Chapter 5

Chapter 2

Reunion

I felt very good for some reason today. I bought good things, and thanks to the seller’s directions, I was able to find a restaurant hidden in a backwater at once.

Arhin picked up the salad with a fork. Although it was simple with only olive oil and vinegar, it tasted very good.

Vrindel, the city of culture. This is a rich land filled with art galleries and museums, and even an opera is held every day.

The fresh ingredients produced from the large farm nearby are no less famous, which is why Arhin can now eat really a good salad.

“Isn’t the size of Vrindel more like a Duchy than a March? The marquis was also a contributor to the founding of the nation. But why is he a marquis?”

“They say it’s because he returned the duke status he was given.”

“Why?”

“I heard that he will remain as a weapon to protect the imperial family. That’s why Berth is called the ‘Sword of the Emperor’. It is for that reason that the marquis resides here in Vrindel and guards the periphery.”

“If it were me, I would accept the title of duke.”

“……me too.”

Arhin recalled the conversation between the two men at the tavern yesterday.

The Berth is a family known as the sword of the emperor and a contributor to the founding of the empire. Knights of the Berth is a name that those who have wanted to become knights at least once dreamed of; build honor in the Knights of Berth and be loyal to their master.

The number of members of the Bert Knights is smaller than that of other famous knights, but they are strong nonetheless.

‘Well, I’m far from being loyal.’

Arhin beautifully sliced ​​the thick meat in front of her.

The Berth Knights give a lot of money. That’s her only motivation. But if she only wanted money, she would have married the Count.

Arhin nodded her head slightly as she chewed on the meat. Peppercorns burst in her mouth.

She suddenly thought of Deborah, who hates pepper so much. She couldn’t even tell her precious friend that she was leaving.

If she had said that she would dress up as a man and become a knight, would she have finally gone mad? Deborah has always been calm, but she can sometimes turn frighteningly ferocious.

‘I wrote a letter explaining my marriage and financial situation, so she’ll understand me.’

She will probably take good care of my parents as well.

Arhin told her parents, saying it was Deborah’s suggestion. She said to them, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I ran a nut bakery outside the empire?”

Even if it was a lie, if it put her parents at ease, it was fine.

I will join the knights! Maybe I could die, but wouldn’t it be fine if the living allowance offered was good?

……I couldn’t tell the truth.

A few days later, on a leisurely noon. Deborah opened the letter on the table bathed in the warm sunlight. It was a letter from Arhin.

[Dear Deborah.]

Deborah smiled softly as she read the first paragraph. Soon after, she stiffened her expression in the middle and opened her mouth in surprise near the end.

“What? You’re going to join the Berth Knights?!”

The letter was crumpled. All of them were shocking, but the most important was that Arhin would join the Berth Knights.

The Berth Knights are an order of knights captained by Marquis Ludwig Berth.

At the party, Arhin kissed him and ran away. And now she said she would join the knights while disguising herself as a man.

Deborah shook the bell on the table nervously and shouted in a shrill voice to the maid.

“Train to Vrindel! Make a reservation for the earliest ticket, right now!”

Just as Deborah was frantically packing her things, Arhin took her steps to take the first entrance exam.

“Has she received the letter by now?”

She imagined Deborah supporting and cheering her as she finished reading her letter.

This is the real beginning.

Arhin stepped in with a faint smile on her face. Not knowing that Deborah shouted at the top of her lungs in the capital, ‘Arhin stop!’.

***

The boy looked at the girl who is much taller than him. The girl with her dark chestnut hair held the boy’s hand and ran through the palace.

She said, “I saw a very nice place earlier.”

They arrived at the imperial palace garden. The girl sat the boy on the chair on the swing and stamped her feet. Wet and moist air passed over the boy’s cheeks.

The boy looked at the girl’s hands holding his, then stared into her eyes. There are pale golden pupils nestled within the transparent emerald eyes.

