'……Damn it.'
My body, tumbling as it fell, only came to a stop after planting my face into the ground.
[Captain!]
Nadav seemed to be calling me urgently, but my ears were ringing so badly I couldn't hear clearly.
Amidst the dizziness, I felt a dull pain throughout my body. I wasn't dead, but surely not all the bones in my body were broken……?
I felt someone pick me up as I gasped for breath. It was Nadav, returned to his Dullahan form.
Hey, you really shouldn't let the temple see you like that…….
[Excuse me, Captain.]
I was carried off like luggage by him. I didn't know how this sight would appear to the search party following behind, but I knew it wouldn't look good.
No, it wasn't simply a matter of not looking good. I already had a history of being kidnapped by a wyvern once.
They'll interpret it however suits them.
This time I might become a resurrected one kidnapped by a Dullahan…….
I simply closed my eyes.
* * *
"Lady Resurrected One!"
"Lady Aris!"
"There's blood over here!"
"Lady Aris is in danger! We must rescue her immediately!"
Samuel, who had been watching Arin rally the soldiers with disgusted eyes, bit his lip and averted his gaze.
Anelli, who had been quick to flee, was hit by an arrow from Roam's search party just before she could hide in the forest.
'I'm not sure which side is more dangerous.'
Samuel, who had been standing a little behind them, knew that the one who shot the arrow was none other than Arin.
Arin Toson was said to have been Anelli Roam's knight. He had even seen her weeping and praying, thanking the gods for the chance to finally atone for her sin of failing to protect her master.
Yet someone like that was aiming a bow at her own master. No matter how much she might want to do her utmost to capture her, it was incomprehensible behavior.
Even stranger were the Roam soldiers who weren't surprised by Arin's actions. They didn't seem to care about Anelli's wellbeing.
Rather, they were urging each other to capture her by any means necessary, saying that since she was a resurrected one whose severed head had reattached, ordinary wounds wouldn't be a problem.
He even heard that whoever captured Anelli first would receive a reward.
'A reward for their master's safety, they've lost their minds.'
Samuel suppressed his rising cynicism. However, he couldn't hide the contempt in his eyes as he surveyed the Roam soldiers.
"Hah."
After joining the temple, Samuel hadn't particularly concerned himself with worldly affairs. Though his family was also a noble house serving the Empire's emperor, he had already laid everything down and sworn to devote his life as a servant of God.
He had only heard of Anelli Roam's notoriety through rumors, as much as others knew, or perhaps even less.
Naturally, he didn't specifically know what kind of place the Roam family was.
If he hadn't just witnessed Arin aiming a bow at the person who was supposed to be her master, he would have remained uninterested.
"Sir Samuel."
"Did you capture that one?"
"……My apologies."
Anelli was definitely traveling with some man. Samuel, who had been lying in ambush by the river, had split his group in two to capture both of them but failed.
Naturally, he had left the man to the other soldiers and chased after Anelli himself, yet somehow he had lost the man he thought would be easy to catch.
"He was using a high-grade magical tool."
Samuel glanced at the soldier making excuses and withdrew his gaze without a word.
Though hidden by brush and invisible, Anelli seemed to have been hit by an arrow and fallen. Indeed, at the spot where he arrived late, he could confirm bloodstains and trampled grass.
Samuel took in the scene he had already surveyed. According to the Roam soldiers at the front, the fallen Anelli had been kidnapped by a monster.
It wasn't just one or two people—several were saying similar things, so a monster must have actually appeared.
'Kidnapping?'
Samuel recalled Anelli using a giant wyvern to escape the city.
No matter how he thought about it, this time too the likelihood that it wasn't a kidnapping was high.
"If you find our lady, you must signal the temple immediately."
At that moment, Arin, who had been busily commanding the soldiers, approached Samuel.
"I heard that you can miraculously find our lady."
He seemed wary that Samuel might find Anelli first. Samuel, who had been silent for a moment, replied calmly.
"I couldn't possibly. I am merely a servant of God; without the guidance of the Almighty, I would know nothing."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. It's you who will likely find the resurrected one soon."
Samuel's indifferent gaze turned to the bloodstains on the ground.
"……Even though you shot her with an arrow."
"Her Ladyship personally left bloodstains as a trail for us who are trying to save her, so I too must repay those expectations."
He seemed confident that he could track these bloodstains and capture Anelli. Samuel, who had ignored Arin's somewhat excited expression, indifferently ended the conversation.
"May God watch over you."
