MHHC Chapter 82

Guardian of the Sanctuary

To learn shame. At the sudden verbal assault, her eyes widened.

"...Did you just say that to me?"

"Then who else would I be addressing?"

Joachim twisted his lips and wrinkled his nose.

Though she was accustomed to enduring hateful gazes, no immunity built up against them—the pain felt fresh and new every single day.

People always treated her as if she deserved such treatment.

Because she had no magic, because she was born imperfect, because she couldn't fulfill her duties as royalty.

Adelheide stared directly at him, teeth clenched.

"I haven't behaved badly enough toward my cousin to deserve such words."

"Are you saying the Crown Prince went mad over you alone and defied the King?"

"...Defied?"

"Ah, but you couldn't have known, could you? Since you don't even have maids to attend you properly, how ignorant you must be of palace affairs."

The sarcasm struck like a dagger. Adelheide's lips hardened into a rigid line.

"If you're going to speak in riddles, then step aside."

The wrist she extended to push him away was roughly seized.

Joachim yanked her arm close, his face sharp with fury.

The man's breath, heated unpleasantly with rage, touched her ear.

"Acting innocent now won't help."

"..."

"No matter how wretched your circumstances, there are things you should and shouldn't do. Even if you made some kind of secret pact with the Third Prince, seducing your own blood to bring down the Crown Prince?"

It was an outrageous accusation. The color drained from her face in an instant.

"...What am I supposed to have done?"

"Did you think Father would abandon the Crown Prince over a single scandalous rumor? Or did you truly believe you would become Queen?"

"I know nothing about this."

"The Crown Prince tried to void your vows and earned the King's wrath. Because of someone like you, he was covered in disgrace and suffered the humiliation of confinement. What exactly did you do to him?"

"I... truly know nothing about this. I've never done anything I'd be ashamed of before the gods!"

"We'll see about that in time."

Adelheide swallowed a suffocating breath. She hadn't expected anyone to believe her anyway.

No matter how much she protested her innocence, that she'd done nothing wrong, they would believe what they wanted to believe. As they always had.

"..."

At any rate, through her conversation with Joachim, Adelheide could guess why Father had rushed her departure to the Sanctuary.

He couldn't simply stand by while even the Crown Prince became embroiled in a baseless scandal.

When Adelheide completely closed her mouth, Joachim seemed to take it as an admission of guilt and narrowed his eyes.

"In any case, even if your vows are voided, you'll never meet the Crown Prince again. So please, even if Sanctuary life doesn't suit you, take your vows obediently. The King said he won't pursue the rights and wrongs of this matter any further if you do."

"..."

"I'll return to escort you in ten days."

As if he'd said everything he needed to say, Joachim turned sharply away from her and returned to the carriage.

Adelheide mastered her boiling anger alone. Being subjected to excessive misunderstanding and oppression was nothing new, but this rumor was vile beyond measure.

'Was there someone else eavesdropping on that conversation that day?'

Otherwise, it made no sense. After that day when Mikhail had confessed his twisted feelings, laying bare his soul, he hadn't approached her again.

At first, Adelheide had been vigilant day and night, but eventually she'd dismissed it as excessive assumption or misunderstanding.

But somehow, someone must have caught them...

'...As my cousin said, it's all finished anyway. Once I complete my vows, I won't have to face anyone again. Even if the Crown Prince becomes King, the Sanctuary is inviolable territory.'

She steeled her resolve and tightened her grip on the leather bag.

As she approached the Sanctuary entrance, the gatekeeper opened the iron gate.

The gate opened with a grating sound, then closed firmly the moment she passed through.

At that cold severance, Adelheide felt an odd sense of relief instead. Now there was no one who could threaten her. At least, not for ten days.

'From now on, I'm truly alone.'

Alone. The liberation that word brought exceeded imagination. Far more, doubly more than she'd vaguely expected it would be good.

The deeper she walked into the life-thick verdant forest, the more existence seemed to refine itself into simple, rounded forms.

That quietness, one step removed from the complicated world, felt welcome. She walked with the pleasure of taking a stroll.

