Don't Come to Wendy's Flower House

“… No! It would be more time-saving to follow me than for you to try to convince me! If we drive just a little to the south, there is a long ditch. Let’s try to get there first. I have an idea, so just trust me!”

While screaming at him initially, she was now begging him to trust her. Like he said, she had no time to argue with him.

“Come on!”

Turning the horse’s head again, she urged Bishop to hurry up. After some angst, he clenched his teeth and put the sword back in its sheath. He began to drive the horse, holding Pascal with one arm, who had fallen unconscious. No matter how skilled he was at horse-riding, it wasn’t easy for him to ride in this situation. But as if to prove his grit as an imperial knight, he held on to the wounded knight on the horse.

Driving towards south, Wendy quickly put her brain to work. Even though she told Sir Bishop to drive toward the ditch, she didn’t have a plan. She thought that going to a place with a stream and washing off any scent would be a safe way for them to get away from the hunting dogs.

She recalled numerous plant catalogs in her head, and at the same time thought of the simulations she had done in the Rainy’s forest. She had to do something because she couldn’t run away alone, leaving both of them behind in the woods.

Shortly afterwards they reached the ditch.

Splash, splash!

The sound of the horses making ripples were heard. While treading on the shallow stream, she hoped that their scent would disappear. She felt that Bishop was looking at her nervously from behind. She told him about the only thing that came to her mind.

“If you go up a little here, there is a small cave. It’s the best thing you can do right now after throwing away the horse and hiding there. ”

“They will find us soon.”

“I’m going to use my finger to stop them from finding us.” He looked at her with trembling eyes.

Her suggestion to discard the horse before hiding was far from a smart plan. As soon as they discovered the three, her safety could not be guaranteed. Even if the three could escape from their chase, it was not easy for them to get out of the woods. It was even more so, given Pascal’s condition. He had a mission to protect Wendy Waltz.

“Please guide me then,” Bishop decided to trust her.

It wasn’t just because of Wendy’s miraculous work that he had witnessed when the palace collapsed and a little while ago when they escaped from the prison. Looking into her eyes earnestly, he knew that he would never be able to overcome her stubbornness. He could feel she was more stubborn than the most strong-willed knights.

They left the stream and kept riding the horses. running. By the time the forest trails grew rougher, she finally stopped and said, “You see the crevice of the rock over there.”

She pointed to a hill with large and small rocks behind the spruce trees.

After getting off the horse, Bishop tore off some pieces of his clothes and tied them to the horse’s stirrup to distract the hounds by leaving his scent there.

Then he carefully carried Pascal on his shoulder, whipped the horse’s ass hard to gallop away. She followed his actions. Bishop then walked ahead.

“Be careful not to leave any footsteps when you walk,” said he.

She tried as best she could while walking, and at the same time she put her index finger down the dirt in the middle of the road. Along with her hand gestures, herbs with strong scent rose above the ground. The plants erased their scent. Plants such as thistles, ferns, etc were growing beautifully around, so the herbs she grew were not particularly noticeable.

“Here we are.”

The cave was long and narrow. Deep inside in particular, it was so narrow that they could not move comfortably. She recalled farting mushrooms and thorns by putting her index finger at the entrance of the cave and the bottom of the cave. The plants sprouted on the ground quickly. Plants grew quickly enough to cover the cave entrance.

“Shush!”

As soon as he laid Pascal on the floor of the cave, Bishop held his breath and looked outward for any human movement. The sound of dogs barking and the horses’ clattering grew louder. In the narrow crevice of the cave, they were stuck, all in tension.

Bark, bark!

The hounds were not far. Several hounds were sniffing to find their scent.

“Philom! What’s the matter with these hounds?”

“It looks like they lost the track.”

Wendy and Bishop could clearly hear the conversation of the chasers. A man, who seemed to be their chief, nagged the other man with an angry voice when the hounds were wandering around, unable to find their direction.

She plucked her ears like a herbivore and focused on their movement outside the cave.

It was fortunate that the hounds were in confusion, but she could not feel relaxed yet.

The sniffling sound of the dogs, the rough breathing of the horses and the footsteps of the soldiers passing by the grass were heard right outside the cave.

Bark, bark!

“It looks like they found the smell again!”

“Chase them right now!”

Wendy and Bishop got tense at the moment a guy shouted the hounds found the trace, but shortly afterwards the clatter of the horseshoe’s hooves began to disappear.

The barking hounds followed the horses they released a minute ago.

Crouching her shoulders in the dark cave, she let out a sigh of relief and straightened up her stiff back.

Sniff, sniff!

Right at that moment, one of the hounds, which she felt disappeared, was heard sniffing from the entrance of the cave. Its rough breathing through the nostril was loud.

The hound began to growl wildly, revealing its teeth as if it smelled the scent of the three inside. In the end, it started to dig through the dirt with its paws at the entrance of the cave.

The farting mushrooms growing in front of the entrance were crushed in a mess.

“Barion!”

Someone was calling the dog loudly. Despite that, the dog was busy digging the ground. A thorny bush lined up at the entrance was blocking its approach into the cave.

Because of the stinging thorns, it could not move to the entrance. The owner of the voice walked toward the cave as if he sensed something unusual.

“Ugh-uh! What the heck is this smell? …Barion! You naughty guy! Don’t play the wag here. Follow me! Hurry up! ”

The man shouted, grabbing his nose. From the farting mushrooms that dogs crushed, there was such a vicious stink that he could hardly breathe. The man escaped quickly, as if he couldn’t stand it.

“Barion! Can’t you get out of here? If you don’t listen to me, you won’t have any meal in the evening! ”

As if it understood his warning, the hound barked several times at the inside of the cave fiercely then turned away.

The two were silently holding their breath even after they disappeared. They were seized by the anxiety that the chasers might come back. It was only after Pascal woke up with a cough that they felt relaxed.

“… Where am I now? ”

“We’re still in the Rainy Forest. As we escaped here for a while, please feel relaxed. How does your arm feel?”

“Fine,” he said.

He then got up, putting up with moaning. In addition to his broken arm, he got lots of scratches.

Bishop, who checked his condition, brought a fairly useful twig from one side of the cave.

He used it as a splint to hold Pascal’s arm tight.

“There are signs of fire here,” Bishop said, looking at the bottom of the cave.

The twig used as the splint also seemed to be someone’s firewood.

“Is this the place you had stayed before, Miss Wendy?”

“Yes. I often come to this forest to collect plant samples. This is the place I came to avoid the rain briefly or take a break. ”

She agreed and put her index finger on the bottom of the cave. Shortly thereafter, a very small Bahazman tree began to grow from the ground. Then there were very tiny fruits sprouting from the small tree. She picked them all and put them on Pascal’s palm. Around 15 tiny grains fell on his palm.

“I should not grow this tree carelessly… But I have to make an exception now. Please eat. Even if it doesn’t take effect right away, you will feel a lot better.”