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75. Engagement – Enen

‘Ah! That’s right. The Uena Tribe is nearby.’

Thanks to the chase after the Black Horse Monster, the Uena Tribe was not far away.

The Uena Tribe, known for cultivating and selling mushrooms. Come to think of it, it was around this time when my childhood friend Leo left the Uena Tribe.

No, actually, it was almost exactly accurate.

On the day the merchant group came to buy mushrooms from the Uena Tribe, I had to flee after being caught with the Holy Mark.

He had escaped to the Hatata Tribe with the help of Euta and Enen’s grandmother.

‘…Should I go and see them now?’

The Euta, who had taught me hunting with warmth, and the adorable Enen, who had insisted on catching insects…

Next week, Leo would take Lena to Lutetia. If I missed the Uena Tribe this time, there might not be another chance.

‘Right. There’s still time until the day I promised Lena.’

Thinking of the warm-hearted siblings settled my uneasy heart. Leo turned the horse’s head south.

Although it would be our first meeting, I thought of briefly teaching Enen, who wanted to hunt, how to set the Sky Hook, and saying hello to the grandmother who had provided us with so much help…

Looking for a little comfort, his gaze turned to the forest thickly growing below the plains.

*

“It’s a knight! The knight has come!”

When Leo arrived at the Uena Tribe village after a whole day of riding, it was broad daylight. The village looked the same as before, but the residents’ reactions were different.

At the shout of a young man working at the entrance, villagers rushed out to surround Leo and murmured excitedly.

“Knight! A monster has appeared!”

“But why have you come alone?”

“We sent a messenger yesterday, how did you arrive so quickly?”

Flustered, Leo dismounted his horse and asked.

“I am not a knight… What’s going on?”

“Ah… So you were not a knight after all.”

The villagers couldn’t hide their disappointment and went away with “tut-tut.” They mistook Leo, who was riding a horse and wielding twin swords, for a knight.

Leo grabbed the young man who shouted first.

“What’s happening?”

Could it be that the escaped Black Horse Monster had come into this village and caused havoc? It shouldn’t be happening in a forest like this…

The young man was looking as if he had other disappointments, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Are you a traveler? Sigh… You came at a bad time. Actually…”

He shared what had happened a few days ago, sounding like a complaint.

It started when one of the village’s kids went missing in the forest. The villagers, both young men and adults, searched the vast forest, only to encounter a gigantic monster.

A monkey-like monster, ‘Oantahu.’

That monster, several times larger and fiercer than a human, was something that the villagers could not possibly handle.

The Uena Tribe was a barbarian tribe that cultivated mushrooms. Without hunting skills, they lacked the ability to confront it, leading to many casualties among the villagers searching for the missing child.

Thus, they urgently sent out a messenger for help, keeping watch over the village against the monster’s invasion, as the young man explained.

Listening to the young man’s story, an ominous feeling crept up Leo’s spine.

‘Could it be…? No way…’

As soon as the young man finished speaking, he hurried his steps toward Euta and Enen’s home.

And the bad feeling didn’t lead him astray. Before he even arrived, he heard Euta’s voice from a distance.

“Grandmother! Stop!”

Euta was angrily holding onto his grandmother’s hem.

The grandmother was dressed in her usual unique priestess attire, and she was in the process of setting up an altar.

“You don’t know yet! She isn’t dead! She’ll come back soon!”

Enen was not present there.

Ignoring Euta’s desperate pleas, the grandmother continued to bow at the altar.

“Oh, Seares, please take care of Enen. That unfortunate child, who died unjustly, was destined to be your priestess. I beg you…”

“Grandmother! Please!”

Leo stood frozen from afar. The grandmother seemed to already know of her granddaughter’s death as she kept bowing, while Euta shouted resentfully that his sister wasn’t dead.

I just wanted to soothe my exhausted heart after distancing myself from Lena.

I wanted to meet those warm siblings and see the grandmother who had shown me her kindness.

But chaos had erupted here as well. As if there wasn’t a place for him to rest anywhere…

Leo didn’t have the courage to intrude into the chaos between the grandmother and grandson.

