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Part 5: Separately or Together
Drip drip drip.
The sound of falling water droplets echoed in the distance.  The sound, which at first was very faint but slowly came closer, shook Luisen’s eardrums, arousing his consciousness.
The cold air that leeched the heat from his back was so cold, and on the other hand, the warmth on the other side was so intense that he inadvertently dug deeper into that embrace. He opened his eyes; Luisen realized someone was hugging him.
In front of him was someone’s naked chest–a solid wall. It was a very attractive chest, but why was this the first thing he saw after waking?
Luisen rolled his eyes around. He was held close, hugged by someone, so he couldn’t see the other’s face just through his wandering gaze. The man’s body temperature clung onto and warmed Luisen’s tightly cradled arms and legs.
It had been a long time since he’d woken up staring at an unfamiliar chest, but the situation wasn’t unfamiliar to him. Having lived as trash, he knew that the other would make a fuss if he were to startle; so, he tried to calmly raise himself up. However, the other was faster.
“Have you woken up?”
This voice belonged to Carlton. Carlton, after Luisen woke, had awoken himself. Luisen sat up quickly; at his sudden movement, the leather cape covering the two slipped off. Luisen’s gaze crept towards Carlton’s lower body.
Carlton was wearing pants; Luisen was only wearing underwear but was not completely naked.
‘Ah, what a relief.’ Luisen glanced at Carlton’s face, while thoughts flashed through his mind. “What in the world happened?”
Luisen straightened up and looked around; they were in a very long and narrow cave. The fishy smell of water, soil, and a slight stench of animals were mixed together. The two of them were alone in this cave.
“Where are we? Why are you…embracing me?” the young lord asked.
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I can remember up until I fainted.”
Monsters had attacked out of nowhere from the fog. Ruger turned out to be a spy, and he had fainted with Carlton’s sudden appearance. Everything was vivid.
“After that, I grabbed you, Duke, and ran away. After leaving our hunters behind, I discovered and entered a cave.”
“……And our clothes?”
“Because we jumped into a waterfall, they got soaked. They’re drying over there.”
“You…jumped into a waterfall?”
Waterfall? Did he just hear something crazy…?
Looking where Carlton pointed, Luisen could see their clothes. As he had said, they were damp. “You really jumped….”
Although he was unconscious then and had no memory of that incident, Luisen felt dizzy just imagining it. ‘What would make him think of jumping into a waterfall? I’m alive after all that?’
Carlton misunderstood Luisen’s silence and continued his explanation, “It couldn’t be helped since core body temperature will decrease when you wear wet clothes. And if we light a fire, those bastards may chase us down. But it would be folly to spend all night naked, so I embraced you.”
Carlton was vehemently claiming that not even his fingertips held a black heart or ulterior motives. “There was no other choice. Truly.”
“I understand. This situation is the cause. You must have had a hard time.”
He didn’t need to explain himself; Luisen wouldn’t have misunderstood. After all, Carlton wouldn’t have designs on him like that.
“Yes……” Carlton seemed embarrassed by Luisen’s straightforward answer.
“And the others?”
“I don’t know anything about that. I was too busy running away with you.”
“…….I see.”
There were knights in the escorting party, but there were far more noncombatants whose duty was to attend to Luisen’s life. Could those people have avoided the monsters’ teeth flying towards them from places hidden by the fog?
When Luisen was dragged out of the carriage by the direwolves, he could hear, even in that short hectic moment, people screaming both close by and in the distance. It wasn’t hard to imagine what might have happened to the party. More than a few people probably died. Feeling nauseous, Luisen tightly closed his mouth.
The fact that this was all caused by Ruger tore at Luisen’s chest. He pretended to be calm, like he felt nothing in front of Ruger, but that couldn’t be more wrong. He was the one who hired Ruger and kept him by his side, after all.
“Now then, Duke, tell me your side of the story. Ruger, what is he? He seemed like a completely different person,” Carlton said.
Luisen nodded slowly. Ruger *did* seem like a completely different person. He looked like a competent knight, not an arrogant servant, with all of his fine armor equipped. The frivolous speech pattern that didn’t fit the knightly look was ironic, because that was Ruger’s usual way of speaking.
So it hit the young lord even harder that the Ruger he knew was false. The man had the same reproachable mouth, but the facade of a loyal servant was all lies. “Ruger was a spy.”
“I see. Did you find out whose spy he was?”
