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101 Chapter

“This is a place I’ve enjoyed coming to since I was young.”

The location I arrived at, leisurely walking, was a hill that surrounded the back of the Imperial Palace.

I sat beside Diego, who had carelessly plopped down on the grass, and it seemed that the one following us also found a good spot in the back.

“You can’t see the stars from the Imperial Palace either.”

“That’s true. But the palace is so bright at night that the starlight gets washed out. The palaces are so close together that it feels cramped.”

Diego, who said this in a low voice, looked up at the sky. Glancing side-eyed at him, who seemed a bit weary, I also slowly looked up at the sky.

Countless sparkling stars. A bright moon rising majestically. The wind became calm, as if it were conforming to the stillness of the night.

‘……I’m glad I came out.’

When I lived as a mercenary, even when I didn’t want to see the natural surroundings and night sky, I had to. To catch monsters, I had to go into the forest, and while camping in the woods, I often fell asleep with the sky as my roof.

However, after becoming a Duke’s Young Lady, it seemed I had no leisure to admire the sky. I gazed longingly at the beauty of the night sky, marveling at it for the first time in a long while.

The innumerable stars, which I couldn’t even begin to fathom, reflected their light grandly, illuminating the hill. I felt an overwhelming sensation as if hundreds of billions of eyes were watching me.

For a while, I lost myself in the cool night air, counting the stars. The scent of the night brushing against my nose made my whole body languid.

In this moment, I had no thoughts. Without any worries about the future, I merely indulged in the beauty presented to me.

‘Ah. I shouldn’t be like this.’

Suddenly, I snapped back to reality.

I had completely forgotten that Diego was next to me. I quickly turned my head toward him.

And I found myself staring directly into his deep blue eyes.

‘Was he… watching me?’

Despite inviting me to see the stars, I had no idea why he was looking at me. Whether my eyes rolled or not, he stared at me with a slight smile at the corners of his eyes.

Feeling a bit awkward for being so absorbed in the stars, I cleared my throat.

“You seem to have something to say, so please go ahead.”

“……Did it show?”

Diego’s expression was a bit surprised. It seemed like he was taken aback that I noticed before he even spoke.

I smiled at that.

‘Diego wouldn’t come here without a reason.’

Even if he showed a relaxed demeanor in front of me, fundamentally, he was a person who acted under thorough planning and calculation.

The fact that Diego came here suddenly without making an appointment clearly meant he had something urgent to discuss.

“Do you think I can’t read your expressions? Please, tell me.”

Upon my assertion, Diego let out a small chuckle.

“How on earth did you know…?”

He muttered quietly before starting to speak.

“I heard that you’ve become the Emperor’s companion and Serenon’s swordsmanship instructor.”

“You’ve heard already.”

“That caused quite a stir in the palace. In fact, the Emperor decided this without consulting the Duke, so the people in the palace were bracing themselves for Duke Crisis’s potential outrage. Naturally, everyone was surprised that you accepted it so readily without any objections.”

“I see.”

“I, too, was in a position that would oppose your entrance into the palace… so it was quite a shock.”

“••••••Really?”

‘Diego opposed it?’

I thought Diego would support my entering the Imperial Palace, so this was an unexpected backstory.

I stared at him with wide eyes. Upon meeting my gaze, he smiled bitterly.

“I understood the intentions of the nobles in wanting to bring you into the palace. From the moment you entered, it was evident you would be stepping into the dirty mudslinging of the royal family. It was concerning since it surely meant danger for you.”

“••••••Ah.”

I sighed softly.

Diego was a person who had suffered for a lifetime under the royal succession battles. He sighed, turning his blue eyes, filled with a certain bitterness, toward the sky.

“Yes. You are a strong person, so you will survive even in this filthy palace. I believe in your abilities. But I’m saying this based on my information.”

He slowly turned his gaze back to me. His blue eyes that always seemed gem-like shimmered intensely.

“The noble faction wants to make you a princess.”

Diego’s white teeth were tightly clenched under his red lips. He was noticeably agitated.

