Chapter 51

The girl’s childhood dream was to become a princess.

Like many girls her age, she wanted long, hanging, voluminous hair. She wanted to drag long dress skirts, smile with her hands over her mouth, and arm herself with a noble speech and sparkling jewelry.

Everyone treated it as an ephemeral dream, but the girl didn’t think so. She did not doubt that it was a dream that would come true someday.

The girl lived a shabby life in a shabby house, wearing shabby clothes.

She was undoubtedly the bloodline of Count Burns.

***

When Agoth was 11 years old, her mother died of an illness.

Her mother’s funeral, who had no family relatives, was held in a very shabby manner. Her father, who had never visited the mother and daughter in his life, never showed up until the very end.

“The count couldn’t come because he hadn’t heard about my mother’s death yet.”

The day she buried her mother in a place that wasn’t even a cemetery, Agoth said so to Sam, his neighborhood friend.

“Perhaps when I tell him the news, he will be very sad and accept the rest of my days.”

Shaking her muddy hands, Agoth said in a voice full of determination.

But Sam, three years older than Agoth, sneered at that.

“He’d have come to see you, mother and daughter, once if he were to accept you.”

“It must have been because of the countess’ eyes.”

“If he’s busy, he can send someone else. He can send you money.”

“Hmph. You’re not happy that I’m going to be the maiden of the noble house?”

Agoth snorted at the thought that Sam was jealous of her.

“Where in the world are parents who pretend they don’t know their children? Just looking at your hair, you have the blood of the Burns.”

Agoth swept her hair behind her shoulder, which had been carefully grown without a single cut for this day.

“I’m a girl, so there’s no way I can threaten the position of the heir to the family. I’m sure he’ll be happy to accept me.”

Agoth was confident.

She was convinced that the count loved her mother more than the countess, whom he had married through a political marriage.

She also had the confidence to withstand the countess’s persecution and scrutiny because that’s just one of the trials that even princesses in fairy tales go through.

“You’ll see. I’ll be back as an elegant lady.”

Agoth smiled as she lifted the skirt of her shabby dress slightly like a dress.

***

Agoth thought she had thought through enough about the trials and tribulations she would go through to be reborn as an elegant lady, but she didn’t expect…

“Don’t be silly and get out of the way.”

The entrance to the Burns family mansion.

The mansion building was so far away that it could not be seen, and Agoth had been eliminated from the journey to become an elegant lady.

“It’s not nonsense. I’m the count’s daughter.”

Agoth was frustrated by the servant’s attempt to kick her out.

“Let me see the count just once. Then I can explain everything.”

“Do you know how many beggars like you come every week?”

“Can you give him my name? “Terra Burns”. I’m sure he will know right away.”

It was said that the count had been the one to give her the name “Terra”.

Just as princesses in fairy tales prove their identity with a necklace split in half, she believed that the name would prove her identity.

But the servant didn’t even budge.

“Shut up! How dare you insult our master!”

“What do you mean an insult?”

“What a noble man our master is; how can you treat him at the same level as those who sow and wander around outside!”

“O-Of course the count is a noble man, but—”

“Oh, get lost! Get out of here now!

“Kyaah!”

In the end, perhaps unwilling to speak, the servant began to wield his horsewhip.

It was meant to be a threat, but Agoth’s skin was torn at the end of the whip. Agoth sat down with a scream.

If I step down now, there’s no way they will accept me.

‘From start to finish, they don’t know anything!’

If I hold on, this commotion will enter the ear of the count, and the count will surely come out.

If the count hears my name and confirms the color of my hair, this injustice will surely be resolved.

At that moment.

“Stop it.”

As the heat on the back of the hit was starting to rise, a young boy’s voice was heard.

At that voice, the violence of the servants stopped like a lie.

“Ikh, Young Master.”

“What kind of noise is this in front of the mansion? What if there are rumors?”

“My apologies. But this girl is so persistent…”

Agoth, who had fallen on the ground filled with dust, looked at the boy.

He was a pale-skinned boy with the same blue hair as herself.

Contrary to his youthful appearance, the boy’s gaze toward Agoth was chilled with contempt.

“Terra, did you say?”

