circumstances, no one would leave their door unlocked—then again, circumstances were hardly normal right now.

“Rosemarie, stay here with Fritz,” ordered Claudio as Rosemarie obediently stopped in her tracks. She knew something here was off and she wanted to avoid tying anyone down.

Claudio approached the door with Edeltraud. As he opened the door, Claudio’s eyes shot down and opened wide as a result.

“... A hand?” His whisper reached Rosemarie’s ears, taking her aback. In the next instant, Claudio went from carefully opening the door to swinging it open.

“...!!”

Claudio looked on in temporary shock, but shook it off and rushed into the room. Edeltraud slid into the room on silent feet, almost simultaneously.

“Hey, pull yourself together!”

Hearing the concerned call, Rosemarie found herself stepping forward, but Fritz shielded her with his body, cutting off her path.

“Don’t. Wait a little longer,” Fritz said from over her shoulder, his tone carrying a degree of seriousness far different from his usual aloof nature. Unable to stop her heart from beating at a mile a minute, she gripped the Kaola pendant, completely on edge.

“It’s safe to come in now, you two,” Claudio called out to them before too long. Rosemarie walked up to the door with Fritz, and found Claudio holding up a girl in his arms. The black-haired girl in servant’s garb was obviously not Suzette.

“This girl...”

“She’s the Princess of Kavan’s maid.” Rosemarie timidly came up to the maid and knelt next to her. The pale-faced, black-haired maid was out cold.

“Claudio, Kavan Princess nowhere to be found. As expected,” said Edeltraud, making her look in that direction. The Archmagus had taken a look inside the wide-open bedroom and tilted their head, clearly perplexed.

“Where would she even go, leaving the maid that’s always by her side?”

While looking at the puzzled Claudio out of the corner of her eye, Rosemarie softly touched the forehead of the maid in his arms. In the next instant, just as when she’d hugged Adelina, she felt something peel away.

“...!!”

The mysterious happening occurred in an all too familiar manner, which made her jump and remove her hand. Almost as though acting in tandem to the motion, the maid opened her eyes.

“...? You’re...!” the maid trailed off in a slightly raspy voice, her face immediately filling with fear, causing her to break away from Claudio. Her head morphed into a raccoon dog’s before Rosemarie’s eyes.

“You collapsed on the floor. Do you know what happened here?” Claudio’s voice was bold, as if he were conducting an interrogation. The raccoon dog-headed maid’s shoulders jolted.

Rosemarie jumped into the conversation in attempts to quell the maid’s fears in any way she could. “What has happened to Princess Suzette?”

The raccoon dog-headed maid showed some slight hesitation upon seeing Rosemarie, but after a short pause, she started to speak.

“...Um, yes, well, ever since we arrived in the Holy Land, she has been acting quite strangely. I would find myself unable to move freely, and before I knew it, Princess Suzette would be nowhere to be seen... Next thing I knew, Princess Suzette’s clothes would be damp and covered in some sort of stains and animal fur... And the smell of salt water would...”

The raccoon dog-headed maid cut herself off there and began to quake all over. She shut her lips tight and didn’t show signs of opening them, not intending to finish her statement. Rosemarie stroked the poor maid’s back in a consoling manner as she turned to Claudio.

“Princess Suzette was being controlled by the Hippocampus all along, then?”

“All signs point to that, yes. Hey, could you answer us just one more... no, two more questions?” Claudio said to the maid in as gentle a tone as he could muster. “Did Princess Suzette drink of the holy water? And, if she did, were there any strange phenomena that occurred after?”

The maid kept her mouth shut for a bit, but she eventually gripped Rosemarie’s arm that was holding her up and spoke.

“She indeed drank of the holy water. And after she did, she was so overwhelmed with curiosity that she started looking at locales all over the church, straying from both the bishop caretaker and myself before we even realized. When we finally found her, she just smiled and said she’d been watching the ocean... but that couldn’t have been!”

The maid’s hand clenched even tighter on Rosemarie’s arm. Claudio almost went to pull her off, but Rosemarie shook her head and stopped him before he could. The maid was squeezing Rosemarie’s arm so tightly she feared she’d lose circulation to it, but she gritted her teeth and bore it.

“We reunited with Princess Suzette on the eighth floor staircase. And she was climbing up from the ninth floor below,” the maid stated, her raccoon dog head pressing up to Rosemarie; her eyes went wide and her body tensed up as a result.

(The sea? Underground? Oh, but, the tenth floor is...)

The cathedral that sat atop the modest hill used the height of the cliff to its advantage to burrow underground. Hence why Ilse explained to them, on the first day, that the tenth and deepest floor was connected to the ocean. There was one problem, though...

“The tenth floor’s staircase is collapsed, meaning you can’t go down...”

Once that realization set in, a cold shiver coursed through her. Suzette couldn’t have seen the ocean here. It was on the other side of a collapsed staircase.

“—I... understand now. I’m sorry for making you recall something so dreadful. Fritz, borrow a different room and let this woman rest.” Claudio gently pulled the maid’s hand off Rosemarie’s arm and handed her over to Fritz. The raccoon dog-headed maid suddenly lifted her lowered head. Her face was slowly starting to revert back to human form as she did.

“I beg of you, please save Princess Suzette. The mistress has always disliked being portrayed as someone with a grizzled personality based solely on her looks. Which is why she looked forward to the chance to meet Prince Claudio, thinking that he would understand how tough it must be to be in such a situation. However, that was her only objective. She would never be so utterly disrespectful toward a man and his wife in the way she was, normally...”

Fritz began to lead the maid out of the room, consoling her as she broke down in tears. As soon as she was out of view, the kneeling Rosemarie put her hands to the floor. She was feeling dizzy, as if there was a release of tension somewhere inside her.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m... okay. Outside of longing for my bucket, that is.”

Claudio extended his hand with a wry smile. She took it, using it to get back on her feet.

“Maybe we should return to the room for the time being. We have no idea if the Princess of Kavan will be coming back here, so there’s not much of a point in staying. Master Edel, have you picked up on anything else?” Claudio called out to Edeltraud while they searched around the room as Rosemarie watched. That was when she noticed a blue evening dress hanging in the corner of the room.

(I’m sure that is... the dress that Princess Suzette was in the first time we met.)

For some reason, it seemed to be hanging in a very deliberate manner, and it made Rosemarie turn her eyes away from it.

“Did you spot something?”

“No, not a thing. We were returning, yes?”

After exchanging a dialogue with Claudio, who quickly noticed her reaction, she led the way out of the room. Claudio quickly followed behind her, albeit perplexed. Edeltraud passed by the side and started walking in front of Rosemarie.

That blue dress from a second ago popped into her mind.

(“He would understand how tough it must be to be in such a situation”...)

“‘He would understand how tough it must be to be in such a situation,’ eh? Well, I can’t say I don’t understand that...”

She jumped, almost mistaking that for her own voice for a second, but once she identified it as Claudio’s words and not her own, she patted her chest down in relief. However, she found her mood dampened soon after.

“...Yes. You’re right.” Claudio would know best about how hard it was to be judged based on your appearances.

Although it was being amplified by way of magic, if she had so much adoration that she resented Rosemarie, then she might have filled the role as Baltzar’s crown princess instead if Rosemarie hadn’t stolen Claudio’s mana all those years ago.

(I have to give the title of crown princess to someone more befitting of the role and return to Volland once I return his mana... That was what I thought I needed to do, but... I just...)

She had no desire to go back to her country, nor to give her position to someone else—even if she would be hated because of it. She was slightly afraid; this line of thinking wasn’t like her at all.

She cast her eyes down, tightening her lips.

Claudio said that he would never be able to smile again if she were no longer around. He even said that he was jealous of Ilse. The former notwithstanding, the latter was said without an ounce of hesitation, making it hard to make out whether he said it out of camaraderie or if he had romantic feelings for her.

“Hey, you’re not getting any funny ideas, are you?”

“Am I... huh...?”

Claudio tapped Rosemarie on the shoulder from behind as she continued to fret, causing her to stand up straight in surprise.

“Ideas like: If you hadn’t stolen my mana, the Princess of Kavan would have likely filled the role as crown princess? Or maybe: If I return his mana, then I could give the princess the position and return to Volland?”

The fingers that were sunk into Rosemarie’s shoulder made her stiffen her expression. How did he find that out in the first place? She was afraid to turn around.

“—T-That wasn’t on my mind.”

“Rosemarie?”

“...I’m sorry. It was.” After a coaxing call of her name, Rosemarie buckled under the pressure and confessed. Claudio sighed deeply.

“Did you forget that I said I had no plans on sending you back to Volland? Why do you want to go back so bad even though you’re supposedly so jealous? I swear... what a sad state of affairs if I have to be allotted a second wife by the woman I love.”

“...Huh?” The whispered remark made Rosemarie doubt her own ears as she cowered.

“What was that... you just said?”

—The woman he loved?

That unbelievable thought running through her mind, Rosemarie awkwardly turned around to face Claudio. He sighed with a sullen expression.

“Did you not hear me the first time? I said, and I quote, ‘I have no plans of sending you back to...’”

“No, not that. What you said after that. After ‘allotted a second wife by’...?”

“After that? Allotted a second wife... by... Grk...?!”

Claudio stopped in his tracks, flushed from cheek to ear. He removed the hand on Rosemarie’s shoulder, pressed the back of one hand to his mouth, and let his eyes wander around in distress. He was getting so red in the face, in fact, that her own cheeks started to get warm, as if his heat carried over.

“...Did I say what I think I said?”

“...You did.” Rosemarie nodded firmly. Claudio held his forehead as if he wanted to follow up with a none-too-pleasant obscenity. He proceeded to scratch and clutch at his head, peeking at Rosemarie. His gaze slowly heated up.

“—Yes, you’ve found me out. I’m in love with you. You’re the one person who always looks at me with earnestness no matter what I may look like. That is why I don’t want to send you back.”

Once she heard those words, despite this being a joyous occasion, she felt her chest tighten up and her heart beat so fast that it hurt, and she turned her face away.

“I...” Rosemarie started, hanging her head so fast that the Kaola seed pendant dropped from her neck, most likely a result of the fastener not being clasped on right. It hit the floor with a clink, echoing oddly in her ears.

—Boy, I’m in love with you. You’re quite the character.

The amused words of a young boy popped into her mind. Behind closed eyes, she saw the face of a much younger, much happier-looking Claudio—his expression was filled with joy, innocent and willing to let his feelings be known aloud without restrictions.

