RAMHM Chapter 124

Madness

I had nightmares the entire way to Acacia territory.

In my dreams, Father appeared. I shouted at his back as he didn't turn around.

Why did you abandon Bliea? No matter how much I screamed and raged, the answer was always the same.

'Who is this Bliea you're talking about?'

When I felt despair at that answer, I always woke from the dream with wet eyes.

When I fell asleep with my head on Rhodness's shoulder or knee and woke, I met his gaze, quietly glowing.

Each time, he wiped away my tears with his lips, like someone who hadn't slept a wink guarding me.

Without that massive warmth, I couldn't have overcome the nightmares.

"It's okay to cry, Adrienne."

Rhodness whispered quietly. Throughout the journey, he only repeated that it was okay for me to cry.

"Cry and shake it off."

Wrapped in strong arms hearing such words, I suddenly recalled Rhodness at the Crown Prince's funeral, who hadn't shed a single tear.

'Isn't the person who really needs comfort Rhodness, not me?'

Since the Crown Prince's betrayal and death, Rhodness hadn't looked after himself even once, clinging only to me.

Like someone who had only me left in his entire world, anxious when he couldn't reach me.

"Rhoan, you too..."

"Your Highness."

I wanted to tell him it was okay for him to cry too.

The carriage, which had been running steadily, slowed briefly, and Neil suddenly thrust newspapers and gossip magazines through the window.

Since Bardenaldo died and Rhodness took the position that he'd compete for the throne if necessary, these were things he always received through carrier pigeons from the capital.

But today was strangely later delivery than usual, and Neil's voice was subdued at the same time.

There was no way the perceptive Rhodness wouldn't notice him.

Rhodness reached out before me, quickly scanning just the front pages of the newspapers and gossip magazines, and his expression gradually hardened.

At the ominous atmosphere, I couldn't bring myself to say anything and snuck a glance at the content.

Normally he would have spread them wide open for us to read together, but Rhodness seemed to be trying to read alone somehow.

【Was the true culprit who killed His Highness the Crown Prince actually His Highness the Second Prince?】

【Did the Second Prince, greedy for the throne, use the seductress Countess Bliea Acacia to eliminate the Grand Duke?】

【The ominous 'Second Prince' who summons monsters—monsters begin rampaging in the north as soon as he leaves the capital, is this truly coincidence?】

Rhodness hastily closed the gossip magazine he'd been reading through. And his rippling red eyes met mine precisely.

"Rhoan, don't worry. I don't believe such ghost stories. Have monsters appearing been just a day or two? Besides, the monsters that appeared in the west were Novian's doing. On the road we're traveling, not even a single wild beast has passed by, let alone monsters."

So there's no way you're someone who summons monsters.

At the consolation close to excuses pouring out, his hardened expression relaxed slightly. But that was only a fleeting moment.

"AHHHHH! Monsters! Monsters!"

The air inside the carriage froze instantly.

Rhodness's face became far paler than when reading through those disgusting rumors.

"Absolutely. Don't come out."

"...Rhoan?"

This was the first time he spoke so forcefully to me. Rhodness gripped both my shoulders hard as if issuing an order that must never be disobeyed, and spoke again.

"Absolutely don't come out, Adrienne."

His voice somehow sounded like an earnest plea too.

As the ground began to shake thud, thud, Rhodness shot out of the carriage like lightning.

The unexpected monster appearance occurred with Acacia territory right before their eyes.

People were terrified by monsters clearly visible even from a distance.

Even the Second Knight Order, accustomed to monsters, was daunted by five or six enormous monsters approaching the party.

Thud. Thud.

The monsters advancing with sounds as heavy as their massive bulk looked like fur beasts covered in filth.

One of the monsters with three eyes on its head increasingly picked up speed, opening its huge mouth wide as it charged.

"Epero, you guard the carriage here."

Before those startled by the commotion could stick their heads out from inside the carriages, Rhodness spurred his horse forward, then stepped on the horse's back and shot forward.

There was no time to stop him with words.

Rhodness stepped on the hand of the monster reaching for the supply wagon and leaped up, directly slicing off all three eyes at once.

"GWEEEEEEK!"

"KYAAAAH!"

The monster's pained groan and the servants' screams alternately echoed through the forest path.

Neil and Viktor, who'd spurred their horses following Rhodness, began handling the monsters beside it together.

Meanwhile, Rhodness climbed the monster whose eyes he'd just cut like scaling a cliff wall. As he climbed gripping the dirty, damp fur, screams burst out all around.

"Your Highness! Your Highness!!"

Gweeeeeeek!

The neck of the monster thrashing while clutching its eyes was severed at once by Rhodness's longsword. The dark red blood gushing from its neck poured directly over Rhodness.

Everyone's mouths fell open at what happened in an instant.

Rhodness's red eyes, having seen the monster's blood, blazed like wildfire. Blood boiled again in the heart he'd thought hardened to control his emotions.

'Madness.'

When the feeling of a parched throat and boiling heart began to dominate Rhodness, he swung his sword like a madman.

Thick veins bulged on the hand gripping the longsword.

It was a heavy, formidable weapon that ordinary knights struggled to lift even with both hands.

"Stand back, Prince Viktor!"

