Extra S*ave Saves the Crown Prince

I walked forward, while trying to remember the surrounding environment so I wouldn’t get lost.

The crown prince’s barracks were on the outskirts of the fortress.

It was not in the center.

It was actually on the opposite side of the fort from where the herb warehouse is located.

As we approached the barracks, I began to see the symbol of the Knights of the Thorn. I guess this is also where their barracks are located.

Their barracks were all clustered nearby, and they naturally bowed to make way for us.

When we reached the end of the fortress, where it met the mountain, I saw a lone barrack, with a familiar doctor and servant waiting for us.

Thank goodness.

Now he could finally get medical treatment.

My heart couldn’t help but sink every time I saw those steady drips of blood trailing behind him.

“Wait a minute. I don’t recognize you.”

The Knight of Thorns who had been waiting with the doctor approached me. Perhaps because this is where we enter the crown prince’s barracks area he couldn’t just let anyone pass.

He swept me with a cold gaze.

“Arnic. Let her go.”

“Who is it?”

“I’ll explain to you later.”

Vaslow glanced at me and dragged the knight, who seemed to be his colleague, aside.

“What. Who is it?”

I bowed deeply to him and followed behind the captain, Ricks.

“Am I the only one who doesn’t know?”

When no one stopped me, the knight called Arnic gave me an incredulous look.

He was still looking at me with his eyes filled with wariness.

Vaslow seemed to whisper something to him, but he seemed unconvinced and kept repeating himself.

“What’s going on?”

The doctor glanced over to me, and asked me with just his mouth moving. We had exchanged a few greetings before when I was delivering herbs.

He seemed to think that since I was a slave, I might have been dragged along here as well.

I couldn’t smile outright, nor could I give him a straight face, so I could only squint my eyes and give him a strange look.

When we arrived at the door of the barracks, we stood in the following order– The crown prince, Captain Ricks, Vaslow, the doctor, and me.

As expected, Vaslow stepped forward and opened the door first.

The room was already brightly lit.

“You may leave now. I’ll get the report later.”

The crown prince took a step inside, and naturally, since he’s the Captain, Ricks was also about to follow. The crown prince spoke without looking back at all. I could see Vaslow’s eyes widen as he was gripping the door. But he couldn’t refute him, so he only bowed down.

Like Ricks, I bowed and stepped back.

Only doctors and servants were allowed inside. It was a shame, but at least I knew where his barracks was located.

I stepped back, while peeking through the open door to see what it looked like inside.

“You can come in.”

I looked at Ricks in disbelief, then at Vaslow.

They looked surprised, too, so I guess the crown prince must be really talking to me.

My heart suddenly pounded in my chest.

The crown prince didn’t say a second word and was already inside.

I didn’t know what to do, but finally, I stepped cautiously in.

I felt as if I was crossing a threshold into another world.

The barracks was more modest than I expected.

There was a bed, a table, a couch, a chest of drawers, and a nightstand.

The bed didn’t even have a canopy, but that was too much.

He’s a crown prince, he should have a canopy.

The crown prince sat at a chair near the table, not on the couch.

The doctor laid out the medical tools on the table, and the servant beside him began to cut away the fabric on the crown prince’s arm as if he were used to it.

As he pulled the cloth away from his hand, the blood immediately gushed out as if it’s been waiting for it.

‘It must’ve hurt…’

It would hurt far worse than when I was being branded with fire.

If a nick from the prince’s sword had hurt so badly, how much worse would a gash that deep would be?

I clenched my fists and stared intently at the wound.

“Sit.”

I was standing in the doorway, and he pointed his finger at the couch.

What?

He wants me to sit on that couch?

Me?

He’s talking to me?

I could see that the doctor and the servant were also unable to hide their surprise.

The doctor was moving his eyes and trying to say a lot of things, and I couldn’t help but respond with my eyes as well.

It was a myriad of communication based on eye contact, and all I could do is stare in a way that says,

‘Oh, well, there’s that.’

It was the most uncomfortable thing in the world, but I eventually sat down on the couch, because he also kept pointing at it with his eyes.

I’m supposed to listen to orders.

So I sat down with only my butt hanging out instead.

“Hmmm.”

As I sat down on the couch, the crown prince finally let out a long breath and leaned his back against the chair. His eyes remained closed.

His breathing didn’t change, not even a groan escaped his lips. Even when his wound was being cleansed to disinfect it there was no reaction.

If it weren’t for the blood feast unfolding in front of my eyes, I would have believed that he was sleeping peacefully.

I wanted to look away from the sight of his injury, but somehow I couldn’t.

The stitches only made me more tense and rigid.

‘Breath.’

I clasped my hands together and covered my nose and mouth as if in prayer.

‘No, you can’t just stitch him up like that.’

‘Don’t you have anesthesia or something?’

‘I don’t think that’s quite right, Doctor.’

I wanted to call out, but I didn’t say anything, I was afraid that I might distract the doctor from his work so all I did was pout.

I held my breath as best I could for fear of disturbing him, let alone speaking.

Besides, the doctor was as white as a sheet of paper and was sweating like he was the patient.

I realized that my face was probably not that different from his.

“!”

I looked at the crown prince’s face, and for some reason he was looking at me with his eyes open, and his face was just dull.

But as I watched, I noticed a very fine bead of sweat on his forehead.

He’s been holding it in, too.

And I could see that his golden eyes were about to lose their focus, then it went back in, then repeating it again.

Compared to how badly he had been hurt in the past, when he was in that cave, this was probably insignificant.

