Herietta continued to be silent, so the knight’s voice grew more earnest. They seemed worried that Herietta might just leave without listening to their story any more.

However, contrary to their thoughts, Herietta was caught in deep confusion.

‘This voice is.....’

She held her breath.

‘.... a woman?’

Herietta slowly turned her body to check the knight’s face. She had broad shoulders and a stocky physique. But looking closely, she can tell that the lines that make up her face are somehow feminine. Her eyes widened slightly at that unexpected realization.

‘A female knight.’

She was amazed. It was too amazing. Since this was a knight of Kustan, Herietta naturally assumed that it would be male, but she missed that expectation. In Brimdel and Velicia, it was not common for a woman to be formally granted a knighthood.

‘What does it matter?’

Herietta firmly fixed her mind after trying to back down for a while.

The knight was, after all, a knight of the enemy country Kustan. Whether the knight was injured or died here had nothing to do with Herietta herself.

Herietta was about to leave the place after making up her mind and turning her body around.

“Don’t go.”

Perhaps the knight had read her thoughts, the knight begged desperately once more.

“Please.... please.”

In a voice so pitiful as to make one wonder if she was weeping.

“I will do anything you ask me to do. So please.....”

Obviously the knight was from a heinous enemy country.

Definitely.

Herietta bit her lower lip. For some reason, she couldn’t walk. There was something uncomfortable and unpleasant sticking to her ankle.

The knight’s breathing sounded sparsely through the silence, irregular and harsh. Although she was barely holding her position, she must have been carrying a lot of pain that cannot be expressed in words.

‘Wake up. Herietta. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do now.’

Herietta pushed herself for feeling pity. But even so, the figure of a pitiful knight with a pale complexion flickered before her eyes. Even with death on the verge, the knight’s pupils did not lose her aspirations for life.

If she continued to ignore it, the knight would most likely not survive.

‘Even if I kill the knight with my own hands, it won’t be enough.’

Herietta raised her head as she pondered over many contradictory thoughts. Her eyes were full of determination, as if she had decided on something. She turned and took a step in front of her tree.

“.... !”

When Herietta emerged from behind the tree, the knight gave a slightly surprised expression. Even though it was only in response to the knight’s request to reveal her appearance, the knight did not expect that Herietta would obey her obediently.

“Don’t get me wrong. I cannot save you.”

Herietta said bluntly with a cold face. So she wouldn’t give the knight any hope.

She pointed with her finger at the arrow lodged in the knight’s leg.

“That.... won’t come off easily.”

The knight inadvertently looked at her leg at Herietta’s words. The wounds that didn’t hurt and now tingle. Her injuries were so wide and deep that it seemed likely that she had suffered bone damage.

“So you’d better just give up at this point.”

“.....”

“Even if I take it out, I won’t be carrying you out of this forest.”

“Yes. It doesn’t matter if you leave me here as it is.”

The knight answered coldly. Herietta frowned at that.

“It doesn’t matter?”

“Yes. Instead, just give me a word.”

When Herietta asked back, the knight hurriedly nodded her head.

“No matter what happens, there is something I must tell him.”

“Him?”

“My superior, Ed, commander of Kustan.”

“I can’t do that.”

Herietta didn’t listen to the knight until the end, and she flatly refused.

“I can’t do that even if you give me all the gold and silver treasures in the world.”

In fact, she didn’t even have to listen. She doesn’t know what the knight wants to convey, but whatever it is, Herietta will not go to the enemy’s camp. Besides, as of now, the commander, who leads the Kustan army, is the first person she should avoid the most.

The knight’s complexion darkened visibly with Herietta’s resolute refusal. A look as if she had witnessed the sky fall in front of her eyes.

Did the knight really believe that Herietta would do her favor? A vivid look of disappointment spread over the knight’s haggard, weary face.

Herietta thought the knight was absurd, but on the other hand, she couldn’t erase her pity feeling. How earnest the knight must have been, did she really believe that Herietta would grant such a ridiculous request?

“Anyway, you said it doesn’t matter if I leave you here.”

Herietta, who was looking at the knight with a dejected face, opened her mouth.

“Is the word that you have to tell your superior that important? That your life and death are less important?”

“Yes. That’s how important it is.”

“Lies.”

Herietta responded coldly.

This woman was a knight of Kustan. She has no blood or tears, and is a vicious and cruel knight of the enemy country. To such a knight, what was more important than life.

A monster had to act like a monster. Don’t spit out such noble words that she will sacrifice herself for a cause.

“Loyalty, patriotism. It’s all just words.”

Herietta deliberately provoked the other person with even more grumpy sarcasm.

“It’s a world where you do everything you can to live.”

“There are so many things in the world that are more important than my life.”

The knight did not give in to Herietta’s provocation and answered calmly. Was it because of the pale complexion? The knight’s blue eyes looking at Herietta seems clearer.

“Then you didn’t have a single thing?”

The knight asked.

“DId you not have a single thing that was so precious that you would want to protect it at the cost of your life?”

To want to protect it even at the cost of her life. More precious than life.

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