Chapter 46
“If you get tired, please let me know anytime.”
“I understand.”
When I stepped outside Fortune’s territory with Heter, unusually sunny weather for the North greeted us.
‘How long has it been since I last saw sunlight?’
It felt as though it had been several months since I had basked in sunlight.
Even if we didn’t find a place that could become a tourist attraction, this weather alone made coming out worthwhile.
If only Fortune always felt like this.
“Sigh.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
With Heter beside me, I couldn’t even sigh freely.
I had so many things to worry about.
“So… I came out as you suggested, but do you see anywhere worth visiting?”
“Hmm, all I can see is snow, dirt, grass, and trees.”
“Exactly.”
If only there had been a tall mountain or something, I could at least have considered building a ski resort.
“Is the entire area around here like this?”
….”
Heter asked whether this was my first time in the area, but I couldn’t answer.
Why?
“I don’t know.”
This was my first time in this area too, just like him.
“Really?”
Heter turned toward me in puzzlement.
“It can’t be helped.”
My parents hadn’t allowed me to come outside the territory—or, more precisely, outside the settled parts of the territory—because areas untouched by human hands were dangerous.
After my parents died, I was too busy paying off debts to spare the time to come out here.
Heter nodded, apparently satisfied with my explanation.
“That’s true. Magical beasts do appear with unusual frequency in the North compared to other places.”
“Exactly.”
After all, the fact that the North had many magical beasts and was difficult for people to live in was common knowledge in fantasy web novels.
Come to think of it, I suddenly became curious.
“When you were still a wandering knight, how far did you travel?”
“When I was a wandering knight?”
“Yes.”
If he had visited enough places to compare the frequency of magical beast appearances with other regions, he must have traveled quite extensively.
He had even used their language when the barbarians attacked, hadn’t he?
I couldn’t help wondering just how much he had traveled.
“As a wandering knight, I didn’t travel that much, but if I include the places I visited before then… with a little exaggeration, I suppose you could say I’ve traveled across the entire continent.”
Heter chuckled and said it casually.
“Haha, what a lie.”
….”
“You’re lying, right?”
Oh, my. It seemed Heter was serious after all.
“Of course not.”
I would have been surprised if someone my age had traveled across the entire Empire, but the entire continent?
Even including his travels before becoming a wandering knight, it would have been impossible unless he had been traveling to various places from a very young age.
“Correct. As expected of you, my lady.”
“Huh?”
When I voiced my opinion, Heter nodded and gave a small clap.
“You really traveled across the entire continent from a very young age?”
“Yes. Of course, I wasn’t alone. I followed my father.”
“Hmm….”
So Heter had traveled all over the continent with his father.
This might be an important clue to discovering Heter’s identity.
After all, the occupations or ranks that would allow someone to travel across the entire continent could be counted on one hand.
‘The first thing that came to mind was, naturally, a merchant.’
There were traveling merchants who wandered the country, buying goods cheaply and selling them at a high price.
‘But if that were the case, it wouldn’t make sense for Sir Theo to have seen Heter’s elder brother from a distance in Mugwort.“
The way he had said it made it sound as though Heter’s elder brother held a higher position than Sir Theo.
As far as I knew, Sir Theo was a knight of noble birth.
Even if he hadn’t inherited a noble title because he had older brothers, he wouldn’t lower himself to a merchant.
Besides, everything Heter had done so far had clearly been that of a nobleman, so it was practically certain that he was of noble birth.
‘Then that would mean his father was a nobleman with a title that allowed him to travel across several continents.’
As far as I knew, only two people fit that description.
The first was an inspector who traveled throughout the Empire investigating nobles’ corruption.
The second, and the last, was the Grand Duke of the South, who traveled all over the Empire’s waters by ship.
Either way, it was a title far above mine, a mere baroness.
“…my lady.”
‘Heter is good at the capital’s tea etiquette too, and he seems to be from the capital, so could his father have been an inspector?’
“…my lady.”
‘No, since he traveled all over the country, his place of origin might not matter in the first place….’