Luisen shook his head. “I don’t know who’s behind him. You don’t seem very surprised? I was utterly shocked to discover Ruger was a spy.” After he had escaped the situation and came to a safe place, the emotions he had temporarily delayed came roaring in like waves and overwhelmed Luisen’s head. His heart ached with a sense of betrayal and shock.
“I’m not too surprised; he seemed like someone who could do such things.”
“Ruger seemed like that to you? To me, he was a faithful servant.”
“My duke, you seemed particularly comfortable with him, but I can’t say he was loyal. Hasn’t he always disappeared from time to time? Even when you were left behind in the village, he deliberately provoked others.”
“…..Ah.”
Come to think of it, when he was abandoned in the village and got caught up in the riots, a knife flew at his blind spot. Was Ruger also the culprit of that?
In retrospect, that wasn’t the only suspicious occurrence. After Luisen surrendered to Carlton, Ruger often disappeared when significant incidents passed by.
“Actually, I don’t know what the duke believed and saw in him,” Carlton said.
Luisen shut his mouth abruptly. ‘For my sake, Ruger was caught and killed by you.’
So, the young lord ignored his suspicions and buried them away. He didn’t doubt despite the suspicious happenings; Ruger proved his loyalty with his death.
But Ruger spoke as if Luisen’s midnight escape would also function to secure his own safety, and because the young lord surrendered and did not run away, the attendant had to reveal himself.
If that was the case, did Ruger truly die in the previous timeline? Was getting captured on behalf of his master all part of a plan? Luisen did not see Ruger’s body and only strongly believed in his death due to the circumstances.
“I suppose. I was a fool.”  Luisen lowered his head into both hands in distress.
The lord’s face was as pale as a corpse, and his half-dried hair hung limply. His gaze wandered anxiously through the air. Perhaps that was why Carlton felt even more sorry for him; the mercenary’s hand flinched.
Usually, Carlton would have laughed at him for believing in that kind of bastard like a fool, but instead he just felt sorry for Luisen. Would he have trusted Ruger if he was suffering alone, lonely? He thought that no matter how vigilant he was to those with ulterior motives around him, he was bound to have been deceived.
That was too much. Carlton tried to wrack his brains to say something to comfort the young lord. However, he had nothing to say, since he was more familiar with sarcasm than consolation.
“Duke, are you alright?” This was all he managed to squeeze out.
Luisen looked up, started. “I’m sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment. First of all, thank you for saving me.”
“It was nothing. Since I’ve been ordered to safely escort the duke to the capital…it should be me that’s apologizing.”
‘Can’t I sound more friendly?’ Carlton’s usual dry tone tugged at his own heart.
In the meantime, Luisen tried to steel himself and look determined. He didn’t want to seem pathetic to Carlton anymore. “You must have met the first prince’s messenger. Are you alone? What about all your men?”
“It seemed urgent…so I took off first. There must be a lot of distance between us and them, so the men don’t yet know of all that had happened.”
“Is that so…..”
“But don’t worry. I’ll take you, my duke, safely to the duchy.”
“To the duchy??” Luisen blinked his eyes.
“Are you not returning to the duchy?” the mercenary asked.
“No, I’m thinking of going to the capital like this.”
“You’re going to the capital right now?”
“That’s right.”
Carlton shook his head with a frown. “It would be better to stop by the duchy and gather a proper team before setting out. There are suspicious men after your life, and I am the only one with you right now. It would be hard to reach the capital like this.”
Carlton had a point, but Luisen had another idea. “Ruger will be waiting on the road back to the duchy. Going back now would be like walking into his grasp.”
“Since I’m with you, going back to the duchy will be no problem.”
Though Carlton was confident, Luisen shook his head. “It’ll be a problem even after we return to the duchy. I need to reach the capital as soon as possible, but the duchy doesn’t have that sort of manpower.”
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The number of people who were in Luisen’s party when he first set out for the capital was the optimal amount of manpower that could be removed from the duchy and the castle. As the lives and deaths of those personnel were unknown, it was unlikely the situation would change if they regrouped at the castle.
“Why not stay at the duchy for a while?” Carlton asked.
“I can’t do that.”
“The prince will understand if you were attacked. I’ll relay your situation to him personally.”
“I have an obligation to go as one of the great lords. At the risk of my life, I have to go to the throne, to his majesty’s side.”
Carlton was not obtuse; he immediately realized the underlying meaning behind Luisen’s words.
TL: So sorry for the late updates you guys. I’ve been so frazzled with the new academic year onboarding process T_T There’s so much to do.