THCF 10

Chapter 10

‘If I had not come here…… I heard that he would have already left for the next place of inspection a few days ago. Normally, he would never have experienced this forest fire.’

Lea bit her lips over and over.

‘Is it because of me?’

Lea thought seriously for a while before falling back onto the bed.

‘Anyway, I already changed the future the moment I returned. I knew beforehand that everything could change.’

She turned onto her side. Her hair seemed to be sticking to her cheek, making it tickle.

‘I thought he would keep me there all night, asking me all sorts of questions…….’

She turned to the other side because the position was uncomfortable.

‘It’s not that he didn’t ask. He must have postponed it. He will definitely call me tomorrow and question me about everything. If he does that, I won’t just stay quiet either. Should I tell him to take responsibility because he stole my first kiss? I wonder what kind of expression he’ll make.’

She imagined Karion’s stunned expression and giggled before turning over again.

‘……He looked uncomfortable earlier. Is he all right? It was surprising that he went alone to save a child from the forest village. I thought he was a cold person, but……. Anyway, I’m glad he found the child.’

As soon as they returned to the base, a soldier had said that it had been a misunderstanding and the child had not actually been missing.

Lea was impressed that Karion had not gotten annoyed and had simply said, ‘As long as we found the child, that’s enough.’

‘Just as expected from His Highness’s son. He has compassion for people.’

She kept tossing and turning before finally falling asleep.

—Wake up.

“Hm?”

Lea opened her eyes wide.

It was the voice of the spirit.

Sometimes, the spirit sent a clear will to her.

Most of the time, it was a warning.

The spirit’s will sounded similar to a human voice.

—Stop it.

‘Stop what?’

—It will explode.

‘What will explode?’

—Fire.

Lea immediately got up and climbed down from the bed.

‘Did the forest fire grow again?’

She looked out the window.

People moving around to clean up the area could be seen as shadows in the darkness, but they did not seem to be in a hurry.

She quietly opened the bedroom door.

The hallway was quiet, and there was no one around.

From the other side of the dark hallway, wind blew toward her.

It was showing her the way, telling her to come this way.

She followed the wind down the hallway and arrived in front of a door.

‘Whose room is this?’

The guards of the residence were less strict than usual.

Perhaps because of the disturbance caused by the forest fire, everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere. She had not seen anyone on the way here.

She looked around and carefully opened the door before quickly slipping inside.

As she looked around the dark bedroom, she heard a faint groan.

She approached the bed where the groan was coming from and froze in surprise.

“Your Highness?”

Karion was breathing heavily, his face twisted in pain.

Not knowing what to do, Lea stood there for a moment before sitting on the edge of the bed.

After hesitating several times, she reached out and placed her hand on his forehead.

His hand suddenly grabbed her wrist.

Their eyes met.

After returning to the base, Karion heard the good news that the wind had changed direction and the forest fire was weakening.

Normally, he would have stayed up all night and commanded the cleanup.

But although his body had felt refreshed until he left the forest, his condition gradually began to feel strange.

His body became heavy, and his head throbbed. It seemed that the aftereffects of his seizure had appeared late.

He decided that it would be better to rest until morning and returned to his bedroom.

He was more or less fine until he finished bathing and lay down on the bed.

As time passed, his fever rose, his breath became hot, and his body became limp like wet cotton.

The symptoms were clearly different from the seizure he called the ‘curse.’

If the seizure felt like being thrown into a burning fire, this felt like being placed in water that was slowly coming to a boil.

‘Is this the flu?’

He had only heard about this kind of illness. He had never actually suffered from it.

Other than his chronic illness, which he called a curse, he had never even caught an ordinary cold. He had always been healthy.

He felt miserable at the thought that he had fallen ill with something as simple as body aches and tried to sleep.

By the time he realized that ‘something was wrong,’ his mind had become hazy and his limbs had lost their strength. He did not even have the energy to call anyone.

As he lay there, almost giving up, he felt an energy slowly boiling deep inside his body.

He had a vague certainty that the energy would eventually devour him and burn him away.

‘Am I going to die like this?’

