ALL NOVEL chapter 22
22 – Cold-blooded Irene
Irene with a hard face is also Irene,
She The knights in the same white uniform standing behind her cleared their ranks with a glance from her and bowed their heads toward me.
“I thought you would arrive tomorrow evening at the earliest, but I apologize for neglecting your preparations because I didn’t know you would arrive so early.”
“No. There is no need to apologize like that because it was a problem that we ran without resting.”
“We will serve you from here.”
After Irene said her words, she turned her eyes toward the knights standing next to her.
In an instant they opened the middle road and opened it for my wagon to pass.
Since passing her checkpoint, she and her knights have been guiding and escorting the area,
Lucia looked out of her window at Irene on her horse and started whispering to me quietly.
“Hero, is that the new party member?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Ah.. No… I think you are a much scarier person than I thought.”
Lucia can still see the image of her kicking a soldier away at the previous checkpoint.
Whenever Irene and her eyes met while looking out the window, she quickly turned her eyes to me.
From the time I heard that I was cold-blooded Irene, I expected that her atmosphere would be different from that of ordinary people.
She seemed to possess extraordinary charisma, even now, as she rode her horse and treated her men with a glance.
Following Irene to the Northern Army Garrison, all of her commanders, from knights to ordinary soldiers, were wearing white uniforms.
While she was doing her own thing, when she saw the figure of Irene, all of her stood up and greeted her with their immobile posture.
“……”
I was also surprised to see that figure,
I have seen many knights who have been trained and educated for a long time, but I was surprised to see a regular soldier who had not received proper education and training standing in line with the knights in a disciplined manner.
“This way..”
Irene stopped the wagon in front of the large barracks, opened the door, and gestured to us.
Even at that moment, the knights who had approached us were standing on both sides of the road we were entering, maintaining an immobile posture.
“The barracks for the hero and Lucia are currently being prepared, so we made a temporary place here.”
The barracks Lucia and I entered had a large map hanging on the wall.
Seeing that the map was placed on top of the table, it looked like it was used as a strategy meeting room.
“I heard that there is a fire in the elven forest. Are you okay?”
“Yes. Thanks to Lucia, I was able to get out safely.”
“Ah… Yes…”
I passed the ball that came out of the elven forest to Lucia, who was sitting next to me. Lucia blushed as if she was embarrassed, then met Irene’s eyes and lowered her head.
“Ah! Say hello This is Lucia, a party member.”
“Yes. I’ve heard a lot of stories. It’s a spirit sage… Hello. My name is Irene Alsmeyer.”
Irene stepped up to her Lucia and held out her hand to her, and Lucia, still frightened by her scary face, held out her hand very slowly, only to hold her hand together.
“Huh? My hands are cold…”
The first words of Lucia holding Irene’s hand…
“Yes. That’s just how I am originally.”
“Oh! Sorry! I don’t know…”
“No. It’s okay.”
Lucia, who had been holding Irene’s hand for a long time, felt that her hand was cold unlike her normal hands, and continued to caress her hand as if it were strange.
Irene talked about her own constitution casually with her typical expressionless expression.
“My name is Lucia! Good luck to her in the future!”
Perhaps caught by her rude holding of Irene’s hand just before, Lucia bowed her head deeply toward her and greeted her,
After receiving her greeting, Irene lightly bowed with a calm face and then moved her eyes to me again.
“By the way, hero, is it true that the Demon King’s army is coming to this desert? We sent scouts half a day away from here to keep checking, but there is no clue about the demon army yet.”
Irene double-checked that I did not trust the information I had sent through Edwin.
“I didn’t see myself moving or anything like that, but don’t worry, this information came from a reliable source.”
“Yes.. If the hero said so…”
“What are the current troops here?”
“The number is only 5,000 because we are bringing in mobile troops from the Northern Army right now.”
She said it was only 5,000,
If it was like an ordinary normal kingdom, they probably wouldn’t have finished their preparations, let alone started, before I arrived.
However, the story that the number 5,000 guarding the northern part of the Empire could always be on standby like this was tantamount to showing the potential military capabilities of the Fjord Empire.
“As expected.. It’s like the Fjord Empire. In that short time…”
“Because there are always constant battles with monsters in the frozen land of the northern part of the empire, we always prepare reserve units like this.”
“Then what about the vacancies when all the reserve units come out like this?”
“The imperial family promised to send reinforcements to the north, so I don’t really care.”
After she finished speaking, Irene stared at me, then she stood up from her seat with her typical innocent face.
