Chapter 4 - Is this person our madam?

4. Is this person our madam?

When I looked over slightly, I found everyone staring at me with a glass in their hands.

‘Everyone’s got a scary look in their eyes, I’m afraid they’re the villain’s subordinates.’

I shrugged my shoulders and turned my head forward again. And made eye contact with a bigger enemy. Altair was staring at me with eyes more fearsome than the ones on the wedding.

‘Oh, it was as if he’s saying you’re late.’

I wanted to get down on my knees and cry, to say sorry, but there were too many eyes. No matter how significant the country is, it is a pride to kneel in front of so many knights….

‘Pride doesn’t matter!’

Yeah. After all, this is Altair’s den.

You’ll lose your neck if you’re not careful when you keep worrying about your pride. Pride would be useless if your head was rolling on the floor.

“Wrong…..”

The moment when I was about to kneel in order to apologize.

“Madam, sit this way!”

Anna grabbed my arm and led me to my seat.

To the seat next to Altair as if it were natural.

I freaked out and looked at Altair’s eyes. Fortunately, he didn’t give a significant reaction. It seemed that he allowed me to sit next to him.

‘Was it because I said I’d work hard?’

Then it was worth the courage.

As I sat down feeling relieved, the atmosphere started to come alive again.

“Here’s the food we’ve prepared. It’s a traditional Eastern style.”

Anna served food in front of me while I was looking at Altair’s mood.

It was a stew with a large roasted chicken and tomato flavor.

It was unfamiliar because the ingredients were not cooked in this way in the capital, but it looked very appetizing.

‘Besides, chicken is a menu item that never fails.’

I’ve already seen the chef’s skill here.

The soup and bread I had for breakfast were great, so the chicken and stew would taste great.

I forgot Altair was sitting next to me, and I excitedly picked up the dishes.

However, it was not easy to disassemble a large chicken with a small knife.

‘How do you all eat?’

I looked over to the knight, who was naturally eating chicken with his hands.

I wanted to eat it that way, but the etiquette that I learnt while being reborn as Nadia didn’t allow it.

“Give it to me.”

Altair sighed and took the plate, as if it was frustrating to see me tinker and tear the chicken apart.

I stared at the plate as if the sky had collapsed, and it seemed to be drifting away.

‘No. You took away my chicken for being a little frustrated!’

They said that people who give and take food are the worst in the world.

As expected, Altair was the villain among the villains.

Whether he knew how I felt or not, Altair skillfully dismantled the chicken with a fork and knife. It was an incredibly neat decomposition to use the same tool as mine.

As he admired the neat cut, forgetting for a moment, Altair held out the plate again.

Not knowing what it meant to have the plate returned to me, I saw that Altair frowned as he closed his eyes.

“You’re not gonna eat it?”

“I-I’ll eat it!”

I was startled and picked up the plate.

Altair’s face became more distorted as I remained in that condition.

“Are you going to keep doing that?”

“Yes……?”

“Aren’t you going to eat that?”

“Oh….. e-eat.”

Bewildered, I put the plate down in front of me in a daze and stamped a piece with a fork. Altair stared at me silently.

‘Did you help me because I was having a hard time?’

It was a ridiculous thought knowing Altair’s personality, yet the fact still stands.

Still bewildered, I shoved the chicken from the fork into my mouth.

‘Waaa…..’

As soon as I chewed the deep-flavoured piece, all my thoughts disappeared.

‘Crazy. Why is it so delicious? It’s crazy, this.’

I was thrilled and looked at the chicken on the plate. The soup and bread were delicious, but they were no match for this chicken.

The meat was moist, and the skin was crispy, without the peculiar smell of meat, which was excellent. The chicken I ate in the capital was tougher and had a thicker skin.

I got excited and started playing with the fork.

I couldn’t be happier when I picked up two pieces at once and stuffed them into my mouth.

‘Delicious food is the best. Life is about eating delicious things.’

The moment when I naturally turned my head while licking my mouth with such a happy feeling.

I made eye contact with Altair, who was still staring at me with frightening eyes. His eyes were like a hawk ready to rush into his prey right away.

As soon as I met those fierce eyes, I remembered Altair in the novel killing people mercilessly.

As the scenes, which had been described in detail as a brutal description of the novel, passed through my head like a panorama, I unknowingly lost strength in my hands and the fork fell on the table.

At the same time, his eyebrows twitched.

