After being tormented by Kashan until the early hours of the morning and finally falling asleep, Seria was awakened by him again a short time later.

“Kashan…?”

Unlike usual, Kashan seemed to have been busy since early morning, even though the sun had only just risen. He had already bathed and was fully armoured, just like the day before.

Seeing him like that, Seria, still groggy and trying to gather her scattered thoughts, managed to ask, “Are you going somewhere again today?”

But to her surprise, his answer was nothing short of shocking.

“You’re coming with me today, Seria.”

“W-what?”

Coming along? She didn’t even know where he was going and now he suddenly said she had to come with him? Seria asked again with a blank expression on her face. But the answer she got was the same.

“Get ready to leave.”

Kashan even went so far as to fetch some water for her to wash up in and placed it in front of her as he spoke.

“We have to go somewhere together today.”

Somewhere together? So early in the morning? What on earth could that be? Seria blinked in confusion, still unable to make sense of Kashan’s words.

“Where are we going?”

‘Was he really planning to find a doctor, as he had mentioned the other day?’

Her curiosity grew, but Kashan didn’t seem inclined to explain. Instead, he silently helped her wash and prepare her clothes.

***

“Kashan, where are we really going?”

Seria couldn’t shake the feeling that something unusual was going on. Before, her question had been out of simple curiosity, but now an inexplicable feeling of unease gnawed at her, forcing her to ask again with more urgency.

It was no wonder she felt uneasy – most of the Kuth tribe were fully armed and mounting their horses one by one. Leading the group were Kashan and Seria.

To anyone watching, the situation was undeniably strange. The atmosphere was tense, the expressions on everyone’s faces grim, and there was a suffocating tension in the air.

“This won’t take long.”

Kashan said as he placed Seria on the horse in front of him.

It was only the second time in her life that Seria had ridden a horse. Once again, getting on was no easy task. With Kashan’s help, she barely managed to get on the horse.

But being on it didn’t solve all her problems. Once in the saddle, Seria looked down at the ground, then squeezed her eyes shut.

‘It’s so high…’

Once on the horse, the ground still seemed dizzyingly far away. Her body tensed completely, stiff as a board, while her mind spun with terrifying images of falling and hurting herself.

As she sat frozen, something firm pressed gently against her back – it was Kashan’s chest. He wrapped his arms around her protectively, as if she were something precious, and took hold of the reins.

“Let’s go.”

With a sharp crack of the reins against the horse’s back, the once stationary animal began to move, gradually picking up speed. As her horse took off, the others followed suit, their riders urging them forward one by one.

At that moment, Seria had no idea what lay ahead, or who she was about to meet.

How long had they been riding with her in Kashan’s arms? Somewhere along the way, the landscape began to change. It wasn’t a drastic change, but the utterly unfamiliar landscape of the Kuth tribe’s territory began to give way to something that was faintly familiar to Seria.

Now that she was somewhat accustomed to the horse’s pace, Seria cautiously opened her eyes and took in her surroundings, curiosity bubbling in her mind.

After a while, her horse began to slow down.

“Are we there?”

“Yes.”

As the pace slowed, Seria immediately began to scan her surroundings with anticipation.

But then she froze.

Not far away stood a group of people dressed in the distinctive robes of Imperial Knights.

“R-royal knights?”

The sight of Imperial Knights after such a long time startled and confused Seria, but only for a moment. Among them, an all too familiar voice called out her name.

“Seria!”

There was no need to look to confirm the owner of that voice – it was one she had heard all her life, one she knew better than any other.

At that moment, Seria felt a strange and unfamiliar sensation as every hair on her body stood on end.

“…Father?”

Yes, without a doubt, it was the voice of her only father, Count Luzent.

Her body reacted before her mind could process it. Her eyes darted anxiously through the crowd, searching for him.

Kashan remained silent, just watching her with an unreadable expression.

Finally, a middle-aged man, the spitting image of Seria, emerged from the knights, panting as he rushed forward. He called out to her with open arms as he approached the horse she was riding.

“Oh, Seria! You’re safe!”

“F-Father… what is going on…?”

Seria stammered, her voice trembling with confusion.

He approached her with such overwhelming joy, as if he would embrace her at any moment. But Seria couldn’t bring herself to take her father’s outstretched hand.

There was something deeply unsettling about the emotion he radiated, despite the tears in his eyes and his parrot-like repetition of her name.

But that wasn’t all.

“Vulgar thing. What were you doing out there?”

“You leave the capital. Far to the south. I’ll even find you a doctor there.”

“If word of this gets back to the palace, it’ll ruin your chances of marriage. This is all for your sake, you must understand.”

Those horrifying words he had once spoken echoed relentlessly in her mind.

‘You… you abandoned me here… and now this? What is going on?’

Why was her father suddenly acting as if he had come for her?

A shiver ran down her arms, her skin crawling with unease. Her stomach churned, threatening to revolt.

“What are you doing, my dear? Come here. Come to your father, hmm?”

The count spoke in a tone that seemed gentle and loving, like a doting parent. But it wasn’t the voice Seria knew.

The exaggerated high-pitched tone, the overly dramatic facial expressions and gestures – it all felt wrong. The discomfort she felt from her father was so intense that it made her nauseous.

“Ugh…”

“Are you all right?”

Kashan patted her back from behind, whispering in a reassuring tone.

“Kashan, w-what is this… what are you doing?”

Seria whispered fiercely, her voice shaking as she slapped his hand away.

“You said there was a place we could go. Was this it? And how… how did you summon my father here in the first place…?”

Her words came out in a mixture of anger and disbelief, her voice shaking more and more. Her shoulders hunched, giving her the look of a frightened prey animal.