Flirting With the Villain’s Dad

Chapter 8

The horse ran at an incredible speed.

I couldn’t catch my breath. All I could do was let my lashes flutter in the wind as the emperor held me in place. The ground was too far away, and the scenery changed so fast that it was giving me motion sickness.

On top of that, the emperor embraced me hard enough that it was painful. However, that was natural, given that he was in stiff, angled armor. But I didn’t have the courage or the luxury to complain about it.

Just how far did my destiny plan to take me?

The emperor tightened his arm around me and yelled, “We’ll continue through the magic circle! Do not fall behind!”

I realized then that there were dozens of knights following us on horseback. The loud noise that had been echoing around us had been the sound of the guerilla troops’ horses as their hooves pounded the ground.

I barely managed to open my eyes.

“Magic circle.” He had said magic circle.

There was a blinding cluster of lights in the distance. A large circle unfolded over two stepping stones, and a strange light was swirling inside. It almost looked like a writhing wall.

The emperor didn’t slow in the slightest. Just as he had shouted, it seemed that the Bellecourt troops intended to pass through the magic circle at the same breakneck pace.

I instinctively knew that once I passed through the magic circle, I would really be saying goodbye to Livovny.

Finally, the dazzling cluster of lights surged like a tidal wave and swept across my line of sight. My vision flashed, but a large hand immediately covered my eyes, blocking off the blinding light that had painfully pierced my sight from all directions.

My body churned violently once again.

“Do not stop until we reach Bellecourt!” I could hear the emperor shouting as my vision went black.

* * *

My head felt like it was about to split open, and my surroundings were noisy.

“I never expected that she would have such little resistance to the mana from the mana ore…”

“So, are you saying that she won’t wake?”

“I’m afraid I can’t be certain…”

The voices buzzed like I was listening to them from far away. I couldn’t make out a single thing they were saying clearly.

So frustrating. I groaned as I opened my eyes. I thought I opened them wide, but I could only see a sliver of light.

It took a lot of groaning, but eventually, I managed to open them fully. The moment I did, the ringing in my ears settled, and I could hear clearly again.

I could hear the sound of multiple people inhaling sharply.

The first thing I saw was dazzling silver hair. I lowered my gaze in a daze.

Languidly stretched limbs and amaranthine eyes with a reddish glow, a sharp nose, neat lips, and a smooth jawline that was slim without looking weak. He was…

Mm. A hottie.

“I see you’re awake,” the hottie said.

I grinned even through my daze.

He was a rare hottie who put any celebrity’s looks—and even Yerenika’s beauty—to shame. He seemed to be maybe twenty-six, but I couldn’t be sure.

Those laidback and disinterested amaranthine eyes were particularly attractive. Between his silver hair and the bright armor that completely covered his body, the reddish glow of his eyes stood out.

“Princess.”

Wow, the hottie spoke again.

When I continued to grin stupidly, the man narrowed his eyes slightly. He turned his head, and I heard him talking to someone.

“Is something very wrong with her?”

“P-please allow me to perform an examination…” An old man with a very full white beard hurried to my side.

He wore a very weird monocle. He must have had terrible sight in that eye because it looked excessively small through the monocle.

The old man rolled up his sleeves and asked me, “Your Highness, would you mind?”

It was around then that I started coming to my senses. It felt like there was a thick fog in my head that was gradually lifting.

I furrowed my brows and blinked a few times. The headache I’d forgotten about was returning.

What happened? Did I get too motion-sick?

But I quickly dropped that train of thought. Something was off. My headache was growing worse.

“Ngh.” A pain like my head was splitting in two took me over.

I had never had a headache like this before. White sparks flashed before my eyes. I curled up without being able to utter a single cry, clutching at whatever was in my reach. I felt something cold and hard.

“Your Highness, just a—!” the old man yelled something and put his hand to my head. My pain doubled in an instant.

I flailed about to escape the old man’s grasp. The pain gradually moved outward from my head, radiating down my body and spreading out all over. I could see lightning bolts in my vision, and eventually, a white light exploded.

“Princess!”

The voice calling me rose and fell in volume, but I didn’t have any focus to spare on it. My body twisted and contorted at the pain threatening to shred my body to pieces. Something flowed down my face, but I couldn’t tell if they were tears, snot, drool, or something else.

