The Betrayer's Embrace
“Kyieeeek!”
The scream of the monster twisted with the air-splitting, razor-sharp sonic boom as the moment of death approached.
“Commander!”
“Why are all of you standing there like idiots! Attack already!”
Hendrick’s appearance flipped the battlefield. In the midst of the knights with surging morale colliding again, Hendrick slaughtered the monsters with a skill on another level.
“Lizbel sister, are you alright?”
Isaac had run over and was supporting Lizbel. Only then did Lizbel startle, gasping roughly.
“Hah… hah…”
It seemed she had forgotten how to breathe in that split second. Lizbel stood frozen like a doll without a soul amid the sounds of swords clashing and shouts echoing all around.
“Professor Belrok, are you okay?”
When she came to her senses, the surroundings had already calmed. In the shadow of Hendrick blocking her vision, Lizbel slowly raised her head.
“Professor Belrok?”
She had almost died.
If it weren’t for this man, she would have been crushed and torn apart by the monster’s huge fangs, meeting a horrific end.
“It seems treatment is necessary.”
Hendrick looked at Lizbel, who showed no reaction as if her soul had left, and let out a short sigh. Then he bent his tall body towards her.
“I’ll carry you.”
“No.”
Isaac, who knew their past relationship well, offered to do it himself, but Hendrick lightly dismissed his suggestion and lifted Lizbel into his arms.
“Since the damage is severe, we need to quickly clean up this place and move to a nearby village.”
Hendrick gave the order in a monotonous, emotionless tone, unlike someone who had just finished a fierce battle. He placed Lizbel on the horse first, then mounted behind her.
“Don’t fall behind, everyone! Hah!”
Before the exploration team members could say anything, Hendrick urged the horse and left the spot without hesitation. His leather gloves gripping the reins tightened with a creak.
* * *
It seemed the battle with the monsters had given Lizbel a significant shock, as she immediately began to suffer from high fever and severe convulsions.
“Lizbel sister…”
Isaac had been nursing her for three days straight.
In the meantime, quite a few events and changes had occurred in the exploration team.
'The knight is shameless. Throwing a weaker woman than himself to the monsters just to save his life.'
'Sorry, I was wrong. Please forgive me!'
'Although she's a sinner, she's a precious talent carrying out His Majesty's imperial order right now. Your stupid revenge was going to ruin His Majesty's task. Now you know the weight of what you've done?'
Isaac vividly testified to the knights’ vile gossip as well as the cowardly act of dragging Lizbel out from hiding to throw her in front of the monsters. Starting from this, those who insulted the leader and disrupted discipline were all stripped of their knighthood and dismissed. The knights who had subtly insulted Lizbel were also held accountable and expelled from the exploration team.
“Everyone who tormented my sister has been punished and left. There won’t be such incidents anymore, so stop sulking and get up.”
The emperor expressed regret for the situation and said he would quickly add new knights, but Hendrick was firm. He said he couldn’t trust anyone outside his own faction and immediately summoned the Grand Duchy’s direct knights to the site. However, before they could reorganize the formation, a dungeon broke out near the village where they had been staying.
“I wanted to nurse more, but I’m sorry I couldn’t stay by your side for long. The monsters in the second dungeon are strong and numerous, so there were many injured.”
In fact, Isaac was a rare talent with holy power on the continent. It was thanks to that that he could participate in the battlefield as a priest, and even after the battle, he had to keep moving to provide healing to the critically injured.
But even in that grueling time, Isaac would slip into Lizbel’s room whenever he had a moment and take care of her.
“Ah, Leader.”
“…Are you coming back from seeing Professor Belrok again?”
“Yes. It seems she’s about to regain consciousness, but she hasn’t woken up, so I’m very worried.”
To Isaac, who spoke with a sincere, kind face, Hendrick gave a light nod with a stern expression and passed by. Unlike his calm gait, Hendrick’s eyes were deep and dark, like a deep abyss.
“Vice-Commander. Liz… I mean, Professor Belrok is really okay?”
The one asking worriedly was Estelle Lowen, the adjutant of the Grandia Knights, the private knight order of the Hautman Grand Duchy.
