Crown prince- that madman- glanced back and forth at my father and me with an amused look on his face. I thought his knees would hurt.
I approached my father and lifted him by the arms to help him get up. “Ah, no. Don’t do that Ena. Quickly go back inside.”
My father’s face was pale and full of fear. Quiet despair has filled my father, and there was no turmoil like this.
I stared at my father and looked at the madman. The madman had his arms crossed, and as if he had failed to read the situation, his shoulders were raised in confidence.
“Why?”
“Quickly say something.”
“E-Ena. Mind your manners to his majesty, prince Reynold.” My adoptive father looked completely stunned at my words, so I glared at the madman.
Would my expression intimidate him a bit? “My father misunderstood.”
“Is that my fault? I didn’t do anything.”
“No, but you said something that could easily be misunderstood. Anyways, since my father misunderstood…”
“Isn’t it the fault of the person who misunderstood?”
I let go of my father’s arms and stood back up.
I naturally sighed.
I couldn’t help it because the foreign man in front of me reminded me of my former boss, PD Ch Do-Hyuk, who had tortured me so much.
I began to feel a great sense of annoyance.
I was sorry, but I had to get my adoptive father out of here first.
After lifting my adoptive father up and dragging him back to the mansion, I turned to Cha Do-Hyuk.
“Can’t you just back down at least once and go with the situation? How are you not any different from the past? You are still as cold as ever.”
“Oh, you want to bring up the past? Then, as your boss, how can I say yes to something I don’t even agree with? If I do that, you should give all of your salary back to me.”
I sighed again. He was right, but that was not what I had wanted to say.
“PD-nim. You have no flexibility- no, you only know about work. It’s good to work logically, but you shouldn’t forget to care about other people.”
“Why would I have to have an emotional connection in a workplace, where people had only gathered to earn money? All that matters is finishing our work well.”
“What? Do you think humans are like machines? How can we work without any emotions?”
It was good to excel at one’s job, but it was not as if he worked by himself.
He had to work with others, together!
“Your personality hasn’t changed at all. It really doesn’t go well with mine.”
And for some reason, he seemed excited to hear that.
“Mouse Bell. You haven’t changed at all either. You are the same, so I am thankful.”
He made a smile as bright as the sunshine at me.
I stared at his smile and realized that there was no need for me to be careful of my words when he wasn’t even my boss anymore.
“I have something to ask you since you brought that up. Ok, calling me ‘Mouse Bell’ was fine. It was alright. But why did you always look for me and only me? I have always been really curious about this. One staff member even thought that I was your only worker. At a shoot, you only called for ‘Mouse Bell,’ and so, the cast-members looked only for ‘Mouse Bell’ too. All because of you!”
As I was saying this, my pent-up anger came out and my voice heightened.
“Even my classmate from elementary school contacted me, saying that they saw my broadcast and asked me if I was the writer called ‘Mouse Bell’. Yes, my name Ji-Bell is pretty unique. But still!”
While sighing, I raised my finger at the madman in front of me and shouted.
“I told you that I didn’t want to come out on a broadcast. I have a life-threatening disease that will kill me if I get too much attention from other people!”
“How can there be a disease like that?”
The madman in front of me asked after having listened to me calmly.
“There is! It’s called Embarrassment! Anyways, thanks to that, after you died, my world became centered around you. When people saw me, they only asked of you…”
I ended up murmuring the last part of the sentence.
Because I was getting so emotional, I had said something that I didn’t mean to. So, after regretting my words and raising my head, I saw Cha Do-Hyuk staring at me with a face that I couldn’t understand.
From his strange smile, I couldn’t tell if he liked or hated what he had just heard.
“This really seems like reality now. I like it even if you are angry. You don’t know how much I have wanted to see you.”
Unlike his expression, his voice sounded a bit shaky.
I opened my mouth but couldn’t say anything and closed my eyes.
“I thought I was going crazy because I wanted to see you so much.”
Then, after his voice returned to normal, he approached me and gently grabbed onto my shoulders.
He scrunched his eyes as if they were in pain; they had already become red.
“Maybe I had stayed alive until now to meet you.”
After saying these words, he spread both of his arms around me and hugged me. Then, he buried his face into my shoulders and sighed in relief.
Wait a moment. What was this all of a sudden? It was uncomfortable.
* * *
I could understand a bit why that madman was glad to see me since even I was happy to see a familiar face.
But it was strange that he, who had lived in this world for 26 years, was that glad just to see a former employee.
I wondered, ‘What kind of life has he been living?’
I knew that the rumors surrounding crown prince, Reynold, weren’t that great.
Had these rumors made him that desperate?
After worrying about such useless things, I raised my head again.
The sun was high up in the sky.
There wasn’t a cloud at sight, and it was such a clear day that my mind seemed to also be cleared of complicated thoughts.
“There’s a lot of people in here.”
The aristocrat behind me murmured. As she said, there really were a lot of people.
I tried to count the number of heads surrounding the palace’s training ground.
