Chapter 204: A Promise
Lillian and “Ryan” walked for a long time.
As she walked, she kept shouting until her throat was nearly raw.
“Rex—! Rex—!”
No one answered. Only the mirrors threw her voice back and forth, turning it into countless echoes of “Rex,” layer upon layer, carrying it into the distance until it vanished somewhere out of sight, as though something were swallowing the sound whole.
Lillian was both anxious and furious.
“What is wrong with him?” she snapped at the figure ahead of her. “How did the two of you get separated? It was only this little bit of road!”
“Ryan” gave a somewhat helpless shake of his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was scouting ahead at the time, and he was walking behind me. When I looked back, he was just gone.”
“What an idiot!”
Lillian cursed out loud. The insults flew from her mouth one after another, each harsher than the last—idiot, fool, country bumpkin, blockhead, Rex.
But as she kept cursing, her voice softened.
Rex... you absolutely cannot let anything happen to you...
That was what she was thinking.
After walking a little farther, both of them were parched. “Ryan” found a spot and sat down against a large mirror. Lillian sat beside him, pulled out her waterskin, and gulped down several mouthfuls.
After drinking, they both caught their breath.
Then “Ryan” suddenly turned to look at her.
“Rex is important to you, isn’t he?”
Lillian froze.
She had not expected that question from someone who was usually so cold and so sparing with words. Her face grew a little warm.
“I-important?” She turned her face away, refusing to look at him. “It’s just... he’s somewhat easier on the eyes than most. You could say he’s one of my attendants.”
“Ryan” looked at her.
Then he smiled.
It was an especially gentle smile, so gentle that it did not seem like him at all. Gentle enough to feel like it belonged to someone else.
Lillian stared at that smile and froze.
She had never seen that expression on Ryan’s face before.
Some people look beautiful when they smile, but if someone has never smiled at you before and suddenly does, you should be careful.
“Then we have to find him faster,” “Ryan” said.
Lillian nodded silently.
The two of them stood up and continued walking.
“Rex—!”
“Rex—!”
In the mirrors, countless copies of them were shouting too.
They did not know how long they had been calling before an answer finally came from ahead.
“Young miss—! Young miss—! I’m here!”
It was Rex’s voice.
Lillian’s eyes lit up at once. She ran toward the sound, with “Ryan” following behind her. They rounded several corners, passed through several branching paths, and at last saw him—
Rex was sitting on the ground, leaning against a mirror.
He was injured. His clothes were torn open in several places, exposing torn flesh beneath. Those wounds were still bleeding, staining a small patch of the mirror beneath him red.
“Rex!”
Lillian rushed over and dropped to a crouch in front of him.
“What happened to you? How were you hurt?”
Rex lifted his head, and when he saw her, a simple, foolish smile spread across his face.
“Young miss...” His voice was weak. “You came...”
Lillian’s eyes reddened with panic. She hurriedly pulled out a potion and poured it over his wounds.
“What happened? Who did this to you?”
Rex grinned, as though trying to endure the pain.
“It was Vera,” he said.
Lillian’s hand paused for an instant.
“Vera?”
“Ryan” frowned as well.
Rex nodded.
“I was walking along when I ran into Vera,” he said. “I asked her where my young miss was, and she said you had gone with Ryan to look for me. I was actually pretty happy. I thought I’d run into one of our own. But then...”
He paused, and anger rose across his face.
“Then she led me to a place and said she’d found the exit. She wanted to go back and get you, and told me to wait there. I said we should go back together. And then... then she attacked me.”
Lillian’s eyes widened.
“She attacked you?”
Rex nodded.
“She hit me with wind magic. I couldn’t beat her, so I could only run. I kept running and eventually ended up here.”
Lillian trembled with rage.
“H-how could she be that kind of person?”
“Ryan” also knitted his brows tightly, but said nothing.
Lillian took a deep breath, poured out another bottle of potion, and kept treating Rex’s wounds. Her movements were very light and very careful, as though she were afraid of hurting him.
“Come on, let’s go find her,” she said. “We’ll make her explain herself.”
Rex looked at her and suddenly smiled.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Actually, this worked out pretty well.”
Lillian froze.
“If this hadn’t happened, young miss, you wouldn’t have left Vera’s side,” Rex said. “In a way, it ended up protecting you too.”
Lillian’s face flushed bright red.
“What are you even saying, you blockhead!”
She lowered her head and kept applying potion to his wounds, too embarrassed to look at him, though her movements grew even gentler.
“Idiot... you fool...” she muttered softly. “You absolutely can’t get separated again, understand? We don’t even know what kind of things are in this place. You wouldn’t even know where you died...”
“Got it, got it,” Rex said with a grin.
Then his hand quietly reached over and took hers.
Lillian’s whole body stiffened.
Her face burned as though it were on fire, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“W-what are you doing? Who said you could hold my hand?”
Rex scratched his head and laughed sheepishly.
“Young miss...” he said, “you’re really good to me.”
At the side, “Ryan” chimed in too.
“Exactly. Your young miss was terribly worried about you just now. She kept looking for you the whole way here and shouted until her voice was almost gone.”
Lillian’s face turned even redder. The heat spread from her cheeks to her ears, then down her neck, until her whole body felt warm.
“A-all right, all right!” she stammered. “Isn’t it only natural for me to be good to you? Besides me, who else would be good to you?”
She shook her hand, trying to pull free.
“Let go already!”
But she was not really struggling at all.
Seeing that, Rex suddenly pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly.
Lillian’s mind went completely blank. She froze in his embrace, her thoughts a total mess.
Then she started hitting him.
“What are you doing, you idiot? I only let you hold my hand for a moment, and now you’re already getting carried away? Ryan is right here, too!”
Rex did not let go. He held her tightly.
Then he spoke, his voice low and serious.
“Thank you, young miss.”
Lillian’s movements stopped.
“Thank you for saving me. Thank you for being so good to me.”
His voice was trembling.
“In the future... I’ll stay by your side forever. I’ll protect you for the rest of my life.”
Lillian’s heartbeat skipped.
She lifted her head and looked at him.
That honest face of Rex’s was filled with sincerity, with seriousness, with something impossible to reject.
Her head felt light.
Those words, that promise, that “for the rest of my life,” kept circling through her mind until she felt as though she were floating.
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