Chapter 256 – Time’s Up

Time passed in a blur, at least, that was how it felt to Eneida.

Even with her mind constantly distracted by the fact that Manasye’s visits had grown rare—and her reluctance to bring it up because of how exhausted he looked—her practice still began to show results.

The cute slime could stick to her leg without it feeling sick. 

People could stand within a metre of her for quite some time without feeling ill, until she finally said, “Let’s stop here. I don’t feel confident going further.”

They could have tested how much longer she could maintain this “neutral zone,” but just the thought made Eneida anxious, so they left it at that.

Still, it was undeniable progress.

Despite this incredible progress that nobody would have imagined possible in years, Eneida found herself unable to feel truly happy.

After all, her mind was worried about Manasye and the new distance that she felt recently between them.

I want to ask him, but what if it causes him more trouble? What if asking him will make things worse?

So, unable to express her worries to anyone, Eneida could only bury her feelings deep inside while continuing her days as usual.

The thing that she looked forward to the most in her days was the time Manasye was able to come and see her.

One day, during the day that Eneida was informed that Manasye would make a visit…

Her mood was better than usual. She was looking forward to seeing Manasye after days of not seeing him.

As the time drew near, she opened the detention bar that separated her private room from the general area where guests usually sat.

It was a small thing, but she felt genuinely happy about it. Being able to talk without the barrier between them, seeing others more clearly, and letting them see her as well… Even with some distance still between them, it felt different.

Then, finally, the moment she’d been waiting for.

She heard familiar footsteps climbing the stairs toward her room.

The familiar sound—hmm?

Why are there more footsteps than usual?

Her ears twitched at the oddity, and a faint wariness crept in.

“Eneida, we’re here!” Manasye’s voice came after the usual light knocks on the door.

Her pointy ears perked in delight despite her earlier unease, and she quickly called back, “Come in!”

After saying that, she remembered the oddly crowded footsteps she heard. And she grew uneasy as the door was opened.

When the door was opened, she could see Manasye and Clavis as usual, with Fenrir manifesting his form right afterwards. It was the usual thing, except…

The fact that there were more people behind them.

Three additional people were there–people she had never seen before.

When all of them entered the room, Eneida finally could see the new people trailing behind Manasye and Clavis.

The three of them were people around the same age as Clavis, so it was safe to say that they were the people of the same generation as the rest of them.

Moreover, the three of them had no pointy ears. 

Humans?! 

Eneida widened her eyes in surprise. 

When was the last time she saw humans in real life? 

No… she’d never actually seen one in person before. 

So she could only watch them with a mix of curiosity and caution.

Manasye seemed to have picked up Eneida’s curiosity, as he quickly introduced them.

“Ahem… This elf here is Eneida. I have often told you about her,” Manasye briefly introduced Eneida, who gave a quick nod. 

“Eneida, the people here are… well, as you can see, they are humans. They are representatives from Riviera. In other words, they are Clavis and the others’ friends,” Manasye introduced them.

“Ah… Nice to meet you,” Eneida said, as she seemed to have come to a realization.

She had somehow forgotten that Clavis wasn’t an elf. It was just… he was still in his elf disguise, so the fact slipped Eneida’s mind after several days.

“My name is Lucius Aideen seo Navarrete. You can call me Luca,” said the red-haired boy with a commanding presence.

“He’s the crown prince of Riviera,” Manasye added.

“I’m Kiri, his aide,” said the dark-green-haired boy beside him, standing like a knight yet visibly shy.

“And I’m Altaire! I think you’ve met my sister, Lyra? She was disguised as an elf, so—yeah—her real face looks just like mine,” said the older boy with galaxy-colored hair.

“I-it’s nice to meet you… Crown Prince Luca-sama, Kiri-san, and Altaire-san…,” Eneida quickly bowed when she realized there was royalty in the room.

If she remembered clearly, during her saintess education, she was told only to bow down to royalty. 

I guess that rule also applies to royalty of different kingdoms… right?

She was unsure, but just in case, she bowed politely. Even if she was currently not the saintess anymore.

Then she realized something else.

With this many people, I’m not sure I can keep my power from acting up…!

Eneida quickly stood up and put up the detention bar again, separating her from the rest of them.

