The Immortal Had a Guardian Spirit Chapter 11

Like a scene from a play, the gaze of the one sitting in the tree and the one falling slowly cross. Soon, Raven, having reached the ground, quickly regained his balance with a breakfall without a second thought and immediately began to sprint away.

His instincts were warning him. If he couldn’t shake this guy off here, it would become nearly impossible to get rid of him later.

Crash, bang, boom!!

— Oh my, why the sudden hurry…?

Boom!

Along with the sound of someone bursting out of a room, the noise of stomping down the stairs follows. Raven tossed the room key onto the counter through the open first-floor window, then seriously picked up his running speed.

Because he threw it in a rush, the key seemed to have slid toward the corner of the counter…

‘They’ll notice it eventually.’

It’s on the counter, after all.

The footsteps chasing from behind and the sound of teeth grinding in frustration were truly chilling. A shiver that hadn’t even stirred when facing monsters seemed to crawl down his spine, making Raven let out a hollow laugh as he focused on running.

‘I’m screwed if I get caught.’

∞ ∞ ∞

The youngest disciple thought.

Father… I’ve found my master, but if I approach carelessly, he’ll only be more wary. If I approach in the form he knows, I’ll be attacked or driven away, and even if I approach in the guise of a different stranger, only wariness and an iron wall will greet me.

The master I know is like a rabbit, suffering from loneliness yet full of suspicion. On top of that, he was deeply burned by me, so that tendency must have worsened considerably.

So instead of rashly approaching, he quietly racked his brain.

‘I must meet him in a situation where he cannot refuse me.’

His objective is to bring him to the Imperial Capital, specifically to the Imperial Palace.

There might be a method of forcibly capturing and dragging him there, but Father is a person destined to wander the world. Binding him to one place isn’t to this one’s taste anyway.

Since he has committed sins, he will show him a vast and comfortable cage… no, a nest, with its door always open so he can come and go freely, and apologize.

For getting caught, he’s sorry.

He should have deceived him to the end, but he foolishly got caught and hurt you.

And he must etch into his mind that this place is home to return to. If he fills it with all sorts of splendid things, he’ll remember even if he doesn’t want to.

Because remembering means the possibility of recalling this place someday, at some moment, increases.

‘I need a way to bring him to the Capital without raising too much suspicion…’

Bringing him there is the priority.

Of course, he knows his master will eventually stop by the Imperial Capital. Since he’s been discovered like this, he could just watch over him. But having finally found him, not being able to exchange a single word up close is quite displeasing, and moreover, he can’t guarantee that some other lowlife won’t discover him and try something in the meantime.

The youngest disciple who couldn’t cast off his true nature, Deciver, pushed aside the most gentle and boring option of pretending not to know and tore the paper in his hand, thinking.

‘What kind of beings was he weak to?’

The answer came quickly. Deciver looked at Dan, who was chasing after his master, and twisted the corner of his mouth up.

‘Half-grown young ones. And victims of gates.’

If a similar incident happened twice before a day had even passed, it would arouse suspicion, but it was the same thing as approaching normally and being met with wariness anyway.

If so, it’s better to create a situation where, even if he is suspicious, he can’t bear to refuse, and approach him then.

‘It’s been a while since I’ll see your face up close, Father.’

Ah, before that, let me handle this.

Contrary to his momentum that seemed ready to move immediately, Deciver stood in place and scattered the finely torn wanted poster into the air.

Matters concerning ‘Raven,’ especially those directly related to him like his physical description, are things even he himself finds difficult to remember and recall, even if they are records that do not disappear. If they aren’t kept in plain sight, one forgets his very existence, just like forgetting ‘Raven.’

So, the chances of someone recognizing master and reporting him with this are virtually nil.

‘I’ve already weeded out the bounty posters from all the inns and shops in the village where master’s steps are headed, so it should be fine for the time being.’

More than that, a bounty. Did they really think that would work? The elder brothers and sisters are so foolish.

