Player Who Became A Constellation [EN]: Chapter 59

Chapter 59

No matter how good the cart is, it’s hard to haul heavy things without a proper road.

Sometimes the wheels get stuck in a hole, or the cart breaks down from being overworked.

The refugees groaned as the cart rattled. Some were throwing up, even though they had nothing in their stomachs, probably from motion sickness.

But they didn’t complain.

Prince Ash was quiet, and the refugees, who had suffered all kinds of hardship and humiliation, were just grateful to be able to use the cart.

Ifrit frowned at the sight.

“You really do a variety of things.”

Salad looked at Ifrit, who had suddenly appeared, and asked,

“What do you mean?”

“Are you moving with this unidentified force this time?”

“What’s… wrong with that?”

“Don’t you feel uneasy?”

Salad looked at the Berserker warriors.

To be honest, they looked scary.

And the cruelty they showed was also terrifying. But somehow….

“They don’t… seem dangerous.”

To be exact, she felt safe with Loki around.

Ifrit shook his head at Salad.

“You’re out of your mind.”

He was worried about Salad.

Because Salad was still naive and tried to trust and rely on others. He thought, *Obviously-*.

At that moment, Ifrit felt a strange gaze.

He tilted his head and looked for the source of the gaze.

*Could it be…?* He looked at Loki, but he was talking to Aum.

*……?*

Then who?

When Ifrit turned his gaze elsewhere, a face as big as his small body was right next to him.

*……?!*

Startled, Ifrit instinctively recoiled in the air and looked at the woman who was staring at him with sparkling eyes.

“…Is this a doll?”

Even Salad, who was sensitive to sound, was caught off guard by her approach.

Cancun had a curious expression on her face.

Ifrit sweated as his eye muscles twitched at the blatant gaze.

*No, you’re kidding, right? How can a human see me…?*

“It even talks?”

*You can even understand what I’m saying?!*

Cancun tapped Ifrit’s head with her finger.

It was soft and squishy, like touching a taut balloon. It was also warm.

“Stop it! Stop it!”

Ifrit raised both hands and blocked Cancun’s finger.

“Is this toy yours?”

“…….”

To dare call Ifrit, who is treated as the king of the spirits of fire, a toy? *The nerve!*

Salad just smiled awkwardly.

Salad looked at Loki, who was far away. She remembered that the woman in front of her had been having a friendly conversation with Loki.

*Can I trust this human?*

That was the first thought that came to her mind.

Every human she had seen so far was evil.

The slave trader Azar treated her as merchandise, and the mercenaries treated her as a toy.

The woman in front of her had a dignified beauty, but Salad was not foolish enough to judge by appearances alone.

Salad pulled up her hood and glared at Cancun.

“W-what is it?”

“……?”

Cancun tilted her head at her wary appearance. And as if she remembered something, she clapped her hands and took something out of the leather pouch on her waist and held it out.

“Tada! Do you want to eat this? It’s spicy fire-flavored jerky!”

“……?”

Spicy?

Salad tilted her head, not knowing what spicy meant.

*Meat?*

It smelled like dried meat.

“Loki-nim [term of respect] sometimes asks me to make it when he’s bored. Ah, but the taste might be too strong for someone who’s trying it for the first time….”

Cancun took a bite of the jerky. Soon her face turned red.

“It’s spicy! I don’t know what Loki-nim eats this for….”

Tears welled up in Cancun’s eyes. Then she took out a water pouch and gulped it down.

Still, the heat didn’t subside, so she stuck out her tongue and fanned herself.

“…….”

As Salad blinked and looked at Cancun, the cart rattled violently and a strong wind blew.

Thanks to this, her light body also bounced once, and the hood she was wearing was blown off.

Silver hair fluttered.

Long ears flickered in front of Cancun’s eyes through her white hair.

Salad hurriedly pulled her hood back on, but Cancun just stared blankly at Salad.

Salad’s eyes wavered.

Her frightened eyes turned to Cancun.

Elves are a race with a beautiful and mysterious aura. Therefore, elves were known as fairies who helped the heroes in the continent’s fairy tales, and received much praise in the poems and songs of many poets.

But that was 50 years ago. After the Demon King incident, the Hannes Empire was called a heretic and a descendant of the devil.

People were often mesmerized by their beauty.

However, the Holy Order widely announced false information, saying, ‘Elves used black magic to seduce humans.’

After that, the followers of the Azelan Church became afraid of elves.

In fact, the slave trader Azar was afraid of her and put her in a prison, and even put shackles on her because he was not relieved.

In the case of mercenaries, they were terrified, calling her a demon the moment they saw her.

Even though she had experienced such things countless times over the past years, it still hurt. It was a bonus to be afraid of their ugly eyes.

Salad carefully looked at Cancun.

What kind of reaction will she show?

Will she tremble with fear? Will she scream? Or will she send a hateful look?

When Salad looked at her expression and eyes….

“…….”

Salad froze.

Cancun’s eyes sparkled.

Like seeing something mysterious, like a child who has fallen into the world of innocence.

Sparkling eyes stared at Salad intensely. Not only that, but she grabbed Salad’s shoulders with a terrifying force.

Salad flinched.

“Fairy! Fairy-nim! [term of respect]”

“……!”

Salad was terrified of Cancun in a different sense.

A reaction she had never seen before. It’s quite unfamiliar. No, maybe it’s a familiar look. It was similar to the eyes that the servants and maids, and her father, had sent 50 years ago.

That is….

“Pretty! Oh my god!”

…It was affection.

Cancun hugged Salad and rubbed her cheeks.

Whenever she did, Salad pushed Cancun’s face away as if in pain.

Cancun also realized that she had lost her mind for a moment, coughed, and asked her.

