Chapter 109: Rast: Teammates? Help! Anyone?
The royal capital of Paradise should have been a dead city.
The souls who had been stripped of life and granted the blessing of “eternity” wandered through the underworld… repeating the deeds of their lives, day after day, year after year.
Like illusions reflected in a mirror, endlessly looping—gorgeous and beautiful, yet utterly devoid of vitality and possibility.
However—
With the advent of the Calamity Era, countless refugees seeking shelter had poured into the royal capital to escape beast tides, the Iron Cross Plague, and the corruption of evil gods.
They had yet to be assimilated by Paradise, had not received the eternal blessing, and remained no different from ordinary people.
These people needed homes and taverns—thus, homes and taverns appeared in the royal capital.
They needed pharmacies and infirmaries—so those too appeared in the city.
And they also needed romance, pleasures, and entertainment…
Thus, various entertainment venues and buildings of dazzling color were erected throughout the capital.
Breathing a unique form of vitality into this land of the dead.
...
Within a secluded alley in the inner city of the royal capital.
Rast walked at the front, twisting and turning through the paths, finally evading the patrolling maids within the palace and slipping away unnoticed.
The powers of “Intuition” and “Navigator” played a key role in this success.
Over the past half-month, since Rast had taken on the role of Her Majesty’s personal attendant, the other maids had much less to do—only needing to maintain the palace and transport ingredients.
Aside from that, all tasks related to the queen’s daily life were personally handled by Rast.
He had come well prepared, having secretly observed and recorded the routines and habits of the other maids.
Because of this, Rast was confident—so long as he returned before midnight, his plan to spirit away Her Majesty Helen would go undetected by the maids and avoid arousing their suspicion.
During this whole time, Helen had obediently followed behind Rast without voicing a single objection.
Wearing her wool boots, her steps would occasionally pause as she gazed at the city awakening in the morning light, reluctantly moving again only when Rast stopped to wait for her in the distance.
These were just the most ordinary sights within the capital.
But for Helen, who had never stepped beyond the palace since birth—
Every street, every building… even the rows of street trees bathed in morning light on either side of the road—were fantastical sights she had never seen before.
Clack, clack—
The footsteps of the two echoed through the deserted alley.
Just as they were nearing the end, Rast noticed a slight widening of Helen’s violet eyes.
The alley led out onto Black Lily Avenue—one of the busiest and most prosperous main roads within Paradise’s royal capital.
And at this hour—around seven or eight in the morning—the city was just beginning to wake…
The avenue bustled with people, shoulder to shoulder, every face carrying a peaceful expression—
For a moment, Rast almost thought he had returned to the real world…
Where ordinary people, unaware of the Nightworld or the Twillight Calamities, wore those same peaceful, contented expressions.
Of course, that was only natural.
To the refugees who had fled here from the outside world… this place was a paradise, isolated from disaster.
The crisp morning breeze carried with it the noise of the people.
Arguments, conversations, laughter, playful shouts, and even the cries of children being scolded by their parents for mischief… just like any other city.
As the noise surged forth, Rast sensed the petite body of the girl with long ice-blue hair behind him tremble slightly beneath her hooded cloak.
She shrank back into the alley, retreating a few steps, her eyes flickering with hesitation.
Even though she wanted to see the outside world more than anyone—
When the real world finally opened its doors to her… did she grow timid now that it was so close?
Thinking this, Rast suddenly stepped forward and reached out his left hand.
Then, he grasped Helen’s right hand, which had been inching away.
The queen’s right hand was soft and cold to the touch.
At the moment he held her hand, Helen’s body visibly stiffened.
A flash of icy blue glinted in her eyes.
The air around Rast turned frigid in an instant, and even his soul was touched by a bone-chilling cold, as though he were falling into a frozen abyss… just like when he had once been struck by the “Death Angel.”
It felt as if in the next second, his life would be stripped away by a deathly curse.
