Chapter 10
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“Gasp, Baz, haah, wait, some water….”
“There’s a river 10km ahead, my lady.”
“Help me! Ma’am Baz, help me, argh!”
A cheerful scream rang out along with a thwacking sound. It was the sound of Baz hitting the lagging knight’s head with her scabbard.
“Ow, Ma’am Baz, my head, a lump, a lump! I think my head has swollen to twice its size!”
“Good. Even a stupid head will be better than it is now if it doubles in size.”
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“The inn, we’re almost…. Now we can rest…. Aaargh! Ma’am Baz!”
“Be quiet.”
“Wait, Baz, you have to let us sleep at night….”
“Ambushes are originally done at night, my lady.”
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“From now on, I am a bear, my lady. Run without getting caught.”
“Climb up, quick! The tree! The tree…!”
“My lady, the tree trunk has been cut…. Kuaargh!”
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When it was mealtime, Baz would receive dried food from Marie and go into the forest alone. For the roughly 20 minutes she was out of sight, the two could also enjoy a short break.
Stirring the stew Marie had prepared with a spoon, the knight muttered listlessly.
“My lady, do you think we can make it back alive…?”
“I think I could if it weren’t for you.”
“That’s harsh. I still passed the lower-knight exam at the top of my class, you know.”
You did?
Esdel swallowed the words that almost burst out. But the knight seemed to have guessed what Esdel was thinking from the ensuing silence alone.
“I was, you know. I was called a genius when I was young, my lady. I’m just useless in a real fight because I hate seeing blood.”
“Can you beat Baz if you fight with a wooden sword?”
“……”
“Useless, then….”
Esdel shook her head and dusted off her pants, which had become rags over the past few days.
The knight’s eyes, coughing from the flying dust, were red. It looked like he would cry if she said one more word, so Esdel turned away. She didn’t have the confidence to not nag him even while facing him.
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It took exactly four days to reach the capital. Only after arriving at a location where the capital checkpoint was visible were the two allowed to get into the carriage.
Marie quickly shoved a piece of beef jerky into Esdel’s and the knight’s mouths. The two, who had spent four days ceaselessly running, rolling, and waking up to the cold steel of a blade on their necks, were skin and bones.
On the other hand, Baz, who had clearly been running alongside them, looked no different than she had at the start.
Esdel sighed, massaging her two legs which had swollen up as hard as stone.
‘Even if I’ve awakened, fatigue doesn’t just go away, huh.’
External wounds healed immediately, but the recovery speed for non-life-threatening internal injuries or muscle fatigue was unchanged. In other words, it meant she couldn’t stop training even after parting with Baz.
It felt like her world was collapsing.
After blankly accepting and eating a couple more pieces of jerky from Marie and drinking the water she held to her lips, the checkpoint was now right in front of them. The knights guarding the checkpoint flinched at the haggard appearance of Esdel and the coward knight, but after checking their identification papers, they let them pass.
They were finally in the capital.
“I will get off here, my lady.”
Baz said as soon as they passed the checkpoint and entered the main road. She seemed to have been preparing to leave for a while, as she slung her bundle of belongings over her shoulder without delay as soon as the carriage stopped. Lin’s sword was slung diagonally across Baz’s back.
“Well then.”
Baz gave a slight nod. There was not a hint of hesitation in her step as she turned away.
Esdel hesitated, then raised her voice at Baz’s back.
“Baz!”
“Is there something you wish to say?”
“Thank you. Thanks to you, I probably won’t die a sudden, violent death somewhere. And….”
“……”
“And, we’ll be able to see each other again, right?”
Esdel asked, clenching both her fists.
Instead of answering, Baz took something out of her luggage bag and held it out.
“I almost forgot.”
It was a book. The next volume of the novel that Lin was supposed to deliver, the one she thought she would never see again.
For the past few days, they hadn’t spoken about Lin even once. But they didn’t need to speak to know. They were thinking the same thing, looking in the same direction.
Esdel couldn’t hold back and hugged Baz tightly.
