As Joel continued his silent protest by pouting, Robert spoke up as if trying to cheer him up.
“Ah, Joel. Come to think of it, I forgot to tell you—the Crown Prince decided that once the investigation team from the Holy See arrives, he will entrust your father’s counseling directly to the Archbishop. Since Sir Bennet has been struggling with guilt from the past war, the Crown Prince is very concerned. He hopes that Sir Bennet can find peace of mind through this opportunity.”
“…He is quite detailed. I’ll tell His Highness thank you in person later.”
Joel’s protruding lip slid back in.
To be honest, he had been worried that his father, left all alone after he fled, might do something foolish again.
It was a relief to know he could gain some psychological stability that way.
Meanwhile, Robert finally finished deboning the trout, squeezed some lemon juice over it, and pushed the entire plate in front of Joel.
Joel immediately and excitedly attacked the trout, which was larger than his own face.
“Oh, Joel. Also, you see…”
Robert called out to Joel but couldn’t follow up, his lips merely twitching.
He had to tell Joel that the Crown Prince had already found out about the pregnancy…
But when he remembered Joel begging for help to escape in the forest, he couldn’t find the courage to confess the truth.
After returning from the underground mansion, the Crown Prince had summoned Robert and ordered him not to tell Joel that he had confessed the pregnancy.
Judging by the way the Prince was grinning like an idiot, he was clearly planning some kind of surprise proposal. Because of this, not only Robert but even Abe, the Knight Commander, hadn’t been able to properly ask Joel for forgiveness.
For the past three days, Robert, plagued by guilt, had hoped Joel would simply notice on his own.
But the clueless Joel still had no idea that the number of people who knew about his pregnancy had increased by two.
It was almost impressive how thick-skinned Joel was, failing to notice anything strange even when Abe was practically crawling on the floor in front of him out of sheer awkwardness.
Since Robert had broken his promise and spilled everything to the Prince, shouldn’t he, as a friend, at least give Joel a hint that the Prince knew the truth?
But looking at Joel eating his trout with such an innocent face, the words wouldn’t come out.
Joel felt such extreme disgust for life in the capital that he was willing to give up even the chance to be with the Prince he loved so much.
If he found out he was no longer able to leave, he would surely be devastated.
“Uh, hey. Joel. I have something to tell youuu…”
Meanwhile, Joel was so preoccupied with the trout that he didn’t even respond.
He seemed completely unaware that Robert had even spoken.
After hesitating for a long time, Robert finally decided to just keep his mouth shut.
The Crown Prince would tell Joel everything himself in a few days anyway; there was no need for Robert to make Joel tremble with anxiety beforehand and ruin the Prince’s confession.
Thinking back, it had been a long time since he’d seen Joel looking this happy—not intimidated, not prickly, and not anxious.
He figured a few more days of letting Joel live with a light heart wouldn’t hurt.
Robert forced himself to ignore the scratchy feeling of guilt in his throat and began to slice a large ham.
Two days later, Joel finally set off for Count Gray’s castle.
Robert had tried to stop him, saying it was too early to ride in a carriage since the scab on his wound hadn’t properly formed yet, but he couldn’t break Joel’s stubbornness.
Above all, because more and more tourists were swarming the area, the Crown Prince granted Joel’s wish to leave for Count Gray’s castle.
The night before leaving, Joel secretly summoned Sir Bennet.
Since the Crown Prince shared the same bed, it was a risky move, but fortunately, the exhausted Prince, who had fallen into a deep slumber, didn’t notice Joel sneaking out of bed.
The Prince had been holed up in the underground mansion for the past five days, even skipping meals.
Curious, Joel had asked what on earth he was doing down there, but the Prince hadn’t given a proper answer. He just said he would tell him later.
In truth, Joel couldn’t keep the exhausted Prince talking for long.
The Prince would get up early at dawn, rush down to the basement, and only come back up to the surface when he was on the verge of collapsing from fatigue.
Looking utterly haggard, he would finish a meal of thin porridge, immediately fall asleep while holding Joel, and then vanish into the underground mansion again as soon as the sun rose the next day.
When Joel woke up in the morning, all that remained by his side was the Prince’s scent and a cloak soaked in his pheromones.
Joel assumed he was gathering valuables left behind by the demon and didn’t pay it any more mind.
“Father, what happened to the things I asked for the other day?”
“…It’s here.”