“Uh… I apologize, but I am not yet confident in controlling my power, especially when there are too many people here. Just in case, please let me put up this bar first,” Eneida quickly explained. 

Manasye looked visibly sad, but he nodded in understanding. 

“Alright, I understand. And… Let’s just drop the formality when it’s just us. Either way, we’re more like hostages right now than representatives,” Luca said with a light tone.

“S-sorry about that…,” As the prince of the Cielle kingdom, Manasye couldn’t help but apologize on behalf of his father, King Deus, who caused all this to happen. 

“I’m just kidding. Don’t feel too guilty,” Luca cleared his throat. 

“Still, it’s amazing that you managed to fulfill your promise this quickly, Manasye!” Clavis said with a look of admiration towards the timid elf prince, Manasye.

“Well… It’s not that fast… It’s just a good coincidence. With my sister, Phoebe-neesama away to be the representative of cultural exchange between our countries, I am essentially the only child of royalty left here. I was actually expected to do my duties as the prince around your age, to greet and befriend you, but… Since I was timid, my parents didn’t force me to do that. I was afraid although I was curious about you all… I guess they noticed it and waited for me to try,” Manasye began narrating.

“And since my nanny, Maiara went to assist Doctor Eltharion to find a cure for Eneida, I guess that made my parents think… Since I was left alone and became quite lonely, I decided to try befriending the people around my age from Riviera… I think that’s how my parents viewed it. They were so happy to see me volunteering to entertain and make connections with the crown prince of Riviera country and his comrades,” Manasye concluded.

“I don’t get it, though. I think they have become wary of us due to the fact that Celeste… you know… And that’s why they seemed to have tightened security around us. It was only recently that I felt their monitoring seemed to be more lax. And that’s how we could be here now,” Luca said, still puzzled by King Deus’ attitude towards them.

It was really unknown what happened. Celeste suddenly got close to King Deus and became alienated from them, and at the same time, King Deus tightened monitoring on them. It was safe to say that Celeste had trapped them and sold them off to King Deus, but what would she gain from this?

And what did they do that caused his monitoring to grow lax now? Or is it just that King Deus entrusted the matter fully to his son, Manasye, so he felt no need to monitor them and he could be more focused on monitoring the older representatives instead? 

Or perhaps he had deemed them to be harmless, so he dropped his guard now?

Luca couldn’t be sure.

Manasye came up with the idea of touring the downtown nearby incognito with the representatives of Riviera, namely Kiri, Luca, and Altaire. Since it was incognito, Manasye refused being accompanied by any knight or maid, he only had Clavis with him, so they wouldn’t be too inconspicuous.

Apparently, King Deus and Queen Tabitha agreed to let them go because they trusted the security in downtown, as it was near the castle, and there would be knights patrolling to keep the area safe. Second, they still gave Manasye a magical pendant that he could use to transport them back to the castle should there be anything.

Third, perhaps it was because Manasye often toured downtown incognito with just Maiara, and sometimes it was just him and his sister, Phoebe. 

So, after going downtown incognito for a while, they went to the Tower of Exile to visit for a while, before returning to the castle as if they had just finished their downtown tour.

“I don’t think King Deus is that suspicious of a king if he just let us be, but… hmm, I can’t read him at all,” Luca frowned.

“I am his son, and I also don’t understand what’s in his mind…,” Manasye sighed.

If only I were as trustworthy and reliable as Phoebe-neesama, would he discuss such matters with me, I wonder?

“Anyway… I received a message from Valerie and Dmitria. They reminded me that our time’s almost up. I don’t think we can return quickly. But if we don’t, we’ll cause our parents to be worried, and…,” Clavis suddenly said as he took out a letter to show to Luca, Kiri, and Altaire.

Apparently, Clavis went to the lake where the Seaflieel named Kai–the tamed monster that Dmitria and Valerie tasked to help them out–was at, and Kai gave him a letter made with waterproof material with the purpose of letting the content of the letter be readable.

Inside, the miracle twins wrote in worry about how it was going, since time’s almost up and they had received no further information about how things were progressing and were getting more anxious day by day.

Luca sighed, “Alright. Now that it’s come to this, maybe we should notify our parents so they won’t be too worried and do something that can aggravate the situation.”

Luca then took out stationery from his bag, before Clavis stopped him and shook his head.