‘Yes, you don’t have to help me. This time, as a punishment for coming late, I’ll told him to eat without leaving any leftovers.’

I timidly conveyed my intention to Altair, pulling the plate close.

“I-I’m not leaving any.”

“If you want more, I’ll tell them to bring more.”

Does this mean I should eat it until my stomach explodes to death.

‘Torturing people with food. As expected of the wicked.’

I gritted my teeth and picked up the fork again.

The chicken didn’t taste as good as it did a while ago when I realized that Altair kept watching me. I felt like I was chewing on sand.

“Eat the stew together.”

Yeah. You mean eat all the stew without leaving any leftovers.

“Yes…….”

I sniffed inside and pulled the stew bowl right in front of me.

Someone came to my side as I was making fun of the tableware with a heavy heart.

“Hello, madam!”

When I turned my head, attracted by the gentle voice, a sad-looking knight pulled up a chair and sat next to me.

‘Your voice is strangely familiar…..’

After thinking for a while, I quickly found out why.

“Oh, The knight who sang earlier?”

“Did you hear that?”

“I could hear the knight’s singing even outside the door.”

“I see. I’m not good at showing it to madam, but that’s true.”

The knight scratched his head and smiled embarrassingly.

It was certainly not a good skill to show to others, but it was not a bad song for me because I was able to relax thanks to it.

“Why? You sang so well.”

“There’s someone else who sings really well. I’m just a mood maker.”

“You’re an interesting knight.”

“Oh my god, call me Cain, not a knight! Please take a drink with me. Oh, you don’t drink beer? Should I have prepared some wine?”

Watching him talking gibberish while holding out his glass alone made me laugh.

I took the glass in his hand before this distracted knight reached any erroneous conclusions.

“No. I like beer, too. I’ll have a drink, Cain.”

“That’s a relief. You don’t know how much trouble I went through to give you the first drink.”

I nodded and took a sip of Cain’s beer.

“trouble?”

“Yeah. Everyone is so busy fighting.”

Cain looked at the knights with a tired face and smiled at me again. He was the only one who had a good impression among the knights who were blowing cold winds.

“Anyway, I’m the first, madam. Don’t forget…..”

Cain patted his chest and kept his mouth shut with a pale face.

When I turned my head to follow his gaze, Altair, who had a colder face than before, was looking at Cain.

As soon as I realized it, Cain jumped up from his seat.

“Ah, my lord! You are so rude!”

Cain complained about what kind of conversation he had with his eyes.

“It’s not my fault that the lord lost the first one…. Keukh!”

But Cain’s words did not continue to the end. Altair made a small sphere the size of a fingernail on his hand and blew it to Cain’s forehead.

“Oh, can I use my aura at times like this?”

“It’s up to me anyway, isn’t it?”

“Oh my, I hope you’re doing well!”

‘That’s, where it comes from.’

It was my first time seeing it with my own eyes.

Only those who have reached the level of Sword Masters can use Aura, but they are so few that I can count them.

I’ve seen some Masters in the capital, but they didn’t show their powers easily.

Besides, they are all middle-aged knights, so a young swordsman like Altair was new.

‘From then on, he was strong enough to handle Aurors, so the villain made a big contribution in the war and became a duke.’

Information on Altair’s appearance before becoming a Duke and appearing in the capital was never described, so very little information was available. The only information was that he had played a major role in the upcoming war with neighboring countries.

“Don’t make a noise and get out of here. If you really want to receive special training, you can stay.”

After Altair’s final warning, Cain raised his hands and left the seat.

As he left, the air around me became heavy again.

‘You don’t want to see me eat comfortably?’

I shed tears inside and sipped the beer that Cain gave me.

It was hard to believe that only two nights had passed since the wedding.

* * *

The knights of Ailsford were overjoyed at the fact that they had a hostess.

Isn’t the original knight’s dream to serve a Lady?

In fact, they were halfway to giving up on serving their own lord. It was because they thought Altair, the captain and lord of Ailsford, would never get married for the rest of his life

Altair Ailsford was very distant in appearance. He was an excellent prosecutor and had a blunt personality. He speaks roughly and has a rather rough impression….. He was a pretty good guy, except for the scary stuff.

However, the lord had a weakness to offset everything.

“He’s a bum.”

“It’s not just a bummer. It’s a beggar.”

“Are we beggars who serve the lord of beggars?”