The cold, hard thing I was clutching shifted. Even through my contortions, I clung tighter and tighter to it like it was my lifeline.

“Hngh…”

My veins bulged against my skin, and something large and warm covered my hand.

And then…

The agony tearing through every part of my body washed away in an instant.

I blinked dumbly, curled up on my side. I could see the dry, barren ground in my skewed vision… and hard silver armor. I made a dumb sound.

“Uh…”

What I’d been clinging to like a lifeline all this time had been the foot of a suit of silver armor.

Foot…?

And settled on top of the hand I was clutching at the foot with was a large, rough hand. I blinked and slowly lifted my gaze.

The clear amaranthine eyes I’d seen as soon as I’d woken up were looking straight down at me. In place of their languidness was shock, bewilderment, and concern.

The emperor of Bellecourt asked in an urgent tone, “Princess, are you all right?”

I didn’t respond, but the tears that had gathered at the corners of my eyes began to fall.

It was only then that I realized how unsightly I must have been, smearing tears and snot everywhere and curled up pitifully on the ground at that. The sobs that wouldn’t come out when I was writhing in pain burst from my throat.

“Wah… What the heeeck…?”

I was on edge for days to protect my sister, and what happened? I got kidnapped like a sack of potatoes instead. I had to sit on a horse for the first time, and it ran at full speed. And to top it off, I suffered through the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my entire life!

After holding back all this time, I burst into tears.

If I’d known this would happen…!

“Waaah… I’d still have done things this way…” That was the saddest part!

The emperor of Bellecourt looked extremely flustered. “Princess?”

“If you couldn’t kidnap my sister, you should’ve just gone home! Why kidnap meee…? You… you terrible… waaah…”

The whole world felt terribly sad to me. The rough feeling of the dirt against my left cheek felt sad, and the way my whole face felt wet was sad too.

“Sis… Theresia…” I sobbed.

It was sad that I was in this kind of state at the age of twenty-five, but only having Theresia, a character from a book, to call out for was sad too.

And my fingers had gone stiff from clutching the shoe so tight, and I felt so bad for them that I cried even harder.

Why did I have to grab his foot of all things? Waaah!

It seemed like the emperor was genuinely flustered now that I’d begun to wail my heart out.

The next moment, to my shock, I found myself picked up.

I got scooped up like a ragdoll, and before me was a man whose face looked as though the gods themselves had painstakingly crafted it by hand. In contrast to my unsightly, haggard appearance, he couldn’t have been any neater.

“Hic… Ngh, mm. Nn.”

“What are you so sad about?”

The emperor of Bellecourt got to his feet with his hands under my armpits. I might as well have been a scarecrow with how easily he moved me about.

He set me down on top of the amaranth banner emblazoned with the symbol of Bellecourt. Being set on top of the symbol of the empire startled me so much that I instantly stopped crying.

“Uh… mm.”

“What are you crying so sorrowfully over?”

Now that I’d stopped crying, the hiccups began. I probably came across as ridiculous. I looked up at the emperor, my face stained with tears and other fluids.

After setting me down on the banner, he got to his feet to retrieve something from one of his men before lowering himself again. “I didn’t expect you to be sensitive to mana. I apologize. Did it hurt a lot?”

“Mmph… Y-yes?”

“Ah. And I apologize for kidnapping you so suddenly. You seem to have been surprised.”

I didn’t expect an apology at all. For a kidnapper who’d gone to such lengths to teach Livovny a lesson, his words were surprisingly kind.

I looked up at him with the stupidest face I’d made since landing in this world. It seemed what he’d gotten from the knight was a handkerchief. He swiped my face with the white cloth. Clear, sticky things came away with the piece of fabric. Ugh, so embarrassing.

“I-I’ll do it myself…”

He handed the handkerchief over easily, and I accepted it with a voice as meek as a mosquito’s buzzing. I was the princess of a nation, after all—this was way too shameful.

I quickly scrubbed my face with the handkerchief.

The pain from earlier had disappeared like it had never happened. No, I felt even more clear-headed than before. Aside from my eyes stinging and my nose being stuffy from all the crying, nothing hurt at all.

What had caused that kind of pain?

“Have you always been sensitive to mana or mana ore?”

It seemed I wasn’t the only one wondering.