CH 55

Young Shuraina’s mornings always began with running laps around the West family’s personal training hall.

Her short orange hair was ruffled by the wind. Shuraina wanted to become one of the most powerful knights in the royal palace: magical knights. To achieve that goal, she woke up at midnight and ran laps every day, even at such a young age.

Shuraina had a single reason for wanting to become a magical knight: it was because they were paid the most in the realm of civil servants. Shuraina, who remembered being a breadwinner at an early age, was trying her best to have a stable job from childhood.

She wasn’t particularly talented in swordsmanship, but Shuraina had always been a steadfast, hardworking person, even in her last life. She underwent difficult, grueling training sessions every day to improve her skills, and later she combined magic and swordsmanship together to improve her skills quite well.

Shuraina’s expression as she ran against the wind was more aggressive than usual. Shuraina, with her originally scary face and her sambaekan, had always been asked if she was angry even when she wasn’t, but now she was actually frowning so she looked more frightening than before.

‘The duke and his son will be coming today. Shushu, go play with him.’

Shuraina thought back to what her father, the West baron, had said to her that morning.

“Eugh, sounds like he’ll be coming soon. The little asshole.”

Shuraina muttered, scowling.

She thought about the little Blanche lord.

The little lord’s name was ‘Swanhaden Blanche’. He was someone that Shuraina really, really wanted to avoid.

The main reason why she wanted to avoid him was because of the horrible first impression she had of him. When the West and Blanche families began to visit each other, Swanhaden had come to her home with the duke.

The baron had touted about Shuraina’s skills and asked for her to duel with Swanhaden. Shuraina, who had defeated plenty of boys her age, had been confident. But Swanhaden defeated her in an instant.

Swanhaden easily defeated her and made a bored, annoyed expression. Swanhaden’s expression as he looked down at Shuraina had stuck itself in her mind.

Whenever Shuraina bumped into Swanhaden, she read hatred and boredom on his face. But that expression wasn’t something that he just showed her: he looked at every single person with that same look. A bland, expressionless look that somehow held a deep, deep hatred. Shuraina didn’t like that Swan. It was more wariness than dislike, though.

That day was the same. Shuraina had finished her basic strength training and was practicing the sword as Swanhaden walked into the West training hall. Swanhaden, like the days before, didn’t look like he was in a good mood. Shuraina didn’t want to bump into him and wanted to go back to her room, but she didn’t want to show Swan that she was affected by him so stayed still.

Out of everybody Shuraina had ever seen, Swanhaden was the prettiest. From head to toe, he had a beauty that was pure white, without even a bit of darkness. But even though he was just a little kid, the gaze that Swanhaden showed wasn’t pretty at all.

Shuraina looked at Swanhaden, who had begun to use the training hall.

He had always worn long sleeves, but strangely, he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt today. Swan had always worn long sleeved shirts, even during warm weather. Shuraina had always thought that was weird, and was surprised to see him wearing short sleeves for once.

His exposed arms and legs were wrapped with white bandages. The parts where the bandages weren’t properly wrapped around exposed his skin, and she could spot scars on those parts. Swanhaden’s body was filled with big and small scars.

Shuraina wanted to ask about the scars, but it was obvious that he was sensitive about it: he was hiding it. So she just quietly watched Swan from the corner of her eyes.

Swanhaden was definitely an annoying brat, but if he had some kind of unspeakable reason for it, she could understand.

Shuraina didn’t want to pity him, but seeing such a little child walk around with scars on his body made her keep looking his way even when she didn’t want to.

Until now, the only thing that Swan had said to her was “Leave.” Shuraina knew that she would be rejected as soon as she approached him, so she decided to train instead of trying to start a conversation with him.

‘But he looks worse than usual today.’

She bit her lip in worry as she looked at Swan from the corner of her eyes.

His skin was already pale, but he was paler than usual today. There was no color in his lips, and the sound of his sword swinging wasn’t as powerful as last time.

Then, Swanhaden let out a small moan of pain mid-training.

“Eugh……..”

Swanhaden bent over slightly, frowning. The bandages on his arms and legs began to bleed red. Even though she had seen the wounds had become scars earlier, when she looked again, the scars had changed into wounds. The open wounds began to bleed profusely.

Stunned, Shuraina began to search for the emergency box at the corner of the training hall. She took out the bandages, disinfectant, and ointment before running to Swanhaden. He didn’t even move excessively; why was he suddenly bleeding? Shuraina frowned.

Swanhaden briefly looked at the blood on his hands. Then, he saw the bandages stained red and frowned harder.

“Damn it.”

Swanhaden murmured. Shuraina had never seen him say anything other than “Leave.” But now, she had heard something other than “Leave.” That word was “Damn it.”

Shuraina quietly approached Swan, who was in pain.

Swan wiped the blood on his body with his black clothes, staring at the approaching Shuraina with a displeased expression on his face.

