At The End Of The Hidden Greenery

Chapter 13

Jiwoo understood belatedly in the middle of the forest why she was told to hold on tight. If she had let go, she would definitely float in that state.

Lanceil jumped through the trees and started moving quickly. He did not show any signs of difficulty even when he was carrying Jiwoo in one arm.

He wasn’t slow at all, either.

It felt like a cool breeze was blowing as Lanceil moved between the large branches. She had to hold it with one hand as the hood came off in the strong wind, but the clear breeze felt good.

The surrounding scenery moved quickly.

“Wow…”

Jiwoo lifted the hood slightly and looked around.

If it wasn’t for Lanceil, she wouldn’t have been able to see the forest from such a high vantage point. She knew what kind of place this forest was, but it was even more amazing.

Before the carriage accident, Jiwoo knew where she was heading. Jiwoo wanted to distance herself from the crown prince even for a while, so she forced herself to go to the most barren land in the empire.

And this was a forest close to what the empire called the ‘border’.

It wasn’t a complete realm of magical beasts, but it wasn’t a place frequented by humans either. It would never be considered a safe place.

As Jiwoo also confirmed firsthand, beasts roamed in this forest. Even Lanceil, who seemed accustomed to the forest, had suffered severe injuries from a beast and was dying when they met.

Also, there were rumors that there lived people of the other race who rejected humans. Of course, the first one Jiwoo met was Lanceil. Although Lanceil was kind to her, there was no guarantee that the others would be the same.

In the first place, in the empire, there was a reason that these races called ‘Children of Elandos’ were called ‘pointed ears’. It was their characteristics of having long ears, but they did not stop at excluding humans, but mercilessly killed them when they encountered humans.

They live on the border facing the realm of the beasts, so humans rarely encounter them, but if the access is easier and the dangers of the beasts have increased, the militant empire may have declared war earlier.

As such, humans and these races did not get along well.

Crucially, they did not believe in divine power.

The crown prince saw them as objects of indoctrination, not as equal beings who people could coexist or exchange with.

‘What Lanceil said is true…’

However, Lanceil’s attitude was somewhat unexpected to Jiwoo. They had been frantically intermingling their bodies for days and days, but his initial promise hadn’t changed.

It seemed like he was willing to let her go if she really wanted to go back. Jiwoo thought he would tell her not to go.

‘I thought you fell in love with me, but you didn’t…’

What Lanceil said wasn’t just a kind of goodwill. He thanked her for saving his life, so he declared that his life now belongs to Jiwoo.

But in fact… words were just words. There was a high possibility that Jiwoo had misunderstood.

Jiwoo came to this world and experienced countless nonsensical words. The temple was like that, and the Crown Prince was like that as well.

The crown prince would also go outside the temple with Jiwoo and say that Akarna has the meaning of ‘lovely lover’ without any meaning and she was the only one who mistook it and her heart fluttered for nothing.