When she blinked, that illusion started to sink to the back of her memories with only tiny traces of the voice still remaining.

“I... feel as though you’ve told me that you love me back when we were kids.” The sporadic memories of when they first met seven years ago were so shaky that she had no confidence in them. Her father, King Volland, had told her that she never met Claudio before. So, what were the meaning of these memories she had?

She stared at Claudio with uncertainty, and he looked back at her, dumbfounded.

“I... did...? I don’t recall us ever being intimate enough for me to bring that up in conversation...” Claudio grimaced and rubbed his forehead, possibly trying to remember.

Silence befell them.

Claudio looked like a lost child and, if Rosemarie could see her own face, she guessed she’d have a similar expression. Her heart was in a frenzy and she couldn’t calm down.

Claudio suddenly stooped over and picked up the Kaola pendant on the floor. He closed his eyes as if to recompose his feelings and opened them soon after. His face no longer looked lost.

“I may have said it, and I may not have said it. However, the fact that I said it right here and now remains true. You don’t need to reply just yet. Right now, I’m fine so long as you know how it is I feel about you. Just keep in mind that is the level of involvement I plan on keeping with you,” Claudio said in a somewhat embarrassed manner, putting the Kaola pendant back on Rosemarie.

“...Okay, I understand.” She felt the fire being relit under her face after it had just finished cooling down as she nodded in affirmation, bashful all the while.

***

“Why in blazes did you come back to the room halfway through, Mage Edeltraud?!” Steam was practically pouring out of Heidi’s black cat ears in anger while Rosemarie sat on the couch, her head lowered and her face flushed. The squirrel climbed on her shoulder as soon as she got back to the room and nuzzled itself against her cheek in concern.

However, despite being the one being chewed out, Edeltraud attempted to stifle a yawn indifferently as they sat at an angle on the shorter sofa.

Rosemarie had been so engrossed in her conversation with Claudio on their way back from Suzette’s room, she hadn’t even noticed the mage leaving ahead of them. If she had her bucket, it would be on her head so fast.

Claudio came back to the room for a stint, but he left with Alto, noting that he was going to go check on Suzette’s maid that was under Fritz’s care.

“H-Heidi, don’t be so harsh... Claudio and I are as much to blame...”

“That’s also right, princess! If you’re going to talk to Prince Claudio, then I would implore you to do it after coming back to the room. How am I supposed to hear your tender moments unless... Oh, I mean, um, ignore that.” Heidi accidentally let the truth slip out, which made Rosemarie blush and cover her face. There were a lot of instances of Heidi being around when her conversations with Claudio took a more passionate turn, but she never would have guessed that the maid actually looked forward to hearing them.

While she was curious as to how much of their conversation Edeltraud heard and told to Heidi, at the same time, the past memories that had come bubbling to the surface made her even more curious.

Did she really have some sort of prior acquaintance with Claudio?

“Um, Mage Edel?” As soon as she started speaking, there was a knock at the door.

Tension coursed through the room. Rosemarie glanced at Edeltraud and the sorcerer silently nodded. Heidi stood in front of the door and answered politely.

“Yes? Who is it?”

The unknown visitor didn’t respond. Slowly and cautiously, Heidi opened the door.

“Oh, there’s no one here... Hm?...?! Adelina?!” Heidi screamed the braided young girl’s name in a panic, alarming Rosemarie.

From the other side of the door, she saw Heidi helping Adelina, her shoulders bobbing fiercely up and down, into the room. Her right hand hung limply at her side, fresh blood trickling from the tip of her finger.

“What happened to you?!”

“—Close... the door. Hurry!” Adelina screamed harshly. Edeltraud responded unusually quickly, rushing to close and lock the door.

Shocked to her core, Rosemarie took to her knees by Adelina’s side as she crumpled to the floor with Heidi. That was when she noticed the scratches on various parts of the girl’s body. The biggest gash seemed to be around her shoulder, which was drenched in fresh blood.

“What happened?”

“Where’s your husband? Your husband is a sorcerer, right? You can make a quick escape to the surface even from here, right? If you can, then run. Quickly. Now! You’re going to get killed!” As a mix of cold sweat and blood ran from Adelina’s forehead, her face morphed into weasel form, practically in sync with each droplet. She looked seriously afflicted, but the grip she had on Rosemarie’s arm was strong.

The word “killed” was too much of a giveaway. The face of the owner of the room they’d just explored, as well as that vibrant dress, immediately sprang to mind.

“Did Princess Suzette do this to you?”

“She did. It seems she saw me with you in the dining hall. She ordered me to tell her where your room was, but she was acting strange. I led her somewhere else and tried to make an escape, but...” Adelina winced, probably in pain. Edeltraud, who stood next to her, offered her a hand. Once they did, the blood seeping out onto her clothes finally stopped.

“Prince Claudio isn’t here right now. He should be coming back soon, though...”

“For the love of... your husband has the worst timing!”

“Calm down, Adelina. Your wounds will grow worse.”

“You need to take this more seriously!”

She was sure that Adelina would glare a hole into her for saying it, but she was extremely shaken up, despite appearances. Her heart was beating at a mile a minute despite not doing anything physical at all, and her legs were shaking so badly that she was unsure if she could even stand up or not.

Edeltraud patted her lightly on her trembling shoulders, then placed their hand on Adelina’s forehead.

“Keep from getting excited. Don’t worry. You have me here.”

Guided by the mage’s monotone yet calm tone, Adelina closed her eyes. Her entire body untensed and she fell asleep as if falling unconscious. Rosemarie let out a little sigh.

“Do you think that Prince Claudio is safe?”

“Don’t worry about him. You’re the one in danger.”

Watching Edeltraud lend Heidi a hand in laying Adelina on the couch, Rosemarie finally got to her feet, managing to stand up, albeit slightly shaky on her feet.

“We should probably get Adelina out of those bloody clothes. I’ll get her something she can change into,” Rosemarie said before heading off into the bedroom.

(If Princess Suzette was asking Adelina for the location of my room, does that mean she wasn’t conscious when the Hippocampus was controlling her and she left that goat carcass at our doorstep...?)

Rosemarie opened the storage trunk, pulled out a blouse and skirt, and headed back toward the lounge, but a cold shiver ran down her spine—accompanied by the drifting scent of salt water.

The squirrel upon her shoulder squeaked in warning. But even after a scan of the area, there was no one to be found.

(Was that just my imagination...?)

Perplexed, she attempted to exit the bedroom, but tripped over something before she could.

“Ow... Hm...?!”

She thought she had tripped on something, but when she looked at her ankle, she saw a bundle of yellow-white hair wrapped around it. Rosemarie tracked where it was coming from—which apparently was the abyss under the bed.

“What... is this...?” It was dragging her across the floor, attempting to pull her under the bed.

“Mage Edel! ...!!” she shouted at the closed door as she tried to claw away at the bundle of hair wrapped around her. The squirrel ran down her shoulder and nibbled at it. For a second, the white mass of hair sank back as if it were afraid, but it wasted no time coming back to tangle her up in it again.

“Volland Princess!” Edeltraud cried, rushing into the room just as Rosemarie was getting dragged under the bed.

“Rosemarie!”

She thought she could hear Claudio’s voice as she began to fall down a deep hole—something that couldn’t possibly be under a bed normally. Terrified, Rosemarie squeezed her eyes shut.

***

“Rosemarie!”

Just as Claudio saw her slender fingers disappear from view, Edeltraud cast a magic wind, upturning the bed.

However, there was no hole there; just the cold, hard floor.

“What... is going on here?” Clicking his tongue in frustration, he kicked the space where the bed once stood.

Claudio had been on his way to check on Suzette’s maid. But Fritz ran into him on the way there, informing him that the maid had been left in the care of a clergyman in his right mind, so he turned back to the room... just in time to be flabbergasted at what in the world had just transpired.

His eyes stopped on something in the disheveled comforter and sheets, and he stared in shock.

“What in the...?”

“... This is the goat hair I bottled up earlier?” Edeltraud picked up the goat hair that fell from Claudio’s cuff. They had indeed bottled it up in a glass orb. It should have been resting on the table in the lounge afterward, so what was it doing in here among the sheets?

“Princess...? Are you all right?!” Heidi asked timidly. She peeked into the bedroom, looking at the upturned bed and storage trunk and being at a loss for words. She then scanned her eyes all over the room to spot Rosemarie. The glass orb in Edeltraud’s hands caught her attention.

Heidi relaxed her tense expression for a moment upon finding the glass orb. “Oh, I’m sorry. That fell on the ground as I was putting away the dishes after everyone else left the room. I didn’t know where it went off to... Um, so, the princess. Where is...”

When she saw Claudio answering her call for Rosemarie with a grim face and a shake of the head, her once relaxed face went deathly pale. Fritz held the maid’s shoulders as she staggered, his expression tense.

Gnawing on their lip a little, Edeltraud stomped on the floor and instantly restored the destroyed bedroom back to its former glory.

“Same as when I sent Volland Princess to castle using yew branch as medium when she came to guard post. Someone or something used goat hair as medium and took Volland Princess away.”

“There shouldn’t be any mana in goat hair.”

Claudio grimaced. The yew tree had trace amounts of mana, which made it a likely candidate for a medium.

“It shouldn’t. It’s why I let guard down. Probably mana seeped in so minute, I didn’t recognize it.” Edeltraud, eyes narrowed, broke the glass. Then, with a turn of their palm, the goat hair was incinerated in the blink of an eye. And once it was, the resulting smell that wafted past their nasal cavities wasn’t the smell of smoke.

“Is that... salt water I smell? So... it was the Hippocampus!” Claudio exclaimed, still irritably waving away the billowing smoke. He then took huge strides out of the room, a serious-faced Alto followed behind him in silence. However, Fritz stood in his path.

“Your Highness, where are you going?! Her Royal Wifeness has been taken to God-knows-where and you’re just going to take off?!”

“I have two possible ideas where. One place could be close to the collapsed tenth floor where the Princess of Kavan was found when she went missing. The other could be the saint’s chapel where the Sacred Relic was enshrined and those two animal carcasses were dumped. However, if they’re using goat hair as a magical medium, then the chapel seems much more likely.”

With his heart beating like mad and a cold sweat pouring from his forehead, the last thing he wanted to do was let impatience cloud his better judgment. Edeltraud caught up with them from behind, got in front of them, and led the pack themselves.

