Chapter 296: Rescue (3) (1/2)
Apparently, the Chancellor’s name wasn’t Ivan… Why do I keep making many mistakes recently? ????
Rescuing the emperor and the other members of the Imperial Family was their goal, but they also needed to be taken to a safe hiding place.
The Chancellor had originally ignored the ambush itself in order to catch the Royal Knights on their rescue operation, but that did not mean he would leave the surrounding areas completely empty.
“Good luck!”
“May the god’s protection be with you!”
The Royal Knights scattered with the Imperial Family. Since they only had a small number of people in the first place, there was no point in moving around together and it was easier to escape if they scattered in different directions.
“Jude! Let’s run!”
“Okay!”
Instead of heading straight to their agreed upon place, Jude and Cordelia repeatedly appeared and disappeared in various places around the imperial capital.
Because Jude and Cordelia were the strongest in the group and had the most mobility.
Twelve hours passed like that.
It wasn’t until the morning sun came up that Jude and Cordelia focused on running away, and it was only when the sun reached the top of the sky that they could finally relax.
“Master!”
Upon entering the nameless forest between the imperial capital and the academy city of Manaple, Kirara who had been hiding while waiting greeted Jude and Cordelia with a wide smile.
“I’m glad that you’re okay!”
“Yes, yes, we’re okay. Thanks.”
Cordelia immediately ran and hugged Kirara who laughed and reacted right away.
“Hehehe.”
Kirara blushed and wagged her tail in her shyness, but she liked this moment very much.
‘Amazing.’
Because Kirara in the game’s storyline never showed such a side.
‘She’s somehow similar to Red Wind, huh?’
Among the playable characters whom Jude and Cordelia had met so far, Red Wind was the one who showed the biggest change in personality from the original.
In the game, Red Wind was cold, sensitive, and did not talk much, but the current Red Wind liked to smile and had a genial personality.
One reason had caused that.
It was the fact that Jude and Cordelia prevented her from all the hardships she would suffer in the game’s storyline when they bought her from the slave auction house.
She was not abused in the slave auction house, did not experience the death of other slaves, and most importantly, her hometown was not destroyed.
Kirara’s life was not as dramatic as Red Wind, but she also lived a pretty rough life in the game’s storyline.
She was a woman who used betrayal as a means of survival, but in reality, she was quite soft-hearted.
She felt hurt every time she betrayed someone, and as the game’s storyline progressed, she was devastated.
‘You again, Kirara?’
‘Kirara, it’s not you, right?’
‘But Kirara is a traitor.’
The scene where Kirara sat alone by the lake shore and cried a lot after she abandoned everyone and ran away, saying that she wanted to be left alone, won the sympathy of many game players.
‘Of course, there were a lot of people who called it crocodile tears.’
In any case, the heart of the game’s Kirara was shattered from her constant betrayals, and she often had dead-looking eyes whenever she was alone, but it was different now.
Because just like Red Wind, she met Cordelia and became a new person before her heart was broken and shattered.
“I like Master very much.”
Kirara whispered quietly as if confessing, and Cordelia eventually cleared all the thoughts in her head.
“I like you too.”
“Hehehe.”
When such a heartwarming scene continued, Jude smiled like a father, but he knew that they couldn’t stay like this forever.
“Kirara, what about the Imperial Family?”
“They’re safe. Everyone is here except for Lucas-oppa and Kajsa-unnie.”
“Eh? The two haven’t arrived yet?”
Cordelia asked after Jude, and Kirara quickly nodded and said.
“They’re not in danger as I think they’re just resting for a bit. The owls said so.”
Kirara who was able to communicate with animals was acting as a kind of communication network by grasping the situation of everyone in the nameless forest and delivering notes through the animals.
Everyone had gathered here except for Lucas and Kajsa.
Only the two of them were resting somewhere else.
“Oh.”
Cordelia exclaimed as her eyes immediately narrowed and she said with a snicker and a sly smile.
“My Jude, aren’t they trying to hide something? Where is a man and woman in their prime resting, and what are they doing alone? This Cordelia wants to know.”
Her sparkling eyes served as proof that her imagination had already reached its conclusion.
Therefore, Jude pulled her back to reality instead of agreeing and fanning the flames of her imagination.
“Lewd devil out. Let’s go now and join the group.”
“Tsk.”
Cordelia clicked her tongue, but since she was joking in the first place, she quickly relaxed and took Kirara’s hand as they entered the depths of the forest.
They walked like that for ten minutes.
“They’re here!”
“Yeah!”
The Royal Knights and their squires who were scattered and resting then quickly approached with joy on their faces.
It was natural for them to react like that, given that they had seen Jude and Cordelia in rescuing the Imperial Family and their crazy performance in the operation.
Cordelia had continuously used powerful magic such as Earthquake while Jude faced three Sword Masters at the same time.
Both of them were so skilled that it was hard to believe that the two were only 18 years old.
“Please come this way.”
Leon also greeted Jude and Cordelia with a smile on his face.
He was a man who badly wanted to win against Lucas, but did not even think about it against Jude.
Because the difference was too big.
Envy was only possible originally if they were near the same level.
So he wasn’t envious of a person who seemed to be on a different level. Or rather, he was on a completely different realm.
“Hehe.”
Cordelia proudly puffed her chest and felt good at everyone admiring Jude. On the other hand, Jude looked at Cordelia and smiled in admiration too.
Anyway, the group followed Leon and met the Imperial Family, or to be exact, the young emperor of the empire, the Empress Dowager, and the emperor’s younger siblings.
“Uh… are they sleeping?”
“Yes, It’s been a tough journey.”
In reality, the emperor and his siblings had fainted and lost consciousness when Cordelia abducted the carriage.
Even the Empress Dowager, who had held out somehow, was relieved of her tension and fell asleep after they entered the forest.
It was not an audience with the emperor, and showing the asleep and defenseless emperor could be considered rude depending on how one interpreted it, but it couldn’t be help since they had ran away.
“Let us get some rest then.”
“Yes, we plan to stay here for a little longer and move at night.”
Jude nodded a few times in response to Leon’s words, and took a seat next to Cordelia who was being followed by Kirara.
A few minutes later.
Cordelia was half-lying while hugging Kirara, and she looked back at the place where the Imperial Family was. Because she recalled what she had seen.
‘There’s a toddler?’
In the game, the members of the Imperial Family other than the Emperor and Empress Dowager were rarely seen, so the reality felt different now.
The emperor had three more younger siblings, and because the emperor was young, his siblings were younger.
There was a small child who seemed to have just turned two years old.
‘Children. Baby.’
Cordelia tightly hugged Kirara and began her specialty again – her imagination.
Children who were laughing and running around.
A child who looked like Jude and a cute child who resembled Cordelia herself.
Jude’s successor who would inherit his count title.
‘I-I’ll give birth to them?’
Because they would be Jude’s children.
Jude’s kids.
She tried to imagine it. She would marry Jude, get pregnant, and become a mother…
‘Ueueueue…’
In the past, she would have never imagined marrying Jude.
But now that she was imagining marriage, she seemed to have taken a step forward.
‘But there are many.’
There were four including the emperor.
The Empress Dowager was close to a heroine character because of her personality and behavior, and that she even served as a regent. She also had the appearance of a beautiful woman.