I Became the Wife of the Hero Who Killed Me - Chapter 164

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

#Episode 164
The moment of departure had truly arrived.
Everyone mounted their horses, and Sir Gareth at the front called out the order to move. Rough hoofbeats shattered the damp night air.
The shouts of Count Baron and the miners faded rapidly behind us.
“My lady, please return safely!”
…….
I clenched my teeth and spurred the horse forward.
The difficulty was incomparable to the Tournament.
Even with the torches held high, the surrounding darkness was absolute, and I could barely see the ground beneath us.
To make matters worse, the earth—slick with night dew—threatened to send us tumbling a thousand feet down the cliff face at the slightest misstep.
I kept my nerves sharp and guided the horse with utmost care.
‘Edwin, where are you now?’
I pictured him leading the great army toward the Northern Wall.
Edwin was, without question, the strongest knight on the continent, yet knowing he was gambling his life against the monsters filled me with an anxiety I could not suppress.
‘No—I mustn’t let my mind wander now.’
I had to survive.
If I reached the castle safely and fulfilled my duty as Duchess, then Edwin on the front lines—and all the citizens of Lombard—could live.
I gripped the reins tighter still.
* * *
I had lost track of how long we had been riding.
My entire body was drenched in sweat, and my tense muscles screamed with a sharp, stabbing ache.
Subjectively, it felt as though half a day had passed, yet the darkness around us remained as pitch-black as ever.
‘At this rate, I’ll cramp up…….’
I wanted nothing more than to collapse into the dirt and give up, escape or no escape.
But I had to reach the nearest outpost before dawn. Only by joining the garrison there could I ensure even minimal safety.
Even though I felt as though I might die, there was nothing to do but endure.
‘But something feels off. There’s a strange sense of discord.’
Knights with monstrous stamina might not feel it, but I—when I exerted myself beyond a certain span of time, my internal reserves depleted and my body fell under unbearable strain.
It was a sort of biological clock.
Given my body’s current state, dawn should have already broken by now.
The indicators my body was sending me were entirely at odds with the notion that mere tension was making time move slowly.
“Sir, doesn’t something feel wrong? By now, the sun should be rising.”
“Actually, I was just thinking the same thing—”
It was just as Gareth, riding at my side, was about to say something.
The ground beneath us lurched violently. This was no ground tremor from our horses’ hooves—the entire canyon shuddered and heaved with a thunderous roar.
“Earthquake!”
“Everyone, dismount! Everyone, get down——!”
Before the leading knight could even finish his cry, the very earth we stood upon began to crumble like a biscuit.
The formation collapsed in an instant.
The knights ahead were hurled into the void along with their horses, one after another, and then it was my turn.
There was no time to react. The ground vanished beneath me and my vision inverted.
“Ahhhhh——!”
“My lady!!”
As I plummeted toward the cliff’s edge, Berry threw herself at me and grabbed me fiercely.
Gareth, across from us, lunged toward me but spotted an enormous boulder falling from above. Without hesitation, he shoved both Berry and me with all his strength.
“Go on ahead!”
“Sir Gareth!”
The price of saving us was that Gareth was left in the center of the collapse with nowhere to escape.
Boulders the size of houses swallowed him whole.
The spot where Gareth had stood just moments before was buried under a massive heap of fallen stone, vanished without a trace.
“My lady, don’t look!”
“Berry, Sir Gareth…….”
“He’ll be fine. The Lord’s right hand couldn’t possibly fall to something like this.”
Even as Berry spoke those words, her voice trembled softly.
All around us was chaos.
As we fell, the knights’ cries searching for me and the roar of collapsing cliff face echoed through the canyon.
Berry, holding me steady with one arm, snatched at a tree root precariously jutting from the cliff face.
“Trust only in me. I swear, I will get you safely to the castle!”
“Berry?!”
The recoil from catching ourselves on something mid-fall was tremendous.