He turned back to find the young man from earlier and asked where he had seen ‘that monster.’

The young man gave him directions but warned it was dangerous, yet Leo felt no fear.

Enen’s fate was still unknown.

Somehow he felt like he knew the conclusion, but he stubbornly avoided it and entered the forest. By the time the sun was setting, he discovered Enen.

+ + +

A few days ago, during the harvest season, the Uena Tribe sold all the mushrooms they had cultivated.

They could relax until they searched for new logs to grow mushrooms before the winter.

Enen, who had been helping her grandmother grow mushrooms, was free and started to play.

Soon, she would be caught by her grandmother and forced to study to become a priestess.

Until then, she should enjoy while she could!

Having a fondness for insects, Enen rummaged through the bushes. Her older brother Euta was practicing archery with a target hung on a tree.

Euta, who wanted to hunt, showed no interest in insects.

“What’s so fun about those tiny things?”

“How amazing they are! Look at this.”

“Ew… not for me.”

While Euta was engrossed in archery, Enen spotted a fluttering butterfly.

“Wow…”

She chased after the butterfly.

The butterfly, shedding something like pollen as it moved, was eluding her grasp.

‘If I can just find where it lands…’

Enen didn’t realize how deep she had wandered into the forest. Nor did she imagine that someone was watching her with curious eyes.

‘It landed!’

Holding her breath, Enen reached out for the butterfly.

Just a little more, a little more…

At that moment, her vision flipped upside down.

“AAAHHH!”

Through her flipped sight, a gigantic face appeared. Crooked teeth were clearly visible, and a low, flattened nose with inverted nostrils, wrinkled red skin.

There was no trace of mercy or compassion in its crescent-shaped eyes.

– Squeak! Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak!

A violent laugh echoed in the tiny girl’s ears.

Enen fainted, and Oantahu began to rotate the girl it had picked up.

What a fun toy!

– Squeak! Squeak! Squeak squeak!

The huge monkey’s cheerful singing and the girl’s screams continued for a long time.

There was no salvation.

+ + +

Leo held Enen’s torn body.

Limbs that had been chewed a few times and spat out, delicate arms that had been roughly ripped apart, a head bleeding from the ears…

If only I had come just a few days earlier!

He sat down before Enen’s corpse, self-reproachfully. Then,

“AAAHHH!! You bastard! What the hell do you want me to do!!”

He yelled to the sky.

“Damn you! You bastard! Why?! Whyyyyyy-! What did she do wrong?!”

Enen’s death felt like it was his fault. It seemed that the very reason he had grown fond of Enen was leading her to this tragic end.

He couldn’t take it anymore. He really couldn’t endure it any longer.

He felt his mind shatter like glass, tightly clutching his head. Wrapping his arms around his head, he pressed down with all his might.

“Ugh, ugh… Hahaha! Right! This is a game! It’s just a game! It’s a game…! Please…”

In the end, he blurted out words he had never voiced before.

This is just a game. Not a human life, just puppets acting according to a written script. They were not alive.

So there was no reason for attachment, and she was simply destined to die.

Leo brainwashed himself to hold onto his shattered mind.

However, when he cradled Enen’s body, the coldness of the rigid corpse tormented him.

This couldn’t possibly be a game.

This flowing hair couldn’t be fake.

He embraced Enen’s torso and head to his chest, retrieving her limbs, and returned to the village. Once back at the village, he handed over Enen’s body.

Wanting to take revenge, he searched the forest for several days, but Oantahu had disappeared.

There were gigantic palm-like footprints near Enen’s corpse, but there was no trace of what it had done after moving, making pursuit impossible.

It was probably climbing trees.

Not all monsters lingered in one place like Aboandone.

The Black Horse Monster roamed the plains, and the Old Phantom Fox maintained a certain territory around its nest.

Oantahu was different from those. It was a kind of roaming monster, wandering without a home.

Leo left the Uena Tribe feeling even more despondent than when he had arrived.

The cries of a brother unable to accept his sister’s death seemed to echo far and wide.

*

Returning to Count Simon’s family, Leo waited for Lena’s sparring to finish before setting off again.

Towards Lutetia.