Also, having served in the Grandia Knights for a long time, she was the one who had watched over the young Hendrick and Lizbel since their childhood.
“No abnormalities detected.”
“But she hasn’t woken up for days…”
“She was imprisoned in the Sanctuary for three years as a heretic. Combined with accumulated fatigue and almost dying, she’s recovering.”
“That may be so… but it’s sad. She endured such torture after being framed with a crime she didn’t commit…”
“Lowen.”
Estelle had entered the Grand Duchy as an apprentice knight and watched over Lizbel for about ten years. The Lizbel Estelle knew was a born scholar who had no interest in unclear things like heresy.
When she was summoned under the heresy accusation, she had vivid memories of trying to move with her colleagues to clear her name, but being blocked by the upper echelons.
“Officially, Professor Belrok is a heretic. The mission she’s assigned is just that, and we shouldn’t move rashly yet. The warning that getting involved with heretics and the Grand Duchy would only lead to treason, haven’t you forgotten?”
“…I will remember.”
Estelle lowered her head reluctantly after Hendrick’s cold remark. She wanted to object, but since it was a matter concerning the Grand Duchy’s safety, she had no disagreement that Hendrick was right.
'Even so…'
The guilt and pity piercing her heart couldn’t be erased.
What kind of vicious person framed that poor child with such a horrific false accusation. Estelle clenched her fists in frustration.
That night, after Isaac poured out all his healing power on the patients, he returned to Lizbel’s room to watch over her.
Knock knock.
Exhausted from pouring out his holy power to the limit, Isaac slept deeply, not even hearing the sound of someone entering.
“Ugh… ugh…”
A figure that slipped in silently like a ghost without a sound stood still beside Lizbel, who was moaning in her nightmares.
“Hic… I didn’t do that… Save me…”
Even in her dream, she was still being thrown in front of the monsters.
The man’s brows furrowed deeply as he looked down at the suffering Lizbel. Warm hands wringing out a water cloth touched her face covered in sweat like rain.
Following the warmth on her cheek, Lizbel’s consciousness sank into the cruelly nostalgic illusion. In the endless darkness, only the voices of the two people echoed clearly.
The intact tenderness that only the boy could give, which couldn’t be found even a trace of in the current man, came alive vividly.
'Rick, I’m in pain…'
'I know.'
'Ugh, it really hurts a lot…'
'I took medicine, so I’ll be okay soon. I’ll keep changing the water cloth while staying by your side, so stop acting spoiled.'
'Will you really stay by my side…?'
'Yes.'
The monstrous form with gaping jaws completely shattered, and the old fragment that was dazzlingly beautiful to the point of being almost insane appeared. After confirming that Lizbel’s expression gradually softened from relief, the large hand that had been watching over her all night slowly withdrew, leaving behind traces full of reluctance.
'I don’t want to… Don’t go. You said you’d stay by my side!'
When the touch receded, the dream Lizbel cried out urgently. She wanted to reach out and grab the hand going away, but her body wouldn’t move, as if pinned by scissors.
“…Sir. …Miss? Lizbel sister!”
“Hah…!”
Lizbel snapped awake from the stimulus of shaking her body in the pain pressing on her chest. Through her hazy vision, Isaac’s worried face looking down at her came into view.
“Priest…?”
“Ah, you’re finally awake. I’ve been very worried.”
Lizbel stared at Isaac with dazed eyes, then slowly turned her head to look around the room. Strange walls and strange air. The one watching over her was only Isaac.
“Um… Was there anyone else besides Priest Isaac?”
Her form was hazy, but it seemed she had dreamed of the cruelly nostalgic past. And the afterimage of that dream kept lingering around.
“No. No one else has been coming in and out of here since yesterday afternoon.”
“I see…”
It was only natural. Logically, it had to be a delusion. If it were the man she knew, he wouldn’t come to her cautiously wiping sweat and stroking her head.
For the past ‘Rick’, maybe, but for the current Hendrick, it was a luxury she could never hope for.
“Um… What happened to me?”
Lizbel forced down the lonely disappointment spreading from the bottom of her chest, and began to hear through Isaac’s mouth about what had happened during that time.