IALFMFL CH 06

The girl flinched, her shoulders trembling as she turned her head toward me. Her deep violet eyes, filled with bewilderment, immediately filled my vision.

As expected, she was breathtakingly beautiful—beautiful enough to make one’s mouth fall open. The moment our eyes met, a delicate, fresh fragrance tickled the tip of my nose.

“W-Who are you?”

At her question, I gave her a somewhat awkward smile. Her reaction had been so exaggerated that I almost felt embarrassed.

“Who are you, then? I wasn’t told there would be anyone here besides me.”

A faded dress and a handful of simple accessories that would have looked better if they weren’t there at all.

Compared to her angelic face, the clothes she wore looked rather shabby. Even if I gave her the benefit of the doubt, she didn’t seem like a noblewoman. She was probably a young maid working in this castle.

The girl blinked before politely bowing at the waist. Her violet eyes were filled with confusion and fear.

……Fear?

Why was she afraid of me?

“I-I’m sorry. The door was open, so I thought it was all right for me to come in.”

Could a maid really know less about this place than I did? If she were a noblewoman, her excessively submissive attitude was strange, and if she were a maid, her words and behavior were slightly unnatural.

Well, whatever.

It had been so long since I had spoken to another girl that, for some reason, my heart was trembling even more than it had when I stood before Breite.

“You probably can come in. There’s no need to apologize so much.”

Besides, this wasn’t even my room.

With a nervous feeling rising inside me, I opened my mouth again.

“I’m Katrina Ezelrot. What’s your name?”

“M-My name? I-I’m not sure if someone like me is worthy of having her name heard by a Lady……”

Bang!

Just then, the door to the drawing room swung open.

The third person to enter the drawing room was a middle-aged woman with a stern expression and a face full of wrinkles.

She swept her gaze around the room before slightly bowing her head the moment her eyes met mine. Her final gaze landed on the girl standing awkwardly beside me.

“My Lady!”

The woman’s sharp cry was loud enough to hurt my ears. She strode toward us, her heels striking the floor loudly, her movements both brisk and disciplined.

“So here you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you! How many times have I told you not to wander around on your own?”

“I-I’m sorry. I just wanted to see the knights’ training grounds……”

“If the Young Master personally invited you here, you should have waited quietly. You really are so willful and completely ignorant of proper etiquette, my Lady.”

The girl lowered her head completely, trailing off at the end of her sentence. From what little of her expression I could see, the fear in her eyes had grown even deeper.

“The Duchess hates disobedient children more than anything. If you continue behaving so willfully, I won’t be able to say anything good about you to Her Grace.”

“I-I’m really sorry. From now on, I’ll sit quietly where I’m supposed to. I really will.”

So she wasn’t a maid after all. She was the daughter of a ducal family?

Feeling like an outsider who had somehow become a spectator, I looked back and forth between the woman and the girl. The atmosphere between them was so suffocating that it felt as though they were trapped inside a steam-filled chamber.

“Haaah, you’re really testing my patience! This is exactly why the bloodlines of people of unknown origin are…… Enough. Come with me.”

The woman glanced at me, clearly uncomfortable. She reached out roughly, grabbed the girl’s arm, and began walking away in long strides.

The bloodline of people of unknown origin.

It was only one sentence, but it was enough for me to roughly understand the situation.

The girl was probably the duke’s illegitimate daughter. Her shabby appearance meant she wasn’t welcomed by her family, and judging by the way even an elderly maid treated her so carelessly, she seemed to be looked down upon by the servants as well.

But none of that really mattered to me.

A face as beautiful as a fairy’s, a slender neck, and a voice that sounded like birdsong.

Perfect.

She was exactly the image of the exemplary girl I had always wished for. Absolutely perfect!

There wasn’t even the slightest flaw in her appearance that could make her unworthy of becoming Nezar’s bride. Her status bothered me a little, but how important could being an illegitimate child be when it came to love?

I raised my voice toward her disappearing back.

“Hey! I asked what your name was!”

The maid didn’t stop walking, but the girl turned her head toward me.