When he turned his head, Roam's search party was busily lighting torches in the direction the bloodstains continued. The temple soldiers glanced at them with worried expressions. Samuel instructed those soldiers:
"Cooperate with Sir Arin."
"Sir Samuel……."
"I will move separately. If Roam's side asks, tell them I went to report to the temple."
Samuel, who had been gazing at the forest path that was bright unlike the increasingly darkening sky, turned his body. Then he gathered portable treatment tools and medicine from a porter.
'It's not far. I must hurry before it's too late.'
His steps, knowing where to go, had no hesitation even in the darkness.
He vanished into the forest in an instant.
The forest shrouded in darkness was eerie.
"……."
Samuel walked carefully. The sounds of wild animals that had been heard occasionally stopped at some point. Only the rustling footsteps rang out unusually loud, which was quite eerie.
Samuel, walking slowly with his senses fully heightened, suddenly stopped. A shallow waterfront appeared nearby.
Except for the sound of water, the surroundings were silent. Samuel, who stood firmly in place and caught his breath for a moment, slowly gripped the sword handle at his waist.
"There's a search party not far away."
Speaking quietly, he slowly turned around.
"If you cause a commotion, you'll be discovered."
Where he turned, a pitch-black shadow stood, having appeared who knows when. Because of the dark forest, it wasn't clearly visible, but he could at least recognize the black armor on the black horse.
With his hand tightly gripping the handle, ready to draw his sword at any moment, Samuel tensed his jaw.
The presence before him was not human. Above its shoulders, instead of a head, eerie black smoke rose.
It was a Dullahan.
'……Damn.'
It wasn't his imagination that he felt a different aura from the typical Dullahans he knew.
What emanated from that body was definitely darkness, but the density of its impurity was completely different from the Dullahans he had encountered before.
"So it's you. The monster that supposedly kidnapped the resurrected one."
At Samuel's words, the Dullahan threatened him by straightening its body, but his gaze showed no wavering.
"Or perhaps it was a choice to protect your master."
Samuel thought the latter was probably correct. As evidence, that Dullahan was only threatening him without actually attacking.
It wanted him to be frightened and flee. Typically, cases where a Dullahan moved with such intention were rare.
Did she command a wyvern last time, and now she's commanding this Dullahan? The resurrected one that God revived knows how to control monsters?
Samuel, frowning as he glared at the Dullahan, asked in a quiet voice.
"Is it your master's command to stop me even at the cost of your destruction?"
He didn't care whether the Dullahan understood his words. He was speaking to the Dullahan, but the one he wanted to hear it was someone else.
After Samuel finished speaking, a brief silence lingered in the surroundings. The moment Samuel was about to draw his sword—
"Did I not tell you? I hate persistent men."
An indifferent voice disturbed the still air. Samuel, meeting the purple eyes that shone clearly even in the darkness, exhaled a ragged breath.
"That's why you're becoming more and more disagreeable to me."
Unlike her gentle voice, her gaze was utterly cold. Even faint irritation was evident. Her complexion, illuminated by the dim moonlight, was pale without a trace of blood.
"……."
Despite a face that looked like she might collapse at any moment, her unwavering eyes made Samuel completely remove his hand from the sword handle. Then he turned his eyes toward her arm.
"Let's start with treatment first."
* * *
I thought he might send a signal to the search party that he'd found me right away.
But Samuel, upon seeing me, immediately took out treatment tools and medicine. He examined not only the wound from the arrow but also every bruise and injury from falling and rolling off the horse in detail—he was definitely not what I had expected.
"Not only no fatal wounds, but nothing broken either. Even though you fell from a running horse."
"Exactly. Even if my life is one thing, it's a shame I'm intact when one broken leg would have made escaping even harder."
Even at my sarcastic answer, he examined my knee without any particular rebuttal. Nadav was stuck close, watching in case he might do something to me.
Even just having a robust Dullahan standing guard should have been burdensome, but Samuel didn't show much reaction.
A resurrected one who not only didn't die but didn't have a single broken bone from falling off a horse, and a Dullahan protecting such a resurrected one.
Perhaps he had given up thinking deeply about this combination that didn't feel real even when seeing it with his own eyes.
I too was surprised by the fact that my limbs were intact.
When Nadav first carried me off like luggage, my head was spinning and I was on the verge of losing consciousness.
At that moment, I really thought I was going to die.
'But…….'
After sleeping briefly in the shallow cave Nadav found and waking up, miraculously, my condition had improved significantly. The blood that had been streaming down my arm had also more or less stopped.
'Plus with Samuel providing proper emergency treatment, I should recover somehow.'