“Are you an elf? Is that right? Fairies in fairy tales really exist! Ah! If you look at it that way, Ruran Uncle is also a fairy uncle? But his skin is brown? Why is that?”

Salad was bombarded with questions.

“…I’ve heard of it! A fairy living in the forest! Elf! Then is that small, cute flame a spirit? Is that right? Come to think of it, elves can talk to animals, right? Even bugs? Ah! Can you talk to trees too?”

Cancun was spitting out words like a machine gun.

“…Well… I can only feel simple things from animals, but bugs and trees are impossible….”

“Do you draw a sword from the lake and give it to the hero? Or sing a song to calm the dragon…!”

“T-that’s a fairy tale….”

“Then! Then…!”

Salad was dizzy from Cancun’s questions.

“…Dark Elf, I see. Loki-nim attracts a lot of strange people.”

Aum, who had just seen Salad, spoke to Loki.

Loki pointed at Aum.

“Don’t you know that one of them is you?”

“I am the most normal of them.”

*Is that really so?* Loki muttered.

“It’s Roden Territory!”

It was the cry of a refugee on the cart.

***

The cart on the hill was heading towards the distant, giant city, Roden Territory.

The size of the city was quite large.

A 30m-high wall covering the entire territory, and soldiers stationed above and below it.

All of them are wearing chain mail, not crude equipment, and surcoats with a blue background representing Eastern Ronia on top of it.

A cavalryman on horseback among the soldiers saw the suddenly appearing group and shouted.

“Who are you! Refugees from where… no, you’re not?!”

The soldier looked at the refugees on the cart and his face hardened as he looked at the Berserker warriors.

The heads were animal bone helmets, and the plate armor covering the whole body looked like knight armor made to threaten the enemy no matter how you looked at it.

“Enemy?!”

As the soldier was terrified and tried to turn his horse around, Ash, who saw it, was so happy that he jumped out of the cart. He shouted at the cavalryman who had come.

“Wait! It’s me! I, First Prince Ash Ronia, have come!”

The soldier was startled by Ash’s cry and stopped trying to turn the reins.

And he looked at Ash’s face and coat as if observing closely.

The face covered in dirt and dust was tired, and the luxurious clothes were torn to shreds like rags, making it difficult to recognize the shape.

Anyone who saw it would think he was a nobleman who had been robbed.

Normally, he would have chased him away, saying, ‘Who is this crazy guy?’, but the soldier felt confused by the appearance of the Berserker warriors around him.

“…Prince…nim? [term of respect]”

The soldier frowned, unable to recognize Ash’s face.

There was no way a mere soldier could recognize a prince.

The soldier pursed his lips and looked at Ash, then looked at the Berserker warriors.

They were unusual no matter how you looked at them. It was dangerous to enter Roden Territory with these people and the one who called himself a prince.

“…Please wait a moment. I’ll report and come back.”

“…What are you talking about?! Can’t you recognize me!”

“The situation is what it is.”

As far as the soldier knew, the prince was known to be dead. This is because news spread that Worm Pests had spread in the military camp.

“Please understand.”

The soldier said that and went into the castle.

***

“Dad, where are we going?”

The child’s father shook his head at the child’s question.

“I don’t know. I’m just following where that person is going.”

“……?”

The child turned his gaze in the direction his father was looking.

There was a woman who had saved his father.

The unique woman exuded a very mysterious atmosphere.

Above all, the group that followed her was also not ordinary.

All of them wore light chain mail that was easy to move in, but the surcoat worn over it seemed to be modeled after the woman’s hair, half white and half black.

The child’s father was the same.

He wore the armor they offered without hesitation, put on a surcoat, and wore a mask and helmet like the others.

The child wondered if they knew each other, but it didn’t seem like it.

The child quietly watched this unidentified procession and ran to the woman in the center of the procession.

“Sister. Where are we going?”

At that one word, the child’s father froze.

He hurriedly jumped out, grabbed the child’s head, and slammed it into the ground.

“Aagh!”

“You! How rude!”

“……?!”

The child looked at the child’s father with a frightened face.

His eyes were strange.

The kind and gentle father was gone. His eyes were bloodshot as if possessed by something, and he glared at the child.

“S-scary. Dad! It hurts!”

“I will repay the rudeness of the child.”

The child’s father drew his sword.

At that, the child’s face turned pale.

*What is he going to do with that sword!?*

The woman who was watching the scene raised her hand.

Force was applied to the gauntlet covered in jet-black armor, and she slapped the man’s cheek with the back of her hand.

With a thud, the child’s father fell out and rolled several times.

If it were an ordinary person, their skull would have been broken, but there was only a slight wound on the man’s cheek, and no other external injuries.

“What…?”

“Please don’t tarnish my eyes anymore.”

“……?!”

The child’s father knelt down. He bowed his head as if he had committed a great sin.

“I’m sorry!”

The woman held out her hand to the child and helped him up.

“Are you okay?”

It’s a cold voice without emotion. But it was also a word where you could feel a strange kindness.

The child looked into the woman’s eyes.

It is a very clean and sparkling golden eye, as if looking at gold.

The child looked at it with surprised eyes.

*You have very pretty eyes.*

The words a man had said in a fragment of memory faintly came to mind.

A strange longing made her coldly frozen heart ache.

“…Yes, thank you.”

The woman dusted off the child’s clothes. And she put her hand on her head and chanted a small spell. Then light flowed out and permeated the child’s body, and new flesh grew on the wounded area, healing it.

“Magic?!”

The child’s eyes sparkled, and she stroked the child’s head with her rough gauntlet.

“Did you ask where we were going earlier?”

When the child nodded, the woman pointed to a distant place with her finger.

“I’m going to a territory near here.”

“Where?”

“Roden Territory.”