He did not particularly cling to life, but he had never wished for such a meaningless death.

‘The princess.’

Why, at a moment like this, was the person flashing through his mind that woman with green eyes?

Wind brushed against his face.

Was he now hallucinating so badly that he could even feel things that did not exist?

There should not be any wind inside the bedroom…….

His forehead suddenly felt cool, and strength returned to his limp body.

He grabbed the wrist of whoever was touching his forehead.

She appeared blurry.

As his mind became a little clearer, he realized that he was not seeing an illusion.

‘The princess!’

Was this what it felt like to see hope at the end of despair?

In the darkness, she seemed to be shining.

But he did not want hope.

Rather than holding something only to lose it, it would be better if it had never existed in the first place.

So he spoke in a stiff tone.

“What are you…… doing in my room right now?”

The moment his hand grabbed her arm, the wind blew.

It was a wind only she could feel.

Lea suddenly felt as if all sound had disappeared, leaving her alone in a completely white, empty space.

It was a sign that all her senses had entered an extreme realm beyond human limits.

It was not something she could achieve through her own will. Whenever the wind spirit needed to tell her something important, it would lead her into this state.

She saw an illusion of fierce flames burning as if they would consume the entire world.

Then she heard Nella’s voice.

⌜You are lucky. You have fully awakened the power of a spirit.⌟

⌜What does a complete awakening mean? How do you know about it?⌟

⌜Because you are alive.⌟

⌜……What?⌟

Nella already knew a great deal about the ancient spirits that had been forgotten by the world.

She had said that the reason spirits were forgotten in the present age was because the chance of awakening them was so low.

⌜If you do not achieve a complete awakening, a weak human body like yours will be caught up in the spirit’s rampage and torn apart. Boom, it explodes.⌟

‘A spirit’s rampage!’

Lea looked directly into Karion’s silver-gray eyes.

“Your Highness. Please answer my question honestly. Since when have you been in this condition? Was it from when you saw the forest fire earlier?”

Karion slowly closed his eyes and opened them again.

The reason he was holding her wrist was not to push her away, but to make sure she could not leave.

Just making contact with her made him feel as if a small opening had been created through which he could breathe.

“What condition?”

“The energy running wild inside Your Highness’s body right now. I’m asking when that energy started troubling you.”

Karion stared at Lea.

As expected, this woman knew about his curse.

And he knew the exact answer to her question.

“The autumn of the year I turned ten.”

“Ten years old? Since you were that young…….”

Lea swallowed the question, ‘How are you still alive?’

“Did these symptoms also appear in the forest earlier?”

“Is the princess a mage?”

“What?”

“When the princess touches me, the curse calms down.”

“……The curse?”

“The curse.”

After saying that, Karion turned his head away.

But his hand was still holding her.

“That isn’t a curse, but……. Then how exactly does it calm down?”

“I…… can breathe.”

Lea’s green eyes widened as she murmured.

“So that’s why earlier.”

‘Did he kiss me because of that?’

A complete picture came together in her mind.

‘The wind energy is calming the fire energy that is running wild because it is incomplete.’

She did not know why the power of the spirit he had awakened when he was young was now running wild.

But since this had never happened in her previous life, the future must have changed because she came here and met him.

If the spirit’s rampage could not be stopped, he would die.

Nella’s voice echoed in her ears.

⌜Lea. The wind spirit represents harmony and flow. It embraces other spirits that clash with each other. It is a gentle power.⌟

‘No.’

She could not let him—the son of that person—die here and now.

He should have lived for at least another ten years even if left alone.

For him to die young because of her, what a terrible thing that would be.

She would have no face to meet that person even after death, and there would be no meaning in living this life again.

“Wait a moment!”

Lea shook off his hand that was holding her wrist, climbed onto the bed, and sat astride his body.

“Excuse me.”

She looked into his surprised silver-gray eyes, then immediately lowered her upper body and pressed her lips against his.

Karion’s body stiffened for a moment, but his hesitation was brief.

He cupped her face in his hands, sucked her lips into his, and actively deepened the kiss.