Now that she looked, the towel she had assumed he would naturally have wrapped around his lower half was nowhere to be found.

“Your knight is awfully loud.”

The man responsible for the primordial n*dity on display simply complained with an indifferent face and walked right up to Rose.

“Here, your ring.”

He stood in front of her, weight shifted to one leg without a care in the world, and held out the ring.

Rose stared up at him, dumbstruck.

She was only human. Controlling where her eyes naturally went, toward the object dangling at eye level and radiating an overwhelming presence, was no easy feat.

Her gaze landed, unavoidably, on the heavy thing hanging between his legs, before her considerable self-control dragged it back up to his face.

His expression was perfectly composed.

“Shall I put it on for you?”

He means the ring, right?

“Hand it over.”

Rose shot her hand out and snatched the ring from him. She ignored the burning heat creeping up to the tips of her ears.

Interesting. Does a man’s sword really keep growing in proportion with the rest of him?

“Hmm.”

Pretending to have absolutely no interest in what she had just seen, she deliberately kept her expression cool and held the ring up to the evening light.

Gleam. The flawless, vivid gemstones caught the red of the setting sun and blazed beautifully. The crystal that seemed to mimic a rose diamond in particular sparkled with a liveliness like a rose petal made transparent by magic.

It was dazzling enough to make her forget the shocking sight of the male anatomy she had just witnessed.

Wow, so a stone like this actually exists in the world……

Rose turned the ring over and over in her hands, marveling at it.

A light dwelled within it, as though it had swallowed all the beauty in the world. Staring at it in a daze, the other colors around the gem seemed to fade, and eventually even sound felt like it was dissolving away.

I’ve never seen a stone this beautiful……

“Let me try……”

She set the candy pouch down on the bank behind her with her left hand, then carefully slipped the ring onto her left ring finger, taking care not to drop it in the water.

Wait, it fits me perfectly?

The corners of her mouth curved up on their own.

“Do you like it, Rose?”

The man’s voice drifted down from above her head, soft and unhurried, as though she hadn’t completely forgotten he existed.

A baritone pitched slightly high. A few years ago it had been a smooth tenor, and a few years before that it had sounded almost like a girl’s voice, close to Rose’s own.

“Well……”

Rose shook off the old memories that had unexpectedly resurfaced and tilted her head up. She gathered her gaze from where it had, unfortunately, landed at eye level, and pulled it all the way up to his face.

“It’s not bad.”

She didn’t want to be too generous. But she couldn’t hide the way her lips twitched with deep satisfaction.

A smile rose on Jade’s face too, the kind that looked like a masterwork carved by a legendary sculptor.

“My candy?”

He opened an empty palm.

Rose picked up the candy pouch and placed it in his hand. Without thinking, she was careful to keep her fingertips from brushing his palm.

“Let’s see how it tastes.”

Right there, Jade opened the candy pouch with wet hands and drew out a single piece wrapped in wax paper. He placed the candy on his red tongue and turned away with a satisfied look.

His walk was a lazy, unhurried saunter, like a lion returning home after a pleasant stroll. Swish, swish, his retreating figure cut through the water, and the whole of his back seemed to be humming a little tune.

“That, that uncultured, shameless beast, not even bothering to cover his pale backside in front of our Miss……!”

“Leave him, Terra.”

Rose’s mood had lifted. She smiled and turned the new ring on her finger.

“What’s wrong with being n*ked. It’s perfectly natural for a wild animal, isn’t it?”

Besides, it had been an interesting sight. No reason to complain.

Still, where had he gotten a ring like this? What craftsman had made it? It would be wonderful to commission a necklace or earrings in the same style. She couldn’t exactly ask Camelot for something like that. Maybe she could find a roundabout way to place an order in secret?

Rose glanced over at Jade with a wistful feeling.

He was sitting across from her, working the candy slowly in his mouth and humming a low tune.

The moment their eyes met, smiles broke across both their faces at the same time.

“Do you like the candy, Jade?”

Rose returned the question he had asked her earlier, her smile warm and unhurried.

Jade savored the candy melting on his tongue as though reluctant to let it go, and answered slowly.

“Mm. It’s sweet.”

The smile that settled gently at the corners of his eyes was more than enough to resurrect his old reputation as the most handsome man in the Empire and then some.

Honestly, for a Camelot gorilla, his face was a little wasted on him. Just a little.

Rose closed her eyes and rested the back of her head against the edge of the spring. A long, unhurried breath slipped through her warm lips. She curled her fingers loosely into a fist, careful not to let the ring slip off, and sank into the rest she had been craving.

Ah. This moment is sweet……

“……”

She opened her eyes only when her whole body had grown so languid she felt she might dissolve into the water.

Had she dozed off?

Above her, the night sky had fully settled in, scattered with glittering stars.

“……Did I sleep long, Terra?”

The surroundings felt strangely quiet. The chirring of insects and the sounds of forest creatures filled the air, yet something felt oddly absent.

“You slept for a little while. I was just about to wake you.”

Ah. Jade was gone.

“Hmm.”

Rose looked at the empty spot across from her, now still and quiet where the man had been sitting.

“We should hurry, Miss. If you stay any longer, the lord will be furious. Come, let’s get you out of those wet clothes first.”

He had left without a sound.

Not that they were the type to exchange warm farewells.

He had always appeared without warning and vanished just as abruptly.

“……No rush. Father won’t be up until morning anyway, not after drinking that much.”

Rose stepped into the small portable shelter Terra had set up and changed out of her wet clothes. She wrung the water from her curly rose-tinted hair, gave it a rough shake, and let it fall loose past her shoulders.

She stretched her freshly dried arms wide and was about to mount her horse when she paused and looked back at the hot spring.

The summer scene looked somehow unfamiliar, and she felt as though she had been dreaming. Perhaps she hadn’t fully woken from her light sleep.

Jade had come back……

The fact that he had been here until just moments ago. That she had spoken with a man she hadn’t seen in years as naturally as if they met every day, and traded things with him.

It felt like a midsummer night’s dream.

Maybe the time she had crossed paths with him in front of Siset’s grave long ago was the same.

Maybe even the time, further back still, when she had held his hand on a journey.

Perhaps all of it had been a dream……

Rose looked down at her left hand.

In the moonlight, the crystal that resembled a rose diamond glimmered on her ring finger.

The trophy shining clearly on her hand seemed to solemnly remind her that everything that had happened until now had been real.

“Let’s go home, Terra.”

Rose smiled, swung up onto her horse, and spurred it forward.

With a lightness in her body she hadn’t felt before, she cleared the hot spring grounds in no time. Shaking off the swarming monsters and breaking through the fog forest was over in the blink of an eye.