“Fritz, if we don’t make our return before dawn, then tell everything to Bishop Lancel. I’m sure he will be able to manage something.”

They left the lounge, not even waiting for Fritz’s reply. It was almost time for dinner, but the group didn’t pass by anybody coming or going. The three pairs of footsteps traveled through the bizarrely silent and narrow church passageway.

“Claudio, did you see Adelina?” Edeltraud asked without turning around to face Claudio, who nodded and replied.

“Yes, I did. The Princess of Kavan did that, I assume?”

“She did. That’s why the Princess of Kavan might be more dangerous than Hippocampus right now,” warned Edeltraud; their indifferent tone was helping to quell Claudio’s inner panic. He took a sharp inhale to regain his breath and pumped his feet against the floor, his destination being the chapel.

***

Thud. Rosemarie fell onto something hard, causing her to let out a small moan.

“Yowch...”

As she surveyed her surroundings while rubbing her back, something came rolling off from her lap.

“Momo!” Finding her fluffy flying squirrel friend, Rosemarie hurried to pick it up. The silver flower emblem on its forehead gleamed dimly in the dark, which helped her calm her tense heart rather than make her suspect anything from it; it instilled her with a sense of relief knowing that she wasn’t alone.

“Where are we...?”

A better look at her surroundings revealed that she was in Saint Kamil’s chapel. She realized she was sitting on the altar in front of the lifelike statue of Kamil. Slowly, her face growing pale, she made her way off it.

“How did I get here, of all places...?”

Perhaps because only a few candles were ever lit outside of worship time, the chapel—normally filled with bright lights—was barely illuminated today. The salt chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were practically invisible in the darkness.

She remembered being dragged underneath the bed... so how did she end up upstairs, on the third floor? She looked down at her wrists slowly and shuddered when she saw the deep marks left by the bundle of fibers that had latched onto her wrist.

The girl couldn’t make heads or tails of what happened to her, but her intuition told her that whole ordeal was magic-related. Which meant that it was the Hippocampus’s handiwork.

“I have to get back...” She knew how to get back to the room from here, which was the only saving grace in this situation.

With her squirrel seated on its usual shoulder perch, she tried to zip to the exit of the chapel. But she stopped at the sound of footsteps—footsteps rushing toward her.

(Who is that...?)

She had no idea who it could have been, which meant it was highly possible it was Suzette, who already had Rosemarie in her sights.

As she tried to contain her beating heart, she looked around for a place to hide. A normal church would have pews lining the aisles, but since there wasn’t a single one here for some odd reason, she literally had nowhere to hide.

Panicking, Rosemarie pinned herself as flat as she could against the door next to the exit of the chapel. If she could bolt out behind whoever came in, she might go unnoticed.

Slowly, the footsteps drew near. She gulped, the tension swiftly drying out her throat as she tried to contain her body from shaking out of control.

Someone entered the chapel. Rosemarie watched as they walked straight to the altar without even scanning the room. She stifled a yelp and immediately exited the chapel.

(A dirty-blonde dog head... That was Princess Suzette!)

While she attempted to proceed down the passageway as silently as possible, the sounds from her shoes echoed. Click! rang the sound of her heels against the floor—remarkably loud throughout the passageway.

She looked over her shoulder with a gasp to find the dirty-blonde dog-headed princess turning to face her as well. Clutched in her hand was a thin knife.

Rosemarie shot out like a bat out of hell. The ornately decorated pathways weaved in and out, sending her sense of direction off-kilter.

(Where is the staircase downstairs again?)

One false step could funnel her out into who-knows-where. And even more so since she was in a frenzy.

The squirrel jumped to the top of her head and squeaked away diligently. The footsteps that came after her showed no signs of stopping—in fact, they were growing closer. Rosemarie bit her lip before it had a chance to tremble in fear.

(Maybe I should break the spell instead of just running away?)

That was the epitome of a sink-or-swim gamble. Neither Adelina nor Suzette’s maid came at her with a weapon when she interacted with them. Suzette, on the other hand, was approaching her from behind with a knife. While she had no idea whether Suzette was proficient with a blade or not, she most likely had an advantage given that she was under the control of a spell.

Just as Rosemarie was finding herself lost, the squirrel suddenly flew off her shoulder. Or, so she thought. For whatever reason, it clung to a wall decorated in bellflowers on the corner a small distance away.

“Momo, why did you fly there...?” She retrieved the squirrel, almost careening into it. Her momentum caused the wall to move slightly inward, and that was when she gasped at the sudden recollection.

(Oh...! The byway!)

When Ilse brought her and the others to the belfry, they used the servant-exclusive byways instead of the normal pathways. This was probably a hidden door to one of them.

The footsteps were drawing near her.

This was no time to be indecisive. Rosemarie pushed the door with all her might and rushed inside. Too panicked to close it behind her, she started to run down the byway, which was even darker and more dimly lit than the main paths.

It was so dark in the byway, in fact, that the flower emblem on the forehead of the squirrel tucked in her arms seemed to have become even brighter.

(Where’s the exit?)

She couldn’t sense anyone following her, but she couldn’t afford to wander this dark corridor aimlessly forever, either.

“Momo, do you see the exit?” Rosemarie asked the squirrel, who had moved to her shoulder. She placed a hand over her chest—and suddenly noticed that her Kaola pendant wasn’t there. She gasped.

(Did I drop it somewhere?!)

She felt terrible. Claudio had put so much thought into that pendant. She considered going back to search for it, but stopped herself from turning around when she realized how bad of an idea that was. Claudio would have chewed her out if her going back meant that she would get caught—or something even worse. Any error in judgment could keep her from seeing Claudio ever again.

“Oh, Prince Claudio...!” Until just moments ago, he was so close to her that she could still touch him. Yet she still couldn’t help the longing she had in her heart. Going on without seeing him ever again was something she simply would not stand for.

Gritting her teeth, she pressed forward. There was no sign of Suzette’s presence. However, that wasn’t the only thing; she hadn’t seen anybody along the way at all, which instilled in her an ever-growing sense of panic.

The fear that she might be all alone in this underground cathedral welled up from inside—a fear that developed into thoughts that this game of cat-and-mouse would never end, as well.

—But that was when lights brighter than any she had seen so far came into sight in front of her. What she saw below it made her eyes widen.

(Is that... the staircase?)

This winding, ascending spiral staircase was smaller than the one at the entrance when she first descended into the cathedral, but she remembered, nonetheless. This was the same staircase that led to the belfry with the sweeping view of the ocean.

The ever-vigilant squirrel squeaked once more. Footsteps could be heard somewhere in the distance.

No time to be indecisive now. She was better off lying in wait for Suzette somewhere with more space than just running around aimlessly and exhausting her strength.

Upon climbing the spiral staircase, the chilly winds engulfed her body. The beach winds were strong, and the smell of salt water filled her nasal passages.

“Momo, hold still, okay?” Rosemarie clutched the creature close to her chest as it seemed likely to be blown away by the strong winds due to its underarm membranes. Its downy pelt warmed her body ever so slightly.

The howling of the whipping winds pierced her ears in a way that caused her to liken it to the neighs of the Hippocampus. They shouldn’t sound anything alike, yet it sent a cold shiver down her spine, regardless.

Suddenly, she heard the tap of footsteps from the lower floor. Rosemarie gulped, her breath still erratic. The taste of iron rust sat in her mouth.

Tap, tap, tap—the sounds started to rise at a fixed speed, stirring up her fears even more.

Rosemarie tried to get as much distance between her and the staircase as possible. She glanced above her to see the Hippocampus engraved on the bell, almost looking as if it were scoffing at her actions.

“—Oh, I found you!” The elated voice made her turn her attention back to the staircase, where the dirty-blonde dog-headed princess stood, tottering on her feet left and right. The several specks on her off-white dress were most likely bloodstains from when she assaulted Adelina.

“I found you, I found you. I finally found you. Your eyes... those wretched eyes gazing upon Prince Claudio... If I were to pluck them from you, then Prince Claudio will only have eyes for me. So, how’s about it? Mind giving me those eyes of yours, hmm?” Suzette said with an innocent chuckle and a cute tilt of her head as she brandished the knife. Shivers ran down Rosemarie’s spine. The princess was stark raving mad.

She began to doubt her ability to break the spell now that it was this far along, but she shook her head and cleared the doubts from her mind.

(If I cannot do it, I’m going to end up dead. Plain and simple.)

The canine-headed princess brandished her knife and came running at her. She tried to get out of the way of her charge, but Suzette suddenly uttered some incomprehensible words and changed her course.

“Huh...?” Her leg was tangled. She barely caught herself on the handrail before she ended up taking a fall. Her relief was short-lived, however, as Suzette grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up in an abnormal display of strength. She then pushed her back against the railing. The knife drew closer as the ocean winds blew from underneath the top half of her body hanging over the railing, drawing any heat out of her cheeks. The crashing waves dominated her sense of hearing. That was when something welled up from deep within her. Something that wasn’t fear—rage.

“Get over yourself with this nonsense! Even if you were to take my eyes, Prince Claudio would never give you the time of day. If you could manage that, then what’s stopping you from making you turn his attention on your own?!” She, too, thought these eyes of hers were wretched at first. But now that she had overcome so much and made it so far, it was nonsensical to think that he would be so easily swayed by another woman just because she presented him with something.

“Shut your mouth, shut your mouth, shut your damned mouth!!” Suzette flapped her huge dog jaws over and over, shaking Rosemarie by the collar all the while. Rosemarie grabbed her hands in attempt to stop her.

—Her dilated eyes blinked, as if coming back to her senses. The sensation of something peeling right off—the sensation of the spell being lifted—came over her body.

The next thing Rosemarie knew, Suzette had gone limp. Although Suzette had suddenly released her grip on Rosemarie, she felt her body leaning over—past the railing.

(I’m going to fall!)

Her body froze over, like she had taken a bath in cold water. She reached out, but her fingers didn’t even graze the handrail. She was on a crash course with the cliffside below.

“Rosemarie!!”

That voice hit her ears—the same voice she wanted to hear so badly. Coming into her vision, as she stared with her eyes wide open was Claudio, leaning over, pale in the face.

“Prince Claudio, don’t!”

Faster than she could pull back her outstretched hand, Claudio leaped over the railing and grabbed onto her.

“Claudio!” Edeltraud yelled in a tense tone, ringing in between the gusts of ocean wind, as a strong gale suddenly blew from underneath them and weakened the speed of their fall. Before either of them could identify that the Archmagus had cast a spell, the surface of the water was already upon them, and the two of them dropped into the ocean.