If she touched any of his injuries to try and treat him, she was sure that he would be angry at her. She didn’t touch it.

‘Look how horrible his attitude is.’

Even as she cursed him in her mind, Shuraina threw him new bandages and medicine so he could treat himself. Swanhaden looked at the new bandages and medicine that Shuraina had given him and looked at her with a gaze that was just a second away from murdering her.

Swan stared blankly at the bandages she had given her and, without even a thank you, began to change his bandages. His scars, which had turned into wounds, were worse than Shuraina expected.

Swanhaden didn’t apply any medicine on the wounds and just changed his bandages. Interestingly, the wounds had changed back into scars. Swanhaden stuffed the bloodied bandages in his pocket and went back to training with his sword.

“Sir Swanhaden, the duke’s work is done. Let us head back.”

One of the people from the duke’s family came looking for Swanhaden. His training ended. Swanhaden nodded at the person who came to get him and began to gather his belongings.

As Swan headed out of the training hall, he approached Shuraina and opened his mouth.

“If you go around telling people about this, I’m going to kill you.”

His eyes glinted, as if light had reflected onto a sharp blade. Shuraina was scared because of his murderous aura, but outwardly didn’t show it. Swanhaden walked out of the hall and shoved Shuraina out of his way.

Shuraina, who had ended up falling on her butt after helping him, just stared at the sky with a defeated expression on her face. She complimented her drive for justice and swallowed her curses.

Hestia was quick to feel lonely, and came over to Shuraina’s home almost every day.

Hestia always followed Shuraina around as Shuraina continued to busily go about her daily life. No matter what Shuraina was doing, Hestia always stuck by Shuraina’s side. Even when she studied magic, studied swords, and more.

Today was the same. Hestia, instead of staying with her family at the the Flowith earl’s residence, chose to stay with Hestia.

Thankfully, the two family’s homes weren’t that far away, so Hestia could come and go between the two houses without issue.

Hestia, who had arrived at the West household earlier in the morning, watched as Shuraina wrapped up her morning sword training. She listened to Shuraina read her a fairy tale about a princess near lunch time, then followed Shuraina to the library as she went to study magic.

Hestia didn’t like that Shuraina refused to skip her daily work to focus on and play with her and whined about it. But Shuraina stayed calm and steadfast. Hestia gave up.

“Shushu~ like I said, you don’t need to study magic, you know? Women just need to be modest. The adults said that only men do things like that.”

Hestia said, watching as Shuraina read through a magical text and continued her research. Shuraina half-heartedly responded to Hestia’s antiquated mindset.

“I’m focusing, so stop talking to me.”

Shuraina drew a magic circle, then began to pour magic into it. Hestia rested her chin on her arms and watched Shuraina focus on her magic studies. Then, Hestia continued to talk to her.

“But Shushu, what magic are you studying right now? Is it fun?”

“Oh, I’m combining dimension magic and movement magic and combining it to make teleportation magic.”

Shuraina focused on magic, then raised her head when Hestia seemed interested in magic. Her heart beat in excitement, hoping that Hestia had become interested in magic.

“Do you want me to teach you magic?”

The corners of Shuraina’s lips had stretched to her ears. She looked extremely excited. She was always worried about Hestia, who seemed to just accept everything that life gave her with a passive attitude.

Shuraina wished for her younger sibling-like friend to be happier than everybody else. She didn’t want her to be unable to follow her heart because of her surroundings.

At Shuraina’s words, Hestia pouted and shook her head, muttering, “Women aren’t supposed to do that.”

Shuraina gently tapped Hestia’s head and hugged her gently, as if comforting her.

“If you ever have something you really want to do, tell me. If it’s magic or anything else, I’ll help you the best I can.”

“…….”

Hestia quietly took in what Shuraina said, then smiled brightly. Then, she scratched her head gently and muttered, “That’ll never happen.”

Hestia looked at Shuraina, who was once again focused on magic. Shuraina always had a frown on her face when she focused on something. Shuraina’s eyes looked a bit mean as she scratched the back of her head, deep in thought, but her eyes always twinkled beautifully. Hestia loved and enjoyed watching that kind of Shuraina.

“I’m telling you, magic is useless! Shushu, stop doing something useless!”

When Hestia smiled and began to speak again, Shuraina responded with her typical annoyed voice.

“Stop. There’s nothing useless about doing what you like/”

Shuraina raised her voice, still focused. Hestia giggled at Shuraina’s words and laughed once more. She laughed louder, saying that Shuraina’s expression was funny.

Hestia worked on her embroidery as Shuraina hummed and studied magic. Shuraina took apart the equations of the circles and rearranged it. She couldn’t know exactly how much time had passed, but Shuraina succeeded in creating a teleporation circle. Now, she could go wherever with this magic circle if she just had enough magic.

“Wow, Shushu. You completed it! You’re amazing.”

“Haha.”

Shuraina scratched her head at Hestia’s compliment and smiled shyly.