Even as she was being dragged away like an animal being led to slaughter, there wasn’t the slightest trace of humiliation in her gaze.

Soon, her trembling voice reached me.

“M-My name is Karon Entera. I’m truly sorry for entering your room without permission, Lady Ezelrot. The next time we meet, I’ll make sure to apologize properly. I’m really sorry!”

The next time we meet?

Did that mean she wanted to see me again?

Before I could ask, the girl’s figure disappeared beyond the corridor.

Unless I had misheard her, she had definitely said we would meet again.

And not just anyone—

Karon Entera!

“This means she wants to see me again, right? It does, doesn’t it?”

They say that even brushing against someone’s clothes is fate. If we were already promising to meet again, then we were practically close friends.

I had become friends with the girl who would someday become the most beautiful woman of the century after meeting her only once……

Could things really be going this well?

I flew around the drawing room in high spirits. At that moment, I had completely forgotten about Sir Pansion and everything else.

Unable to contain my excitement, I wrapped both arms tightly around the empty vase sitting on the table.

I have no idea what had gotten into me, but I think I spun around and around with it before leaving the drawing room.

The corridor was filled with golden autumn sunlight.

Warm rays spilled beneath the windows, and tiny white specks of dust floated gently through the air.

And right in the middle of it all stood an unfamiliar man.

His golden hair was thick like a lion’s mane, and his eyes were a vivid shade of purple. Even though there wasn’t a single breeze inside the building, the baby’s-breath flowers he held in his arms swayed softly.

While I stared blankly at his face, the distance between us gradually grew smaller.

When he finally came close enough to stand right in front of me, the man spoke in a calm voice.

It was cool, yet gentle.

“I’m glad I prepared some baby’s breath to put in the vase.”

The baby’s-breath flowers in his arms fell into the vase I was holding.

Their rich floral fragrance spread all around me, lingering beneath my chin and filling the entire world.

I couldn’t take my eyes off his striking face.

Who was he?

Before I could even ask his name, the man turned around and walked away.

The outdoor training grounds were bathed in blazing sunlight.

Rockhard entered the training grounds while clutching the back of his neck, which was throbbing painfully.

He had only been held in that position for a short while, yet his neck felt so stiff and sore that it was almost as though he’d suffered a fracture.

Damn it. I’m on night duty tonight. This is going to be rough.

By the time Rockhard leisurely made his way toward the center of the training grounds, it seemed the morning session was already nearing its end. The place was noisy and bustling.

Among the knights, one who recognized Rockhard lifted his sweat-covered face and grinned.

“How is it that you’re always late just when we’ve almost forgotten about you? You should know that one day the commander might quietly get rid of you without anyone even noticing.”

“You’re the one who lacks awareness. Can’t you see I’m already in the process of being gotten rid of?”

As he spoke, Rockhard rubbed his neck and shoulders once more.

This wasn’t a joke.

He was genuinely going to have a hard time.

“You’re the clueless one, idiot. His Highness Nezar was getting tired of waiting for you, so he was keeping us company.”

“Nezar?”

Rockhard remembered being told yesterday evening that Nezar would be busy all morning reviewing documents. Nezar wasn’t the sort of person who changed a schedule he had set himself as casually as flipping over his palm.

Could he really have finished already?

At the words of Louis, an ordinary knight like himself, Rockhard looked around the training grounds.

Knights were sparring lightly over bets for lunch. Others were sprawled on the ground, breathing heavily, while some had turned their water flasks upside down over their heads.

Everyone was enjoying the final moments of the morning training in their own way.

But no matter how carefully Rockhard looked, Nezar was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s not here. Did he already go back to the castle?”

Louis shook his head.

“He did leave, yes. To deal with some immature noble girl. A few of them had been hanging around near the training grounds, sneaking glances at His Highness. I swear I heard him tell them to leave at least fifty times.”

“……He went to deal with a woman? Nezar?”

There were exactly two things Nezar Audreyne Kabal absolutely detested.

First, having to humor people who were of no benefit to him.