“I will come back when a place to stay is ready. Until then, rest in peace.”
Irene said goodbye to me and Lucia and left the barracks.
“Whew~”
As soon as she left, Lucia, freed from her almost suffocating atmosphere, sighed heavily, and then she made her face look like she was going to live.
*****
After leaving the barracks, Irene did not leave immediately and stood in front of her door for a while.
Her expression didn’t change at all, but in her heart, she wondered if the hero would recognize her. She was lost in the illusion that she or she would at least pretend to know.
Ten years ago…
She didn’t seem to remember the hero, but Irene she definitely remembered the hero at that time.
When I was Princess Irene, not Grand Duchess Irene,
At that time, the kingdom of Alsmeyer was being interfered with by the Fjord Empire, but it was not the time to live as a vassal state with its autonomy deprived like it is now.
Despite her young age, she was intelligent enough to attend ceremonies or envoys to other countries, and was greatly loved and expected by the people as well as the royal family and nobles.
She loves her kingdom and her people more than anyone else, and in order not to be ignored as a small country, she was thorough enough to recheck her clothes, appearance, and dignity, and practiced. For the first time in her heart, a different person Since this came in…
She was a warrior.
The two first met at the Great Temple, where the appointment ceremony for the warriors who received the oracle of the goddess was held.
She used to use a lot of strength due to her family history, or when she was tired or not feeling well, she always had a cold because of her body, which turned into an ice field.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes?”
Her warrior approached her as she was sitting on a bench in her garden getting some air from the heat from her cold.
At that time, not long after the appointment of the hero, he was taking a walk in the garden to avoid a strange social event taking place in the banquet hall.
He approached Irene, who looked uncomfortable as she sat on her bench and cooled the heat on her forehead with her hand.
“You look very unwell. Are you okay?”
“Ah… Yes…”
Irene said she was definitely okay, but
Her flushed face, blurred focus from the heat, and moistened eyes proved otherwise.
“Oops.. Your complexion doesn’t look very good.. Shall I call you a priest?”
“No. Are you okay. It’s because the original constitution is like this. Thank you for your concern.”
“Then, even this…”
Her hero took off her own robe and put it on Irene’s shoulders, and at that moment, her surprised Irene’s face turned redder.
“I… I’m fine…”
“No. Keep it covered It’s warm around here during the day, but it’s colder than I thought at night.”
“Thank you.”
Irene was holding with both hands her shirt, which her warrior covered with her blushing face, to keep it from falling.
It was night, so she couldn’t see his face closely, but he also had a rather worried face.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I am not cold.”
“No. Hero… I think you’re worried about something…”
“Ah… hahahaha.. Should I just… Be burdened? Thinking of myself as a hero who will save the human world made me afraid.”
While the hero was confiding in himself, he was caressing the back of his head as if he was ashamed of something,
Irene was laughing as she covered her mouth with her hand, probably because the hero’s appearance was cute.
“Hero, you will be able to do well. If he is this kind, he will be able to protect this continent.”
“Thank you so much for saying that. Seeing such a beautiful person wholeheartedly supporting me gives me a bit of confidence.”
“Yes? My… Me…?”
After hearing the hero’s words, Irene’s fever seemed to rise further, and her palms were not enough, so she used the back of her hand to cool her fevered cheeks.
The more she looked at the warrior’s face, the worse her symptoms became, and she had no choice but to turn her head away.
“Yes. If you’re not rude, your name is…”
“Hero!!”
The hero tried to ask Irene for her name, but the priest who jumped out of the building couldn’t bear to finish his words.
“Hero!! What if you are here? The guests are still waiting!”
“Ah… yes… I’ll go in.”
“Come quickly!! His Majesty the Emperor is still waiting at the banquet hall to see the hero!”
The priest grabbed the hero’s arm and headed into the building, and Irene tried to hand the hero’s coat she was covering,
The figure of the hero had already disappeared into the building.
But then…
“Princess!! It’s a big deal!”
“Mary? What’s going on all of a sudden? Why are you running so quickly?”
Mary, the maid who came to find Irene…
Her dark complexion seemed to indicate that something had happened, but she hesitated for a while to see if she could not easily talk to her.
“Wow… In the kingdom… A rebellion has broken out!”
“What…?”
Puffed up..
Irene eventually lost the warrior’s top that she was holding on to. She
She had to go back to her room to prepare for her return to her home country, without waiting for her pick up or warriors.