After the event, Adel walked toward the carriage with some blood stains in her clothes, and Cassius followed behind her..Her face was straight as hell, there was no show of remorse, guilt, or anything, just as usual. Unlike Cassius, before he followed, Adel went to the carriage, he went to all the corpses. He seemed to show some respect toward the dead bodies, he crouched, and liked to pray to all the dead bodies.
Adel let Cassius steer the carriage, and she sat in the corner. The carriage continued the trip, and passed through all the dead bodies. I even felt it, when the carriage ran over the bodies, shook the carriage. I asked Cassius to stop by a nearby river, so Adel could clean herself, and change into another outfit.
…
In a few hours, we stopped at the riverside..Adel took some things from above the carriage, it seemed like another outfit and towel. She walked toward the river. I opened the door of the carriage by myself, and followed her to the river..
..
While Adel washed herself, I started a conversation with her,
"This is my first time seeing you like that, Adel.." I said to her,
"Does my lady feel scared of me, now?"
"I don’t…have feelings like that…I just find it surprising…I heard from my mother that you are a former assassin…so what had you done back there…not surprising for me…but…Are Martia and Livia the same as you?"
"Their paths are different from mine, they are former guard and mercenary…but for skill and prowess, we are the same…"
"That's more relieving then…it is assuring that those two will be safe…….take your time to wash yourself, Adel.."
I excused myself from there…
At night after dinner, I felt uneasy and not well…I thought it would be coming…I immediately came out of my tent, and went to Adel. I grabbed her clothes, and she turned her head toward me. Immediately, it was coming..
*COUGH* *COUGH*
She saw me coughing, and instantly brought me back to the tent..While she was carrying me back to the tent, I could see Cassius and Valerie's faces’ stagger to see me coughing blood. At the tent, Adel laid me down on the mat, and she immediately went to the carriage to take something from Sofia. While she was gone, I kept coughing blood, slowly my vision became blurry ... .and in a second, I lost my vision…it was blank…there was nothing…there was no hallucination like usual…just blank space.
The next morning, I woke up by myself, but Adel didn’t wake me up. I left the tent, and I saw something surprising…Adel was in a bad state, she had bruises on some of her face and her arms..I quickly went to her, and asked what had happened..she just kept quiet, and silent. I turned my gaze to Cassius and Valerie. They like Adel kept quiet and silent about Adel. I quickly realized something and remembered it, and said,
"IS IT ME? WHO DID THIS TO HER?"
They lowered their faces and didn’t say anything to me..
The first time I did this to Adel, was when I tried to help the four children from the street. I managed to take down Adel and Lady Octavi at the same time, unconscious. In the past seven years, the same things have kept happening. When I was unconscious because of the crap that Gena planted on me, sometimes I managed to wreck everything around me…After I regained my consciousness, I tried to ask everything, to my mother, Adel, even Sofia. Yet, they just kept silent and quiet, and didn't give me a single word of explanation… I told Cassius and Valerie to lay Adel down in my tent..They carried Adel to my tent, and laid her down on my mat.
….
…
..
.
After a long day's trip from home, some events had happened, and we finally arrived at the capital city entrance…We arrived at the front gate, and there was a long line of carriages waiting to enter the city…Most of the carriages lining up were traders' carriages, and there were a few personal carriages…Because of the long line, Adel couldn’t take it..She climbed down from the carriage, and walked toward the gate..
While waiting for Adel, I tried to ask Cassius and Valeri about their future in the capital.
"We have reached the capital, so your two escorts will be ending…what will you do now?" I asked them.
"Hmmm?" Cassius answered, "We still haven't decided anything or thought anything after this.."
Valeria asked me, "And what are you doing here? Someone from Aurelius, without guard, goes to the capital alone, surely you have a reason to go here."
"Just meeting my betrothal.." I didn’t know I could say I came here, because of the royal decree, but meeting my betrothed seemed like a great reason.
"Your betrothal? From which family could betrothe someone from the Aurelius family?" Valerie said.
"Surely you know about it…which family dares to seek it from my family."
"There will be no family who dares to do that, unless the roy— WHAT!!! Don’t tell me it is the royal family." Valerie said.
"Who else??"
"Which one?"
"The eldest one.."
"The eldest one, huh..so The Crown Prince…... .wait a minute…... .that is different from what I read and saw.."
"What you mean about that?"
"Perhaps you don’t know it??? The rumor and the news, around the news board over the kingdom, there would be one paper or one picture about them."