“What? Ah, yes!”

“I asked my father about your name.”

At the boy’s words, Agoth’s eyes shone with hope.

The boy shot back in a cold tone.

“He said he had never heard of such a name.”

“… What?”

Agoth’s eyes shook noticeably.

She hadn’t expected the count to deny her. She felt dizzy and felt like she was going to vomit at the unexpected situation.

“Stop causing a ruckus and go back to your place. Then I’ll forgive today’s rudeness.”

“W-Wait a minute! There’s no way! There’s no way he doesn’t know!”

Agoth showed her long hair to the boy and shouted urgently.

“Look at this! This hair! It’s proof of Burns’ blood, isn’t it?”

Blue hair was a rare color handed down from generation to generation in Burns’ lineage. Even if he could pretend he didn’t know the name, he wouldn’t be able to deny the color of her hair.

But the boy was not surprised to hear that. He wasn’t even shaken.

The boy drew a dagger from his waist and sprinted towards Agoth, who was standing there. Agoth was terrified and trembled. She thought he was trying to kill her.

But the boy snatched only a handful of Agoth’s hair and cut it snugly below her ear.

“…!”

The long hair she had been growing without ever cutting it since birth was scattered on the ground.

The boy stood up, shaking his hands, and tapped his toes on the severed hair scattered at his feet.

“Such an uneducated girl, no wonder you don’t understand. It means that we don’t need someone who has been rolling around on the street in this house.”

They all knew that Agoth was the daughter of the count from outside.

Even if they didn’t hear the name, they would have felt it just by looking at this blue hair.

But Agoth was nothing more than a count’s blemish, a family shame, a brazen parasite, nothing more to them.

The little girl finally realized it after her hair had been cut short.

She was in despair.

“Go away. And never speak of Burns’ name again.”

The count’s entrance was firmly closed with the boy’s chill warning.

Agoth sat down in front of it and cried for a long time. The door did not open again.

And from that day on, the girl…

… decided never to dream again.

***

Shortly after returning from the Knights Order’s summer camp, a guest suddenly came to the duke’s residence.

Agoth hurriedly tried to prepare refreshments, but Helena refused.

“Bessie will entertain them. Agoth can do something else.”

“What? But—”

“Come on, just go.”

Helena refused so adamantly that Agoth could not ask any more questions. She felt sullen because Helena seemed to have rejected her.

Her main job was paying attention to Helena, so she had nothing to do when asked to do something else. Agoth, looking around, eventually settled on one side of the kitchen.

“Uhuh, what’s wrong with the lady?”

“Are you wondering because you lost your job to Bessie once?”

“I don’t mean that. She seemed angry somehow.”

“Really? I saw her earlier, but I didn’t know.”

“But I know.”

Helena, who showed all kinds of expressions when she was with Caesar these days, usually had a bland expression.

Agoth’s specialty was to read Helena’s feelings from that bland expression. She was proud of herself.

Agoth put her head between her squatting knees and let out a cry.

“Nnggh, I don’t know. Did I do something wrong?”

“It’s because you keep growling with His Highness.”

“Because the lady likes me more than His Highness!”

“Where the hell does that confidence come from…?”

The kitchen maids giggled and started to laugh at Agoth’s audacity.

“Was the guest who came today someone she didn’t like?”

“They said the guest came without an appointment? Who was it?”

“I just took a peek, but it was just a tall, skinny middle-aged man.”

“A nobleman?”

“I suppose so.”

“Ah, come to think of it, the hair color of that guest and Agoth’s are the same.”

Agoth, who had been listening to the stories of the kitchen maids, lifted her head.

“Hair color?”

“Yeah, it was blue. That hair color is not very common, is it?”

“That’s right. It’s special. I’ve never seen anyone with it other than Agoth.”

… It’s him.

Agoth jumped up from her seat, only to feel someone hitting the back of her head strongly.

“This girl. You scared me!”

“I’m sorry. I need to go!”

After saying farewell, Agoth ran as hard as she could and headed for the drawing room. Her limbs trembled throughout the run, and she nearly fell several times.

‘Why did he come here? To take me? What would the lady say? What if she says she’ll let me go?’