Yet Rast held firm.
He did not flinch or falter.
He quietly held her cold, stiff hand, letting the numbing cold flow through his body without letting go.
He simply relied on the suppressive power of the “Withering Pebble” to nullify supernatural abilities, resisting the pain that felt like being kissed by Death’s scythe.
“If we retreat now after coming all this way… if we give up halfway…”
“Wouldn’t that be far too much of a pity, Your Majesty?”
Rast whispered softly into the girl’s ear.
A few breaths later, he saw the cold glint in her violet eyes quietly fade.
Helen’s tense right hand relaxed.
It became warm and soft, bonelessly resting in Rast’s palm, allowing him to lead her.
She looked at Rast ahead of her, eyes flashing with deep apology, and tiny specks of icy blue light gathered in the air.
「I’m sorry…」
Before the light could fully form into words, Helen saw Rast raise a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture.
“If we’re going to hide our identities outside, I must ask Your Majesty to adjust the way you speak, too.”
He pulled out a small notebook and pencil he had prepared earlier.
“Whether you form words in the air or use telepathy to speak… both will make us seem suspicious to outsiders.”
“So, while we’re out playing, please use this notebook to communicate with me.”
Helen took the notebook and pencil and quietly nodded.
Writing wasn’t unfamiliar to her—while reading fairy tales in the palace, she often marked and doodled on the pages.
She had even tried imitating her favorite, The Chronicles of the Silver Wing, writing her own stories.
But Helen had never seen the outside world, nor encountered the diverse people in it beyond her maids.
So no matter how hard she tried, everything she wrote ended up as a rearranged copy of The Chronicles of the Silver Wing.
No author can write what they have never known.
And perhaps it was precisely for this reason that her desire to see the outside grew stronger.
“Our next stop… why don’t we visit a clothing store first and get you a change of clothes?”
Rast looked at the bustling Black Lily Avenue—lively like the shopping centers of his past life—and made a suggestion.
Abducting the queen had been part of a long-laid plan.
Long before disguising himself as a maid to infiltrate the palace, Rast had worked with the Shorewatchers’ vice-captain, Shadow Attendant, to survey the route for their “first date.”
A ladies’ clothing store was his top choice—based on his experience as a host, he’d learned it was a popular starting point for most dates.
The reason was simple—every woman loved beauty, and shopping was a universal pastime.
This held true not just for young girls, but even for women hundreds of years old.
However, this time, Rast’s flawless host instincts had failed him.
He felt Helen tugging on his left hand.
The ice-blue-haired queen’s gaze had locked onto a signboard on the street and refused to move… completely ignoring Rast’s suggestion about the clothing store.
Rast followed her gaze and saw a wooden sign—
A circus advertisement.
It was for a nomadic circus troupe that traveled between the continent’s towns and cities, performing without a fixed home—and now, it had arrived in Paradise’s capital.
Judging from the long, winding queue behind the tent, the show was clearly popular.
Psychological profiling, initiated.
In that moment, Rast understood the source of the queen’s fascination with the circus.
In The Chronicles of the Silver Wing, the first meeting between the male lead, Lyle, and the female lead—the amnesiac Plague Witch—had taken place at a circus lion’s flaming hoop performance.
In that story, they even adopted a parrot from the circus, one that was about to be abandoned because it couldn’t mimic human speech…
That parrot was actually a cursed high elf who would later join the protagonists’ party.
And right now, the circus sign prominently featured a parrot as part of its promotion.
Combined with the excitement shining in Helen’s violet eyes… her hopes were clear.
“So, Your Majesty, you want to see if that parrot is actually a transformed high elf?”
“Then let’s go there first.”
Feeling the stubborn resistance in the soft little hand he held, Rast finally nodded and turned with her toward the circus.
At the same time, seeing the triple-line queue behind the circus tent, he quietly gestured toward an empty area.
It was time for his teammates to step in.