A King is Born on the Road

Chapter 57

Iris tapped Hayer’s arm again.

“Hayer?”

“Yes?”

When Hayer came to his senses and turned around, Iris asked anxiously.

“What are you thinking?”

“Ah, thinking about my childhood for a moment…”

Hayer smiled faintly, as if telling her not to worry.

“This is where the second sons are usually confined, but in this case, the eldest son somehow came in.”

Iris had heard such a thing before. When the eldest son, the successors of the family, often feel competitive with the second son, they are framed and imprisoned in a dungeon.

Then, after the eldest son dies, there have often been cases in history where the second son from the dungeon succeeds the family.

But now, Hayer’s words were not a story from history, but a story from his own childhood.

His words were joking, but in a lower voice than usual, and there was a lack of energy.

Concerned, Iris stared at Hayer. Perhaps because the torch was flickering, Hayer’s orange eyes looked unusually bright, and not necessarily human.

She thought for a moment and asked Hayer.

“Do you want me to hold your hand?”

“What?”

“If you’re scared…”

For Iris, it was a big-hearted proposal. This is because she has held hands to pretend to be on good terms in front of others, but she has never held out first.

The tension in Hayer, who had been stiff throughout, vanished.

He seemed to be holding back his laughter, but eventually ended up laughing out loud.

At the sound of the laughter that could not be heard in a dungeon, all the prisoners who had their heads against the wall looked back at him.

The prisoners thought about saying something to Hayer, but stopped. Hayer was, by all means, a man who seemed more horrific to meet in a dungeon.

Hayer reached out and clasped Iris’s hand.

He noticed that Iris’s hand, which held his hand tightly, sometimes twitched.

She seemed afraid of the darkness of this dungeon. Scared herself, she held his hand tightly for Hayer, who was incomparably taller than she.

Ever since she held his hand, Hayer’s bad memories have disappeared. All his attention was turned to the hand he was holding. It was soft.

He inadvertently tried to squeeze her hand, but remembered how she had almost fallen from the trap in front of the safe earlier.

Since it was an injured hand, Hayer reluctantly let go of Iris’s hand, fearing that he would accidentally squeeze it.

However, he thought she would be upset if he let go of her hand at all, so he pulled her hand to hold his pocket.

Hayer looked at her and said.

“I want to hold hands, but I think it’s dangerous because there’s not much vision. So at least hold onto my clothes. Because I’m scared.”

“You don’t look so scared anymore…”

“I’m scared.”

Hayer continued to walk with the torch, shuddering.

Iris grasped his pocket in her hand. After holding it, she was able to rely on it.

Hayer continued to check Iris and where her feet were treading.

He was a man who looked like he would never care about anything, and he acted like that, but he was very delicate on the inside.

She didn’t think he’d like such an evaluation, but not only Iris but also the Knights of Tejas thought that way.

Hayer said, taking his last steps.

“When I see a prisoner, I do this. I’ll keep getting on their nerves annoyingly. You are to be a good person.”

“Hmm, does it actually work?”

“I don’t know about prisons on the ground, but this prison doesn’t get sunlight in it, so it’s damp all year round. If you give it a feeling like the sun, it will surely be conciliatory.”

“The sun… you look like the sun.”

Hayer looked at Iris, at the murmur that was close to talking to herself.

The royal family of Luwan, the people of the Lepos family, should be the moon. They had to be people like the moon.

Having hair like the night sky and blue eyes that was like the cold moon was considered the most ‘Lepos.’

However, Hayer was the complete opposite from the day he was born.

Sandy hair and orange eyes. Perhaps from the very day he exhibited those characteristics, people might have guessed that he might not be from the Lepos family.

Strangely, however, he didn’t hate Iris’s words now, ‘like the sun.’ Originally, it was one of the words he hated most, but it was nice if she said so.

It was strange. Perhaps because he was sure that she was a good person to him, he felt that Iris had spoken of the sun in a good way.

After a while, the two arrived at the innermost part of the dungeon. By that time, she was somewhat adapted to the terrible stench that emanated from the entrance to the dungeon.

As soon as she stood there, Iris spotted Ruben Everhart in the prison, and talked to him.

“Ruben Everhart.”

At her call, Ruben Everhart, seated in a chair in the corner of the dungeon, turned to the two.

Iris greeted him first.

“Nice to meet you. I am Iris Lepos, daughter of Celios Lepos.”

Ruben seemed to hesitate at her words. To him, who spent seven years in the dungeon, she was the hidden child of Celios Lepos whom he did not know about.

The first thing Iris thought of when she made eye contact with Ruben was that he had a different look than ordinary prisoners.

While ordinary prisoners were afraid or depressed because they have been here for too long, Ruben’s eyes were so clear that it was no exaggeration to say ‘sharp.’

Iris thought maybe it was prejudice, since she believed that Ruben Everhart was not a murderer.

In any case, it seemed to her now that Ruben did not accept the sin, nor was he complacent here.

Hayer greeted him.

“I am Hayer Asheri, son of Peonia Asheri and the leader of the Knights of Tejas.”

“…I am Ruben Everhart, son of Eggers Everhart.”

Ruben looked alternately between the princess, who seemed unlikely to visit him, and Hayer, who was embroiled in a scandal for being born from the queen’s infidelity, not long before he was imprisoned.

Hayer spoke again in an awkward manner to pick a fight.

“Ah, prison life isn’t easy.”

“……”

“Are the meals good? I’ve been in a dungeon too, and the most embarrassing thing at the time was the trashy food.”

“…How long have you been in a dungeon?”

Iris was looking towards Hayer.

It was the first time she heard that Hayer was imprisoned in a dungeon. If he was actually in a dungeon, it was likely when it was certain that Hayer was not the king’s son.

It was clear, then, that Hayer was imprisoned at a very young age.

Meanwhile, Hayer replied with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders.

“Still, I was there for about half a year.”

“Then don’t pretend to know.”

“I mean, I was quite young though. You’re all grown up, aren’t you?”

“But however much you were a prisoner!”

“Then should I call the prisoner better than this?”

Ruben’s face, which looked comfortable, became redder and redder as Hayer teased him. He seemed to be starting to get angry.

Iris prepared to play the opposite role, as Hayer had initially planned, as he gently nudged Ruben’s temper.

She asked Ruben.

“Shall I hit him instead?”

She had no idea of Ruben’s character yet, so she was worried about how he would turn out after saying that.