Even I, cradled in her arms, felt a violent shock; Berry’s arm bore the brunt of it.
Sure enough, her shoulder hung at an unnatural angle, yet Berry paid it no mind, her eyes bloodshot as she swept the surroundings.
“There’s solid ground over there. We have no choice but to leap and make our way across.”
“A leap? Berry, is that even possi—”
She did it.
Gripping a root and drawing back hard, Berry hurled herself into the void.
She landed on a crevice, pushed off again, and seized another root or stone, dangling from it.
With overwhelming strength she leaped toward her target, nearly within reach—
Another tremor split the air. The cliff face she was about to touch crumbled away.
“My lady!”
Berry let go of whatever she’d been reaching for and chose instead to wrap herself around me.
We tumbled headlong down the slanted cliff.
Sharp stones scraped my cheeks, and somewhere in that chaos, I lost consciousness.
* * *
It hurts…….
I lay there blinking numbly, waiting for sensation to return fully to my body.
The sky was still dark, and an eerie silence hung over everything, though I couldn’t say how long I’d been unconscious.
Then Berry’s final image flashed through my mind. I gripped my throbbing shoulder and forced myself to sit up.
“Berry?!”
Wrapped in her arms as we tumbled down that treacherous cliff, she must have taken the worst of it.
Frantic with worry, I called her name until my throat was raw, but all that came back was an empty echo.
Limping desperately through the darkness, I found nothing.
Not even the knights who fell with us.
An uncanny silence pressed in, as if I alone had been left behind in the world.
“Where…… am I, anyway?”
Something felt wrong.
I’d been descending through dense forest near Barg Mountain, and no matter how far I tumbled, the area should have been all woodland.
Yet I now stood in the middle of a barren wasteland.
With each step, dry earth kicked up in dusty clouds.
From far off in the darkness came an unidentifiable cry, and not a single tree stood anywhere nearby.
“There’s no place like this on Barg Mountain…….”
The moment that thought struck me, a biting cold rushed in.
In the chaos, I’d lost my blankets and other belongings, so I wrapped my remaining cloak up to my chin and looked up at the sky.
I meant to gauge my position by the stars.
But the night sky held not a single star—only a full moon, grotesquely enormous, hung in place.
It felt like the eye of something watching me.
“Should I move?”
Normally I would have stayed put, in plain sight for the search party to find.
But instinct screamed that I should not.
The cries of beasts in the distance were drawing closer.
Without cover, caught face to face with a predator in this place, I’d be helpless to fight back.
I decided to leave this barren expanse and find forest where I could hide.
But my resolve crumbled shortly after.
“Is this even possible?”
I had walked in a straight line.
I’d pressed on while I still had strength, hoping to reach water before it gave out.
I’d used the moon as my marker—there was no reason to lose my way—yet somehow I stood once again in the middle of that same wasteland where I’d first opened my eyes.
“What in the——”
I knew in my mind that I had to stay calm.
When I thought of Sir Gareth and Berry, who had given their lives to protect me, and Edwin waiting anxiously at the front lines for news of me.
Yet nothing made sense from beginning to end.
Panic surged, and tears began to well up.
“What do I do? Edwin, where are you…….”
Edwin should not have been at Barg Mountain in the rear. And yet I kept thinking of his sturdy embrace and his warm voice.
I wished this were all a dream, a nightmare from which I could wake.
But the bone-deep cold and the aching pain told me this was undeniably real.
I had to think clearly. I couldn’t fall apart now.
I clenched my jaw and reached up to wipe my tears—
“Meow!”
…….
A familiar cry pierced the night air.
Beyond the wasteland’s horizon, a small dark shadow was racing toward me with desperate urgency.
It was a situation I could scarcely believe, and yet I had no choice but to accept it.
The Golden Ribbon around its neck.
The ribbon I had fastened to Nero as a symbol of something precious as gold was dangling from that cat’s neck.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————