“My lady.”
“Hmm?”
When I surfaced from my thoughts, I felt Heter lightly tapping my shoulder.
“What is it….”
Then I turned my head toward Heter.
Poke.
“You there?”
Huh?
“You’re finally looking my way.”
Heter’s outstretched index finger was pressing firmly into my cheek.
“…My cheek isn’t yours yet, is it?”
Embarrassed that I had fallen for such a simple prank, I let a sharp tone slip out automatically.
“That’s unfair. I called you several times, but you ignored me, my lady.”
“Even so, touching your master’s body is a problem in itself!”
What kind of knight in this world would casually touch their master’s body—especially when their master was of the opposite sex?
To be honest, if it had been Sir Gold or Ruby instead of Heter, I probably would have laughed it off.
For some reason, simply thinking that the one who had played the prank was Heter made me angrier than usual.
“Yes, I apologize. From now on, I’ll only touch the parts you specifically designate.”
“Eek….”
Then, after apologizing first, Heter naturally took my hand.
And unlike usual, he slipped his fingers between mine.
“That’s not how you usually hold my hand.”
“How I hold it is up to me, is it not?”
He lifted our interlaced hands as he said this to me.
Beginning with the cheek he had just poked, heat spread across my entire face.
We had only held hands, so why was I reacting like this? I didn’t know either.
“So what were you thinking so intently about that you didn’t even hear me calling you?”
“…I was just thinking about what family you might come from.”
Since I didn’t think it was something I needed to hide, I answered honestly.
“Oh? So you’ve figured out my identity?”
“Not yet….”
Heter seemed strangely pleased. Was my failure to figure it out really something to be that happy about?
“At this point, shouldn’t you start telling me?”
I couldn’t keep using an alias like Heter forever.
“Actually, I could have told you long ago.”
Grin.
He gave me a mischievous smile that suited his age.
“Since you’ve taken an interest in me to discover my identity, I’m starting to feel less inclined to tell you.”
“You know, you can be really awful sometimes.”
He was completely different from the male leads in novels.
‘The male leads in romance-fantasy novels are usually innocent and kind, and sometimes make the heroine’s heart race… Huh?’
Come to think of it, was he really all that different?
Except for his slyness, he did seem somewhat similar….
“Hey. So was that the only reason you called me? Were you just curious about what I was thinking?”
Since strange thoughts kept coming to mind, I changed the subject to why he had called me.
“Ah, there was something I wanted to ask you.”
“What is it?”
Of course, if it was about this area, I wouldn’t be able to answer even if he asked.
“This smell. Can you smell it too?”
“A smell?”
Fortunately, Heter’s question wasn’t that sort.
But a smell?
“Could I be smelling blood somewhere…? Hmm?”
I sniffed the air and focused on my sense of smell, and just as Heter had said, I detected something.
It wasn’t the smell of blood, of course, but the peculiar stink that came from boiled eggs.
I had smelled this before.
In my previous life, when I traveled to Japan with my parents.
We had stayed at a particularly expensive lodging, and that was the smell I had noticed there.
‘No way…?’
The thought that it might be what I suspected filled my mind, and my heart began pounding harder.
“Heter. Let’s follow the smell.”
“It seems you know what kind of smell this is too, my lady.”
Judging by the way he said ‘too,’ he seemed to know what caused the smell as well.
That made sense, considering he had traveled all over the country.
“Yes. So we need to check.”
If it was what I thought it was, I might finally find the tourist attraction I had wanted so badly.
Thus, Heter and I followed the smell into a forest thick with trees.
Along with the distinctive grassy scent of the trees, the smell of eggs grew stronger, and heat—difficult to feel in the North—drifted toward us.
By this point, I was about 90 percent certain, but to fill in the final ten percent, we went a little deeper into the forest.
At last, Heter and I could see the source of the smell with our own eyes.
“It’s larger than the one I saw in the East.”
“Amazing.”
In the middle of the forest, a natural hot spring sent steam curling upward as it met the cold air.