Prologue

It was a pleasant afternoon at the beginning of summer.

Karl, a tenant farmer who was harvesting the ripe wheat using his scythe, noticed a small shadow walking on the farm road. His face brightened in an instant.

“Hey, Timo. Look! Miss Rosa is coming!”

“Eh!? Where!? Wow, you’re right!”

Right after Karl called his colleague Timo, the man who was tying the harvested wheat nearby turned around in a hurry and looked around.

Then, both of them broke into a smile.

“...Haaa. She’s as beautiful as always, isn’t she?”

And the end of their line of sight as a slender girl wearing a sun hood. She had milky white skin, smooth cheeks, and pretty lips. Her honey-colored hair peeked out from the hood, dazzling in the sunshine. To match it, her violet eyes had the exact color of a pansy.

The girl was fourteen, the age girls in this country started to find a marriage partner. Even if traces of youthfulness still remain in her face, she was already a perfect woman of great beauty. Her name was Rosa von Langheim.

She was the daughter of Count Langheim, the Lord of the territory where Karl and Timo lived, and also the woman they wholeheartedly adored.

“She took a walk alone again without any attendants accompanying her… Is she going to be fine?”

“It can’t be helped. Because of that ‘thing’ living with her, the mansion couldn’t arrange any woman to take care of Miss Rosa. But at least no outrageous guy in this area will do any harm to Miss Rosa.”

“That’s true, but… She has a weak body. What if she collapsed on her way home? Before, a lot of bastards wanted to take care of Rosa even if they were unpaid, right? What happened to them now?”

“They forced their way into the mansion once, but Miss Rosa sent them home by telling them she couldn’t accept their kindness because they would be busy in the current harvest period.”

“Uuu, she’s really amazing.”

Karl and Timo whispered to each other.

Both of them were known for their constant swearing, but their voices when talking about Rosa had the utmost respect for the girl.

Rosa was an angel born from a pig. That’s what most of the residents of the Langheims’ territory sincerely believed.

That’s because the Lord, Count Langheim, was a fat womanizer who imposed a heavy tax to waste it on his gambling addiction. But Rosa, who had his blood running on her flesh, had a delicate beauty. Even if she was young, she devoted her life to the territory.

On the other hand, if you're wondering if she was similar to her mother who died early of illness, then the answer was ‘no’.

Known as a heroic woman, her mother’s last words to her daughter was, “Marrying that Count is the only mistake I have made in my life. You have to be happy.” She left those words with a manly laugh.

Rosa had grown into a pure-hearted maiden, receiving only the blonde hair of her mother and the sickly constitution and intelligence of her mother.

Even when the Count went to the royal capital to play with women, his daughter Rosa stayed in the territory and worked diligently to improve the land.

Aside from the Count’s ostentatious purchase of jewellery. Rosa used her magic power to make humus and share it with the people of the territory.

When the Count tried to do something to Rosa’s maids, she resolutely stopped him.

She also persuaded the Count, who planned to raise the tax rate, not to do it every time she got the chance.

As a result, Rosa was disliked by the Count. Although she was at the age of her debutante, her father didn’t do any arrangements for it and left her alone in the territory in every social season.

Moreover, all the maids who took care of her were demoted.

The residents were all very distressed, but Rosa didn’t seem to care.

On the contrary, she did everything by herself and visited the territory for inspection from time to time.

Some people expressed their concerns to her, but she laughed energetically with her delicate body and said, “I’m fine.” Then she would ask about the daily life of the people of the territory and thanked them for their hard work, watching the workers with her clear violet eyes.

“Every time I look at Miss Rosa, I feel like my heart is purified. That should be the proof that she’s an innocent angel. I heard that she donated her savings to the monastery the other day.”

“Yeah. She also taught the orphans how to read and write. The monastery called Miss Rosa ‘The Angel of Rose’, one of the twelve apostles. It’s a perfect nickname for her.”

“From what I remember, ‘The Angel of Rose’ is full of nobility and affection, right? That’s just like Miss Rosa!”

“Seriously. The tax is high and the Lord is shitty, but Miss Rosa is the only light of our hope. She’s the noblest of every noble lady.”

Karl and Timo nodded at each other.

Perhaps noticing them, Rosa turned around and waved her hand happily.

They energetically waved back. Then they sighed at the same time.

“Just now, she was giggling at us. I can see it even from a distance…”

“Ahh… She’s so cute.”

Beyond the grinning men, Rosa put her hands together and muttered something.

Surely, she was praying for the good harvest.

It was such a pure sight reminiscent of religious painting.

However, her prayer was interrupted by a horse approaching her from behind at a tremendous speed.

Apparently, the servants of the mansion were looking for her. Karl and Timo thought that they came here because they were worried about Rosa’s sickly body, but they were completely wrong.

The boy, who was the stableman, told her something, flustered. Rosa also looked surprised and jumped on the horse swiftly.

Karl and Timo watched Rosa and the boy return to the mansion in a hurry, confused.

“What happened?”

“Today is the day the Count returns here, right? Maybe there’s an accident? Or maybe a woman deceived him in the royal city and pushed his illegitimate child to him? Or maybe he was robbed of all he has? Or suddenly collapsed out of sickness?”

“That's good news if you’re right, but Miss Rosa is kind-hearted. She won’t be happy about that.”

After that, the two men returned to their farming work, making speculations.

Since they loved rumors, they had a pretty sharp eye on observing things.

One of their speculations would be proven correct in the near future.

However, there was something that they never noticed at all.

That was, for example, the eyes of Rosa when looking at them were feverish. The closer they were to each other, the happier she would be.

And what she murmured right before she left was...

“Fufu. I’m sure Karl is the ‘seme’ and Timo is the ‘uke’. Oh God, thank you so much for blessing my eyes again today.”

[T/N: ‘Seme’ and ‘Uke’ are terms in Boys Love (BL). Seme one on the top in sex, giving off pleasure to the uke. They tend to be the dominant one in the relationship. And the uke is the bottom receiving the pleasure, tends to be the submissive one in the relationship.]