He hugged his knees and turned his head, resting his cheek on them. His blue eyes stared at me intently.

“Did you receive an offer today?”

“……Yes.”

“Did you accept it?”

He tried to sound calm, but the pitch of his voice was already low, sounding a bit growly. His warm eyes turned cold as he looked at me.

An uneasy sensation coursed through me, and I slowly shook my head.

“I won’t be marrying anyone. Not anyone at all. I don’t want to live as someone’s wife.”

I would die as Kashmir’s ‘Crisis.’ I had grown so fond of this newly acquired name that I didn’t want to take on another.

“That’s such a typical answer from you, I’m not surprised.”

Diego blinked and let out a small laugh. I looked at him and slowly opened my mouth.

“Though you see me as an equal, in reality, you are my lord, Diego. If I become a princess, it would be no different from serving another lord.”

I gazed into his moonlit blue eyes. He looked like a rippling lake, beautiful and deep.

“Under the sky, there is only one sun, and my sun is Diego. I will not serve two lords.”

Diego was beautiful under the moonlight, but he suited the sunlight far better.

“Oh, my.”

Diego, who had been looking at my resolute expression with astonished eyes, let out a hollow laugh. His eyes seemed to carry a hint of sadness. Diego opened his mouth as if to say something, but then clamped it shut again.

Soon, Diego, who typically wore his usual smile, spoke slowly.

“You met Serenon today, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What was he like?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Surprisingly… he was a good person.”

“Is that so?”

Shining in his eyes was affection for Serenon.

“He’s a good kid. So kind that even puppet masters trying to manipulate me couldn’t get rid of him. He doesn’t care much for power and always seeks affection.”

Meaningful words slipped out of his mouth. I narrowed my eyes. Diego’s words were rather ambiguous, but the underlying message became clear.

‘Serenon Solaritene’s conflicts with Diego and the Emperor do not stem from his own will.’

This realization complicated my feelings greatly.

‘In this palace, perhaps everyone is a victim in some way.’

There is no perfect perpetrator. In a world shaped like a sphere with no beginning and no end, everyone was both perpetrator and victim.

‘And perhaps Diego is the biggest victim of this sordid affair.’

At that moment, a jolt of realization struck me, and I sighed deeply.

The arrows flying by, the hands that pull the strings.

“Diego. Don’t ever come out alone again.”

With a sharp sound, I drew my sword—

Moving at a speed unseen by ordinary eyes, I turned my back to Diego and effortlessly sliced through an arrow that flew toward him. The severed arrow fell lifelessly to the ground.

“If you come out alone like this, these petty scum will target you.”

I glared coldly and raised my sword at the shadowed figures dressed in black behind the hill.

“Damn it! Who is that girl? They say she’s a noble young lady!”

“Shit… I thought she was just a decorative noble… now we’ve got a headache.”

They seemed to be flustered, having thought of me as just an ordinary noble, as the scoundrels around me murmured in surprise when their attacks were blocked.

‘Four of them. None even half decent as sword experts.’

This was child’s play for me, so I felt no concern.

Scoffing at their incompetence, I heard Diego let out a groan behind me.

“Damn. I thought they wouldn’t come today since I sent them yesterday… but sending them two days in a row is troublesome…”

“You met assassins yesterday, but you’re out here on your own today?”

Diego averted his gaze slightly. Though a surge of mixed anger and concern rose within me, I understood that he was usually so thorough. Thus I couldn’t really be mad at him for being reckless regarding his guard.

“Still, you must be protecting me, right?”

He looked at me with those confident eyes as if it were a matter of course, his gaze filled with trust.

Incredible though it was, it filled my heart with warmth from his unwavering faith.

I broke into a small smile, raising my sword.

“I’ll finish this in two minutes. Stay right here. …Oh, wait.”

Boom—

“AHHH!”

Just then, one of the figures that had been lurking behind suddenly sprang into action and began fighting the assassins. I recognized the familiar aura of that figure and smirked.

“I think it will be finished in a minute.”

With a swift leap, infused with mana, I arrived at the scene of the battle in an instant.

