Chapter 11.1

“Your Excellency!”

Nicholas’s voice grew louder.

Melchor’s long sword had fallen to the ground. While still in its sheath. The short cloak that hung over his shoulders fell over. To be exact, it had been cut in half.

Nicholas hadn’t been able to see how Roseline’s sword moved. It had seemed almost as fast as the speed of light. It’d suddenly looked like it would fly up into the air, but the fine sword had sliced into Melchor’s shoulder. Clean red blood flowed out from the exposed flesh seen through his sliced clothing where the cloak had been.

“Uh, Melchor…”

Roseline seemed a little bewildered. However, it wasn’t because she’d injured Melchor.

“It’s the same.”

The fine sword that had sliced Melchor’s left shoulder.

Roseline was gripping the handle upside down, and Melchor was hugging her with one arm as if he had caught her after falling from the sky.

“Perfectly the same. How did this happen?”

“Please let me go, Melchor.”

Roseline had thought she would be blocked or suffer a counter-attack but never knew she’d get caught. Melchor had grabbed her after tossing the sword away.

Having her waist hugged by him was uncomfortable, and her foot was floating in the air so she had no choice but to let go of her sword. Clack. Her sword fell to the ground.

“Melchor. Your shoulder is injured, so—”

“Roseline. Who taught you how to sword fight?”

He didn’t look once at his bloody shoulder and only stared at her. His blue-green eyes trembled with passion. They were a mixture of marvel, pride, or whatever unexplainable emotion.

“Roseline. Did you, too, learn from ‘Roseline’?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your swordsmanship compares to that of ‘Roseline’. Tell me, Roseline. You in fact must have actually met my ‘Roseline’. Right?”

My Roseline.

The tension that’d lingered disappeared at the awkward approach of those words. Roseline frowned slightly.

“You’re still talking about that? I told you that I don’t know that person.”

“But your swordsmanship is exac—”

“I didn’t learn it from anyone. Because I made it.”

“…you what?”

“I said let me go!”

Roseline couldn’t dare hit Melchor’s bloody shoulder, so she pinched his arm that was around her waist.

Perhaps her words were more shocking than the pinching, the strength in his arm loosened a bit. Roseline quickly jumped out of his grasp and landed on the floor. Then she took two steps back.

“Stop with the weird assumptions. It’s rude of you to keep on engaging with me and someone I don’t even know.”

“Is this a coincidence?”

“If you think you’ve remembered something by mistake you must be right.”

When she picked at his uncertain memory, Melchor’s expression sank coldly.

“…is that so?”

The expression hadn’t changed too much, but the blue-green light in his eyes froze quickly, and Roseline could tell his feelings. His face was closer to resignation than disappointment. So he remembered that person through me.

The woman looked like Roseline; the one Melchor was searching for, probably his first love.

Well. Since he decided to marry me for the reason that we look alike, if we discover something in common it’ll be enough to amaze him.

It could be that the two women’s figures had overlapped in Melchor’s memory because of their similar swordsmanship. She was convinced but somehow didn’t feel good about it.

Roseline had been caught by Melchor, but his shoulder was injured and he had missed her sword, so she was the winner of the sparring. Was it pointless to say let’s spar? She wondered.

Despite the success of giving him a blow as she had hoped, she felt somehow uncomfortable. Roseline swept back her disheveled hair and called out to Nicholas who was still standing bewildered.

“Nicholas. Melchor is hurt.”

“…huh? Huh?”

“Call Damian in here. He needs to treat Melchor.”

“Oh, yes! I will go get him!”

Roseline turned to Melchor standing absently. His shoulder had been cut, but since it was not a deep one; he would recover quickly after treatment and a few days’ rest.

“Melchor. I am going to go up first. Please get the treatment when Damian comes.”

It seemed that there would be a commotion if she ran into someone else, so she circled to go back to the rose-filled backyard.

* * *

Roseline let out a sigh. Where in the world had things gone wrong? The puzzle seemed to be distorted because the piece that did not fit had been forced to. The piece of life.

My family suddenly collapsed, and I was brought in and locked up… And when I came to, I had already gotten married. But the reason he saved me is because of some woman I don’t even know who looks like me.

Rather she would feel better waking up one day to find herself in a different world, or married to a stranger years later. It was more than rolling her life in the disharmony of a cogwheel like this.

Disharmony?

Suddenly turning her head, she heard the sound of tree leaves shaking in the wind. Trees with leaves thick enough to cover the sky were surrounding her.

“Hey… Where is this place?”