Neil, familiar with that sight, pulled the struggling Viktor away from the monster.

"Gweeeek!"

Another enormous monster's head thudded down in front of the party.

Everywhere Rhodness's sword energy passed, monster heads fell and dark red blood spurted.

The Second Prince's combat, which seemed like it would wield even the sword gracefully, was something raw.

The scene of climbing monster bodies, rubbing against dirty fur, gripping and tearing to inevitably behead them presented both awe and terror simultaneously.

However, Rhodness's heart as he fought the monsters was sinking deeper and deeper underground.

Though he too had thought the ghost story that red eyes would destroy the world was absurd, his blood ran cold every time he saw monsters that were particularly aggressive toward him whenever he hunted them.

Not because he feared the monsters.

But because he feared that ghost story would truly become real, and the moment he lost even a little bit of reason, he'd cut down allies instead of enemies.

And what he feared most right now was separate.

Rhodness's gaze, which had been staring at the spurting blood, shifted to Adrienne's carriage.

'Am I truly an ominous bastard?'

The question that had always pressed down like a boulder expanded as if to burst his chest.

If the scandals created by his image and the cursed label of being an ominous prince attached to Adrienne?

Thick veins bulged on the back of the hand gripping the longsword.

It was lamentable that the past spent dedicating his life to Bardenaldo grabbed his ankles like this. Though he'd lived always proving himself, including even Adrienne in that burdensome life was unacceptable.

If the surrounding rumors shook Adrienne's heart and ultimately Adrienne feared him even a little or thought him ominous...

'I might die.'

Just the thought made it feel like his windpipe was blocked, making him dizzy.

His darkened gaze lingered on the carriage where Adrienne would be, then immediately fell away.

A total of about 20 monsters, including those that rushed in late, lay sprawled on the ground. By the time the Second Knight Order in charge of escort rushed in and barely dispatched three or four, these were the monsters Rhodness had eliminated.

In the space where dark red blood spread thickly like a swamp, Rhodness's red eyes stopped abruptly in midair after finishing the slaughter.

It was right after he discovered Adrienne, who had naturally come out of the carriage after the killing ended.

'Adrienne saw.'

His tightly constricted pupils relaxed helplessly, and the blood that had been boiling in his heart cooled coldly.

Ah. She saw. She heard.

Shining those red eyes as red as the blood beneath his feet, beheading monsters. Even the terror-stricken voices of people who'd been showing him respect.

'This blood-soaked appearance too difficult to embrace you as you cover your mouth with both hands and cry.'

Rhodness barely held onto his sinking heart.

'These slaughterer's eyes that don't stop without killing something...'

She saw.

Rhodness roughly wiped his hands, soaked in monster blood, on his clothes and hastily removed and threw off his jacket.

He removed even his shirt, not a single white part remaining, to wipe his face, but the face that barely removed the red tinge couldn't erase even the faint bloodstains.

'I tried to love you.'

'But who in this world...'

'Could love a child as ominous as you?'

'If Adrienne Pirreta had seen your eyes, she could never have loved you.'

'If she'd known you were that ominous prince, she wouldn't have properly met your eyes once, let alone kissed you.'

Every time he wiped away blood, Bardenaldo's voice that he'd forcibly suppressed tormented his mind.

Yes, knowing that, he'd hidden himself and interacted with Adrienne.

Because people were always too busy fearing him when they looked at him.

Adrienne wasn't the only one who'd called his eyes beautiful normally.

But when madness seeking blood arose, making his eyes flash, no one dared call them beautiful.

Even if that person was his mother.

These were eyes he didn't want Adrienne to see, of all people.

This was an appearance he didn't want Adrienne to see, of all people.

In the heavy silence, the sound of exhausted knights clearing away monster corpses could be heard. But Rhodness desperately, roughly wiped his face with the blood-stained shirt.

"Rhoan."

"Wait, don't come."

When Adrienne's trembling voice approached, he turned his back to her and wiped his face more diligently.

By the time he'd wiped enough to peel his skin, Adrienne's presence was felt from behind. Rhodness tensed his spine and stood with his back even more to her.

"Rhoan, look at me."

"Go away, Adrienne. Right now I'm too covered in blood..."

Rhodness ultimately couldn't face Adrienne and only slipped on the shirt Neil ran over and handed him.

There was nothing good about meeting her eyes.

Just because the madness had subsided didn't mean the eyes that glittered as if lit even in darkness completely settled.

Facing Adrienne's eyes stained with fear was harder than facing dozens of monsters.

"Rhoan..."

Then several urgent hoofbeats drew near.

Rhodness, coming to his senses, hid the hesitating Adrienne behind him and stepped forward on guard.

At the same time, Epero and Viktor stepped further forward and drew their swords toward the approaching sounds.

"M-monster corpses...!"

A figure with an older, more wizened voice than expected dismounted and came running with the midday sun at their back. Behind them followed the clink clank of military equipment.

The moment they confirmed the identity of the figure approaching, stumbling as if about to fall, Adrienne's eyes widened in disbelief.

White, gray-blond hair and amber eyes. And a wrinkled face with drooping eye corners.

Adrienne had to feel her somewhat sunken mood lift all at once.

"...Count?"

Count Acacia, whom she'd thought dead, stood there perfectly fine.