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“No big deal. Checking and rechecking is my old habit. As this is your first hunting, double checking is not bad, isn’t it?”

Gently stroking Snowyko’s cheek, he approached Balos and double checked the equipment.. Wendy shook her head, sighing at his excessive precaution. As he checked the equipment and Balos’s condition so seriously as if he wanted to check Balose’s mane, she gave up watching the tedious process and climbed on Snowyko’s back. As she had to team up with Snowyko, she thought she had better check by herself before going out into the forest.

While she rode the horse slowly around the nearby empty lot a couple of times, Jean and Melissa drove their horses toward her. Fortunately, Lard was done checking his equipment.

There was the sound of the horns ringing in the distance. Hearing the horn blowing, Lard’s group drove toward the west of the forest. A servant on a horse followed them and four hounds ran ahead of them, searching for prey here and there.

Unfamiliar with the scene around her, Wendy was filled with mixed feelings. She felt relieved that there was no chance of her bumping into Dylan, given the nature of hunting in small groups this time, but at the same time, she felt thrilled to hunt for the first time in her life.

She was embarrassed by this kind of excitement. She had to discard it in order not to play into the prince’s hand, but she found it hard to give up such feelings as a woman who had ignored the feeling for a long time. It was something she should have experienced as a young woman.

That awakening disturbed her heart as if she felt a sense of guilt.

Besides, she naturally recalled what the crown prince whispered to her after giving some advice to the nobles before the game started. His words disturbed her mind even more. With a casual look, the prince told her that he would expect her to win the hunting contest, as if he requested the heroine on the stage.

He openly expressed his wishes to her. If it was called ‘ambition’ to give a commoner woman the opportunity to rise as a noble woman, people would think harshly of it, thinking it would be more proper to call it grace, not ambition. But how could they purely accept his idea that he wanted to make Wendy Lard’s lover the captain of the imperial knights who lots of noble women admired and wanted to have as their lover?

Of course, Wendy also knew that the emperor’s ridiculous trick was not motivated by his wicked desire to harm her, but from her point of view, this would certainly be a threat, something extremely dangerous enough to threaten her life.

What she vaguely imagined turned out to be true, but she wasn’t entirely convinced why he did it.

So, Wendy expected to find out his motivation at the contest, but the prince left no room for her to figure it out.

‘Did he host this event to satisfy his own interest and entertainment? Because of his damn retirement?’

Wendy felt a migraine coming back because of the prince’s incomprehensible behavior. She felt a bit better when she pressed her temple with her fingertips. Her eyes were wet with tears.

The wind blew. Passing through the leaves of the forest one by one, it blew through the forest from the west. The breeze of the forest touched her wet eyes like a beast licking its wounds. With her eyes blinking slowly, she just left herself with the wind, not moving for a while.

“Wendy!” Melissa called her, getting close to her with a smile.

“Well, I’ve been curious about it all along…”

Wendy was forced to lean toward her as Melissa was hesitant to speak to her without meeting her eyes.

‘Why is she hesitant to speak to me?’

“I’ve been wondering about your hat veil. I’ve never seen that kind of veil before. Did you design it by yourself? Normally, when you ride a horse, you wear it in the back, not the front.”

Melissa raised her hand, pointing at the silvery veil covering the back of her head.

While she was annoyed at Melissa’s question, she answered with a sullen voice, “I have hypersensitivity to sunlight. I need this veil to protect my skin. Melissa, you had better be careful too because you will soon get freckles if your skin is exposed to the sun at midday. What’s more, if you run a horse without a long veil on your head in a forest like this, you might have an accident by getting caught in branches. Be careful. Your youth won’t last long.”

Melissa’s expression fell quickly. She took off her cap at once and shoved the veil into her bag carelessly. Watching her actions, Wendy drove the horse a little faster to get ahead of her to avoid any more unproductive conversations with her.

There was no hot sunlight in the dense forest, but Wendy’s warning to Melissa seemed to have had some effect. Hearing the sound of birds chirping from afar, Wendy put spurs to Snowyko harder.

While they scouted the forest, there was a noticeable change in the movement of the hounds. Sniffing around loudly, the hounds started running in one direction. As if they were excited at the scent of prey, the hounds ran ferociously, baring their sharp fangs.

Along with the rustling sound of the grass, there was the sound of a beast’s rapid movement.

Obviously, the prey hiding in the grass felt threatened and fled. The hounds began to chase it, barking loudly. The atmosphere was filled with excitement.

“Great!”

Jean exclaimed as if he was excited. The beast in question was an adult fox about the length of an adult’s forearm with conspicuous gray-white fur. Wendy silently watched the chase while following the fast-moving fox. The beast running away from the hounds chasing it ferociously seemed very desperate. The only thing the fox could do at the crossroads of life and death was to run away from the hounds without stopping.

But it was not just the sharp fangs of the hounds that threatened it.

Wendy heard somebody drawing their bow. The moment she confirmed it was Lard pulling the bow, the arrow left the bow, vigorously cutting through the air.

With a painful moan, the fox fell to the ground. The hounds, which were poised to run toward the fox, heard the servant’s whistling and groaned loudly without approaching it.

Concerned that the fox’s skin would be damaged, the servant quickly went and picked it up. Given the fox’s limp body in the hand of the servant, it seemed to have been already killed.

The servant approached Lard’s party and raised the dead fox.

“It’s a top quality Rustin fox. As the fur is rare, you can get a high score.”

Red blood was dripped from its body where the arrow pierced. The dead fox creeped Wendy out. Wendy hurriedly turned away her eyes from it.

The next game was found quickly. It was another fox with reddish brown fur.

It ran away, wagging its thick tail, but was hit by Jean’s arrow.

As the servant didn’t come to pick it up on time, an excited hound bit the dead fox’s nape, which made the fox bleed more.

Wendy couldn’t look at the bleeding dead fox, so she held her breath quietly. As if she was riding a rattling waggon, she felt nauseated. The excitement she felt right before going on the hunt was already gone. She saw the fear of the beast when it screamed its last time. She got goosebumps at its last cry. It was not only her instinctive objection to slaughter but also her natural objection to the strong’s mercilessness toward the weak.

“Are you feeling okay?” Lard asked her, feeling she was noticeably silent.

As she did not want to put a damper on their excitement, she nodded casually as if she was okay.

Lard looked straight into her face. When Wendy pulled out the water bottle and avoided his eyes, he suggested that his party take a break from hunting for a while.

It was not difficult for Lard to notice that her reluctant affirmation was a lie.

As she nodded with a hardened face, saying she was okay, he still couldn’t believe her.