She has a mysterious eye color. The girl who noticed his gaze smiled broadly.

“Aren’t the colors amazing? This is because I resemble my grandmother.”

The boy looked up at the misty sky and quietly closed his eyes. In the thick air, only the sound of water splashing from the fountain rang quietly.

I feel like I’m dreaming.

After a while, the girl took the boy’s hand and walked around the garden. Then she found something on the ground and put it in the boy’s hand.

“Look at this. It’s like your eyes.”

It was the petals of a silver flower called the moonflower.

The two of them played for a long time, picking up petals that had fallen on the ground and finding pebbles with pretty colors.

As she dipped her hand in the fountain and played around, the girl’s fingertips got cold.

Holding her hand, the boy thought again. I feel like I’m dreaming.

After a little more time passed, a voice was heard from somewhere looking for the girl.

“Ar…… where……”

The girl smiled broadly and said it was time for them to part. Then she kissed the boy on the cheek, saying it was a greeting from the northern country that her friend had taught her about.

As soon as the girl’s lips touched his cheek, it felt like an electric shock.

At the end of the surprised boy’s gaze, white dust flew up.

The girl said goodbye to him and walked away. She suddenly left just like the first time she came here holding his hand.

Left alone, the boy fingered his reddened ear lobe.

“Love is when you make eye contact and just touch her hand you feel an electric shock.”

Those were the words sister Louise had once spoken.

It was still difficult to understand the meaning of those words, but the boy seemed to understand now. The feeling he felt when the girl kissed his cheek.

“I was electrocuted. I think I fell in love. I will ask her to marry me if we meet again.”

Every time the boy came to the palace, he sat on the garden swing and waited for the girl. But he never saw her again after that day.

Could the girl who disappeared into the mist be a fairy? The boy smiled lightly.

When he turned ten, the boy was no longer waiting for the girl. Her first love passed just like that.

A boy waiting for a girl in the garden. No, a young man, now an adult, was sitting nonchalantly with his chin propped up.

In the distance, applicants were running through the mud and jumping over obstacles.

Ludwig Berth, called Ruby for short[1], recalled his dream with a bored expression.

[1] 루드비히 베르트 (Ludwig Berth). If you take the first letter of each word it becomes 루베 similar to 루비 (Ruby).

A girl he met in the garden of the imperial palace one day. He was reunited with the girl in his dream last night. It was a precious, sparkling memory that has now faded.

He had inherited the title of marquis at a young age after his father’s death a few years earlier.

How hard had he tried to keep his title while enduring the glares at the young marquis amidst the stormy times after the succession to the title?

It was a vaguely forgotten memory in a difficult reality. But why did the girl appear in his dream again?

Ruby remembered a girl he met at his birthday party.

She was a woman with mysterious eyes that look like a mixture of emerald and gold. Seeing her resemblance to the girl he had seen as a child, he approached her with delight, but suddenly she kissed him and ran away.

He checked all the partygoers, but she was nowhere to be found. It was like she hid it because she didn’t want anyone to know.

It was a magnificent and grandiose party after his position was firmly established. There were many familiars and even more strangers. Is that why? Not even the slightest trace could be found.

Ruby tapped the table with the tip of his finger. Then, when he saw an applicant leaping over a log in the distance, he sat up straight.

The applicant lightly knocked out another opponent who lunged at him, stepped on the end of the last log, took off, and landed like a feather.

Throwing away someone grabbing his waist, he passed the person in front and jumped over a high wall. The cloak that covered him from head to toe shimmered in the air.

Soon he arrived in front of a tall tower. The applicant climbed the tower without hesitation.

After quickly reaching the top with light movements, he landed confidently with the spoils in hand. It was a surprisingly clean and smooth movement.

He wears the number 209 sign.

Ruby rummaged through the papers in front of him. Not long after, the application paper with the number 209 was in his hand.

“Aaron.”

The name is circled. It was a name worth paying attention to.

***