Chapter 5: LRPVL

“How did this happen?”

Glenn looked around Gringein Bridge in disbelief.

After desperately shaking off their pursuers and making it all the way to the canyon, they found soldiers in Imperial Army uniforms lined up with their faces buried in the snow.

“They were lying in ambush, Young Lord. Looks like they predicted we’d take this route and planned to surprise us.”

“And then?”

“Uh, so we changed directions and attacked them from behind instead. An ambush on the ambushers, you could say.”

“What? No, wait. How did you even know Imperial soldiers were hiding here?”

“Well… uh, the baby told us.”

“The baby?”

Glenn whipped his head around.

The little girl with deep pink hair was sleeping soundly in Tanesa’s arms.

Once Dunken explained everything that had happened, Glenn frowned even harder.

“Does that make any sense? That tiny child led all of you?”

“To be honest, Young Lord… even I feel like I must’ve hallucinated the whole thing.”

Dunken scratched his head awkwardly.

“Mister, attack from behind. Ambushes are best from the rear. Smacking people in the back of the head is fun, right? Right?”

“That purple-haired guy, him! That’s Leon Vodafetti. The Empress’s lackey. You gotta catch him first!”

“Wait, mister. Are you an Aura User? Show me your aura stats!”

The expressions of Glenn, Tom Bell, and the other knights turned bizarre.

Their gazes simultaneously shifted toward the pink-haired little girl.

This is bad. I got too excited.

Ariletti broke out in a cold sweat as she pretended to sleep.

Thinking about that scheming Empress’s face made my blood boil…

She’d gotten carried away and blurted out things she should never have said.

It’ll be troublesome if they start suspecting me.

The memories of being exploited as the so-called Sage of the White Forest—worked like a high-performance clock—flashed through her mind.

No. If they found out, they’d just use her all over again.

She had helped the Young Lord’s group somehow, but only half because she wanted to screw over the Empress and the First Prince’s faction, and half because she wished to atone and repay the people who had died here in the past.

She had absolutely no intention of devoting herself to them or serving them loyally.

Humans are all the same. You shouldn’t trust them from the beginning. And you definitely shouldn’t give them any openings.

At least reverting to five years old was fortunate. No one would believe a little child had redirected the army and commanded an ambush.

Pretending to stir in her sleep, Ariletti buried her face deeper into Tanesa’s arms, which smelled faintly of sesame bread.

As Tanesa gently patted her back, she carefully spoke up.

“To be honest… I heard it clearly too, Young Lord. This child giving loud orders to the vice-captain.”

No, don’t, unnie…!

“And she accurately shouted out Leon Vodafetti’s name too. She definitely knew he was the commander of the Black Lion Unit.”

Flinch!

Ariletti unconsciously trembled.

Countless stares poked into her back.

After a brief silence, Glenn Hezeit wiped the blood off his cheek and gave an order.

“…We can’t keep standing around here. We cross the bridge. We’ll rest for a while at the shelter on the other side.”

“What should we do with these bastards? Kill them, Young Lord?”

The soldiers wearing white assassin uniforms suited for hiding in snow stiffened in fear.

Glenn glared at them coldly before issuing a chilling command.

“Now that we know the First Prince is behind this, there’s no reason to keep them alive. Kill them all.”

The ominous sound of swords sliding out of their scabbards echoed one after another.

Ariletti’s eyes snapped open in Tanesa’s arms.

Kill them all?

Even Leon Vodafetti—the Empress’s right-hand man and commander of the Black Lion Unit under the First Prince?

He was a valuable chess piece that could someday become the foundation for a counterattack, and they were going to waste him like this before even properly using him once?

Before she realized it, her hand shot out.

“N-no…!”

Everyone’s eyes turned toward the tiny maple-leaf-like hand stretching desperately into the air.

An awkward silence followed, and Ariletti slowly lowered her hand.

Ack. I’m doomed.

Glenn carefully examined the child sitting stiffly in front of him.

Calling her a “child” almost felt wrong.

He had never seen a baby sit this upright before, but if she had only lived a little over three years, then technically she was still a baby.

Her crimson hair, neatly cut bangs, and green eyes combined into a beauty so striking it naturally made people gasp.