Cold ocean water engulfed Rosemarie’s body. She tried to open her mouth for air, but she found herself unable to keep breathing like that. Her wet clothes turned into weights, making her body sink steadily toward the ocean floor. Rosemarie moved her arms and legs for dear life, trying to stop herself from sinking.

“Quit thrashing! You’ll sink.” Claudio’s voice rang in her ears, which made her finally realize that he was holding on to her.

“Keep a tight grip. We’re close to the shore.” In lieu of a nod to his reassuring command, she put some force behind the arms she had around his neck and clung on. In the next instant, an extremely huge wave engulfed the both of them.

“...!” Just before the water swallowed them both, Claudio shielded her with his own body. Wrapped between the raging waves, she couldn’t tell what was up and what was down. Wham. In the midst of the chaos, she felt the shock of slamming into a random spot hard. Claudio’s arms slightly loosened their grip around her body. She tried to cling to his hands for dear life as they slipped away, but she saw a mass of air bubbles escape his mouth.

Her heart froze over. He was going to die. That thought ran through her mind and sent shivers through her body.

(No!!)

The waves once again assaulted them, unfortunately loosening their grips and mercilessly jostling them like leaves tossed into a riptide.

“... Oww.” The sharp pain snapped Rosemarie back to her senses and she opened her eyes wide, the black reef being the first thing she saw. Before she could breathe easy over being spared, Claudio’s face popped up into her mind.

“Prince... Claudio... where...?” Groggily, she did her best to stand up. Her body stung all over, possibly from cuts caused by the rocks. However, now was not the time to worry about these minor scratches. She had to focus on where Claudio was. He was caught in the same wave, so he should be nearby.

She scanned her surroundings, trying to bear up under her throbbing wounds, and realized that she was inside a cave. The cold ocean water that wet her feet was passing through the natural tunnel and funneling in waves from the outside. Suddenly, she spotted Claudio, a short distance away and collapsed on the ground.

“Prince Claudio!” She walked toward him, occasionally tripping over spots on the rocky floor with poor traction. Seeing Claudio lying face-down on the ground, unmoving, she pushed on his shoulders with shaky hands and turned him on his back.

“Are you okay?! Please, Prince Claudio, say... some... thing... Oh, God. He’s not breathing...” His face, eyes shut tight and pale as a ghost, resembled a corpse, making it seem as though a cold hand had its icy grip around his heart. She slapped at his cheeks, but to no avail. He still wasn’t breathing.

“Artificial respiration... I need to administer artificial respiration.” Rosemarie didn’t know the proper way to administer it, but it was all but certain that Claudio would die if nothing was done.

(Can’t be indecisive... Need to act now!)

Claudio’s cheeks were a sharp shade of blue and white, like a chunk of ice. Nevertheless, she placed her hands on them, drew her face near his slightly parted lips, and locked her mouth over them. Shame and everything else pertaining to it went by the wayside in her mind. All she had was hope and prayer as she attempted to pump air into his lungs.

(Please. Open your eyes... Please!)

***

Noticing something red pass by out the corner of his eye, Claudio looked up from the book he was reading.

This garden was close to the Forbidden Forest and nary a soul came by in fear of the trees. But, in an unusual twist, it seemed someone had done just that. On the other side of the short garden tree was the hair of a person, swaying like a horse tail.

Baltzar’s National Foundation Day was a few days away and guests from several lands and several nations have assembled under the castle, but he had never seen someone with such exquisite red hair.

Although he had run away here after being fed up with the constant stream of guests coming to say their hellos, he was just about fed up with his book as well. His curiosity piqued, he took a peek behind the garden tree.

“What are you doing?”

There, diligently scooping soil into a silver bucket, was a red-headed young girl. She seemed two or three years younger than him, putting her at around twelve years old. For a second, he thought she might be a gardener’s child. But her outfit was of noticeably higher quality, which suggested she was the daughter of one of the noblemen.

The young girl seemingly ignored his call and kept her eyes fixed on the ground—digging up soil, putting it in the bucket, over and over in that order.

This was less off-putting and more intriguing. It made him wonder what was making her so engrossed in what she was doing that she couldn’t hear someone calling her from up close.

“—You seem to be having fun.”

“Mm-hmm! Lots of fun!” The girl snapped her head up with a broad smile. Her bright green eyes were alight, her face was smeared with dirt, and she smiled without a care in the world. For some reason, Claudio felt his heart skip just by looking at her.

“W-What am I doing?” he asked himself, confused at how shaken up he was for no apparent reason. The girl then held up some of the soil she had put in the bucket.

“The old gardener where I’m from said that Baltzar’s gardens were incredible, but he said it might be because the soil is different from our country, so I figured I’d take some back as a souvenir.”

A dirt-cheap souvenir, so to speak. The girl’s sweet smile invited Claudio to crack a smile himself.

“Bring it back without permission and you’ll be considered a thief, you know.”

“Oh, um, well... I thought that just some from the corner of the garden wouldn’t hurt... Should I not? Are you from the castle?” the girl asked, cocking her head in genuine concern. Seeing this, Claudio was convinced.

This girl didn’t know that he was the Crown Prince of Baltzar. It was extremely refreshing, yet strange.

“Not quite. But I have some acquaintances there, so how about I get permission for you?”

“Really? Oh, thank you!” The girl smiled like a wilted flower coming back into bloom, making Claudio’s heart jump once again.

It made the surface-level smiles of the guests that came to greet “Crown Prince Claudio” seem even more like facades. Never before had someone smiled at him in this manner. He didn’t know about his late mother, since she died while he was an infant, but not even the widowed King Baltzar ever smiled at his son with such frank and open affection.

(What is going on?)

Claudio put his hand over his chest in response to his quickening pulse, confused and assuming he had come down with something. That was when the mystery girl rose to her feet.

“Oh! That soil over there looks good, too!”

What exactly constitutes good soil? He hadn’t a clue as to which country she hailed from, but the Baltzar royal palace was home to several paintings and sculptures of the highest quality, as well as a garden that—true to the young girl’s words—housed so many different flowers that it made one wonder where they’d been shipped from. However, she gave none of that a passing glance. The only thing that made her eyes positively light up was—dirt. Soil, to be exact.

“Soil, eh? Hahah. You don’t say.”

“Hey, don’t make fun of the soil, okay? There are trees that won’t grow unless the soil is from our country. Also, wheat won’t grow unless you’ve got soil. So, don’t laugh.” The girl’s argument was more concise than he imagined—so much so that it ended up impressing Claudio. It caused him to realize how things weren’t always how they seem.

“Boy, I’m in love with you. You’re quite the character. Say... would you mind coming back tomorrow? I want to chat with you some more,” Claudio asked, honest words coming from his mouth. It was a frank manner of speaking which he had to abandon as the Crown Prince of the Magic Nation of Baltzar. The girl smiled once again, like a flower coming into bloom, and nodded.

When he opened his eyes, the red-headed girl—Rosemarie—was peering at him with tears streaming down her face.

“Prince Claudio! Do you recognize me? Say something!”

“... Soil girl.”

“Huh? P-Pardon? Are you okay? Oh, God. What do I do? Did he take a strong blow to the head?” Rosemarie’s pale face went even paler as Claudio chuckled and waved his hand in response.

“Sorry. Just a joke. I had a dream from my childhood. You’re the Crown Princess of Baltzar, Rosemarie. My royal wife, and my one and only.” He had been dreaming this entire time. No, it wasn’t a dream; he was convinced that all actually happened in the past. Though it was a mystery as to why he wasn’t able to remember an iota of it up until now.

Claudio touched Rosemarie’s tear-streaked face, prompting her to cry even harder.

“Please... don’t subject me to jokes. Not now... please.”

He lifted himself up to console her, but he was suddenly overcome with a nausea from the pit of his stomach. He snapped his head to the side and vomited. In a panic, Rosemarie rubbed his back for him. He then noticed the pounding pain in the back of his head and a tear in his thigh. The scent of blood irritated his nose.

Once his nausea settled down, Claudio finally lifted his head.

“Sorry. My stomach has calmed down.”

“Maybe you should lie down a little while longer... You very nearly drowned and stopped breathing, after all. Do you feel discomfort anywhere else? Also, you have a cut on your temple...” Rosemarie’s hand that rubbed at Claudio’s back lowered in relief. She then brushed away the hair at his temple.

“No, I’m... fine.” He paused and suddenly realized. He realized that something warm was coursing through his body. Despite being soaked in the cold ocean water, the area around his heart was warm, as if being shined on by the sun. The heat he felt was a familiar presence. He lifted up his right hand, stared at it and turned it over.

Suddenly, a mystic pale-blue fire ignited in his palm. Rosemarie looked on in surprise.

“My mana is back... Did you do something?”

“Huh? Oh, um, well, I did... administer some... artificial respiration.”

Claudio stared at Rosemarie’s lips as her cheeks flushed and her eyes darted around, then slowly put his hand up to his face. His fingers felt not the usually animal fur he was so used to, but actual human skin, which meant that his face had probably reverted back to its human form.

“What is the meaning of this? We’ve tried so many times before, so why am I back to normal now, of all times...?” His confusion overshadowed his elation. As Claudio began to ponder this mystery, Rosemarie turned her beet-red face away from him. She suddenly sneezed, however, catching Claudio’s attention.

“Oh, you must be cold. I’ll blow the water away,” he said, waving his hand to the side, summoning a wind that swept away the moisture from the both of them. Their clothes remained wet, however. He wasn’t able to completely dry them off, but it probably eased up the temperature a tad.

“You’ve saved my life yet again. Thank you. You’re not injured, are you?”

“No... I’m not. It was all thanks to you shielding me out there... Um, is there any pain in your leg? You’re bleeding quite a lot,” Rosemarie pointed out, which caused him to finally notice the considerable amount of blood flowing on the ground where he was sitting.

“Thanks, but I’ll manage.” He took off his jacket, ripped off his shirt sleeve, and quickly tied off the wound. Hopefully this would keep the wound from getting aggravated any further. And while it would make moving a tad more difficult, it was an acceptable price to pay.

“Um... Can you not fix your wound with magic? I remember Mage Edel healing Adelina’s wounds...” Rosemarie looked on in confusion. Claudio shrugged his shoulders in reply.