There couldn’t have been a woman who wanted to marry a poor aristocrat, who lived in a rural village.

However, one day, the marriage between a nobleman and a noble of the capital began to come and go, and the news that the marriage was decided in an instant.

Ailsford was completely stunned.

The other party said that she was a precious lady of the marquis.

“….. is the lady crazy?”

“Isn’t there a problem? Ugly or unable to speak.”

“Or did she not find a place in the capital city because it was so crowded?”

After collecting their heads, the knights concluded that the bride of the lord was clearly not up to their expectations . Otherwise, this ridiculous marriage would not have been possible.

“But what can we do. It is something to be grateful for just for coming to this estate.”

“Right, the lord is in a position where he has to live his whole life by bowing and saying thank you to any lady who comes.”

The knights’ assessment was relentless, but it was also true.

They gathered themselves together and welcomed the wedding, saying that no matter what kind of madam came, let’s serve her as their madam.

However, the bride who appeared on the day of the wedding was a completely different person from their expectations.

The Madam was neither ugly or whatever it was. She was a beauty with lovely pink hair and sparkling blue eyes.

Throughout the wedding, the knights opened their mouths wide and looked at the unbelievable reality.

The Lady, standing up and maintaining her dignity even in a chaotic situation where the groom doesn’t show up!

“Am I dreaming right now?”

“Hey. Such lines are for the groom.”

“Still, I don’t know if it’s a dream or reality. Can’t you hit me once?”

Knights sitting side by side pinched each other’s arms to confirm that this moment was not a dream.

The knight, who stood next to the wife as the groom’s representative, said that even the writing on the marriage vow was beautiful, and his eyes were ecstatic, and he received everyone’s envy.

“But I didn’t know that the Lord would appear like that.”

“It was surprising to us too, so the madam just passed out.”

“Hey. I’ve never seen a faint lady before.”

“The lord caught the lady gracefully! Oh, my god!”

“if she was my sister who is a natives of Ailsford. I’m going to hit him in the back because he’s got blood on it.”

The knights reminisced about the first meeting with the elegant lady and chatted with excitement.

In fact, they had no idea what their ‘elegant madam’ was thinking inside.

On the night after the tumultuous wedding, there was a battle over who would be the first to swear a knightly oath to the madam

Their battles were more practical and wilder than the graceful battles of the capitalists. It was a habit that came from using a sword practically in a border area where there was always danger.

The best in this field was by far Altair.

Without Altair, Cain took the first place.

Originally, he was considered the most talented man among the knights, so everyone had to accept him.

Cain sang excitedly when the dinner, which was supposed to be his first face-to-face with the madam, began.

Some collapsed holding their bellies at the bizarre song, while others covered their ears and threw peanuts at him.

Meanwhile, the madam appeared.

The knights stopped everything they were doing and looked at the madam with a wide open space.

‘That’s the madam we’re going to serve!’

The knights looked at Nadia without breathing until she sat down.

After Nadia started eating, they shed tears of emotion, admiring her every small action.

‘I can’t believe we have a madam like that.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve thanked the Lord like this.’

The knights shed tears inside, but remained solemn on the outside. It was because they wanted to show the madam as a wonderful knight.

But Cain wasn’t interested in anything like that. Originally, he had a light personality and was far from being serious.

Among the natives of Ailsford, it could be said that he was a different species.

“I’ll have a drink, Cain.”

Cain seemed to have earned the world when Nadia called his name.

He patted his chest to become Nadia’s first knight, but made eye contact with Altair, who looked as if he was going to kill him before he could finish his speech.

He gritted his teeth and said.

‘Who’s the first one. Do you want to die? Get out of here. If you don’t want special training.’

The special training that Altair was referring to was a one-sided battle under the guise of training.

It’ll definitely help after it’s over, but while they were doing it, they were going to die from getting hit and run.

Cain protested in contemplation, but was easily overpowered by Altair.

He’s the best among the Knights, but Altair, the Master, is invincible.

The knights comforted Cain by patting Cain’s shoulder as he was ruthlessly defeated.

“You understand. Somehow, from the first night, you’ve been naive, but if you’re next to him like that, I’m sure he’ll be angry.”

“Yeah, I noticed you didn’t even yet sing.”

“Maybe you won’t be able to sing it for the rest of your life.”

“That’s right. It’s the captain. If it’s the captain, it could be.”

In the conversation of the whispering knights, Altair was becoming more and more a pitiful man.