EIYTMA Chapter 9

The river had swelled, likely due to the rain. On the other side of the river, there was a small village, but the only stone bridge leading to it had been tragically destroyed.  

 

Ezekiel swallowed hard.  

 

“What do we do about this?”  

 

Étienne also spoke in a flustered voice.  

 

It was understandable. There was not much time left until the sun fully set. The knights might find them before then, but they had to prepare for the worst. Spending the night by the river was reckless, especially for two princes. It wasn’t an option.  

 

Étienne grumbled again. “Is there no other way back? A mountain path or something?”  

 

Ezekiel sighed as he replied. “I can’t see well, but whatever path might exist due to the storm, I doubt it’s in a better state than that bridge.”

  

“My little brother, be smart. I rely on you.”  

 

Étienne gave a thumbs-up. Instead of responding, Ezekiel sighed again and dismounted his horse. Étienne was alarmed.  

 

“What are you doing?”  

 

“If we had time, we could wait for someone to come or for the knights to rescue us… but it will be a problem if it gets too late.”  

 

“You’re not seriously thinking of crossing that river, are you?”  

 

“I was considering using the broken bridge as a foothold to get across.”  

 

“Ezekiel!”  

 

Étienne shouted in disbelief, but Ezekiel had some confidence. The bridge looked disastrous, but it wasn’t entirely submerged. If he could manage to step across it somehow, he could reach the village and ask for help.  

 

“Seeing how the bridge collapsed, it looks like it happens often. If that’s the case, there should be ropes or some means to cross.”  

 

“Ezekiel, rather than that, you and I should just stay up all night here.”  

 

“Brother, you’re trembling.”  

 

Étienne, who had been trying to stop him, flinched.  

 

It was true. After being drenched in the rain and running madly before getting lost, Étienne’s body temperature had dropped significantly. He had been chattering his teeth for a while now.  

 

“I’ll stop if it looks too dangerous.”  

 

Saying so, Ezekiel promptly removed his boots. Étienne sighed but did not try to stop him any further. Soon, Ezekiel prepared to enter the water and stood before the broken stone bridge.  

 

At that moment—  

 

“Hey, you there!”  

 

Someone called out loudly from the other side of the ruined bridge. Ezekiel flinched and quickly looked up.  

 

The river was wide, and the current had grown violently strong due to the rain. But even through the distance, Ezekiel could make out the voice.  

 

Squinting his eyes, he barely managed to see a small figure.  

 

Across the bridge, next to a pile of stones, a woman stood with both hands cupped around her mouth, shouting with all her strength.  

 

“Can you hear me? Hey!”  

 

Ezekiel immediately responded. “I hear you!”  

 

Startled by Ezekiel’s unusually loud shout, Étienne also turned his gaze in that direction.  

 

Though they couldn’t see her clearly, judging from her ragged clothing, she seemed to be a local from the Querluxia estate who had come to inspect the bridge.  

 

“You can’t cross that bridge! It’ll collapse!”  

 

Étienne and Ezekiel exchanged glances before turning their eyes toward the pile of stones forming a hill above the river’s current. The young woman, who seemed to be a local, shouted desperately once more.  

 

“The stones… weak… light…!”  

 

Her words were partially drowned out, but after some effort, Ezekiel grasped the warning.  

 

In short, the stones that made up the bridge were surprisingly weak and light. There had been cases where outsiders tried to step across the ruined bridge, but all of them had been swept away by the current.  

 

Has this happened frequently?

 

Ezekiel pondered as he shouted again. “Is there another way?”  

 

The woman crossed her arms in front of her chest. That meant no.  

 

“We must reach Querluxia today, no matter what! We got lost! Is there no other way?”  

 

At his desperate plea, the woman seemed to hesitate for a moment before suddenly doing something unexpected.  

 

She began to take off her clothes.  

 

Étienne’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. But instead of panicking like Étienne, Ezekiel urgently shouted. “Don’t! Don’t go into the water!”  

 

But by then, she had already stripped down to a single worn-out undergarment. She wildly gestured toward the other side of the riverbank.  