He didn’t receive a letter of introduction from the Count since he failed to catch the Black Horse Monster, but he left on his journey nonetheless.

His vision had narrowed.

During the trip, he heard a tragic story about the ‘Agnac Family’ in a territory he passed through, but he didn’t listen.

Leo had no energy to focus on matters unrelated to him, and during the journey, Lena had tried to talk to him several times, but he returned only cold responses.

Enen’s death lingered in his mind.

He shouldn’t grow fond of anyone. Getting attached would only lead to more suffering.

This cruel game was dragging everyone connected to him into a pit of tragedy.

Kasia suffered that way, and Katrina did too.

Lena… was certainly the first target among them.

The Leo in every scenario had loved her.

Lena, who had tried to talk to him, fell silent at his cold response.

By the time fall was in full swing, the two arrived in the capital, Lutetia.

Settling into an inn with a small courtyard, Leo said to Lena, “Wait while I look for someone to spar with.” He left Lena alone in the inn’s courtyard to train and stepped outside.

He needed to find the prince quickly.

His anguish was growing day by day.

As he blended more into Leo, the true Leo’s wishes and his harsh heart were at odds.

There had already been several moments when Leo almost apologized to Lena. Ah! Just in that moment, their relationship, which he had worked hard to put at a distance, seemed to stick firmly.

Luckily, as expected, finding the prince wasn’t difficult. The unreal ability {Tracking Skill} accurately pointed him in the direction of Cleo de Frederick.

He was at the royal palace. As soon as he came out… meeting him would be easy. Gaining the formal qualification to meet the prince was the hard part, not physically finding him.

He also considered the possibility that the prince might not come out.

Leo looked into when the ‘Royal Knight admission test’ would take place and visited the nobles. He was preparing ways to meet the prince.

But everywhere Leo went, he was turned away. Not a single mansion allowed him in, as he was neither a formal knight nor did he have a letter of introduction.

The knight order and the Royal Knight admission test had already concluded, so they would have to wait until next year.

With no other choices, Leo could only loiter around the royal palace, waiting for the prince to come out…

A few days later, on the weekend, the prince appeared outside.

Fearing the prince might come out late, Leo had been watching closely with {Tracking Skill} until late at night; he finally realized the prince had gotten up around lunchtime after sleeping in.

He hurriedly dressed and went outside to find Lena.

She was diligently training by herself in the courtyard as usual.

“Lena, we… No, just wait for me a moment.”

Leo was about to take Lena with him but stopped.

There was no telling what might happen yet.

As long as he didn’t know why the prince had gone south, he couldn’t take Lena with him.

Most likely, it seemed that the rumors about him often going out to hunt were proving true…

He rode south.

The downside of {Tracking Skill} was that it only pointed out the direction but did not indicate the distance to the target. However, it was unlikely he had gone far since he just left that morning.

Keeping his anxious heart in check, Leo maneuvered his horse avoiding a small mountain south of Lutetia… and then slowed the reins.

The further he rode, the more the prince’s direction shifted from south to east.

{Tracking Skill} was pointing toward the mountain he was trying to avoid.

It seemed he indeed went out to hunt.

Lutetia was a city nestled between mountains to the south and east, situated under a river flowing from the northeast to the southwest.

Exiting through the eastern gate of Lutetia brought one to the monastery church, which serves as the center for the Cross Church, so the major facilities of Lutetia tended to be eastward.

For instance, the burial grounds of the Frederick Royal Family were located halfway up the eastern mountain.

In contrast, the southern mountain the prince had entered was nothing special.

Perhaps only woodcutters might wander there?

Since the mountain was small, there wouldn’t be many hunters, making it perfect for someone to hunt in disguise.

Leo entered the mountain. He tied his horse to a tree along the way and quickened his pace.

Following the direction shown by {Tracking Skill}, Leo finally encountered the prince for the second time.

[ Achievement: Met Cleo de Frederick – Gained slight favor from all nobles serving the Frederick Royal Family. Gained slight favor from Cleo de Frederick. ]

Cleo de Frederick hid his identity under ordinary clothing, but his outstanding achievements revealed him to be the prince of the Holy Kingdom.