Her cheeks looked as soft and fluffy as freshly risen bread dough.

If only she hadn’t worn such a solemn expression the entire time… if she had acted more like a child, people would’ve instinctively cooed over her.

But the girl possessed an intimidating presence rarely found in five-year-olds.

Even the way she looked at him—the man who had saved her from the snow—was strange.

It was almost as if…

…she carried the weary experience of someone who had already lived a long life.

“Come to think of it, we never introduced ourselves.”

Glenn carefully chose his opening words.

“I’m Glenn Hezeit, heir of House Hezeit. What’s your name?”

The girl’s eyes widened.

He introduced himself and his title first?

While admiring Glenn’s handsome features, Ariletti marveled inwardly. This was the first noble she had ever met who introduced himself before asking another person’s name.

As expected of a straightforward frontier knight.

He knew how to properly begin a conversation.

“Ari-letti. Aril… Ariletti.”

Though what did it matter? She still couldn’t properly pronounce her own name.

As she clenched her tiny cotton-ball-like fists, Glenn seemed to understand immediately and slid a piece of paper and pen toward her.

“If you can write, try writing your name.”

Ariletti wrote in large letters across the page:

Ariletti El Clemens Cadis

There wasn’t enough room, so the letters became smaller toward the end.

“Cadis?”

Glenn read aloud the family name she had crammed awkwardly into the corner of the paper. Naturally, his eyebrows shot upward.

“Cadis? The baron family executed three years ago for attempting to assassinate His Majesty the Emperor?”

There was nothing good about revealing herself as the daughter of a family purged for treason, but Ariletti didn’t bother hiding it.

It was better to pretend to be a traitor’s daughter than let anyone discover she was the Sage of the White Forest.

That would at least explain why she had been abandoned in the snow.

Anyone with common sense wouldn’t immediately connect a somewhat unusual five-year-old child with the ‘Sage of the White Forest’—

“Are you connected to the White Forest too, by any chance?”

—Apparently they would!

Ariletti instantly went pale.

No, stay confident, Aril. No one knows you in this timeline.

Act like a baby. A harmless, adorable little five-year-old baby.

“W-what’s the White Forest? I don’t know anything about that… hic.”

“Then how did you know Leon Vodafetti’s name and face?”

“Th-that bad mister came to catch my mommy.”

This was the excuse Ariletti had prepared beforehand.

The Cadis baron family had been purged for treason, and Lady Cadis had fled carrying her daughter. The knight who chased after them probably wasn’t actually Leon Vodafetti, but since nobody knew the truth anyway, it didn’t matter.

Glenn raised an eyebrow, impressed.

The gentle, teasing smile he’d shown earlier had vanished without a trace.

“And you said you saw Dunken’s aura stats too?”

“Ah…?”

“Even for Aura Users, reading the flow of aura inside another person’s body isn’t easy. So how could a five-year-old like you do it?”

Did I seriously say that too?

I did!

Wrapped up in Doris Dunken’s arms like a bundle, she had been able to clearly read the aura flowing through his sword every time he swung it.

Aura, mana—they all originated from the White Forest.

Handling them and sensing them were entirely different matters.

Ariletti wanted to smack her own loose mouth.

And Glenn’s interrogation didn’t stop there.

“Come to think of it, when we first met, you said there’d be an attack on July 7th, Year 1357 of the Inabachio Calendar. But 1357 is still ten years away. Was that a prophecy?”

“W-well, that…”

“You also said mandrake should be used for the Pretty Mad Dog’s lung disease. ‘Pretty Mad Dog’ is a nickname for the Third Prince of the Bertel Empire. What exactly did you mean by that?”

“S-so, um…”

“Now that I think about it, there’s far too many strange things. From the beginning, it felt like you already knew me and my group. You told Sir Tom Bell not to sell his house, and told Congressman Sergio not to get married…”

“……”

“Did you know who we were from the start? Answer me, baby.”

Being directly pressured by the presence of an Aura User made sweat pour down her back.

The situation was rapidly turning against her.

I’m running out of excuses. What do I do? Turn back time again?

SKREEEEEECH!

Needle suddenly let out a deafening screech that shook the room.