“I’m sorry.”
“……”
“For not being able to come out with Lin, I’m truly sorr….”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Baz muttered in a stiff voice, grabbing Esdel’s shoulders and pulling her away.
“Rather, I would appreciate it if you felt guilty about forgetting everything I worked so hard to teach you 10 years ago.”
Thwack! Baz’s hand flicked Esdel’s forehead. A single flick sent a burning pain through her.
While Esdel was groaning and rubbing her forehead, Baz strode away and disappeared.
Marie and the coward knight took Esdel to the front of a certain town house. This place, where she had arranged to stay for the time being until she found a new residence, was the town house of her maternal family, the Marquisate of Sermont.
“The Countess sent a letter in advance, but the timing was so tight that there’s a high chance they couldn’t prepare properly here either. Even if the basics are all in the luggage, you must stop by a salon tomorrow to buy more necessary things. Especially dresses and shoes! We could only pack a few because they were so bulky!”
Marie repeatedly urged, handing the luggage over to the guards standing in front of the town house.
“And, just in case, I’ll leave the knight here. Once you’re settled in about a month, please send him back then!”
Esdel glanced sideways at the knight standing next to the carriage. He was talking about something with the coachman, high-fiving and bursting into laughter. Just a moment ago, he looked like a dying skeleton, but seeing him recover after a short rest, it seemed the story about him being the top of his class among the knights wasn’t complete nonsense.
‘Still, he’s just as useless.’
“My lady, even if that knight seems useless, he’s still a knight, so you must keep him close by your side. Okay?”
“Yes, I understand.”
Esdel nodded for now.
Since Marie and her parents would worry, she would accept for now, and when the opportunity arose, she could send him away a little earlier. It probably wouldn’t be difficult since that guy didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about his duties either.
She put the tearful Marie on the carriage and sent her off, and was about to go inside the town house. A familiar voice came from behind.
“Esdel.”
“…Theodore?”
Unlike when she saw him in the County’s territory, he was dressed in a flawless suit. But since he was a naturally eye-catching person, it wasn’t hard to recognize him.
Theodore nodded and held out his hand. When Esdel absentmindedly took his hand, he immediately turned his body.
“I came after hearing news at the checkpoint that a carriage from the Reinhardt territory had entered. Seeing that you were a little delayed, it seems you held a funeral. Let’s go now.”
“Wait, wait a minute! Where are we going?”
“I’ve prepared a place to stay. The luggage is… over there.”
The man approached the guards who were just about to move the luggage inside. When he tried to take the luggage back, the guard looked at Esdel in bewilderment. But Esdel was just as surprised.
“Thank you, but it’s okay. I’ve already contacted my maternal family, so I can stay here. And, um, there might be someone staying on that side.”
“There is no one staying. And I have no intention of receiving guests in the future either.”
“I don’t want to be a bother to you.”
Hearing Esdel’s firm words, Theodore seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before opening his mouth.
“There are about thirty rooms left, but if you don’t like it, I will sell it back. If you don’t want it, I don’t need it either.”
‘Thirty rooms?’
Esdel paused.
The capital of Arpenta was famous for being cramped compared to other countries. As such, there were almost no large town houses except for those built long ago. Even the town house of her maternal family, the Marquisate of Sermont, had only ten rooms.
There was only one town house in the capital with over thirty rooms.
‘Birchwood.’
The town house with a birch forest, which one couldn’t buy even with money, and which had been owned by all sorts of famous figures, including royalty, until now. In fact, a place of that size was already a grand mansion, not a town house.
“If you’re perhaps talking about Birchwood, the last I heard, I remember it was owned by His Highness the Prince.”
“Was that so? Not anymore.”
Not anymore, he says. Then it was definitely owned by His Highness the Prince at one point. Esdel was about to ask how on earth he had obtained it, but stopped.
“Uh, my lady. What should I do with the luggage?”
“Give it here.”
Esdel tossed the luggage bags into the arms of the knight standing beside her like a sack of rice. The coward knight looked back and forth between Esdel, Theodore, and the bags in his hands with a dumbfounded face.
