The Princess Carry and the Aftermath

From Ensi’s perspective, while the shivers were persistent, his condition wasn’t exactly critical. As long as he burned some Sun Grass a few times, he would be able to return to his usual equilibrium.

“Calm down, Lily. It’s not that serious. But I don’t think I can move much in this state, so I’d appreciate it if you could bring it to me.”

Having lived with this frail body for a long time, Ensi spoke calmly. His composed attitude helped Lily regain her own sense of calm, and she stood up to do as he asked.

How much Sun Grass should I bring? Is the pipe enough for him to recover? What if I can’t find the pipe quickly?

A swarm of thoughts cluttered her mind. Realizing her thoughts were becoming a mess, she decided that overthinking was a waste of time. Lily resolved to go to the tent and simply grab everything she could find. It was better to over-prepare than to delay by hesitating.

Just as Lily took a starting stance to sprint back as fast as possible, a large figure brushed past her and headed straight for Ensi.

“—Eh?”

Because her mind was preoccupied and she felt no killing intent or hostility from the presence, her reaction was slow. By the time she turned her head, the sight before her was of a sturdy man scooping Ensi up into his arms.

“……?”

Her violet eyes clearly showed the situation unfolding inches away, but her brain refused to process the information. Her head tilted involuntarily, and her eyelids blinked vacantly, mirroring her inner bewilderment. However, Lily’s shock was nothing compared to Ensi’s.

“Ah—!”

Surprised by the sudden hands wrapping around him, Ensi let out a short gasp. His arms, which had been flailing in the air, reflexively gripped Agniele’s solid shoulders. This instinctive move to steady himself only served to pull him deeper into the embrace, intensifying his embarrassment.

“Ag… niele—?”

“The tent… should I head to the tent?”

Stammering, the flustered Ensi tried calling Agniele’s name, but he didn’t get a proper answer. Instead, he was met with a question laced with a faint sense of panic.

Agniele was equally frazzled by the chill seeping through Ensi’s clothes. Finding the other man’s state to be even more fragile than he had vaguely imagined, his entire body tensed up.

“What? Yes… yes.”

Perhaps due to the confusion, Agniele’s footing faltered for a split second as if he’d lost his sense of direction. But as soon as Ensi’s hesitant confirmation dropped, Agniele cast aside all doubt and sprinted toward the tent at high speed.

“……Wow.”

‘He’s even worse than I am.’

Coming face-to-face with someone whose state was more extreme than her own, Lily regained her reason. She watched Agniele’s retreating back with flat, unimpressed eyes.

“Hell for couples, heaven for singles…”

A slang phrase from Earth that was long out of style slipped out of her mouth.

Ensi didn’t want it to be this way, but ever since they started the practical, he felt like he was being swept up in Agniele’s pace. No, he was definitely being led around.

Wrapped in the blanket Agniele had provided, Ensi pondered why he couldn’t deal with the man more firmly. It wasn’t just because he was unwell; he had lived with this miserable body for twenty years. That meant he was more or less used to being in pain.

Of course, his health wasn’t entirely irrelevant. When one feels sick, reactions become duller, and more importantly, a desire to lean on someone often creeps in.

But looking at it objectively, this wasn’t just Ensi’s problem. Agniele had been acting a bit strange, too.

He was acting without hesitation, as if the distance that had existed between them had suddenly vanished. Giving up his cloak, and now… picking him up like that just because he said he was in pain. Considering the distance they still felt toward each other, it wasn’t the kind of action one would take out of the blue.

As Ensi’s thoughts spiraled, Agniele had already piled Sun Grass into the censer and the existing fire pit, lit them, and headed outside to boil tea. Since there was only one fire pit inside the tent and it was being used to burn the herbs, he had no choice but to go outside.

Left alone in the tent, surrounded by heat as intense as a midsummer sun, Ensi continued his solitary contemplation. That was until…

“Phew, look at this heat. It feels like mid-August in here.”

Lily, who had been left alone among the Harpy corpses, pulled back the tent flap and stepped inside. Even though she had only lifted a piece of fabric, a wave of heat rushed out as if it had been waiting. Lily wrinkled her nose and waved her hand to shoo the hot air away.

“Lily.”

“Yeah, Ensi. I came to ask how it felt to be princess-carried.”

As she walked in, she admired how the blanket—one of the useless items she’d been overcharged for by a merchant posing as a person in distress—was finally serving a purpose.

“So, what’s Agniele doing outside?”