“I’m assuming they just stopped the bleeding. If you try too hard to heal with magic, it puts a burden on the body. Also, I’m not very apt in regard to healing spells. Nevertheless... I really owe you. Suppose I’d better say my thanks to Master Edel, as well.” If they had fallen straight down with nothing to soften their descent, they probably would have slammed onto the cliffside reef. But thanks to Edeltraud’s magical wind spell, they were spared.

“Did Princess Suzette not fall?”

“She’s probably all right. Master Edel probably didn’t save her, but Alto was around. That being said, you’re far too softhearted. You’re actually worried whether the girl who tried to kill you is dead or alive?” Claudio let out an exasperated sighed as he saw Rosemarie looking up toward the belfry in concern. She gave a slight nod in response.

“I’m also angry about the whole ordeal, but now that I know that a spell was amplifying her hatred, it’s quite hard not to be concerned for her life.”

“—You really are too softhearted for your own good.” That was the very reason she was bound to get in trouble unless he kept an eye on her.

With a wry grin, Claudio reached into the pocket of his discarded jacket and revealed the gift he’d given Rosemarie before they’d set off for the Holy Land: her Kaola pendant.

“When I found this pendant in the saint’s chapel, I was scared half to death.”

“—Oh! I was so sad that I accidentally dropped your precious gift to me. Thank you so much for returning it!” Rosemarie smiled from ear to ear, like a flower coming into bloom. The same girl whose eyes lit up at the sight of soil back in his youth was now overwhelmed with joy at a present he’d given her. The very thought of that instilled in him a sense of satisfaction that filled his heart with warmth.

“How did I forget all of that...?” He held a handful of his bangs in frustration.

He had forgotten everything from back then—the warmth he felt, the adoration he had, the sight of that carefree smile of hers—and continued to detest Rosemarie for seven long years. And his magic being stolen probably wasn’t the cause; something suppressed his memories, and it happened after that chance encounter.

“Are your wounds bothering you?” Rosemarie asked, looking into his face with concern.

Just as he was about to assure her that he was fine, an eardrum-splitting animal cry echoed throughout the cave.

***

Hearing the eardrum-splitting animal cry, Rosemarie found herself covering her ears.

“What is that sound?” Claudio grimaced as he held one of his ears in similar fashion.

“You can hear it as well, Prince Claudio? This is the voice that has been calling me this whole time.” She didn’t know why Claudio was also suddenly able to hear it, though. Perhaps it was because she returned his mana?

“Sounds less like a voice and more like someone getting strangled. Is it coming from deeper inside the cave?” Claudio’s face took a stern turn as his eyes headed toward the darkness of the cave before them. The evening sunlight was shining in through the naturally-formed entrance, but the weak light wasn’t able to illuminate all the way inside.

“Is it... the Hippocampus?”

“I’m going to assume it is.”

The brain-jostling, pained cry suddenly stopped. And almost simultaneously, a red and gold light shone from his chest.

“Gah, it’s hot! What’s going on? The Sacred Relic just started heating up.” Claudio scrambled to remove the sack containing the Sacred Relic from his breast pocket. The light grew even stronger and burned through the sack entirely. Rosemarie stuck her hand out in attempts to catch the Sacred Relic before it spilled out of the sack onto the ground.

“Don’t touch it!” Claudio screamed at nearly the same time as the Sacred Relic fell into her palm.

The heat lasted for a split second. The red-gold light disappeared as if it melded into Rosemarie. The gentle warmth in her body was alight for all but a second before immediately dissipating.

Claudio wasted no time in picking up the Sacred Relic and touched Rosemarie’s palm to check its condition.

“Nothing happened to it. Did you... absorb the mana just now?”

“I don’t know. But it felt different from when I broke those spells.” She stared at her hand closely while opening and closing it.

(Did I really absorb it? If that was the case, then I’ve absorbed the mana I just returned to Prince Claudio...)

The doubts that she had almost forgotten reared their heads again. Claudio contemplated as he clasped the Sacred Relic for a bit, then lifted his head.

“We’ve already made it this far, so we might as well return the Sacred Relic to the Hippocampus. State of the church be damned. This thing glowing like that most likely means the beast is close. Let’s head out.”

“D-Don’t!” Rosemarie dodged Claudio’s hand as it came for her own, clutching it to her chest and standing back.

“You shouldn’t touch me. I’ll end up stealing the mana I just returned to you again. And I’m guessing the reason why your head reverted back to beast form is because I stole your mana...”

Claudio looked as if he was being lied to, his face scrunching up for a second as though hurt, eventually ending up as a scowl. He then forcibly took Rosemarie’s hand and proceeded to walk. Rosemarie tried desperately to free her hand out of the fear of the repercussions.

“Please, let go of me, Prince Claudio!”

“Shut up. If touching you stole away my mana, then it’d be stolen the second I touched your palm earlier,” Claudio distinctly asserted, to which Rosemarie refuted in confusion, regardless.

“Yes, but you saw how I broke the spell that was cast on Adelina.”

“Breaking a spell and stealing mana are two different things. You can remove what’s on the surface, but extracting the roots is an entirely different story.”

“But Mage Edel never touches me with their bare hands.”

“Master Edel has never had their mana stolen and returned. There’s no precedent for them. There is, however, one for me. If I were to have my mana stolen again, then all it would mean is getting it back again.” He had an answer for everything she said. Although it didn’t serve to completely eliminate her doubts, Claudio’s quick responses were rather reassuring.

She returned the grip that Claudio had on her hand as he silently led her into the cave. Feeling her reciprocate, he followed in form by giving her hand a firm squeeze back, facing forward all the while. Claudio staggered on his feet slightly. Recalling the wound he suffered on his leg, Rosemarie hurried to prop him up under his arm.

“Thanks. Appreciate it.” With Rosemarie as Claudio’s crutch, they slowly proceed deeper into the cave. As they pressed on, a tinge of blood wafted through the air and mixed with the aroma of the salt water.

“On your guard. I have a bad feeling.” Claudio lowered his voice, his tone stern and serious. Rosemarie bit her lip, telling herself not to scream no matter what she saw... and that pained cry hit her ears once again. At the same time, she heard the heavy sound of scraping metal. It was a sound that you would never expect in a place like this, which was sending Rosemarie’s pulse into a frenzy.

The evening sun shining through the entrance was getting even dimmer as they traversed. Claudio quickly waved his unoccupied hand. Blue flames spawned in sync with his movement, illuminating the interior of the cave.

“—?!”

“What in the...?”

What they laid their eyes on left them both speechless.

Its upper half was that of a gallant white horse, with a long fish tail covered in sparkling, blue, gem-like scales.

There, in the dome-shaped area, was the same Hippocampus depicted in various places all over the cathedral—the entrance, the altar, even the tapestries in the guest rooms.

However, as it lay limply on the ground, a thick collar could be seen around its neck with a sturdy chain extending from it. The chain was connected to the bedrock within the cave. Upon ever closer inspection, they saw smaller chains around its limbs keeping it constrained to the ground. Either the collar itself was causing discomfort or there was something set up inside the collar. Either way, several streaks of blood flowed from its neck.

“This is... horrific.” As for who did this, it was obvious without even giving it much thought.

She had never felt this way—so enraged that her body was literally shaking. Rosemarie’s murmur caught the ear of the Hippocampus and it stirred. A sad cry similar to the one from earlier escaped its throat.

—Beloved of the Sacred Beast. Come, come, come.

The Hippocampus stood up on groggy feet, opening its eyes. They were like a beautiful sunset compressed into a small, dark red orb, but they soon realized something off—it only had one eye, not two. Claudio pieced it together from the unique color and dropped his gaze upon the Sacred Relic in his grasp.

“Don’t tell me... this is the Hippocampus’s eye?” Claudio said, his voice cracking with surprise. There seemed to be a considerable size difference, but the color was so similar that it was preposterous to think it was anything other.

The Hippocampus neighed.

—My eye! Return my eye, human! Damn all of you for taking advantage of my kindness! The voice of the Hippocampus echoes through the cave, shaking the bedrock. The Hippocampus stood up with enough momentum to yank off the chain as streaks of blood ran from its neck yet again.

The people of the Holy Land captured the Hippocampus, robbed it of its freedom and, to make matters worse, took one of its eyes—all so the Holy Land could keep operating. And even now, it was still in captivity.

—I shall steal the eyes from him just as I did the smallings and use it to feed my mana.

The chains binding it rattled and clattered. Miniscule flakes and pebbles dropped to the ground as its tail, the only free part of its body, waved around and smacked against the bedrock.

“The smallings.” So, it was the Hippocampus who stole those small animals’ eyes and made dried husks out of their bodies, after all? Going off that logic, seeing as how it was being held prisoner here, it likely had no other choice but to use Suzette to bring them down here.

Rosemarie snatched the Sacred Relic from Claudio’s hand and stepped toward the Hippocampus.

“I’m returning it! In return, don’t take Prince Claudio’s eyes.”

“Stop!” Claudio yelled to keep her from advancing, but an abnormally huge boulder fell in between him and his wife. Rosemarie flinched for a second, but then used the opportunity to run to the Hippocampus’s side.

A seemingly endless stream of blood from its towering body mixed with the ocean water flowing into the cave, muddling it. It was almost as if the water was dyed in the same dark conceptions that dwelled in this cathedral, evoking not only sadness, but rage.

“This is your eye. I hope that it quells your rage and—”

Rosemarie held out the Sacred Relic and the Hippocampus stomped its feet and rattled its chain.

—Aah, aah, Beloved. You have the most enchanting aroma. The aroma of the finest mana mixed with the sweetest fruit. It matters not if the Silver Lion has partially eaten of you. I shall consume every bit of your blood, your flesh, your soul until not even a morsel remains!

Before the Hippocampus’s cry of glee could sink into Rosemarie’s mind, it opened its mouth wide—not for its own eye which she held in her hand, but for her throat instead.

“Rosemarie!”

As the image of the beast ripping her throat out flashed through her mind, a bright light leaped out from her chest and affixed itself to the Hippocampus’s face. At almost the same time, Claudio tripped her off her feet and pulled her toward him. He then proceeded to keep her in his arms as they rolled to the side, and before she even had a chance to sit up, Rosemarie stared in shock at what she laid her eyes upon.

“W-What the... is that...?”

“It’s the squirrel.”

The flower emblem on its forehead was shining even brighter than when they were wandering the bypaths before, but the flying squirrel that pasted itself onto the Hippocampus’s single eye was indeed the same one she had named Momo. She had almost forgotten that it had been tucked away in the bodice of her dress.