Second, having to deal with idiots who couldn’t understand a simple word.

Unfortunately, among the numerous noble ladies and young noblemen who followed Nezar around, there wasn’t a single one who didn’t fall into at least one of those categories.

The people who could actually benefit him were generally too busy to follow someone around, while anyone capable of understanding what he said wouldn’t have followed him in the first place.

“He kept apologizing for disturbing our training. He’s probably just going to humor her for a while before sending her away. Haha! Some of the fellows were even stripping off their shirts to get her attention.”

“What I mean is, the fact that he’s showing that kind of human consideration in the first place is strange. Haaah…… He was so irritable yesterday that I thought he was about to kill someone.”

Nezar was irritable.

Especially when he had gone a day or two without sleep because of work, his irritability became twice as severe.

For the past several days, he had been staying up all night because of the redistribution of personnel in the Imperial Capital. Thanks to that, the atmosphere in the Crown Prince’s castle had recently been as gloomy and dark as a funeral hall.

When Nezar was on edge, he resembled a snow leopard that had gone half a month without food—

A snow leopard baring its sharp teeth at an intruder who had entered its territory without permission.

Whenever he entered one of those periods, Rockhard grew exhausted both mentally and physically from dealing with him.

Perhaps Nezar was aware of that himself. Whenever his irritability reached its limit, he would abandon whatever work he was doing and leave the Imperial Capital.

And whenever he climbed into a carriage in that battered state, there was usually only one place he headed.

The small, cozy drawing room on the first floor of the Ezelrot estate.

He would deliberately enter through the main gate of Ezelrot Castle, make his way straight to the drawing room, and wait there as though he were expecting someone to come looking for him.

“Ah, he’s coming now.”

At Louis’s words, Rockhard turned around.

Not far away, Nezar was walking toward them in light training clothes.

Even from a distance, the movement of his well-built muscles was noticeable, comparable to those of a fully trained knight.

As always, he walked straight and confidently, crossing the training grounds until he drew closer.

Whenever Rockhard stood a short distance away and looked at him like this, he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of awe.

Nezar was like an elegant, sturdy porcelain vessel crafted specifically to stand as a ruler.

Even after staying up all night, he could still train on equal footing with the knights. Looking at him, one might think that even a raging typhoon couldn’t break that porcelain vessel.

His personality was a little unpleasant, though.

Actually, not a little.

It was terrible.

Nezar grinned and spoke to Rockhard.

“Look who finally decided to show up—the noble lord drowning in laziness.”

Rockhard could only avoid Nezar’s gaze with a sour expression.

Nezar’s personality wasn’t just a little unpleasant.

It was extremely unpleasant.

“Why hasn’t Sir Breite gotten rid of you yet? Did you happen to catch him doing something?”

“You seem to have forgotten. The commander isn’t a man who can be swayed by a few gold coins.”

“This isn’t a matter of ethics. It’s a matter of the discipline of the knight order. Isn’t that right, Sir Louis?”

“You are absolutely correct, Your Highness.”

Nezar chuckled softly, then exhaled deeply as he began undoing the buttons of his shirt.

Up close, his complexion looked paler than usual. He didn’t seem to be in particularly good condition.

While Louis briefly left to fetch some drinking water, Rockhard spoke.

“You should at least get some sleep. Why are you moving around when you look like you’re half dead?”

Nezar glanced at him before shaking his sweat-damp hair.

His smooth black hair rippled before his eyes like waves.

“No one else notices. It’s strange that you can even tell.”

“Hey, Your Highness. That’s not what I’m asking. Are you seriously trying to show off how much stamina you have?”

Nezar shook his head without giving a convincing answer.

Rockhard had merely said something to him as usual, but the fatigue that had only been faintly visible on Nezar’s face suddenly deepened, leaving his complexion looking dark and drained.

Rockhard stopped stretching and froze.

For some reason, he had a bad feeling about this.

Not long afterward, Nezar murmured quietly,

“Yesterday evening, His Majesty the Emperor mentioned a northern expedition.”