Chapter 406 Escort (2)
Chapter 406 Escort (2)
Then I stood by the door and waited for the princess to come out. When she came over, I reached out for her hand and helped her down from the carriage.
We were currently in the middle of the forest, but still by the road.
This road was the main road that led to the capital, so it wasn't a small road by any means.
It was wide enough to fit at least four of these carriages side and by side and this carriage was already wider than most carriages.
The butler stood on the side during all of this, waiting for the two of us to come out.
When we were standing on the side of the road by the forest, the butler said, "Young miss, Count Zwein, I will remain here and watch over the carriage. Please head into the forest and fulfil his highness' request."
I couldn't help looking at the butler with a shocked look.
Was he really just sending me and the princess alone into the forest like this?
Wasn't this just too irresponsible?
Or was I supposed to protect her?
Before I could react, the princess had grabbed my hand and was already pulling me into the forest.
The butler just watched this with a faint smile on his face.
When we had disappeared into the forest, the butler suddenly gave a snap and there was a cloaked figure that appeared beside him.
The butler wasn't surprised at all by this cloaked figure and said, "Clear the area and make sure that nothing disturbs her highness."
The cloaked figure gave a nod before disappearing.
At the same time, there were several branches in the trees around them that shook slightly.
It was like someone had stepped off them.
…
After we had gone some way, the princess finally stopped and turned around to look at me, but she didn't say anything in the end. It was almost like she was about to say something, but then she swallowed her words at the last second.
It was as if there was something that she couldn't say.
So I was the one that broke the silence in the end.
"Shall we go around looking for the herbs that his highness requested?" I said in a slow and careful voice.
The princess looked at me, but I couldn't tell what kind of expression she had because of her hood.
But in the end, she gave a slow nod.
So with that, I moved away from the princess and started looking around the area for these herbs.
I was planning on finding these herbs as soon as possible so that we could return as soon as possible.
Luckily, these herbs were very common, so they weren't hard to find at all.
Just casually searching around was enough for me to find several of these herbs.
Now the only thing that I had to do was pick them and we could get ready to head back.
But before I could actually pick them, the princess suddenly came over to where I was and reached down to grab these herbs.
I thought that she wanted to harvest these herbs herself, but instead she just grabbed them in a rough manner and pulled them out without any delicacy. When she pulled them out, they were crushed in her hands and there was no saving these herbs anymore.
After she pulled them out like this, all she could say was, "Oops, I'm sorry."
But she was the princess…so I could only say, "It's fine, there's still plenty of other herbs around that we can harvest."
I quickly turned and moved over to another herb, but before I could pick it…she had already moved over as well to grab it.
She pulled it just as roughly as the first herb and it was crushed to pieces before letting those pieces drop to the ground. Then she just simply said once more, "Oops."
My expression couldn't help turning ugly when I saw this…
Once was an accident, but twice couldn't be a coincidence.
It was clear that she was doing this on purpose…
As for why she was doing this, it was most likely to avoid going back to the castle.
This was her rare free moment away from the castle, so she wouldn't want to go back that soon.
But I was different from her.
I wanted to go back as soon as possible so I wouldn't have to be responsible for this.
The longer that I spent here, the more likely that an accident would happen.
The moment that an accident happened involving this princess, it was certain that I would lose my head.
I liked where my head currently was, so I didn't want to change that.
However, it wasn't as if I could just lose my temper with the princess…
So the only thing that I could do was…
Taking a deep breath, I stood up and walked over to where another patch of herbs was growing.
But before I could pick them, the princess suddenly ran over and picked them roughly like before. She almost seemed like she was pulling out potatoes from the ground rather than picking fine herbs.
My face turned very ugly at this point.
Was the princess really that determined not to go back?
But I couldn't have that.
I didn't hesitate to go to another patch of herbs, but the princess followed me again.
During this time, the princess revealed an unhappy look under her cloak.
"Is he really that unwilling to spend some time with me?" She thought to herself which made her feel even more unhappy.
So just like this, the two of us continued our dance of going around looking for herbs.
I would try to pick the herbs while she did all that she could to destroy them.
We didn't make any progress at all.