Sir Bennet handed over a bag with a complicated expression.
Taking it, Joel opened the bag to check the contents.
Food, money, extra clothes, a map, and even a compass—everything needed for a long journey was properly prepared.
Sir Bennet unfolded the map inside the bag.
“Joel, do you see the place marked here on the map? If you go there at midnight three days from now, mercenaries and horses will be waiting for you. Be careful not to get caught. Of course… you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to.”
Sir Bennet looked as if he were desperately hoping Joel wouldn’t go. Joel replied firmly, “That won’t happen.”
“Joel, I prepared it because you were so desperate… but I still don’t know if this is right. If you leave like this, I don’t know when we’ll see each other again, and the Crown Prince seems to like you very much… Do you really have to go?”
Even though he was twenty, to Sir Bennet, Joel was still no different from a child.
The fact that he was planning a midnight escape while pregnant made it impossible not to worry.
When Joel showed no sign of changing his mind, Sir Bennet grabbed him and said, “Then let’s at least leave together.”
“Oh, I told you, forget it. How can I take my aging father on such a long journey? It’ll just be harder if I go with you, so you just stay here.”
Joel grumbled and pulled his father’s hand off his arm.
This was his father’s home, built with a lifetime of effort.
His father couldn’t live away from this place.
He had initially tried to force his father to come along, fearing Count Lucas would torment him if left behind, but that was no longer necessary.
Joel intended to leave a letter for the Crown Prince asking him to look after his father.
Since he had saved the Prince from the underground mansion, the Prince would surely do at least that much for him.
The Crown Prince was a man who valued loyalty, and Joel trusted him.
If the Prince looked after his father even after Joel left, Count Lucas wouldn’t be able to touch him.
“Father, you’re too old to start a new life in a new place. And can you really leave this mansion where traces of Mother remain?”
“My child, nothing is more important to me than you.”
Joel stared at his father.
He suddenly realized how much his father had aged.
Joel felt infinitely sad at the fact that the brave hero who once roamed the battlefield in iron armor had turned into such a dull old man that he’d surrendered his soul to a demon’s trick just to see his dead wife.
‘If I weren’t pregnant, perhaps there would have been an option to escape Count Lucas’s clutches with the Prince’s help and live here peacefully as Joel Bennet just like before…’
Joel thought bitterly.
But since he’d suddenly ended up pregnant, his only choice for a free life was to run away before his stomach began to show.
“Once I arrive and things settle down, I’ll write to you often. And if you miss me, feel free to visit the Kingdom of Palain anytime. I’ll be fine with the baby, so don’t worry too much.”
Joel hugged his father one last time.
This might be the last moment he would see his father’s face.
He felt like he might cry, but he couldn’t show weakness in front of his worried father.
Joel held back his tears and spoke bravely.
“Father, and since they said that demon John isn’t dead, don’t you ever set foot in that basement again. You don’t need to try and make money off the underground mansion, either. It would be a disaster if you ran into him again just to make a bit of coin. And if by some chance that demon appears, you must inform the Crown Prince immediately, okay?”
Sir Bennet didn’t respond for some reason.
Watching his father, who was just rolling his eyes with an awkward expression, Joel felt a sense of unease.
“Father? Why aren’t you answering?”
“A-ah, I understand. I’ll do as you say. But Joel… if Lord John… no, if the demon John appears again, the Crown Prince would surely execute him, wouldn’t he?”
Sir Bennet habitually tried to call the demon John by an honorific, but corrected himself immediately when Joel’s eyes narrowed into triangles.
“Of course! Would you just leave a demon alone?”
“B-but, in a way, he saved your life, so I was wondering if maybe we didn’t necessarily need to kill him…”
Thanks to his father’s wavering answer, Joel felt his tears vanish.
Was his father still feeling some kind of loyalty to that demon even after being treated like that?
He knew he shouldn’t think of his father this way, but Sir Bennet really had a way of driving a person crazy.
After listening to an admonishment from Joel that lasted a full thirty minutes, Sir Bennet finally gave a half-hearted promise that if he ever met the demon John again, he would absolutely not speak to him and would inform the Prince immediately.
Judging by the look on his face, it was doubtful whether Sir Bennet would truly remain hostile toward John, but Joel decided to believe that his father couldn’t be so stupid as to trust a demon again after nearly handing over not just his own soul, but the souls of the Prince and his son as well.