Lily had caught a glimpse of Agniele struggling to light a fire on the damp ground before she entered. No matter how much it was for Ensi’s sake, she felt no obligation to help a man who had ruthlessly abandoned her, his own teammate, to run off.

“He said he’d boil some tea.”

“How devoted.”

Belatedly noticing the source of the overwhelming heat, Lily moved as far away as possible from the smoldering Sun Grass.

“Ensi.”

“Yeah.”

“Were you two always… well, that comfortable with each other?”

It was phrased as a question, but Ensi couldn’t miss the underlying meaning. The way Lily quirked her eyebrows and signaled with her eyes carried the certainty that there was no way that was the case.

Just as Lily suspected, Ensi and Agniele were supposed to have a healthy amount of distance between them. Ensi remained silent, burying his face in the coarse fabric of the blanket.

“Right? My memory isn’t failing me, is it? Then why is he suddenly acting like he’s had some kind of awakening?”

The awkward, stiff Agniele had vanished in an instant. Lily frowned at the change, which she couldn’t easily wrap her head around.

“How should I know?”

His sigh-heavy answer carried the frustration of not knowing the reason himself. Seeing that the unwell Ensi was getting stressed, Lily changed the subject.

“Honestly, it wasn’t bad.”

“……What wasn’t?”

“Agniele’s behavior. Actually, it wasn’t just ‘not bad,’ it was pretty good, right? It makes him feel sincere about you, or something like that.”

Agniele’s actions were sudden, but didn’t that just mean he didn’t have the time to measure his distance? He might have just moved instinctively under the pressure to act quickly. Now that Ensi was in a better environment, Agniele might be out there worrying if he had crossed a line.

And running to the tent while carrying Ensi… wasn’t that actually quite like Agniele? It reminded her of his confession. Agniele had blurted out a confession at the training grounds when no one saw it coming. It was possible that Agniele, who only knew how to move straight ahead, had been restraining himself until now out of consideration for Ensi’s personality.

As Lily reflected on Agniele’s past behavior, Ensi, poked by her words regarding the feelings he was trying to ignore, fell silent and pulled the blanket deeper over his head.

“—Oh?”

Lily’s eyes sparkled. She didn’t miss Ensi’s reaction, which revealed his emotions more clearly than a hundred words could. She looked like she’d caught a lead, her expression thick with amusement and curiosity.

“Oho~ Ensi.”

“Lily, be quiet.”

“I only called your name?”

“……Just shut up.”

Despite Ensi’s repeated rebukes, Lily only let out a playful laugh. She felt like she had returned to her teenage years, getting excited over romance talk, and she didn’t let Ensi’s annoyance deter her.

“At this rate, you might be the first one among us to get married, Ensi~”

He had seemed the furthest from the topic of marriage, but she supposed one never knows. Should she start preparing a congratulatory song? Forgetting her intention to be considerate of his stress, she hummed a tune and turned her head to avoid Ensi’s sharp glare.

Bubble, bubble. The water had been boiling for a while, but Agniele remained motionless. His mind was so preoccupied with other thoughts that he seemed to have completely forgotten he was supposed to be making tea.

The water, boiling pointlessly, turned into steam and hit Agniele’s face. The high humidity should have made it hard to breathe, but he was still lost in his thoughts.

He was light, a bit too light. And even in his sickly state, he was beautiful.

The skin made pale by illness only added to Ensi’s ethereal atmosphere. Agniele felt a sense of self-loathing for having such thoughts while the other person was in pain, feeling like a shallow person, yet he couldn’t quite discard the thought. In truth, no matter what Ensius looked like, Agniele would have continued to praise his beauty. The rose-colored glasses he wore weren’t the type to be easily removed.

Regardless, as he thought of Ensius, Agniele couldn’t control his heart, which was fluttering like the water turning into steam. At the same time, he replayed his recent actions in his head.

Was it a burdensome thing to do again? Because he had acted without thinking about the need to gauge a reaction, he couldn’t clearly remember the expression Ensius had made at the time. He was certainly flustered, but the emotion that followed was blurred, as if covered by fog.

Of course, if anyone were to ask Agniele if he regretted doing it, he would answer with a definitive ‘no.’ Even if he went back in time, he was certain he would do the exact same thing again.

However, it was true that he had picked him up without consent. It would be saddening if this action made Ensius feel even more distant than before. He began to feel dejected, thinking that he seemed to be doing only things that made Ensius uncomfortable during this practical.