Chapter 1 – Encounter

Heidi Franz’s life had generally been rushing toward the worst. From major things like her birth to minor things like what ended up on the table for a meal. The outcomes given to her usually leaned toward the bad side.

The first pancake she picked up would have its underside completely burned, or the handle of a perfectly fine pot would break precisely when she grabbed it. Or a perfectly normal shop would catch fire right after Heidi visited it.

As if someone had arranged it all, whether trivial or serious, it always ended with an unwanted wound trailing behind.

[You’re saying I can go visit my sister?]

So even after this trip had been decided, it was not as though she felt no anxiety. The process had gone too smoothly, and that made her uneasy, but she tried to think of it in a positive way.

Right. So many unlucky things had crashed into her throughout her short life, so perhaps this was some small compensation. She did not believe in God, but if the journey ended safely, she had even decided she would offer a prayer….

“Cough.”

Heidi writhed as she forced out a heavy breath. The air was stifling. When she wiped her face with her right hand, she felt damp grains of sand and a sticky liquid. How had this suddenly happened again? She struggled desperately to work through her clouded head. But the violent coughing, so fierce it made her chest ache, made it impossible to focus.

After waiting for her breathing to settle somewhat, she frowned at the splitting headache that came next. Then this time, absentmindedly, she tried to move the arm and leg on the other side.

“Aah!”

A scream burst out of her. A horrifying pain she had never felt before struck her whole body. Tears, purely physical, streamed down her face like rainwater before she could stop them. From her tightly bitten lips came the metallic taste of blood.

Drawing in ragged breaths, she clenched her chattering teeth and endured the pain. Then she put strength into her leg once more.

“Hngh……!”

A burning pain flared below her knee, but fortunately from the thigh upward her leg obeyed as she wanted. Deeply relieved, Heidi finally opened her thoroughly wet eyes.

Her moisture-blurred vision was so dark that she could hardly make out even an inch ahead. Putting aside her alarm, she steadied herself with a mind sharpened instead by the pain and retraced what had happened just before. The pounding rain drenching her entire body, and the rough hands grabbing her shoulders.

‘I ran all the way down the mountain, and yet….’

Perhaps trying to escape had been impossible from the start. Her opponents were a seasoned knight and mercenaries who made their money pushing through every kind of danger. No matter how fast she was, she was only an ordinary woman, and those who were used to catching and cutting people had closed in quickly

But at that very moment. Just as the mercenary with the vicious scar turned her around, the mountain, unable to withstand the torrential rain, collapsed.

‘Should I call that lucky?’

Letting out a hollow laugh, Heidi slowly moved her eyes, now adapting to the darkness. The breaths she deliberately released were uneven because of the pain, but not desperate. The earth, soaked with the rain that had poured down in such a short time, could not have been light.

Yet though breathing was difficult, she wondered why she could not feel any crushing weight pressing on her chest. Looking more closely, she saw that huge rocks were piled haphazardly around her.

Even while fleeing, all she had seen around her were towering trees and small stones. If there were rocks this large, then they had surely come tumbling down from above with the earth.

“So I really am lucky.”

To have merely lost consciousness with injuries that did not immediately threaten her life was truly ‘good fortune.’ Even if one side of her limbs was broken, she was still breathing.

[D*mn it! I can’t die here……!]

Her dirt-streaked lips trembled. Thanks to the mercenary who had shoved Heidi aside to avoid the falling earth, she had ended up surviving instead.

‘Cowardly, underhanded bastard.’

That was why your comrades abandoned you. Heidi criticized the mercenary, whose fate she did not know, while enduring the pain that rose from time to time. Tears still poured without pause, but she ignored them.

First, she had to hold on. At the final moment, she had seen the mercenary who had been farthest behind suddenly run toward the village in a panic. If she just endured, someone would come here.

‘But can I stay alive here until then?’

The ground against her back was damp, and because of her wet clothes and the blood that would not stop, her body temperature was dropping rapidly. The rain clearly was not about to stop soon, so no matter how fast they came, rescue would still take quite a while.

For a moment, Heidi simply let her body go limp. Was it because she had come face-to-face with a life-threatening situation? Negative thoughts slowly crept in, coiling around her arms and legs. If she were rescued before she died. Would it even matter? The only thing waiting for her was a marriage she did not want.

[I received a letter from Emilia.]

Her father’s shameless face as he said those words rose before her. How could he wear such an unconcerned expression? When he had made plans to sell his daughter off to an old nobleman.

‘Then again. He was the same when he sent my older sister and older brother away in similar fashion.’

Even when he pushed his eldest son and eldest daughter onto the battlefield in exchange for a large payment, he had not hesitated. The day he took that bundle of money was the brightest smile Heidi had ever seen on his face.

She laughed aloud without bothering to calm her violently trembling body. Whether because of the continuing blood loss or the pain, her mind was growing increasingly hazy.

‘Emilia.’

For no reason, she softly called her sister’s name in her mind. Had that letter asking her to come truly been real? From beginning to end it had certainly been Emilia’s handwriting, but if it was her money-blinded father, there was nothing strange about him scheming something.

‘……Maybe my sister helped Father.’

Now that she thought about it, too many things had been strange. Emilia’s sudden message after years without news, and her father’s attitude in allowing the trip so readily. The sense of wrongness she had pushed aside in her excitement swallowed her all at once.

Heidi had already lost three siblings. Her eldest brother and elder sister on the battlefield, and her third sister to her husband’s *buse. There was no rule saying Emilia would be any different. If even if she survived, all that remained was sacrifice for the sake of her father alone….

‘Wouldn’t it be better to die here instead?’

She felt a cold so severe that not only was she trembling, but now even her teeth were knocking together. Her thought of forcing her way out between the rocks and digging through the dirt disappeared like snowflakes melting in water. Her consciousness was growing dimmer and dimmer.

‘Is this death?’

A deep drowsiness came over her. Through her dazed mind, the face that had been wavering before her as though naturally present ever since she regained consciousness rose vividly. Heidi carefully moved her lips around the name and no longer held back her heavy eyelids.

And then, just before she sank into complete silence. Boom! Suddenly, with a loud crash, light flooded before her. A cool wind came first, followed by a fierce stream of water pouring over her face.

“So this is where you were. It’s good to see you, Heidi.”

The voice that woke her through the pounding rain was a pleasant low one. Heidi’s consciousness, which had been drifting near the river of death, slowly rose, drawn along by the sound.

“Are you conscious? Oh dear…. I didn’t know it would be like this….”

The warm voice broke off and resumed, over and over. It was not the voice she had been hoping for. Who is it? The question slipped in between the flickers of her mind, but she found no proper answer.

Her tightly shut eyelids trembled. The man spoke to her a few more times, then clicked his tongue and fell silent. Soon after, a gentle hand supported the back of her neck.

“Excuse…… me.”

After that word asking her leave, the hand on the other side firmly grasped Heidi’s arm, hidden beneath the rock. A strength that was powerful yet never rough pulled her fully limp body with startling ease.

“Hup!”

Her stifled breathing opened in an instant. Through the gap in her confused mind, Heidi forced her eyes open. The first things she saw were rain-soaked, pure white hair and golden eyes shining like the moon. As if waiting for it, their gazes met.

“Oh, right. I should have asked this first.”

Those beautiful eyes curved into crescents.

“I am going to save you, but is that all right?”

“……Yes, save……”

Moving her stiffened lips and barely asking for help, she lost consciousness just like that.