“Hey, Theodore. It’s okay to bring one more person, right?”
“Do as you wish.”
Esdel nodded and accepted the offer to go to Birchwood.
She had no excuse if someone called her a snob, but, well, at least among the people she knew, there was no one who would kick away the opportunity to enter Birchwood.
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The inside of the carriage heading to Birchwood was quiet.
Theodore was not a talkative person by nature, and Esdel was so exhausted it was difficult to even breathe. While the two were looking in different directions, it was only the knight sandwiched between them who was frozen.
The knight lowered his voice and whispered into Esdel’s ear.
“Uh, my lady.”
“Yes.”
“Is he an acquaintance? No, even if he is, wouldn’t it be better to stay at your maternal relatives’….”
“He’s my fiancé.”
“…What? Fiancé? When did you get engaged? I saw marriage proposals still coming in right up until you left?”
The knight’s eyes widened. He seemed so surprised that his stiffly frozen body had completely relaxed. But Esdel was just as surprised. She had never heard about the fact that marriage proposals had been continuously coming until recently.
‘Mother must have deliberately not told me.’
It seemed she thought that after the one-year grace period she had granted was over, Esdel would come back and meet someone new.
Esdel, who found this out in front of her fiancé whom she had seen for the first time in days, put a hand to her forehead. Since things had turned out this way, it would be better to at least apologize, even if it wasn’t her fault.
However, before Esdel could part her lips, Theodore’s voice came first.
“Don’t worry about it. As I said last time, as long as the marriage vows proceed as planned, I will not interfere with the rest. So do whatever you wish.”
As soon as his words ended, the speed of the carriage began to slow down. Esdel, seeing the white tree trunks through the carriage’s small window, realized they had arrived at their destination.
“Let’s get out.”
Theodore, who had opened the carriage door, held out his hand to Esdel. She nodded and accepted his escort.
To be honest, even while following him here, Esdel hadn’t had high expectations. No matter how magnificent and grand, a house is just a house. Isn’t that right? Even when she went to the royal palace with her mother once as a child, all she could think about was how nice it would be to peel off all the gold there and add it to the domain’s budget.
So, she came to Birchwood out of curiosity because its reputation was so great, but it probably wouldn’t be anything spec….
Esdel’s thought stopped there.
The first thing that caught Esdel’s eye was the red brick. Even though it must have been built at least several hundred years ago, the color of the brick seemed not to have faded at all. Moreover, the stone decorations protruding between the bricks made the mansion look like a work of art.
“Wow….”
A gasp erupted from behind. The knight who was carrying her luggage came out, his mouth agape.
“Is this really a house, my lady? No, isn’t this treason? It’s prettier than the royal palace?”
That was exactly what Esdel wanted to say.
After her excitement subsided a little, hesitation arose.
It would be one thing if it were owned by the royal family, but was it okay for Theodore, who wasn’t even a noble, to own such a mansion? I hope I’m not getting involved in something unnecessary.
While she was lost in such thoughts, a voice came from the direction of the mansion’s large iron gate.
“This mansion was legally purchased by the master from His Highness the Prince, so you need not worry.”
Esdel turned her head toward the voice. The people who came out opening the iron gate were a butler and servants dressed in black suits.
The knight standing next to her whispered in her ear.
“My lady’s fiancé. He didn’t look it, but he must be incredibly rich.”
I know, right. I didn’t know either.
Esdel stared at the mansion’s iron gate with slightly surprised eyes. Honestly, when she first met Theodore, he seemed like the type to build a hut and live in some forest. So she was surprised just by the fact that he had a house, but it was Birchwood, and he even had servants properly in place.
‘Suspicious….’
The more she knew, the stranger it got. It didn’t make sense that neither she nor the Count and Countess had ever heard of a man with enough wealth and connections to purchase a mansion directly from the prince.
In the meantime, the butler, who had approached a step closer, bowed politely and said.
“A room for you, my lady, has been prepared inside. Would you permit me to guide you?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