Deciver crookedly raised the corner of his mouth.

‘As if Father is some ordinary person.’

Our rabbit-like master is so sensitive.

Although they confidentially placed a bounty limited to inns and shops, the moment someone tries to recognize and report him, he’ll sense the signs. Then, the likelihood of him trying not to go to the Capital, where the danger of being caught is high, increases.

And above all else…

‘I found him first, what use is it if these measly scraps of paper let my elder brothers and sisters snatch him away?’

He was mine from the start.

He is my father and the sole key who will lead me to perfection. Ah, and also my master.

While I was briefly gauging his measure and calculating, all sorts of useless things crawled in as disciples.

Having no intention of foolishly letting him be taken away again, Deceiver launched himself without hesitation in the direction his beloved master was heading.

∞ ∞ ∞

After saving Dan, the guardian spirit clearly said this before returning:

[At least it’s fortunate that the gate was already closed.]

Raven didn’t answer then, but inwardly agreed. If it had been before the gate was closed, things would have gotten considerably more troublesome.

How could it possibly be easy for someone traveling alone to close a gate while protecting another? It was a situation that sent shivers down his spine just imagining it, even though he’d experienced it many times, so he truly thought it was fortunate, just as he said.

‘That very thing has actually happened.’

With a sour face, Raven held the ‘child’ in his arms and stepped back. Unlike Dan, who was close to a young man, this ‘real child,’ who looked barely ten years old and was a girl with a noble air completely out of place here, was trembling and burying her face in his embrace. As a bonus, she was subtly rubbing her face as if acting spoiled, or perhaps secretly wiping away tears.

‘…Do I have some kind of connection to kids or something?’

Everyone he gets entangled with is nothing but young children.

The hollow laugh was brief. He patted the child soothingly while shifting his eyes to grasp the situation.

The current state was such that if others saw it, they would describe it as hopeless.

A gate opened in a wide street, monsters pouring out of it. And the child standing trembling in front of them.

He had been in the midst of fleeing urgently, but upon seeing that sight, he couldn’t just pass by.

So now, having snatched up and embraced the child, Raven let out a sigh and twirled the dagger held in his other hand.

‘I have two burdens to protect…’

Before, he only had to worry about Dan, but now he had to worry about both Dan and the child.

…Ah, maybe not yet. Since he had sent a warning to the crow that was chasing him before its main body, Dan, saying don’t come any closer if you don’t want to die, it would keep its distance if it had any sense.

Still, the fact that the guardian spirit was angry bothered him greatly. Of course, he knows he wouldn’t pretend not to see his danger… but still, he wasn’t so thick-skinned as to shamelessly summon him while knowing his anger in a situation where he himself was in the wrong.

“…Kid, what’s your name?”

Resolving to handle this alone, Raven posed a question to the child.

“…Di… cough, Didi.”

“A fake name, I see.”

He felt the small body in his arms flinch.

He didn’t know what she was so afraid of. Judging by her attire, she seemed like a noble, and hiding her family and name from someone she couldn’t easily trust was a natural action.

He had only asked her name purely because he needed something to call the child, so her real name didn’t matter at all. He nonchalantly voiced the false name she gave.

“Alright, Didi. Do you get motion sickness or anything?”

Shake, shake.

The action of shaking her head, almost rubbing her forehead against his chest, was quite adorable. Chuckling softly as if deflating, Raven whispered lowly while stabbing his dagger into the roof of the mouth of a monster rushing at him with its maw wide open.

“Then for about 5 minutes… no, 10 minutes, just stay like this without lifting your head. It’ll shake quite a bit, but don’t raise your head in the middle.”

What he had to do was simple.

Clear out the monsters pouring out while holding the child, then close the gate.

Given the situation, he’d have to keep holding her, so one arm would be tied up, but it couldn’t be helped. Rather than putting this little one down, moving, losing her, and regretting it, it was surely better to keep her in his arms the whole time.

