Chapter 23

When Iric stepped back, the upper part of his right arm was torn unsightly. A red line was drawn over its tight muscles. It wasn’t deep, but it was a bloody sore wound.

“Iric? ”

“Are you okay, Lady?”

“I’m fine, Iric, but your arm…”

“Fine.”

Iric replied kindly to her as if to comfort her who was surprised. She didn’t understand his answer. And she couldn’t believe what just happened before her eyes.

She did not want to understand it either.

A moment ago, the emperor threw the sword at her without any hesitation.

“Do you think that giving up your life easily is a sign of loyalty?”

Eckart did not bat an eyelash despite his risky actions. He calmly motioned the knights out of the room.

“You can’t protect anyone with a broken sword. Instead of thinking about dying for somebody, think about living together.”

“I will keep it in mind, Your Excellency,” Iric replied in a calm voice.

After looking at Iric for a while, Eckart walked by her.

“Your Excellency!”

Marianne called him, but he did not stop and look at her. His destination was a wooden showcase filling the back wall behind her.

After taking out the sword stuck on the wall of the right side of the showcase, somebody grabbed him by the collar roughly.

“Don’t you think this test is too harsh?” she asked, hiding her trembling voice.

Her emerald-like pupils were moistened with tears. But she didn’t look sad.

Rather, her voice was sharp as she tried to calm down her anger.

“Duke Kling’s daughter!” Eckart said, turing toward Marianne.

“The battlefield you have to survive in the future is not a fake threat like this.”

He put the sword back in the sheath whose blade was slightly broken when it smashed the wooden wall. The distinctive sound of the metal raised everyone’s alertness.

“I cannot leave your safety with someone like him who is not competent enough.

Trust does not guarantee your life on the battlefield.”

Trust, love, hope were all flash, and of no substance to him.

Eckart was no longer deceived by vain feelings. It was not love and trust that he relied on.

Rather it was wealth and power, information and doubt, sometimes hypocrisy and falsehood that he trusted.

“There is no guarantee that a knight like him will always stand by you.”

Eckart gave the sword back to Iric. Iric politely received the sworded with both hands.

“Like you said, Milan will soon turn into a battlefield. In an actual battle, you can’t use vague trust or innocence as a weapon. Little mistakes can lead to death, and blind swords don’t take care of your life. You have to pay for what you know and what you do not know.”

“…”

“If you really want to be an ally behind my back, you should try to realize the graveness of the battlefield and be prepared. You have to keep in mind that you can do terrible things or you can suffer at any time. If you want to fight someone, don’t forget that you should be able to at least protect yourself.”

He was done advising coldly. With that, his blue eyes disappeared from her sight.

Saying briefly that he would contact her again, Eckart left the room.

Jed and Colin walked behind him with serious looks on their faces.

She stood still in the room with her back against the closed door. She looked around blankly.

Flowers and gifts filled the room. A lily she loved most, which hadn’t bloomed yet fell on the floor. Iric stood before her faithfully with scars on his cheeks and arm and a blue, sober voice. She felt dizzy all of a sudden.

* * *

“I think you were too harsh,” Jed opened his mouth as soon as Eckart’s entourage left the porch of the mansion. While they were walking toward the carriage at the edge of the garden, outsiders such as maids and servants as well as junior knights didn’t follow them closely.

As if he was very anxious to speak out in the room, Jed didn’t miss the opportunity when he got out.

“I don’t want to hear that from my vassal who pointed out the daughter’s rudeness with a straight face,” the emperor said.

“Well, that’s not my intention. I just pointed it out to her on your behalf because you might have felt uncomfortable if you had done so in person.”

“I’m saying it because you might not know how bad you looked when you pointed it out to her.”

“O my god…did I look so bad?”

“Yes, very much.”

Jed coughed as if he were very embarrassed by Eckart’s decisive answer.

In fact, Marianne only talked about what she had seen and learned in the castle where she was born and raised, but her ignorance seemed to show the emperor’s current situation in the empire. His nominal honor and power were part of the very precise and obvious reason why Ober had been bending over backwards to take Lennox.

“I’m not trying to blame you. Neither you nor she were wrong.”

“Of course you were right, but you went too far when you threw his sword suddenly. If the duke knew this, he would break her daughter’s marriage to you. He might take Ober’s side in a fit of anger.”

“If he can turn coats because of my actions like this, he might as well do so as soon as possible.”

“Oh my god. How can’t a smart emperor like you read between the lines? What I mean is if you want him on your side, you had better have him warm up to you rather than incur his hostility.”

“Well, the object of my test was not the daughter, but her knight. As he knew that, he blocked her when I threw it at her.”

“Again, you are doing this on purpose, right? Do you think a lady who was loved and well raised for her life and a knight who went through ups and downs in the battlefield would feel the same shock?”

Jed tightly grabbed Colin’s shoulders who was walking quietly next to him.

While walking blankly, Colin made a strange noise as if he stumbled.

“Look at this! How come the sword…”

Jed belatedly realized that he was raising his voice in a fit of anger.

“Though Colin wasn’t stabbed, he is still out of his mind because you threw the sword. Just think about how shocked she was when you did it.”

When Jed was nervously complaining about his reckless actions in her room a moment ago, Eckart looked back.

While Jed was grabbing his shoulder, Colin looked at Eckart with red eyes like a rabbit’s.

Obviously Colin was surprised, given that he silently followed the emperor without saying even one word all along. Eckart frowned. He closed his blue eyes with a very light sigh.

“Jed, it was you who was most reluctant to involve the daughter. How come you are trying to protect her so much now?”

“That’s because you have already made her your ally. You told her about Curtis and seriously advised her about her future in a ferocious way. If you had planned to use her for a day or two and deserted her, you wouldn’t have treated her like that.”

“Jed, that is anyway…”

“First of all, I wish you made a happy family,” said Jed, cutting off the emperor’s words rudely.

His words were his best wishes for the emperor in the form of advice, and his dark brown eyes reflected his longing for the emperor’s wellbeing.

Eckart could not say anything for a moment.

Happy family. Happy family…

“… Okay. I got it.”

Having said that quickly, Eckart got into the wagon.

“Let’s go back now.”

He gave the order between the gap of the closing doors.

He had a handsome face, but it was without any hope or expectation.

* * *

Tak, tak!

An arrowhead with a slightly broken tip flew into the red dartboard.

The man, dangerously sitting on the balcony railing on the top floor of the knights headquarters, put his hand back in a box of broken arrowheads. After a brief noise, he took out four arrowheads sandwiched between his fingers.

Tak!

There was a sharp noise as if an arrowhead had gotten stuck on the dartboard.

However, there were already four new arrowheads on the dartboard at regular intervals.

He shot dozens of arrowheads and then moved his wrist very lightly.

The arrowheads were deeply stuck on the dartboard as if pressed down by a tremendous force. It would take half a day for the servant in charge of cleanup to pull out all of them.

He was there for about ten minutes.

As if he lost interest, he kicked the empty box hard. His swift and slender body turned halfway on the railing and sat outside the building. Like spilled ink, his black hair gently blew in the wind at sunset.

It was around that time when a pheasant flew in from a distance.

“Vivian.”