On the road from Akud to Elk, a huge Two-Headed Salamander could be seen pulling a sturdy carriage behind it. Aboard that carriage, three people Soma, Marina, and Rimi are riding to the town of Elk. When Soma and Marina came from Elk to Akud with Leona and Milin, the trip took them three days, but now with the Two-Headed Salamander speed, they will arrive in less than a day.

Inside the carriage, Soma’s face was glued to his book with Marina glued to his side while keeping an eye on Rimi who is, in turn, stealing glances at Soma every couple of seconds. Rimi would glance at Soma and after a couple of seconds, her face would turn bright red, and then she would look down at her own hands and mumbling to herself before lifting her face up to look at Soma again.

For Rimi, even though she is the princess, this is the first time she felt this way. Even though she is the princess, she spent all of her life up until now either training with her brother or taking her knights with her to battlefields to act as a support to the First Knights Order led by her brother. Even though the two were the son and daughter of the king, there was no one amongst the nobles who was trusty enough to take the roles of captains of the First and Second Knights Orders for two reasons. The first being that the good nobles who were willing to take the job lacked the resources and political strength to oppose other nobles in case they committed crimes or just outright harmed the people. And the second reason was simply that the other nobles were either incompetent or outright untrustworthy.

That’s why the sibling decided to take those roles themselves. They started training at a young age to become stronger, they also went around fighting monsters all over the kingdom to protect the people and to gain experience. And each time they went to a battlefield they would return injured only for the scheming nobles to start mocking them for endangering themselves pointlessly. But as time went on, the number of times they got injured decreased more and more as their levels went on, and they became stronger and stronger. Moreover, after each battle, the number of companions joining them would increase from amongst the people they saved. Sons and daughters of commoners and merchants, second and third sons and daughters of low ranked nobles, sons, and daughters of high ranking nobles that wanted to protect the kingdom and its people from monsters, bandits, and criminal organizations forming the First and Second Knights Order.

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Spending her entire life up until now on the battlefield protecting people and receiving their help and goodwill, it was her first time to come in direct contact with the ugly side of the nobles when she was betrayed in that forest by her companion Salama. That betrayal almost cost her to lose her life in the worst way possible if not for Soma appearing out of nowhere to save her the way he did. The way he appeared out of nowhere to save her will remain stuck in her mind for the rest of her life, and whenever she looked at Soma she would remember that time causing her heart to beat faster making her realize her feelings for him time and time again.

Marina being so overprotective of Soma against Rimi wasn’t entirely because Rimi was interested in him. In this country polygamy is a perfectly normal thing, and she knew about Aiko and Yume who will appear before her one day. Then why? The answer is because of her past. Being betrayed by the people she saw as nothing but family and being horribly treated by them before selling her as a slave left a deep scar in her heart. Her first time meeting someone who didn’t want to take advantage of her was her meeting the white-haired young man reading a book by the fountain she used to take a break next. At the time, she only called out to the young man Soma because she was curious about the book he was reading, and that meeting was what led to her becoming friends with him, he was her first friend ever. The time she spent with that friend was the most fun she had in her whole life she wished that her whole life was only that time she spent with him. Sadly, she was sold as a crime slave to a slave merchant with the intention of turning her into a plaything for a certain noble, only for her to wake up with her first friend next to her reading a book. The friend then told her about how he saved her and about how she is free from that family. The word touched is not enough to summarize her feelings at that moment.

That’s why she absolutely doesn’t want him to go through a similar experience. She knows more than anyone about how strong Soma is, and that’s why she doesn’t wish to protect him physically. She wants to protect him emotionally. Having all those tragic souls inside him along with all of their memories is not a simple matter. Those souls and memories are all of the broken people who lost their lives in the worst of ways. Failing to protect his people and forced to see them die one after the other in front of his eyes, and forcing himself to keep fighting the way past his limits before being finally killed by his enemy. Failing to rescue his fellow Elves from being sacrificed by the Love Goddess and finally getting killed himself. Seeing his kids die in frenzy one after the other in front of his eyes. Having her limbs cut off by the brainwashed people she refused to kill and willingly went against the Love Goddess to protect them…etc.

Marina was more than aware of the feelings those broken souls have etched in them, and Soma is taking all of those feelings into himself. She absolutely doesn’t want the load on Soma to increase. He might not be feeling any load, but she didn’t want to test that idea out. And right now she wants to be sure that this Rimi girl would never betray Soma in case he decides to keep her by his side.