 

“There’s a waterway only I know!”  

 

Before Ezekiel could say anything more, she turned and started running in that direction.  

 

With no other choice, Étienne and Ezekiel ran alongside the riverbank, keeping pace with her on the opposite side, intending to keep shouting to stop her.  

 

“Stop! Your life is valuable!”  

 

“Hey! Do you have an extra life or something? If so, donate one to me! I could use a spare—I’m quite an expensive life, you know!”  

 

Despite Ezekiel’s angry shouts and Étienne’s ambiguous mix of joke and plea, the woman eventually reached a spot near a thicket and descended toward the riverbank.  

 

Then, after taking a deep breath, she stepped into the rushing water. In her right hand, she grasped a tree vine hanging from the bushes.  

 

“Ahh—!”  

 

“No, stop!”  

 

Ezekiel shouted in panic. Entering such a strong current with her bare body—it was sheer madness.  

 

But then, he noticed something. The tree vine she held showed signs of frequent use.  

 

It looked like someone had used it to cross the river multiple times. And the way she skillfully cut through the raging water confirmed it.  

 

The closer she came, the more clearly he could see her composed expression.  

 

In the end, the woman, now thoroughly soaked, reached their side.  

 

“Hey, miss! Are you out of your mind?”  

 

Étienne, who had aged a decade in the time it took for her to cross, ran over and began scolding her, only to freeze mid-sentence, his face turning red as he averted his gaze. Ezekiel, who had rushed over as well, instinctively turned his back.  

 

Up close, she seemed to be a girl of about their age. But having just emerged from the river in nothing but a thin undergarment, her appearance was a disaster for the two young men.  

 

Yet, the girl remained entirely unfazed. She simply wiped the water from her hand with an apologetic expression.  

 

“I must have startled you. I’m sorry. This path is only known to the people of my village, so outsiders can’t cross it alone…”  

 

“Gah! You think a simple ‘sorry’ covers this? I don’t know whose crazy daughter you are, but thanks to you, I lost ten years of my life—”  

 

“Brother.”  

 

Ezekiel cut off Étienne’s words and quickly removed his cloak, handing it to the girl.  

 

His gaze was slightly averted.  

 

The girl waved her hands in refusal. “Oh, I’m fine—”  

 

“When we said we needed to reach Querluxia, we didn’t mean we were going to recklessly cross an impassable path.”  

 

The girl, who had been about to decline the cloak, flinched at the weight of his words.  

 

She was meeting the boy in front of her for the first time.  

 

But even upon a first encounter, there were things one could easily surmise at a glance.  

 

His voice was solemn, his gestures composed. If he had been an ordinary person, he might have been called gallant. But rather than gallant, he was simply beautiful.  

 

A boy who, from birth, seemed to have never had a moment where he was not beautiful.  

 

At the same time, however, she could tell that this beautiful person was now exceptionally furious, from head to toe.  

 

What she had done had indeed been reckless. Had her father been present, he would have undoubtedly flown into a rage.  

 

But her father was not here.  

 

So, in order to keep this man from scolding her, she decided to play a little trick.  

 

“My name is Iris Querluxia.”  

 

The man’s lips snapped shut. In contrast, Étienne’s jaw dropped.  

 

“So you are a mad daughter of a noble house…”  

 

Iris had to struggle not to laugh.  

 

***  

 

Following the girl who had introduced herself as Iris, the two of them crossed the water. The vines she had secured guided them safely to the village.  

 

Thus, in the end, they were able to warm themselves by a fire and dry their hair in the village. More precisely, in the lord’s manor at the village’s entrance.  

 

If one could even call it a manor.  

 

“If I lived in a place like this, I’d write a letter asking to be exempt from taxes too.”  

 

Étienne muttered as he wrung out his soaked clothes and tried to dry his shirt.  

 

His remark was not entirely baseless. The place they had entered was astonishingly decrepit.  

 

Though well maintained, it was a small stone castle that could barely be called a manor.  

 

But instead of agreeing, Ezekiel merely warned him.  

 

“Brother, mind your words.”