"Hey, don't ignore me!" the voice called out again, but with some light anger this time.

"Sorry, and thanks for watching over me." Alz hastily apologised while directing his eyes towards the voice, catching sight of Layla who was sitting on above a branch of a nearby tree.

"Don't misunderstand, I'm only doing this because of the captain's orders." Layla retorted back while climbing down the tree, but her gently curled lips gave away her true emotions.

While Layla was descending from the tree, Alz attempted to prop his body up a second time with full awareness of his body's current condition this time, successfully seating up from the bed as he looked towards her.

"So? Are you feeling okay?" Layla asked again after she got down from the tree, briefly scanning Alz's bandages with her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm feeling fine now, thanks. Also... sorry for before." Alz suddenly apologised again with a slightly awkward smile as he took a closer look at her face, finally noticing that she was the elf he held at knife-point earlier.

Yet, this apology ended up having the opposite effect from what he had intended, as Layla's cheeks instantly puffed up with anger as she shot a fierce glare at Alz, the matter from before clearly still weighing heavily in her mind.

"I-I was just caught off-guard back then, the same thing won't happen again! Spar with me I'll show you!" Layla argued, holding her fist up towards him as she spoke.

However, Layla cheeks soon lit up with a bright rosy shade as she recalled the state he was currently in, realising that she had overreacted to his words.

"Sure, let's spar next time... More importantly, is she fine?" Alz casually agreed to spar with Layla in future before moving on to the question he had been dying to ask since he opened his eyes.

"You shameless elf!"

"If you're asking about Aur-- Princess Aurelia, you should already know... she's fine." Layla's expression visibly became more serious as she replied, but the blush on her cheeks didn't let up for a different reason than before.

"So, h-she really was the princess."

Alz let out a huge sigh of relief as he received the confirmation he wanted, his mind wandering over to the memories they shared over the past few months from their very first meeting in the sunflower field.

"Of course! She is the one and only princess Aurelia, there is no other elf to mistake her for!" Layla cut in from the side with a slight tone of dissatisfaction in her voice, dragging Alz out from his memories.

Alz was startled by her sudden intrusion, realising that he had unknowingly voiced his thoughts just now. However, a bitter smile soon surfaced on his lips in response to her words, feeling a mix of emotions welling in his heart.

There was no falsehood in Layla's words, as the princess's bright golden hair was the greatest indicator of her identity, a unique trait that belonged only to her alone within their entire race.

However, this was a bolt from the blue for Alz, coming in as a complete shock to him as this was a possibility he had never even considered before today, needing time to reorganise his thoughts and process this newly obtained information.

Despite what was going through his mind, Alz chose to remain silent here, bringing a triumphant smile to Layla's face as she felt great satisfaction at finally seeing him lose out in a conversation, thinking that he was caught at a loss of words.

"Since you're already up, I'm going to leave now." Layla observed him closely once more and saw that Alz also seemed to be fine, thinking that it was about time for her to return to the palace.

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"Do you remember the way?" Alz asked in a concerned voice.

"Don't look down on me! We are the princess's personal guard!" Layla snapped back angrily, bringing a wry smile to Alz's face.

Layla rapidly turned around and looked like started storming off, but her steps abruptly halted only a short distance away as hesitation flashed across her eyes.

"Take care of yourself, Aura seems to care for you a lot... and, she isn't the only one who likes hearing your stories." Layla spoke genuinely without turning back, rushing off into the trees after she finished her words.

"Thank you." Alz mumbled softly, feeling a warm sensation rise from within.

Now that Layla had left, and he was awake, Alz saw no further meaning in staying here any longer. He started to exercise his stiffened limbs lightly and tested his range of motion before carefully balancing on his feet, steadily limping back towards the field.

Upon reaching the field, a fierce expression flashed across his face as he saw the nine corpses piled up neatly by the side, but he quickly shook his head lightly and calmed down, knowing that there was no meaning in thinking too much about it.

With everything that happened on this field, he believed that the palace would definitely send elves over to clear the corpses soon, so he ignored the corpses entirely and focused on picking up his belonging scattered around the field before returning to his hut.

After drinking some water and filling his stomach with some of the smoked meat in his bag, he laid down on his bed and close his eyes, relaxing his mind as he slowly fell into a deep slumber.

---

Alz wasn't sure how long he had slept, but he felt much more refreshed when he opened his eyes again, feeling the various wounds around his body beginning to ease as well as he stood up from his bed.

When he stepped out of the hut, he casually shot a glance at where the corpses were, but they were no longer anywhere to be seen.

However, it didn't bother him at all as he had already expected this, proceeding on to wash up and have a light meal before sitting on the log by the fireplace with a look of deep thought.

Yesterday might have only been less than a hundredth of the time he had spent in the capital, but the impact it had on his future plans and actions were perhaps greater than the sum of the past eight months combined, so he wanted to sort out his thoughts as soon as he could, which was now.

In particular, there were three major things that required his attention with the first being him finally gaining access to the military library, the only matter that was worthy of celebration among the three.

This was the first major step he took towards his departure from the capital, towards his visions of exploring the world that lay beyond the forest.

However, he quickly set it aside for now, as although this was the matter that held the greatest importance to him, it was also the least urgent of the three matters that he currently needed to consider.

The second matter was the attitude of the North, as there was no guarantee that there wouldn't be a second or even a third attack after their failure, especially when he thought back to the haughty words Cruz spoke of when he tried to invite him to their side.

Alz already held reservations on the capital's control over the North from the things he picked out in the community library before, but the situation was evidently far worse than he had anticipated judging from the blatant attack yesterday.

After some consideration, he promptly decided to set up various non-lethal traps and markers within the forest that would allow him to find out if there were others in the field, thus preventing a repeat of yesterday's blunder.

Last of all, was the matter that was giving Alz the biggest headache, the Palace. Alz was the most conflicted on the stance he should take when dealing with the palace, especially after learning that 'Kai' actually turned out to be Her Royal Highness, Princess Aurelia.

This alone wouldn't have meant much to him if it were before yesterday, but things were different now that it was an undeniable fact that he owed his life to her.

Even if he didn't die from the arrow yesterday, he would probably have been taken back to the North, which he didn't think would have an optimistic result no matter what he did with the animosity Cruz held towards him.

She was the one who changed everything, not only by blocking the potentially fatal arrow for him, but also by leading her personal guard over to deal with the aftermath, allowing everything to pan out the way it currently did.

When he was picking up his items yesterday, he found that three of his glass arrows and his glass dagger were missing, but these weren't of too much concern as he knew that the palace would soon realise how impractical these were with how brittle glass was.

Yet, the same could not be said for the crossbow and the medicine, especially if there was truly an impending war with the North coming up soon.

Personally, Alz was perfectly fine with the idea of the capital obtaining the schematic and recipe both of these items even before the events of yesterday, but the only fear he had was that it might end up costing him his freedom, the one result he couldn't accept.

Alz let out a powerless sigh after thinking it over multiple times, eventually giving up on the matter for now. After all, he knew that there was little he could do no matter what he tried, as the result ultimately rested on the decision of the Queen.