I don’t like that.

I don’t want to leave here.

Agoth arrived at the front door of the drawing room in an instant. She was out of breath, and her chest tightened.

She had come with the momentum to attack at any moment, but for some reason, Agoth stopped before opening the doorknob.

‘Does it make a difference if I go in?’

Beyond this door sits ‘that person’.

The person she had never seen before, who did not know the name ‘Terra’, who had denied her and her mother.

‘When we meet, when we look at each other’s faces, if I hear that he’s sorry… Am I going to forgive him?’

She broke into a cold sweat.

Suddenly she felt like she was losing her footing.

Then, the closed door opened. Bessie, who had served refreshments, was about to leave the room.

“Oh my gosh, Agoth!”

At Bessie’s startled cry, Helena and the man in the room turned their heads out the door simultaneously.

And Agoth… saw. The man with the same color as himself.

“Terra.”

The man called Agoth by an unfamiliar name. Agoth thought it was a little unexpected because his voice was sweet.

And surprisingly, she felt nothing.

Rather, her heart, which had been racing as she ran, calmly subsided.

“My lady.”

Agoth entered the room and stood next to Helena.

“I was wondering if you needed anything else.”

At Agoth’s nonchalant words, Helena’s indifferent eyes turned to her.

“… You disobeyed me.”

“Hehehe.”

Seeing Helena shaking her head as if she had lost, Agoth laughed.

“But this is better. You should talk for yourself.”

Count Burns, seeing Agoth, intervened in a rather excited voice. Helena looked at Count Burns with a cold gaze.

“Come with me. I will do my best to support you so your talents can see the light. You have the ability to be a great knight.”

“A knight?”

“Yes. I knew as soon as I saw you in the last gladiatorial competition. I can’t help but notice that you look just like your mother.”

Count Burns said with a pleading smile.

“Isn’t that so, Terra?”

“Terra…”

“Yes. You know what? I gave that name.”

Agoth smiled brightly at those words.

“Yes, I know.”

“Yes! Terra, I am your—”

“How could I not know? It’s the name of the girl you killed.”

The count, who had a smile, stiffened at Agoth’s words that followed.

“My name is ‘Agoth’, Count.”

Agoth responded with strength to each letter of her name.

***

While sitting on the stairs at the back door, Helena came up and sat down next to her.

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Well… you know.”

Helena mumbled, casting her gaze into the air. Agoth smiled a little at that.

“Count Burns… looked very kind.”

“Mm. I guess.”

“I thought he’d look more like a villain. Well… that was the feeling I had.”

Agoth said with a grin.

“Last year, the Burns’ eldest son died in a horse accident.”

“Oh, dear.”

Agoth remembered the pale face of the boy who had cut her hair.

He had looked bloodless and hadn’t looked like he would have lived long, even without a horse accident.

“He’s asked for a meeting a few times, but I refused. And today, he came in without an appointment.”

“I see. I had no idea.”

“Because I didn’t want you to know.”

The wind blew, and Helena’s long hair fluttered.

“I’m afraid Agoth will leave.”

Agoth looked at Helena’s, who muttered shyly, side profile for a long time. Helena’s figure was amazing.

She had dreamed of being like that. A graceful young girl, with fluttering long hair, speaking politely, smiling, covering her mouth with her hand, walking lightly.

There had been a time when she… dreamed of it.

“I’m not going anywhere. Agoth is my lady’s.”

Agoth smiled as she ran his hand through her hair, which had now become so short that it could not even reach her shoulders.

“I don’t want to be a knight or a young lady.”

“Then what do you want to be?”

“My lady’s maid.”

Terra Burns decided that she would not dream of anything.

That girl had died in a back alley where she ran while robbing someone’s pouch.

“What’s that? If you’re a girl, you should have a bigger dream.”

“For example?”

“Something like world domination?”

Agoth dreamed.

Where Helena allowed her to hold the sword, to stay by her side, to dream.

That was why Helena was the brightest person for Agoth. The only and only master who had given her a new name.

Her god.

“Still, it’s best to be my lady’s maid.”

Like a dreaming little girl, Agoth smiled brightly.