"..."

How long had she walked? She paused her steps along the narrow path. The leather bag in her left hand and the basket in her right were beginning to feel unbearably heavy.

'How far do I need to go?'

She seemed to have come about three times farther than where she'd vaguely expected the temple to be.

She glanced back once, then looked forward again—and there, at the path's end, a white building appeared that hadn't been visible before.

'That must be it.'

She gathered what strength remained in her body and quickened her pace.

The closer she approached, the more the building's overwhelming grandeur pressed upon her. There were stairs, and atop them sat a white temple that looked as if it had never felt rain or snow—as clean and beautiful as the day it was built.

'Wow.'

She hurried up the stairs. There was a corridor lined with arches, and beyond it, a pond created by magic.

Behind that stood the altar she would tend daily, and down the gentle slope beside it was the priest's residence where she would stay.

The residence had three doors total. She carefully opened the nearest wooden door.

'This is...'

This appeared to be a parlor-bedroom combination. White walls and wooden floors—all the furniture decorating the room beyond that was old and worn.

A bed, a screen, a wardrobe, a desk and dining table each singular, and before the fireplace sat two chairs and two teacups.

Through the large window cut into the right wall, sunlight poured abundantly.

'I didn't know it would be such a good place.'

Adelheide gazed at everything with delight, then suddenly came to her senses.

'This isn't the time for this.'

She moved diligently. She unpacked her bag, placing the clothes she'd brought into the wardrobe, and set ink and quill pen on the desk.

She also stacked her research materials on 'dolls.'

That research was a subject she'd been devoted to since her Academia days.

'Theoretically, if I could create dolls that cast magic using magic stones, even people without magic could perform simple spells through the dolls.'

Of course, magic stones wouldn't be sufficient, but there was plenty of clay to make dolls... In any case, researching the theory alone could keep her busy for well over a decade.

Adelheide intended to delve deeply into this subject during her solitary time in the Sanctuary.

'This side seems mostly organized now.'

After one final thorough inspection of the interior, she picked up the basket and left the room.

The room directly across was a library. Bookshelves reaching to the ceiling were packed densely with ancient texts.

For a researcher, a library full of books was no different from a treasure trove. She liked this place more and more.

'And here...'

The third room was a kitchen and bathroom. There was a hearth for lighting fires, a cupboard storing dried herbs, and in a large basin set to one side, clean water trickled steadily.

'What's this?'

She discovered a thick book bound with leather cord in the cupboard. On the cover was written:

Guide for Successors

Adelheide opened the book with heightened pleasure.

The book contained advice about modest housekeeping.

How to plant seeds in the garden, vegetables good for planting by season and how to make pickled vegetables after harvest, how to roast tea, medicinal herbs worth gathering and storing from the forest edges, simple cooking methods...

Everything appeared to have been written over several centuries—the handwriting, ink, and vocabulary all varied from person to person.

'...This is.'

What caught Adelheide's attention was a single sentence written at the very end of the book.

The sole reason we care for and remain in this place is to guide... so that confusion does not occur.

She turned to the next page, but nothing was written beyond that. She ran her hand over the parchment.

Judging by the musty smell characteristic of old paper, this hadn't been written in this era.

It seemed the priests would always unbind and re-bind the leather cord so this passage remained on the final page.

'I don't know the exact meaning, but it must be telling me to maintain the altar properly.'

Adelheide thought nothing more of it and set the book down.

She soon realized that the Sanctuary's seasons flowed somewhat differently from the seasons 'outside.'

'Outside' was cold enough for frost to form, yet here both the wind and sunlight were mild. The weather was closer to spring, and in such cases, the book recommended sowing turnips.

'Spacing them at regular intervals... so, like this...'

No matter how roughly she'd been treated at the palace, she was still born a princess. Farming, something utterly foreign to her station, couldn't possibly be easy.

She fumbled through the book's contents and poked her finger into the garden plot. She was carefully trying to scatter seeds when suddenly, an unexpected presence made itself felt nearby.

"Oh..."

It was at that very moment she discovered an unfamiliar figure beyond the fence.