At The End Of The Hidden Greenery

sehold that had an expansive territory and a high peerage.
A fiefdom that would never see any scarcity.
Even her outward appearance was something that everyone would be mesmerized by.

It was all so different from her gloomy and timid self.

“Ha……”

Rumble.
Rumble, rumble!

The carriage kept moving forward.
The rain was getting stronger and the trip was slower than expected.
However, it was impossible to stop here in the middle, so the carriage dashed through the mountain all night long.
The deeper they went into the mountain, the steeper it became.

She wondered if it was her fault for saying that she wanted to go to a farther place than usual.

However, even that shallow self-blame quickly disappeared because the carriage started shaking too much.

No, not the carriage.
The ground itself was shaking.

‘What’s going on?’

As the woman in the carriage grew more nervous, she heard a panicked yell from outside.

“Turn the horses! It’s a landslide!”

“It’s already too late to turn around here! Just ditch the carriage and avoid it…!”

Rumble, rumble! Bang!

But before she could prepare herself, a huge pile of debris hit the carriage first.

And the woman’s vision also flipped over in an instant.
The carriage shook as if an earthquake was wracking it.
The woman tried to hold onto one corner, but she eventually rolled inside the carriage, and she screamed as the seat in the carriage fell and hit her back.

“Huhk…! Ugh…”

The woman barely clung to her consciousness.

The carriage was half-destroyed and barely hanging over the cliff.

The woman managed to hold on despite the increasingly tilting carriage.
However, the floor on which she was barely standing was wet from the rain.
It was too slippery.

“Aaack!”

In the end, the woman slipped.
She grabbed a piece that barely jutted out of the carriage, but she didn’t know how much longer she could hold out.

Creeaak. The carriage leaned further, and the woman wasn’t very strong.
Even the raindrops that kept pouring didn’t help.

“Akarna! Hold on! We’ll come down soon!”

Fortunately, the escorts came quickly to find the woman.
They were supposed to protect the one and only Akarna properly, but in this way, they would be scorned by the superiors.
Seeing them restless, the woman surprisingly did not feel any emotions.

If she was saved here now, then what?

Either way, she would just go to her original destination, fulfill her duties as the Akarna, and then she’d go back to the empire?

Waiting there was just boring and repetitive.

She helped people who came to the temple because they needed help.
She also sometimes went to the contaminated land that had been eroded by miasma, just like what she’s supposed to be doing now.

She would also help the people there.
Help.
Help.
Doing something worthwhile.
She was being appreciated by countless people.
She was revered as a saint.

And as she did that, a grand event would soon be held.

The wedding of the man she loved.

“Ha.”

She didn’t know why she was laughing.

The woman impulsively loosened her hold.
The escorts shouted at the Akarna.

She was afraid of the sudden fall.
But at the same time, she felt a sense of freedom for an unknown reason.

She closed her eyes.

That person she met secretly despite the temple’s opposition.

That person was the one who taught her how to read and write.

That person, even after being betrayed by him like that, was who she missed very much.

In a place where there was no one else but them, it was together with him that they whispered sweet nothings and held each other’s hands.

—