I heard that only top aristocrats were attending this event, but there were still many people, and among them, so many people were staring at me.
It has been 5 years since I became part of the Alpine empire’s aristocracy, but they still treated me like a strange outsider.
At that moment, the wind blew and shook the leaves on a Zelkova tree.
While closing my eyes to the sound of nature, I forgot the stares aimed at me for a moment.
Noises made by the wind were preferable to fake words that these people said.
“Is there something wrong?”
My adoptive father, sitting to my right, leaned towards me and asked.
The smile on my father’s face was completely warm and considerate.
“It’s nothing. I was just surprised since it is my first time participating in an official event at the palace.”
As if he thought it was adorable of me to think this, my adoptive father smiled and patted my head.
Today was examination day for knights who wanted to enroll in the Alpine Royal Guards.
I hadn’t been going to these events, using my education as an excuse, but because today was the day that Rioel was ordained into the First Knight Order, I had come with my adoptive father.
“I hope this will be as interesting as we hoped.”
With my adoptive father’s kind words, I placed my hands on my chest and nodded.
“The selection process for the Royal Guards is amazing. It will be fun.”
This time, Rioel, who was sitting to my left, answered.
Rioel, who didn’t have to take a separate examination with his special admissions, sat at the audience seat with me. His face was full of pride about the Royal Guards.
As he smiled with that sort of expression, he looked like a young man in a youth drama.
If he had been in one, he would have been popular for sure.
“What are you looking at?”
With one of his eyebrows raised, Rioel asked me.
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell him what I was thinking.
“Nothing.”
Disappointed, Rioel turned his head away again.
I also turned my eyes to somewhere else and saw the emperor sitting with prince Verdi and his mother, countess Mason, at the training ground’s front row seats.
The problem was this. Countess Mason was not the empress.
Having birthed a son, she wanted to be the empress, but the emperor already had an empress.
The emperor had given her the title as ‘Countess Mason’ because she didn’t want to be called a ‘concubine’, but in reality, her position was that of a concubine.
Furthermore, prince Verdi was likewise not the crown prince and wasn’t even the oldest.
Where was the madman?
As I was looking around, I saw a man walk out to the training ground’s center.
On him, a cape that was red as blood whipped ferociously around the air.
The silver-haired man wore a stiff, white knight uniform without a single stain, and in his hands, he had a sword that he lightly swung around.
All eyes were on him instantly, and all the aristocrats erupted in a cheer.
His overwhelming aura intimated the knights standing in the waiting line.
I looked at the training ground with a stupid expression on my face and looked to my adoptive father.
“Isn’t that his majesty, Reynold?”
My adoptive father, who was sitting next to me, looked speechless for a moment and spoke.
“Yes. It seems like his majesty, Reynold is going to screen the knights in the Royal Guard himself.”
Rioel grabbed his head as if this sight really frustrated him and muttered,
“The emperor likes to push his majesty, Reynold, to a corner.”
My adoptive father and I both nodded at his words.
“Is her majesty, the empress not going to attend again?”
At my question, Rioel glanced at the front row seats, where Countess Mason was sitting.
“It’s not that she is not attending but can’t. Because of a certain ‘someone.”
“Rioel.”
My adoptive father gave Rioel a stern glare, and Rioel clasped his mouth shut.
Just in time, the whistle blew. The selection process for the Royal Guards started.
Usually, the leader or vice-leader of the Royal Guards participated in the test and tested the knights, but this time, that madman was there.
“Whooooooah~”
The crowd cheered.
It was hard to tell whether the crowd was cheering for the madman or the knights facing him.
As if he wasn’t bothered by this, the madman didn’t even glance at his audience and flung his sword into the air.
The sunlight reflected on his sword and glittered.
That was all I saw.
Because it ended in a single swing.
I couldn’t understand what had happened, so I just blinked my eyes like an idiot.
Was it already over?
“As expected of his majesty, Reynold.”
My adoptive father said this indifferently as if he was used to this. Likewise, Rioel didn’t look surprised and laughed.
“It is pitiful for the newbies. Since the screener is his majesty, Reynold, of all people.”
As I was trying to make sense of these men’s response, the second knight fell.
Typically, this was the final place for normal knights (knights, who were not part of the royal division) to pass all documents and physical assessments.
Thus, this was a very important test where knights could show their actual “skills” instead of whether or not they won the battle with the Royal Guards leader.
I had heard that the madman’s swordsmanship was amazing, but was it as good as the Royal Guards leader?
“Hey, could you have your eyes closed for a moment?”
Rioel suddenly looked at me with a worried face.
“Huh? Why?”
I tilted my head in confusion, but he covered my eyes with his large hands after swearing a bit.
People’s cheers erupted from here and there.
What was the madman doing?
Surprised, I quickly took Rioel’s hands off of me and looked down at the training ground.
I saw a man getting dragged off the ground, leaving a trail of blood and other remnants.
He was in such a critical condition that I wondered if he was dead or had just fainted.
What kind of situation was this?
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