The figure battling four assassins glanced my way and frowned slightly.

“You are…”

Swoosh.

“AHHHH!”

The man’s voice was lost beneath the assassin’s scream. I effortlessly sliced through the shoulder of one assassin and kicked at their knees, causing them to lose their balance.

“Let’s clean up this situation first and then talk.”

Whack.

With the hilt of my sword, I struck the assassin’s nape. The assassin slumped down, unable to even groan. Although I may have exerted a bit too much force, I consoled myself that their neck wasn’t broken as I swirled my sword.

The man, who seemed to have a lot to say with his eyes on me, seemed to realize that finishing this situation first was the priority, as he wore a resigned expression and began to move his sword.

“AHHH!”

Amid this chaos, the assassin aiming an arrow at Diego had his arm severed with a swish, splattering blood everywhere.

Wiping the blood that had splashed across my face, I overturned the fallen assassin and kicked the writhing one unconscious.

‘Looks like that’s finished on that side.’

While I took care not to reveal too much of my skills and processed the situation slowly, the man across from me also seemed to have wound things up.

Gathering the unconscious assassins in one place, I wiped the blood on my body with a handkerchief from my pocket. It felt a bit awkward to show Diego my blood-stained appearance.

‘……Is this what it’s like to be indifferent to killing now?’

I felt a sense of alienation while casually wiping the red blood from my body.

I took a brief breath, releasing a sigh of resignation.

‘Sword. Can you create a training dummy that’s as human-like as possible?’

‘……Human-like?’

‘Yes. I want it to be similar to human skin and to bleed when cut. Is that possible?’

‘It’s not difficult. But are you… okay?’

‘……I need to get used to it. It’ll be fine.’

Despite having slain countless monsters, I was still unaccustomed to killing people. However, I was soon to enter the battlefield.

So the path I chose was to get used to killing by swinging my sword at training dummies that resembled humans.

‘For now, I’ll focus on training and will throw up afterward.’

The sword was quite an extraordinary magic tool.

From the texture of skin being cut to the blood spewing forth. The form it creates while someone dies is strikingly similar, so after my training, I found myself unable to leave the bathroom for a while.

‘You’re struggling this much, yet you still want me to keep creating things that make you suffer? Why! Shushu, you’re a member of Duke Crisis’s family! You’re my sister! You have no reason to kill people! You can command others instead! With a single command, an entire knight order can mobilize for you! Why…!’

‘Sword, please……’

‘Just… just don’t ask why, make it. I need to get accustomed to this.’

There was a time when I hadn’t eaten for a while because it was due to the dummy I made. Kal once got enraged to madness about it. Forcing a task I’d not dare impose upon Kal was merely to grow accustomed to the sensation of cutting human skin.

‘I can’t go into battle and tremble without being able to kill a single person.’

It was about becoming a monster.

‘……I’m glad to see the training’s effect isn’t insignificant.’

Ignoring the nauseous sensation and dizzy vision, that thought crossed my mind. Since I had not vomited right away, that was a considerable improvement.

Suppressing the surge of something rising up with difficulty, I glanced around.

‘Ah.’

The smell of blood that had a different quality from the monsters’ blood. Flesh stuck to the sword. Shadowy figures sprawled on the ground, smeared with blood.

All of it felt unfamiliar. In truth, it was horrific.

Though I had lived as a mercenary my whole life, I had only killed a person once in actuality.

During that one traumatic event when I was thirteen in winter, the day I lost both my master and my only friend.

‘Now I need to get used to it.’

I took a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts, and resolutely absorbed the grim scene before me.

I was okay. I would likely be okay.

‘Time to start settling things down.’

After taking a deep breath, my previously unstable breathing slowly calmed.

I composed my expression, turned my body toward the man who had helped me subdue the assassins while following Diego.

“It’s been a while, Pepper Ellerbaine.”

A man with short, deep green hair and light brown eyes.

He was the second son of the House of Ellerbaine and Diego’s knight guard, Pepper Ellerbaine.

 

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