The Forgotten Field - Chapter 216

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

Chapter 216
He tried desperately to hold on by gripping the saddle with his thighs, but his body had already reached its limit.
In the end, he tumbled forward onto the cold snowy field.
“Your Excellency!”
Someone barely caught his body as it slipped from the horse.
Barcas, kneeling on the ground and catching his breath, brushed away the hands trying to support him and used his spear as a crutch to straighten his tilted body.
But his vision twisted dizzily once more.
Barcas, leaning his head against the halberd and waiting for the vertigo to subside, glanced down at his abdomen. It seemed the reckless movement had torn open his wound. Blood gushed ceaselessly from the gaps in his armor where the blade had cut through.
A mounted warrior tore away his surcoat and frantically pressed it against the wound, shouting loudly.
“Fetch the Mage at once!”
Once it became clear he could move no further, he leaned his back against the snow.
He felt no pain, but the bitter cold and exhaustion that filled his body were acutely present.
Perhaps this is the last landscape I will ever see.
With such a thought, I gazed up at the sky. The beautiful cobalt light of late afternoon poured into my retinas.
In that moment, a sharp sensation spread from within my chest.
It was strange. The wound was certainly in my side, so why did it feel as though a hole had been pierced through my heart?
Barcas blinked his clouded eyes several times before letting his eyelids fall wearily.
* * *
A gentle breeze thick with the scent of grass softly caressed his face.
Detecting the sweet fragrance of ripe fruit mingled within it, Barcas promptly changed direction.
Not long after, I discovered Aria, whom I had been searching for hours, at the pond’s edge bathed in the crimson glow of sunset.
Barcas looked up at Aria with a disapproving gaze as she sat astride a thick branch at about his shoulder height, dangling her bare feet.
“Are you not past the age for climbing trees?”
Blue eyes that had been gazing at the tranquil violet lake glanced toward him.
“Not yet. Until I’m fifteen, I can do whatever I want.”
He raised one eyebrow in disbelief. Young ladies of noble houses typically began learning proper decorum around eight or nine years of age.
About to protest, he instead sighed and extended one hand.
“It grows late. Come down now.”
Aria looked down at him with an enigmatic expression before turning her head away with a petulant pout.
“I can’t.”
He narrowed his eyes.
Under the weight of his silent pressure, Aria swung her bare feet beneath the hem of her skirt, which she had rolled up to her calves.
“See? I’m barefoot, so I can’t move an inch from here.”
“…What became of your shoes?”
“I don’t know. They rolled down somewhere over there.”
She pointed to the dense undergrowth below the gentle slope leading to the lakeshore.
Barcas swallowed a sigh and descended to search through the brush. Soon he found a pair of velvet shoes, each no larger than his palm.
After brushing the dirt from them, he returned to the base of the tree, where Aria promptly extended her foot toward him as if she had been waiting.
“Here.”
Though he frowned at her treatment of him—a knight and heir to the Grand Duke—as though he were a mere servant, he gently grasped one of her feet and carefully slid it into the shoe.
Aria, who had been wiggling her tiny toes as though they itched, now extended her other foot toward me.
Without complaint, Barcas fitted shoes onto the remaining foot, straightened his posture, and tilted his head to one side as he spoke.
“Is that sufficient now?”
“Sufficient? Now you need to put me down.”
She stretched both arms toward him with a petulant expression.
Standing motionless as he observed her, Barcas exhaled a sigh of resignation before hoisting the girl’s body effortlessly into the air. Just as he was about to set her down on the ground, pale, delicate arms wrapped around his neck.
Startled by this unexpected gesture, Barcas stiffened momentarily, then caught the pungent scent of strong wine and furrowed his brow. She had been whimpering so much—it seemed she had managed to pilfer and drink some wine somewhere.
He peeled the girl away from where she clung to his chest and interrogated her in a clipped tone.
“Where did you obtain the wine?”
“That’s a secret.”
Aria giggled softly.
At the sound of that laughter, crystalline as a gentle breeze, the sharp reproaches that had been forming on my tongue dissolved in an instant.
I gazed at her small face, flushed with color, with unfamiliar eyes. I could not tear my gaze away from the sight of this girl, who always wore an expression of utter misery, now smiling without a single crease of worry.
“Look there, Barcas. The moon is rising in the sky.”
She suddenly pointed toward the heavens, which were turning a deep blue.
Following the direction of her finger, I could see a crescent moon caught along the boundary between crimson and azure.
As though she had discovered treasure, Aria gazed upward at it for a long moment, then murmured in a dreamy voice.
“In a year from now, I’ll be sixteen.”
Her eyes, wet as if submerged in water, slowly descended and came to rest upon me.
“You know, when that time comes….”
Her voice, which had been trailing slowly, suddenly cut off.
Barcas gazed down at the girl’s form as it dispersed like a mirage.
A fierce wind swept in from somewhere, striking his body with tremendous force.
In the next moment, he stood in the Castle Courtyard of Laedgo Castle.
Beyond the Garden, where flowers bloomed in profusion, she appeared.
Bathed in brilliant sunlight, she smiled with contentment, cradling a small boy in her arms.
The woman, gazing down at the child’s face with the same luminous expression she had worn while looking at the moon, suddenly lifted her head and looked at him.
Barcas.
As I approached her cautiously, she turned the child’s face toward me as though bestowing some precious blessing.
Look. Isn’t he truly beautiful?
The woman spoke with pride, as though displaying some rare treasure, and brought her rosy lips to the child’s bright cheek.
Barcas watched the scene without blinking, his gaze descending into her embrace.
Upon the tiny face, which seemed to blend her features and his in equal measure, jewel-like blue eyes sparkled brilliantly. Above them, an ashen face, growing cold within its wrappings, flickered past.
Beyond those eyelids, sealed shut forever, could there have dwelt eyes so profoundly blue?
Lost in such thoughts, I reached out and touched the child’s cheek. At that moment, even this futile, ephemeral phantom shattered like a mirage. The image of her, smiling with such happiness, crumbled into ash and scattered in an instant.
Watching as all that had glimmered dissolved soundlessly into the wind, Barcas clenched his empty fist.
Soon everything surrounding him faded to ash and shattered into fragments. A wind that had blown from somewhere swept away even the remnants of the illusion.
Now all that remained for him was a decaying body and endless emptiness.
He sank to his knees as though crumbling, gazing endlessly upon that infinite desolation.
* * *
“Are you finally coming to your senses?”
As his eyes fluttered open with a faint groan, the first thing that entered his vision was Darian’s gaunt face.
Why was the man who should have been guarding Tarlin at his side?
Furrowing his brow, he soon realized he lay not in a tent but in a lavishly appointed bedroom, and he pushed his upper body upright.
Seeing this, Darian gasped and pressed down on his shoulders.
“Your wounds have not yet fully healed. You must not move.”
Barcas looked down at his body with a stern expression. Pristine white bandages wrapped tightly around his bare abdomen.
When he pressed lightly upon them, a sharp pulling sensation accompanied by a throbbing ache coursed through him.
He looked up at Darian with a puzzled expression.
“Why didn’t you cast healing magic?”
“Why wouldn’t we have? Four High Priests descended upon you and poured their holy power into your wounds.”
The man, slumped heavily into a chair, spoke with an exhausted sigh.
“It appears the blade was coated with demonic poison. The healing magic proved ineffective, so the priests had to devote themselves entirely to your treatment for a full fortnight.”
Barcas raised one eyebrow.
“Exactly how long was I unconscious?”
“Precisely two weeks and five days without consciousness, sir.”

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