The Hippocampus shook its head to free itself of the tiny creature, but Momo was stuck to its face like glue.

“Now’s our chance to get away.”

“But we can’t leave Momo to...”

“Take a good look. It’ll be fine. That’s no regular flying squirrel. It’s a sacred beast.”

“A what?!” Rosemarie exclaimed as white, shining flower petals erupted from the glowing flower on the squirrel’s forehead, gradually covering the Hippocampus’s body. Each petal that stuck to the Hippocampus stilled its movements a bit more, until its gigantic body eventually toppled over. Once it did, the squirrel climbed up the felled Hippocampus and sat atop it triumphantly with its head held high.

“Momo, you’re incredible...” Rosemarie stood there, dumbfounded, and the squirrel took to the air in delight. But in the next moment, the Hippocampus drew all its energy into a yell and rose to its feet.

—Damn you, damn you, damn you! Cut from the same cloth, yet consorting with humans!

A number of the chains that bound its body rattled and clanked, then burst off. The cave quaked, cracked, and eventually went into a full-blown collapse.

“You’ve pissed it off even more!” Claudio defended them against the falling boulders with magic, shielding Rosemarie with his body as well as he held her. Rosemarie looked up at the crumbling cave ceiling in wide-eyed shock.

“The top of this cave... is the cathedral?!” The ceiling—or the floor to those above—gave way, causing a bevy of candles, bedding, and other housekeeping supplies to tumble down on them. While it was too dark to get a good look, the ornate decorations that lined the walls of the church were visible.

“Now it makes sense. This was the tenth floor blocked off by the collapsed staircase,” Claudio deduced, looking bitter.

The Hippocampus’s thrashing over the course of time probably weakened the ceiling until it became weak enough to give way. As the creature bucked violently about, the chains wrapped around it dug into it even deeper in a painful and pitiful display.

“Defeating it with magic would be simple, but I’d rather not... Need to pacify it some other way...”

“Your Highnesses! Are you both all right over there?!” From the other side of the crumbling bedrock came a familiar voice. They looked in its direction and were greeted with the sight of Alto’s panicked face poking through a crack in the bedrock.

“Your Highness Claudio, your face is back to normal, I see! Hold still, I’ll be right there!” Alto tried to widen the gap to get to the couple, but Claudio stopped him.

“Stay back, Alto. We’re both safe. I don’t want to agitate this Hippocampus any more than it already is.”

Alto, speechless, obediently backed away.

Rosemarie watched their back-and-forth unfold, but was distracted by the sound of a tiny clang from over her chest caused by the squirrel. When she looked down to see what it was doing, she found it chewing at Claudio’s gift, the Kaola pendant.

“Momo, no nibbling, okay?” she said, trying to pry it away, but Claudio picked it up from the side with a stern, serious expression. The squirrel dangled from the pendant all the while.

“The Hippocampus mentioned something or another about an ‘enchanting aroma.’ What if I were to tell you that this thing was the reason it called you?”

“Huh...?” Spelling it out like that, it was possible; she remembered it saying a lot of things before. After all, she was the only one wearing a pendant like this.

“That squirrel has an odd fascination for Kaola, too. Well, time to go all in on this hunch. I’ll be taking this.” Claudio removed the squirrel from the pendant, then removed the pendant from Rosemarie. Then, wrapping it in magical blue flames, he hoisted it up.

“Hippocampus. I’ve got a nice little present for you. Take it!”

Claudio let loose the Kaola pendant from his hand as if he were firing an arrow. The Hippocampus opened wide and caught the pendant in mid-air, crunching down on it. And as soon as it did, it was instantly set ablaze.

The creature let out a shriek akin to a death rattle, filled with a whole new level of sadness and bitterness. Its head thrown back and facing upward, the Hippocampus collapsed to the ground, shivering, and the collar around its neck came off with a sound like shattering glass.

“P-Prince Claudio, did you... kill it?” The Hippocampus was motionless, making Rosemarie go pale. Humans were the reason for its terrible fate in the first place; she couldn’t bear the idea of humans also being the cause of its demise.

“No, I didn’t put that much force into it. It should’ve been just enough to bring it back to its right mind, though.”

Rosemarie tried to approach the Hippocampus. A piece of bedrock came loose overhead, but Claudio summoned up a magical wind and shattered it. The dust from the bedrock parted, and the white and blue beast burst through it, charging straight at her.

“Huh, what...?!” Rosemarie stood stock still, unable to flee the Hippocampus charging at her. It lunged at her, grabbed the hem of her dress, and dragged her into the ocean.

She was dunked in the cold ocean water once again with a splash. Her lungs grew hot in need of air.

“—!!”

She thought she heard Claudio shouting something between the sounds of the waves, but she couldn’t be sure as he body sank farther and farther into the briny depths. Fear was the furthest thing from her mind; all she could think about was how she was literally suffocating.

(But I relinquished the Kaola...!!)

Suddenly, the Hippocampus stopped its descent to the ocean floor and released its grip on her clothes. It then came charging at her at a speed unlike anything that walked on dry land. She felt as though death was drawing near.

(No! I haven’t even returned Prince Claudio his mana! I still haven’t given him a proper response!)

Her regrets stung her chest more than her lack of oxygen. If she had known this was going to happen, she would have given him an answer right away.

Just as her regret-riddled consciousness was slipping away, she felt her body yanked upward and begin to rise toward the surface, as though something was pulling at her. It wasn’t long before her head broke the surface, granting it sweet freedom from the water.

Clueless as to what was happening, she started to take a deep breath—but felt herself lifted even higher. It was almost as though she was being tossed out of the ocean. The bizarre feeling of weightlessness sent her insides into confusion. She closed her eyes, holding back nausea. After a few seconds in the air, Rosemarie felt herself being caught by something mysteriously soft yet firm.

“I almost had a heart attack back there.” Once the familiar voice graced her ears, she softly opened her eyes to see Claudio, who was embracing her with his face paler than a sheet of paper. She also saw the reef all around them, so it seemed they were shoreside.

“But... I was just...”

“I used a spell to take you back. See? The Hippocampus is getting away.”

A horse’s neigh echoed from the ocean’s surface. Rosemarie looked in its direction with a gasp to see the Hippocampus leaping high into the sky. And watching it do so was a silver-maned creature with a pair of elegant wings and black horns shining in the setting evening sun—the Silver Lion. For whatever reason, its appearance frightened her, and she clutched her own arms. The Silver Lion’s form then started to slowly dissipate into the sunset.

“Was that the real Silver Lion...?” She remembered seeing the beast back at Claudio’s mana inquiry when he was pressing Archbishop Kastner for his various crimes.

Claudio silently shook his head. “No, it’s not. It’s a familiar I made from my concentrated mana. Or, to put it more simply, it’s a mana-made illusion.”

Rosemarie tried to comprehend all of this with her muddled mind, which made her suddenly realize something terrible.

“Oh, no! We haven’t returned the Sacred Relic to the Hippocampus!”

“It probably won’t come back to retrieve it. Not even a Sacred Beast can put a lost part of their body back in place.”

“You’re kidding...”

“—Damn all of you for taking advantage of my kindness!”

The Hippocampus’s cry popped back into her mind. Maybe, despite all its claims, it wasn’t asking for its eye back; maybe it wanted to regain its trust for humans.

Perhaps it couldn’t bear to be sentimental about things. It was forced to take a long, hard look at the result of being bent to the selfish desires of man.

Those thoughts occupied Rosemarie’s mind as she stood next to Claudio, watching the Hippocampus swim off. She grabbed Claudio’s sleeve absentmindedly.

“Your Highness! The coast is clear now, isn’t it? I’m coming over there now!” The bedrock suddenly crumbled, accompanied by a loud battle cry. There stood Alto, his leg still raised after the powerful kick he’d delivered to the rock from the opposite side. And next to him, much to Rosemarie’s surprise, was the young chambermaid with her hair in braids.

“Adelina! What are you doing here? What about your injuries?!”

“No, I’m fine. I led the Squire all the way here, after all... But that was... the Hippocampus, wasn’t it? Those chains... were keeping it captive? Also, why is the crown prince’s face human now?” Adelina asked with a tensed expression, to which Rosemarie nodded back while gritting her teeth, vexed.

“Well, yes, but...” If she told Adelina the fault lay with the clergymen of the very cathedral in which she lived, it might come as too much of a shock. As Rosemarie stood there, clueless as to what to say to the speechless Adelina, Claudio sighed.

“We’ll talk later. Let’s head up for now. Alto, where are the others?”

“Sir! Mage Edeltraud is supporting the structure so that there will be no further collapsing. Father Fritz is leading the Cardinal to the surface. Her Highness’s maid is evacuating in similar fashion.”

Behind Claudio as he listened Alto’s status report, Rosemarie put her hand on Adelina’s back.

“I will make sure to fill you in; for now, let’s go back up.” Although it didn’t sit well on her conscience, Rosemarie had no other choice but to tell her that.

***

The dark red jewel with gold shavings was placed on the table with a click. Sitting across from Rosemarie and Claudio, the brown dog-headed Cardinal’s eyes opened to the size of saucers.

“Why, this is... the Sacred Relic! Why are you in possession of this, Prince Claudio?” asked the Cardinal in an inquisitive tone, coupled with a brown-nosing look in his eyes. The sight made Rosemarie so uncomfortable, she had to look away.

The Cardinal, the bishops, and other members of clergy who helped oversee the Holy Land were assembled in the dining hall. The only individuals who were devoid of beast heads at the moment were the three aides who stood behind them... and Ilse. She found herself cowering more in anxiety than fear.

The day before yesterday, the Hippocampus ran amok and caused a collapse in the cathedral, which was contained to a cave-in of the floor on the ninth floor and cracks on the eighth. It seemed that with some repair work, the floors would be back to a useable state—not entirely back to the way they were, but useable, nonetheless.

Now, in order to shed some light on the recent series of incidents, they had come to confront the Cardinal and his subordinates.

“The Sacred Relic? This right here is the eye of the Hippocampus, which many people bore witness to. For some inexplicable reason, it found its way into my room. Seeing as how it had traces of mana in it, I took the liberty of holding onto it for safekeeping. It’s interesting, though. It’s similar to the Sacred Relic, isn’t it?”

It was true. This was the Hippocampus’s eye. Claudio’s statement carried with it the implication that he couldn’t be charged with theft of a Sacred Relic, which made the Cardinal’s dog head shiver slightly.