Then, he took out some stationery that he bought from a store nearby and said, “Narrate the content of the letter. I will write. You know, just in case your writing will be recognized as the crown prince’s writing and thus implicating matters between countries…”

“Right. You’re pretty sharp. Then…,” Luca then went to a nearby corner with Clavis and began to write the letter by narrating it.

“Hey, I wanna write a letter home too! Lyra’s my sister after all, so I guess I should be the one to write a letter to our parents. Clavis, help me, won’t cha?,” Altaire got up and followed them.

Together, they wrote several pieces of letters. One for Valerie and Dmitria, one for the miracle twins’ parents, one for King Titus, one for the Hartmann parents. All encrypted, just in case. 

Clavis didn’t write a letter for his parents, but let Altaire ask his parents to tell Clavis’ parents about his absence… As for Ein, the person himself wasn’t present, but they made sure to mention him and ask King Titus to address the issue with his parents.

As they were writing the letters, Manasye talked to Eneida alongside Kiri, explaining the circumstances to her.

Eneida was dazed for a while, since she clearly didn’t expect that the reason Manasye was so tired and visited her often was because of this. 

She had a mixture of emotions and had difficulty processing her thoughts. 

Her head knew that it was logical for Manasye to do this. But her heart was anxious and felt weird especially when she saw how Manasye talked with the humans, while she couldn’t join in their conversation.

She was just drifting along with her thoughts when suddenly…

“That’s right. Eneida, care for a little bit of practice before we go back? I’ve told the others of your situation and they’re willing to help,” Manasye suddenly reached out to Eneida.

“Eh?” Eneida was clearly caught off guard.

True, if I want to have a normal life, I should be able to handle my power even amidst the crowd.

Moreover, this isn’t close to how a crowd normally is…

Can I do it?

Though unsure, Eneida felt like she shouldn’t miss this opportunity. Not when the people around her already went through such lengths to help her…

“I-I’ll try,” Eneida nodded. 

Manasye happily removed the detention bar separating all of them from Eneida.

Eneida slowly walked to approach the others.

Manasye’s expression brightened when he noticed that Eneida was so close in front of him and the others, yet nobody felt unwell.

Eneida looked at the others nervously, and she relaxed when she saw that everyone seemed to be in good condition, despite being in such close vicinity as her.

I see. So, I can control my power this much. I thought that if there are too many people, it will at least affect one or two… So it’s a matter of distance and my control, the number of people doesn’t really affect it…

Eneida thought to herself.

Still…

“Uhm… I think that’s enough…,” Eneida said with concern apparent all over her face.

What if they get sick after this interaction with me?

When this distorted power started to manifest… I think some priests pretended they weren’t feeling unwell in front of me, and only collapsed later… What if the same thing were to happen?

For some reason, Eneida started to feel that the atmosphere around here turned heavier. She was getting anxious for no reason, and it was as if there was a heavy lump stuck on her chest, weighing her down.

Her head started to feel weird.

“Eneida, are you alright?” Amidst the confusion and the weird sensation she felt, Eneida could hear the familiar soft voice.

She tried to shift her face up, to see the source of the comforting voice–and yes, although she indeed saw Manasye in front of her, she also saw other people standing at the same side as Manasye.

Manasye is no longer alone. He now has other good friends by his side. Will he still want to stay by my side? Me, the cursed one?

She wasn’t sure why, but suddenly, such thoughts crossed her mind and the more she tried to erase such thoughts, the more they haunted her mind instead.

Her vision started to grow weaker the heavier she felt the atmosphere around her.

She wasn’t sure of how Manasye’s expression was at the moment, as he looked at her.

It was surely that of a concern, but…

For a moment, Manasye’s expression in her mind was that of fear and repulsion.

Her chest tightened. No. Don’t look at me like that… I’m fine. I’m fine.

“N-no! D-don’t come closer! Leave me!” she cried.

“Eneida, what’s wrong?”

Manasye tried to reach her, but Luca’s voice cut sharply, “Wait, Manasye—stay back!”

“I— S-stop… stay back…!” she pleaded.

“Eneida!!”

The moment Manasye’s hand caught hers, a surge of nasty, heavy energy burst outward, sucking the air from the room before exploding into a violent blast.