But watching him endure it, as if it were just another day, as if he’s used to it, made it harder for me to watch it.

It hurt like something sharp was scratching me in my chest.

I felt like a groan was about to come out of my mouth, so I bit my lip and held it in.

I wished I had the ability to travel through space or something, to transport the pain. I really didn’t want him to hurt anymore.

The inside of my eyes kept getting hot, and it took all of my attention to hold it in.

Throughout the entire treatment, he and I faced each other and never looked away.

⚘

In the meantime on the other side of the barracks.

Three of the crown prince’s closest aides were gathered.

They were Ricks, Vaslow, and Arnic.

“Who is it?”

Arnic asked Vaslow.

“Captain, who is it?”

He turned to Ricks, and when no one answered, he finally breathed into the air in frustration.

“No, why won’t you tell me, why am I the only one who doesn’t know anything.”

“Ha.”

Instead of answering, Vaslow scrubbed his face with both hands as if washing it.

Ricks was deep in thought, his gaze fixed somewhere on the ground.

“Aish.”

Vaslow increased the speed of his face scrubbing, then he eventually threw his hands away roughly.

“Captain. Do you think I’m going crazy?”

“… Be quiet.”

“You’re not crazy, you’ve seen the look in his eyes.”

“Eyes? What’s wrong with his eyes?”

Arnic was confused because he really didn’t know anything.

“Oh, really. Don’t you just know when you see it?”

“What do I know?”

“Do you need me to explain it to you, huh?”

“Yeah, I don’t get it! Oh! Who is it?”

“Quiet, both of you, and follow me.”

Ricks led the way, but the two kept their voices low and continued to argue.

“She went into the crown prince’s barracks, does it make sense that I don’t know who she is?”

“Later, later, you’ll find out anyway.”

“So you don’t know who she was, and you actually told me to let her in. His highness was there! What are you even doing?”

“Oh, no. My heart aches for no reason.”

“Ha, stay out of it, you clueless bastard.”

“What? Does this make you want to die?”

Ricks paced, then stopped dead in his tracks and glanced back.

“Do the two of you still have enough stamina left?”

“Oh, no.”

“No!”

They returned to their upright posture again.

Ricks clicked his tongue at his men. He was about to tell them to train again, but after seeing their reluctant appearance, he decided not to.

He exhaled so hard that his shoulders heaved.

Though they couldn’t see it, his ashen eyes were shaking when he turned around.

‘I need to bring someone out.’

It had been years, but he hadn’t forgotten that voice. It was the first time the crown prince had ever spoken of anyone in such a way.

It stuck with him like an imprint.

He could still remember the hours he’d spent searching for the slave named Seth, and the look on his face when he’d finally missed any of her traces.

He swept a hand across his face as he walked.

The emotion in those golden eyes would probably stay with him for a long time.

For the crown prince, who had come to Einfork as a child and grew up in the presence of blood and death. Ricks couldn’t even begin to imagine what Seth could mean for him. So he gave up trying.

⚘

When the treatment was finally over, the doctor and his servant hurriedly cleaned up their tracks as if they had something urgent to do.

The doctor’s fingers seemed to tremble as he put away his tools, and I stood up quietly.

The servant was concentrating on soaking a cloth in clean water and wiping the blood off his arm.

I knew the doctor, and I wanted to help if there was anything I could do.

So, I stood up to help clean up the cloth.

Thud.

I was just reaching for the cloth when a large hand grabbed my wrist. The heat of his body ran straight through my wrist, and I froze, I turned my eyes around and looked to the side.

“Sit down.”

The air in the barracks seemed to stop and start flowing again.

The doctor and his servant paused in their work, then moved on as if nothing had happened.

I was too embarrassed to go back to the couch, so I pulled out a chair from the table and sat down in silence. The hand on my wrist disappeared when I finally sat down again.

I felt a strange sense of emptiness when the heat on my wrist disappeared.

“Now explain.”

If the slightly subdued voice was so good, why didn’t the original story never describe it?

“… What?”

I was too busy appreciating his voice to actually ponder upon what his words meant.

“Why, are you here.”

“Ah.”

“Your Highness, I’ll leave you to it, but if you need me, call me right away. I’ll be standing by.”

The doctor hastily organized his tools and bowed. The crown prince nodded at them and then looked towards me again.

So the doctor and his servant turned and walked out of the room after paying their respects. I marveled at how neatly they had organized themselves in such a short period of time.

I saw the wooden water jug the servant was carrying out with his two hands, then when I turned my head I found the same water jug on top of the chest of drawers.

I pushed off the chair, stood up, and poured the water from the jug into a cup.

I then held the cup out with both hands and the crown prince looked up from where he was sitting.

“I thought you might be thirsty.”

His face hadn’t changed much from before to after the treatment, but I could see that his lips were thinly parted.

He took the cup of water with his uninjured arm and drank from it.

As I watched the jug move, I kept remembering that I had also given him water in the cave in the past as well.

I poured him another cup of water without asking him if he wanted more. He didn’t say no and tilted his cup once more.

Oh, and I remembered that I had some herbs in my cloth pouch.

“I have some novenium here.”

I opened the cloth bag and took out the Novenium herb. The bag itself was about the size of my palm, so I was disappointed that I didn’t put much in it. The amount was small and wouldn’t do much good.

I pulled it out and trimmed it clean, so it was still in its original grass-like shape.

I held it out to him, and he plucked it with his long fingers.

He stared at the herb in his hands.

“It works better if you chew it.”

He stroked the novenium with his thumb, then raised his eyes to meet mine.

“Just like then.”