After the collapse in the cathedral the day before yesterday, so many people witnessed the Hippocampus fleeing away to the ocean that there was no way the clergy could talk their way out of it.

“Yes, quite similar. So, is that pertinent?”

“Well, I figured it would be quite problematic on the off chance that it was swapped with the Sacred Relic.” Claudio knitted his brows in concern as he stared at the Cardinal. The Cardinal responded in turn by clamming himself up. The Cardinal had commented that Claudio’s face returning to human form was a miracle of God, but he seemed to be even more tense than he had been when confronted with the prince’s beast head.

“I have heard that the number of people complaining of health issues has increased over the past year. When I inquired further, I discovered that the practice of drinking holy water also started a year ago. If the Sacred Relic and the Hippocampus’s eye were swapped out around that time, that would explain the health problems.”

“—What do you mean by that, exactly?” There was the slightest traces of fear flashing on and off in the Cardinal’s eyes. Claudio saw this and grimaced, disappointed.

“The Hippocampus’s eye has mana. If one drinks of water imbued with its mana, some people will have a crazed episode like the Princess of Kavan. But, for many, it slowly seeps into the body like poison, weakening and eventually killing them. That’s what happens when you introduce mana into an unprotected body. It’s quite unpleasant.”

The dining hall was astir with noise. Some placed a hand to themselves, looking rather on edge, while others stared in Claudio and his entourage’s general direction imploringly. More than likely, almost everyone in the hall had drunk of the holy water.

“If your health has been suffering, then let my wife look at you later. She has gotten used to handling this issue. You’ll likely recover in no time. That is, if you drank of the water the Hippocampus’s eye was dipped in, of course,” Claudio said with a dauntless smile as Rosemarie softly pressed a hand to her stomach. As she stood next to Claudio while he gave out information piecemeal to gauge the Cardinal’s reactions, a grinding pain hit her stomach. It made her wonder if this was all in a day’s work for him.

The Cardinal balled his fists so tightly on the table that they were turning as white as his now pale face. In the midst of the now clamorous dining hall, only one of the people representing the Holy Land maintained his composure: the white-haired bishop. He drew a sigh.

“—I believe I did advise that we should cease the consumption of holy water.”

“W-What are you saying, Ilse?” The Cardinal remained flustered as Ilse looked at Claudio and his entourage with his same tranquil countenance. Surprised, Rosemarie’s back straightened out naturally. She had no idea what was going through the Bishop’s mind.

“Prince Claudio, please speak of everything that you have investigated, if you would. I know that you are renowned for your intelligence. And I am sure that you are already well aware of what is happening here in the Holy Land.” Ilse stared at Claudio, who returned the look without so much as flinching.

“The one who snuck the Sacred Relic into our room using the chambermaid was you, Bishop Lancel.”

“—That is correct. I did it because I knew you would bring a conclusion to this situation.” Ilse divulged his intentions with ease, causing the Cardinal to glare a hole through him.

“Ilse, you stole it?”

“I borrowed it, sir. Your Eminence, Prince Claudio has already exposed the existence of the Hippocampus to many. I believe that you should prepare yourself for the worst,” Ilse informed the Cardinal, who then silenced himself.

Claudio held out his hand to Fritz, who was standing behind him. Attentively, Fritz placed a stack of documents in it.

“The amount of mined salt has been on an extreme decline since a year ago. At the same time, the number of baptisms via holy water and donations has been on the rise. And I predict that you started drinking holy water as a way to get even more donations. Although it’s holy water... it seems to be akin to poison.” Claudio spread the documents across the table, then folded his arms and glared at the Cardinal.

“The visitors who started drinking holy water for whatever reason would probably come back, donating ludicrous amounts so they could drink it again. Those types would crop up by the droves and the donations began to grow. You had more repeat donors than ever before. In which case, losing the Sacred Relic became less and less of an option. And you weren’t able to release the Hippocampus on the off chance that you weren’t able to use the Sacred Relic anymore. It was an endless cycle. Now, with all that said... care to point out any part of my statement that may differ from the truth?”

Dead, tense silence filled the room. And as no one budged an inch, the Cardinal languidly turned his head toward the heavens.

“—I suppose it was inevitable. Just as you have said, our salt reserves are diminishing. It is becoming difficult to maintain a living. Not only that, but it affected the lives of the people of this land. The case of the holy water was a godsend.”

While the Cardinal was disclosing the painful truth to everyone, Rosemarie’s eyes still saw his head as that of a brown dog. He wasn’t thinking about the people’s interests in the slightest. Enraged at that, Rosemarie slowly brought herself closer to Claudio.

“Prince Claudio.” Rosemarie whispered Claudio’s name, and she nodded once he made eye contact with her. Getting the signal, Claudio lightly tapped Rosemarie’s hand in response.

“—I see. I thought that if you had just laid everything out truthfully, then I wouldn’t have to investigate any further, but... I guess I will have to report this case to His Excellency the Pope at the Holy See—along with these reports.”

“What the devil...?”

Fritz handed him another set of documents, which he thrust before the Cardinal. The Cardinal looked back and forth between the paper and Claudio in an almost comical manner.

“Before coming to the Holy Land, I had a background check run on you. It seems that you have been out and about to various nations having a grand time under the pretense of it being an ‘observation.’ That includes our nation of Baltzar, of course. I am sure that His Excellency would lament in hearing such news,” Claudio said, his intrepid face gaining a clever smirk.

The Cardinal lurched onto the table, clutching at his head. As he did so, paladins of the church came through the entrance of the dining hall, picked him up, and carted him away.

The others, partially out of fear of getting wrapped up in trouble themselves, didn’t even try to go and help the Cardinal.

As that all transpired, Claudio suddenly rose to his feet and—for reasons Rosemarie couldn’t fathom—walked over to Ilse.

The prince then opened his mouth, saying, “I assume this is sufficient... Mage Lene?”

Ilse, who watched emotionlessly as the Cardinal was carted away, blinked a few times before his lips curled themselves into a smile.

“—Y’did a mighty fine job, Prince.”

***

Gathered under the saint’s chapel in the grand underground cathedral, members of clergy all decked in dazzling garb stood in prayer. And enshrined in its altar on display was the Sacred Relic, dark red luster and all.

With a solemn atmosphere, the Sacred Relic Worship ceremony was held in silent reverence.

Rosemarie, in attendance with Claudio and the other guests, stared vacantly at the clergy. But upon spotting Ilse in the crowd, she felt the urge to let out a sigh.

—“Y’did a mighty fine job, Prince.”

Those words that threw his tranquil demeanor right out the window and the cynical smile that curled his lips had left Rosemarie utterly flabbergasted.

Although what was revealed after those words shocked her to the core even more.

(To think it was Bishop Lancel all along... That he was Mage Lene, the former guard of the Forbidden Forest...)

He looked to be in his late twenties. She had envisioned him as an old man, nearly forgetting that sorcerers look younger than their true age. And since serving as guard of the Forbidden Forest made one look younger still, it made sense in retrospect.

She had absolutely no clue as to what led to him serving the position he did. They had decided to ask for the whole story once the Sacred Relic Worship ceremony was over.

Claudio seemed to be slightly dubious; Edeltraud, on the other hand, appeared to be actively avoiding any eye contact with Lene.

They dipped the Sacred Relic into sea water. The bishop reverently held the container, which now ought to be filled with fresh holy water, and began to sprinkle it upon the foreheads of the attendees in order.

Since Rosemarie had wiped it of mana while in the cave, where the Hippocampus was imprisoned, the eye of the Hippocampus—the Sacred Relic—no longer had any power within it. The Relic wouldn’t turn sea water into fresh water no matter how much you dipped it, nor would it turn it into poisonous, mana-imbued water.

However, there were already so many worshipers in attendance that the Sacred Relic Worship went on as planned, albeit a few days later than scheduled. It was up in the air as to what would happen starting the following year, but Claudio pointed out how difficult it would be to continue without disclosing the whole truth. Although that point was concerning, they couldn’t stick his nose into this business any further.

Rosemarie had already touched the people afflicted by the Hippocampus’s mana and brought them back around. Suzette was also back to her right mind, but she had positively no memory of what she had done.

The Sacred Relic Worship concluded without a hitch. And, though she couldn’t be sure whether it meant she had been cured, Rosemarie couldn’t see a single beast head in the crowd.

***

“Heya, nice work out there, Princey Boy.”

As the Sacred Relic Worship concluded, Claudio, Rosemarie, and Edeltraud headed toward the location they were told to rendezvous at—the belfry. Sitting there waiting, while the strong ocean winds blew by, was the sorcerer they had been looking for.

Sitting on the belfry’s railing, Lene gave a good-natured greeting and dropped from his makeshift seat with a bounce of his long white hair. He had traded his extravagant priest’s garb for a regular sorcerer’s robe of dark blue. “Regular,” that is, save for multicolored stitching along the edges, which made it quite festive.

“So, Princey, when did you realize that I was Lene?”

“Around the time we broke the spell on Adelina is when I had my doubts.” Claudio answered in a cool and collected manner, which made Rosemarie look at him in surprise.

(Now that I think about it, Mage Edel did tell us what kind of personality he had.)

He probably thought something was fishy around then.

Lene laughed aloud. “—Woo, boy, scary look y’got there. I still can’t get over how strange it is, you know. Never would’ve guessed the majestic Silver Lion-headed crown price would be such a sour-pussed lad.”

“Well, you’re unbelievably sprightly and in good health for someone as old as my homeland, so from your perspective, yes. I’m quite naturally a ‘lad,’ as you put it.” Rosemarie watched, somewhat unnerved, as the stinging repartee played out. Suddenly, Lene looked her way, and her shoulders jumped in surprise.

“Are you afraid? Come, now, we were on friendly enough terms before. We were chattin’ about all sorts of things up here. Hey now, enough with the stink eye. Your jealousy is as wide as the sea, Princey Boy.” Lene jovially poked fun until Edeltraud, who accompanied them both, suddenly walked up—and swiftly whacked Lene over the head.

“...Yow! Edel, you son of a...! Is that how you treat your master after years of not seeing them? By punching them across the damned head?!”

“Your fault Claudio got injured, Master Lene. If just revealed identity right away, there’d be no problem.” Edeltraud’s expression was just as unflinching as usual, their eyes staring straight ahead with intent.

Seeing Edeltraud take out their anger on Lene, Claudio cleared his throat to defuse the situation. “Master Edel, save the fisticuffs for later. I’d like to cut straight to the chase. Mage Lene, why did you pose as a clergyman here in the Holy Land for a whole year?”