He adjusted his hold firmly so the child wouldn’t slip, and whispered softly.

“When this is over, I’ll ask why a noble’s child is here alone, so you’d better organize your thoughts in the meantime.”

“…”

If he added a bit of selfishness, the option of avoiding the monsters and entering the gate first would arise, but Raven couldn’t do that. He knew all too well what would happen if he ignored this many monsters.

‘The question of whether I can protect the child inside the gate aside, Dan, left alone outside, would die.’

Those things would swallow Dan, who was closest, first, then head toward nearby houses.

Undoubtedly, tremendous damage would occur.

Therefore, with those words, Raven ended the conversation and began to deal with the monsters while holding the child in his arms─.

“[Kid, just what on earth are you…]”

──And then he got scolded.

From the start, it was absurd to deal with swarming monsters while cradling a huge weakness.

In the end, Raven couldn’t even close the gate and even struggled just to clear out the monsters that poured out.

Even that was becoming more troublesome as he was gradually being surrounded.

In a hurry to at least escape the encirclement, he roughly stepped on a visible monster and leaped, only to get his ankle caught instead and be slammed into the ground. Raven reflexively almost let go of the child to brace himself with his hands, but forcibly stopped himself and hugged the child tighter. His vision momentarily went white with a dull pain.

So his reaction was delayed.

By the time the monster’s hideous wide-open maw belatedly entered his clearing vision, it was already too late. Even as his guardian spirit, who had been silent all along, stepped in, Raven wasn’t surprised but rather closed his useless eyes as if he’d expected it.

“[…]”

As if even noise was cut down along with the monsters, a strange silence settled.

Having cleaned up the surrounding monsters in an instant, the guardian spirit glanced back at Raven and let out a sigh. The young man flinching his shoulders was reflected in his rough green eyes.

“[What am I to do with you…]”

“…But I didn’t hurt my face.”

He protected his face at all costs, since getting it injured would be troublesome.

“It’s the most useful part. Even the Ancestor… my brother acknowledged it, so I had to protect it.”

At the half-joking remark clearly intended to defuse the atmosphere, the child in his arms trembled her shoulders pitifully. Uncaring, Raven patted those shoulders.

Anyway, it’s better to laugh than to cry. As long as you can laugh, it’s good.

He turned his eyes back toward the guardian spirit, so he couldn’t see his expression, but he could at least tell he wasn’t laughing. As he maintained the awkward silence, as expected, a stiff voice reached him with a heavy sigh.

“[That’s not what I meant, for your self-esteem… No, forget it.]”

“…”

“[Why didn’t you call me? Surely perceptive you doesn’t know the reason for my silence.]”

You should have called.

The guardian spirit had remained silent because Raven did not cherish himself. Therefore, Raven should have, by all rights, called the guardian spirit in a situation where he was in danger or trouble.

“…But… though….”

His gray eyes rolled slowly. The unfocused eyes, hesitating and blinking as if overly conscious of something, were pushed by a silent demand and finally spilled out their anxiety.

“What if I acted that shamelessly and brother came to hate me?”

“[…!]”

“You know, that I have no one but you, Ancestor.”

Clench. As if feeling a piercing loneliness, the child in his arms put all her strength into the hand gripping his clothes.

Though a dead man couldn’t possibly breathe, the guardian spirit stopped moving for a moment as if his breath had ceased.

His green eyes wavered violently between his wide-open lids. After a long silence, he lifted his sword with difficulty and cut down another approaching monster, then placed his hand on Raven’s shoulder.

“[Kid.]”

His hand swept up from the shoulder, climbing the neck in reverse, and cupped a cheek. A calloused thumb swept over the eye area with the utmost care.

At the sudden contact, the dull gray eyes blinked with puzzlement.

“[I’m sure I told you. Even if the heavens and earth were overturned, even if you turned everyone in the world against you.]”

Even if it were an act that destroyed the world.

“[There would be no occasion for me to hate you.]”

“…”

“[Ever.]”