"Again what're you talking about?" And what is ‘them’?"
"I can’t tell you clearly about it, but how about we try to look at it in the city, Surely there will be something about it on some news board.."
In the meantime, Adel came back from the gate with three people wearing some heavy armor, two were wearing the helmet, and one didn’t wear it. The two people were checking the carriage, while one person kept talking with Adel. They checked that there was nothing wrong with the carriage, and Adel gave them the permit, the stamp, and the emblem from my family, to confirm the identification of the carriage and me.
In a few seconds, they let us derail from the queue, and rode the carriage beside the queue with the three kept beside us. We passed the gate with a short escort from the three guards without waiting in line, courtesy of my family. I wanted to confirm and know what Valerie meant back then, so I instantaneously asked Adel,
"Is there a news board around here?"
"News board? What a wind that my lady wants to see on the news board."
"I just heard something interesting from Valeri, and I want to see and read it.."
"Something interesting huh?" Adel turned her gaze fiercely toward Valerie.
"So is there one around here?"
"Surely there must be one around here, let me look around.." Adel looked around, and spotted one news board on her right, "there is, my lady, on our right."
Adel turned the carriage to the right, and rode toward the board. There was a crowd of people in front of the board. We stopped beside the road and in front of the board, and before Adel climbed down to open the door for me, I heard her words to Cassius and Valerie.
"Prepare yourself [blabbering; I couldn’t hear it properly..]....drive away the people." She said,
What she meant about preparing yourself for Cassius and Valerie. She climbed down, and opened the door for me. I left the carriage, and walked toward the board with Adel, Cassius, and Valerie behind me. I passed some crowds, until I was in front. I read the board, the board itself was huge and wide, there was some writing and painting on the board; some writings about a job, some writings about a missing person, some writings from the official, and some paintings about some events………However, I spotted one section of the board that was full of crowds, especially girls, in front of it on my right. I walked toward it, but Adel didn’t follow me. She looked like she was telling Cassius and Valerie something.
Every step closer toward the section, I heard from the girls, like so romantic, they were so lovey dovey, they were so fond of each other, and anything else. I was more curious about what was on the board……In front of it, I found, shockingly, what had been written and painted on the board…
It was the story…of the crown…prince..with…lady…Anna. I kept reading, one by one, their stories. The newest one was yesterday's writing, it was written that they seemed like lovers.
I asked one girl from the crowd,
"Excuse me, can I ask you something? What do you think about their relationship with each other?"
"Surely they are betrothed, but…I don’t know why they do not proceed further.."
Betrothed? What she was talking about… "And when did this rumor start?"
"Are you perhaps not following it? Or do you start to follow it now? But I can tell you, it started seven years ago, somehow someone started to write about them, and a few months later, a painting was published about their closeness to each other."
Seven years ago…so they started to stay with each other for that long, and this was why…the crown prince…never…stepped a foot…in my home…again…or took a look at me…in these past seven years…
After hearing that, somehow I felt angry, annoyed, and irritated, everything inside of me. This feeling, somehow I remembered it, it was the same feeling, back then when I saved the three children. I gripped both of my hands hard, and suddenly I started to laugh in a low tone.
"Ha..ha..ha..ha..ha..ha..ha..ha…"
Small and slowly laughing, suddenly became louder.
"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.."
Anyhow, Adel suddenly was beside me, she grabbed my shoulder and my hand, and it seemed she said something,
"Calm down…my lady…it is just words from someone…just keep calm…"
"I know it…Even though I don't know him well, BUT………….I felt irritated about it, Adel…"
"Perhaps it’s the feeling of jealousy."
"NO!! I DON’T…JEALOUS ABOUT HIM WITH LADY ANNA……" Unconsciously, I threw Adel away with my hand; she was thrown some meters away..
The crowds were scared and shocked. Cassius and Valerie went to Adel, and tried to help her get up..They were shocked, to see Adel’s right hand in a black state with a gold glyph symbol, it meant she used her transmutation, yet she was still being thrown away..Adel got up, and walked towards me, while Cassius and Valerie tried to make the crowds stay away from me.
"That’s the feeling of jealousy, my lady…it is okay if you feel like that…but to let you drown in your emotion…Is that okay, my lady?" Adel said while walking toward me.
"HA HA HA HA SO THIS IS A JEALOUSY" Suddenly I laughed so hard and lost control of my body, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" I went insane..
"CRAP!…THIS IS BAD!!…THIS IS BAD!!…" Adel spat some words,