“Well, naturally, my number one objective was figuring out what the Sacred Relic really was. Though, when I tried gettin’ to the bottom of the mystery, my social standing made me incapable of getting involved. That made for a whole boatload of issues, let me tell you.” Lene shrugged in disappointment, leaning across the railing and shooting a look Rosemarie’s way.

“So, since you scratched my back by solving the case, I’m supposing you want to know about how the princess here is doing, right?”

“Huh? Me...?” The subject suddenly swung to Rosemarie, whose head shot up, startled.

She had thought that he would bring up Claudio, with the Seed of Mana-Sealing within his body, not her. Claudio seemed caught off guard as well as he looked inquisitively at Lene.

“Rosemarie? No, not her. I mean, yes, ever since stealing my mana, her vision has been off as a result, but...”

“Hm? You mean, that’s not it? Didn’t you come here to ask me to give the princess’s soul a once-over since Edel’s eyes aren’t as good for that?”

Rosemarie’s and Claudio’s collective gaze fell upon Edeltraud.

“Master Edel, what is he talking about?”

“Mage Edel, is there something wrong with my soul?”

One was perplexed while the other was concerned, but Edeltraud spoke up unapologetically, nonetheless.

“If told the truth, you’d be too worried; never let Volland Princess out of country. Never be able to fish out Master Lene that way. Money no good to enlist him. Need something else. Something like this time.”

“Ahahaha, well, that’s ’bout right. My services come at a high price. One that money can’t buy,” Lene said with a hearty laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.

Was he saying you had to buy his cooperation in gratitude rather than money?

“You should know, too, Claudio. I’m not good at seeing condition of souls. But I sensed something odd about Volland Princess’s soul. Thought that might be reason why memories are vague and can’t return mana.” Edeltraud’s explanation filled Rosemarie with an unfamiliar sense of dread, and she hugged herself tightly in the face of it.

Claudio grabbed Rosemarie’s shoulders and, somewhat forcefully, pulled her closer. “I understand your point, Master Edel. While there is a long list of things I’d like to voice my dissatisfaction about, the Sacred Relic business had a safe conclusion, so I’ll let it slide. So, then... what is Rosemarie’s condition?”

Claudio’s sharp gaze fell upon Lene. Rosemarie also looked at Lene, but in a more timid manner. Lene squinted at them silently by way of an initial response, then let out a sigh.

“...Princess, m’girl, your soul’s chipped. Something’s been... gnawing at it.”

Lene stared at Rosemarie intently and with interest, his statements taking Rosemarie’s breath away.

“Gnawing...?”

“Yep, something’s been nibbling at it. Ah-ha, that makes sense. So, you’ve been compensating for that with Princey’s stolen mana, eh? Said you had problems with your vision? I bet you do. You’re practically forcing it to compensate. It’s causing a distortion.”

“S-So, that would mean that seeing negative emotions manifest as beasts and seeing Prince Claudio’s head as a beast temporarily was all...”

—Aah, aah, Beloved. You have of the most enchanting aroma. The aroma of the finest mana mixed with the sweetest fruit. It matters not if the Silver Lion has partially eaten of you. I shall consume every bit of your blood, your flesh, your soul until not even a morsel remains!

The Hippocampus’s words suddenly resurfaced in her mind. Upon comprehending that Lene’s words were indeed correct, she felt tremors from the depths of her heart. She felt her legs about to give out on her, but Claudio caught her in his arms before she had a chance to fall.

“Are you telling me the Silver Lion has been eating her?” Claudio murmured in confirmation, voice tensed. He probably remembered the same thing she did.

“The Silver Lion? It can’t leave the Forbidden Forest, though. How would that happen?” Lene raised an eyebrow in open suspicion.

Managing to digest the blow she suffered, Rosemarie then started to speak. She couldn’t just let Claudio handle everything on his own. “When I was a child, I got lost in the Forbidden Forest. That was when I stole Prince Claudio’s mana after he came looking for me... My memories of the ordeal are hazy, but I do remember being attacked by the Silver Lion...”

“Princess, lemme see your face for a sec.”

Lene beckoned with his hand, his face suddenly serious. Rosemarie walked away from Claudio toward him, albeit with hesitation. Lene lifted her chin and peered into her eyes. His pair of pale blue eyes were like blades of ice that dug deep into her body, scaring her.

Lene tilted his head in confusion after staring at Rosemarie for a while. Once he did, he brought his face next to Rosemarie’s ear. For a second, she had no idea what he was trying to do to her.

“What are you doing? Get away from her.” Once Claudio yanked her back to him with an extremely displeased shout, Rosemarie finally regained her senses and blushed.

“Ooh, beet-red, I see. Hey... don’t be angry, Princey Boy. I was just checking her scent.”

“Lucky you did that to familiar girl. Pervert’s work, otherwise. Got that, Master Lene?”

At Edeltraud’s calm yet angry comment, Lene waved his hand in front of his face with a tensed expression. “Oh, come on. I wasn’t trying to make any funny passes. Anyway... Princess? You and I both hail from Volland, right? Kaola is your favorite drink? The stuff indigenous to Volland?”

“Y-Yes, it is. I’ve been drinking it ever since I was a child,” Rosemarie answered, flustered. Lene stroked his chin sternly.

“—I knew it. There’s your reason for y’getting eaten. As I’m sure you already know by now, that scent seems to attract Sacred Beasts. In the princess’s case, she likely has the type of soul Sacred Beasts prefer. And on top of that, with all that Kaola scent stuck on it, it’s pretty much like pouring a fine sauce on a gourmet cut of meat to accentuate it. It’s a big invitation that screams, ‘Eat me, please!’”

The shocking statement made Rosemarie open and close her mouth wordlessly. She had never heard of such a thing, either in her home country or in the time since she’d left.

“You were lured into the forest by the Silver Lion, m’girl. A mere child without mana wouldn’t last for a second. You’d be pushin’ up daisies if Princey here hadn’t come looking for you.” Lene shot her a pitiful look. Rosemarie unwittingly clutched Claudio’s arms as they supported her, and he reciprocated the hold.

“And that’s why the Hippocampus was so insistent on calling Rosemarie, too... I always knew there was no way a child could enter the Forbidden Forest all on their own. I see... So, Mage Lene, you knew that Kaola and the Seed of Mana-Sealing were the same and made me consume it?”

Claudio’s questioning expression sparked Rosemarie’s memory. She remembered Lene was present when they made Claudio drink the Seed of Mana-Sealing.

Lene knitted his brows. “Uh, whuh? Don’t have the foggiest, lad. They were the same? I didn’t smell any Kaola from the Seed of Mana-Sealing. That thing was pretty old, y’know. In fact, it was so old, all the smell had come off it... Ah-ha, I see now. That’s why drinking the Seed of Mana-Sealing was reserved as a punishment for sorcerers who committed serious crimes, eh?” Lene looked up for a bit, spinning his gears while scratching his head, before returning his gaze to Rosemarie.

“With your mana being sealed off and pumping out the smell of Kaola, you’re a nice walking victim for Sacred Beasts. I’m going to venture that your mana being so big that it couldn’t be completely sealed was the reason you were never eaten up, Princey.”

Claudio put his hand on his stomach. His expression in profile was a veritable bag of mixed emotions.

Rosemarie stared at him in concern, but suddenly moved her attention to Lene.

“Mage Lene, does this mean that I cannot return Prince Claudio’s mana to him because I’m using it to compensate for the cracks in my soul? I mean, I’m able to return it to him from time to time just like this time, but I want to be sure...”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. Honestly, I don’t even know why you can return it from time to time. Even though I’m guessing you wanted to ask me ’bout it since Edel doesn’t know, either.” Lene shot Edeltraud a perplexed look, which the Archmagus answered with an equally perplexed tilt of the head.

“Yeah. That’s right. Get that Seed of Mana-Sealing disappeared because absorbed returned mana. But don’t know conditions for Volland Princess to return mana. By the way, still haven’t asked how it returned this time around. Explain?” Edeltraud’s sleepy-looking eyes were brimming with a light of interest. Rosemarie instantly turned red, released the arm she had unconsciously taken hold of, and took a step back.

“Um, well, you see... I... ad... resp... on him.”

“Huh? What? Repeat again. Speak up.”

“She said she administered artificial respiration on me.” Claudio grabbed Edeltraud by the scruff of their neck as they drew closer to Rosemarie, who answered their question as if it were no big deal. His cheeks were slightly pink, regardless.

Rosemarie looked away from him and hung her head. Although that was a matter of desperate times calling for desperate measures, in retrospect, that was the longest they had ever locked lips. Rosemarie wished her bucket was nearby so she could hide her head beneath it.

Observing all of this, Lene started scratching at his arm. “Aaah, seeing the two of you with the naive, young love-esque reactions are making me itch! You’re supposed to be man and wife! Act like it!”

“Master Lene, this isn’t the worst of it.”

“Hm? It gets worse? Boy, I tell ya... I gotta tip my hat to you all for dealing with ’im,” said Lene with a wry chuckle. Rosemarie covered her face with both hands out of embarrassment. She knew that he would mention that, but if it was something she could help, she would have done it already. She wished that she could handle her fits a little better.

Claudio cleared his throat to reset the situation. “Enough. Drop the matter and let’s get back on track. So, if Rosemarie got the pieces of her soul back from the Silver Lion, then both my mana and my face would return to normal permanently?” Rosemarie felt the heat that rose to her face die down and she clasped her hands.

He mentioned repairing her soul. Was that possibility even on the table?

As she stared at Lene inquisitively, the former guard of the Forbidden Forest made a face as tranquil as when he was “Bishop Lancel.”

“Right, well... It’s not gonna be easy by any stretch. As for your face, it’s hard to tell. Given everything I’ve heard till now, I’m guessing that’s a curse from the Silver Lion. All because you stole away its prey—our princess here.”

The word “curse” sent shivers down Rosemarie’s spine. It almost seemed as though she could hear the neighing of the Hippocampus. She shook her head.

“Well, fortunately, the Seed of Mana-Sealing seems to have settled down, and if you plan on keeping married to the princess here, then you can live a comfortable life even without getting your mana back, I figure. So, personally, I think you don’t need to force your way into getting it back,” Lene advised Rosemarie and Claudio, telling them to take it as the wisdom of an elder. The two of them could do nothing but nod in reply, bewildered.