“I heard from Raymond that you fell off a cliff. I’m glad you’re safe, Rosaline. Idelavhim must have helped you.”
“Yes.”
“I was looking for you when the battle just started. I was worried because I couldn’t see you. You must have been around a cliff that was far away from the barracks… I didn’t even think about it.”
“Is the cliff on which I was found far away from the barracks?”
‘Yes. No. It’s fine.’ This time Rosaline responded with a new answer aside from rotating between these three. Diech seemed excited by her reaction.
“Yes, it was in the exact opposite location. The rescue party said that’s why they were late to find you.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help. I haven’t been able to visit since my return because I’ve been busy all the time, but seeing your healthy figure… Well, I’m glad. I’m so glad, Rosaline.”
Diech’s eyes were curved. Diech was the most smiling person she had ever seen. Following his smile, Rosaline raised the corners of her lips too. ‘Thank you.’ Despite her brief reply, he couldn’t hide his joy. Diech soon turned to say his farewell to Rosaline. It seemed that with this last goodbye he has achieved his real purpose.
Rosaline recalled a question she had always had but had forgotten for a moment. She had even heard from Raymond that he hadn’t seen her when the assassination squad had just raided the barracks. And he hadn’t even seen her long before that. However, with the words of the 5th Prince today, she could tell that Rosaline was not present at the time of the battle or even before.
‘It’ put a lot of effort into healing Rosaline’s body as soon as it was first constructed. Broken bones, presumed to have occurred at the time of the fall. Organs were crushed and damaged as a result. They were the most significant fatal wounds, so ‘It’ didn’t pay much attention to the torn skin or open external wounds.
But coming to think of it now, the scars on Rosaline’s back were unusual. The wound on her skin and her muscles were so broad that all her bones were exposed. So if she hadn’t fallen off the cliff, she would have also died from that single wound.
Rosaline’s absence during the raid by the assassination forces, the cliff located far away from the barracks, and the deep torn wound on her back. A few details came together and twisted the facts that Rosaline had known.
Perhaps she had an accident before the raid by the assassination forces.
***
“Calyx.”
Calyx looked at his sister with blank eyes. Her smiling face was as soft as the spring breeze. During the time he did not see her, her expression had become more “Rosaline-like”. Rosaline walked up to Calyx quickly and hugged him tightly. His body trembled, but he hugged her soon after. It was a bit awkward, but his hands slowly touched his sister’s back. A smile appeared on Calyx’s lips as well.
“Have you been at peace so far, Sister?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Rosaline’s eyes twinkled in the sunlight. There was a hint of joy in her. She was a person who had an expressionless face like a mask, but she seemed to have been socialized a lot.
Calyx handed Rosaline a box of cream puffs. Rosaline smiled widely without even opening the box. With her keen sense of smell, she seemed to grasp the contents. If asked about her favorite food, Rosaline would surely answer ‘meat’, but she couldn’t leave out desserts as well. When Rosaline first ate fresh cream, her eyes widened, and even her body stiffened. That scene was still engraved in Calyx’s mind.
Rosaline sniffed the smell and rejoiced. Calyx looked at his sister with delight. She immediately opened the box and handed a cream puff to Calyx. He alternately stared at the cream puff lying on her palm and at his sister.
‘Are you giving it to me? Have you reached the level of sharing food, Sister?’ Calyx almost shed tears as he thought of the stormy days of hardship in the past. Rosaline looked a little sullen as Calyx looked at her in excitement. Just as he started to doubt his appearance, he saw Rosaline take another one of her cream puffs from the box and place it on Calyx’s palm. She seemed to misunderstand the emotion within Calyx’s gaze as an urge to ask for one more.
Calyx swallowed a laugh and ate the cream puffs. Meanwhile, the rest entered Rosaline’s mouth. It was from a famous bakery in the capital.
Her eyes narrowed as she savored the cream puffs. She looked very satisfied.
“By the way, Sister. Isn’t this the time you escort the prince?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Can you stay here like this?”
“Mm-hmm, His Highness allowed it,” Rosaline continued. “He said I should see my family once before I die.”
“… His Highness Ricardis is still so…”
Upon hearing the news that Ricardis had become the head of the delegation leaving for Balta, Calyx had to come to the distant Imperial castle. Because, of course, the dangers faced by the 2nd Prince came hand in hand with those faced by his sister. But of course, Rosaline was still very carefree, not even disturbed in the slightest, just like Calyx’s expected.
His mind grew even more complicated. He already knew the feeling of losing a sister. His painfully shattered heart had now been loosely joined together, but he could lose her again. Calyx’s face darkened. As a senior knight who must directly protect the prince, she will be exposed to great danger. The fact that she must go to Balta as soon as she gets promoted… Calyx lowered his voice.
“The 1st Prince of Balta, Haqab, is related to the Black Moon. The supreme ruler of Balta is the Black Moon, so you must see the Balta Kingdom itself as an enemy of the 2nd Prince.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It will be… dangerous… Because it is a secretive and closed-off place, there are many unknown factors. There are probably many other risk factors besides the newly synthesized poison. You have to be careful-”
“Wait.”
Rosaline raised one hand and cut him off. She turned her head like a wild animal and stared through the high wall. Rosaline soon skilfully climbed the wall, and she swung over to the opposite side. A scream entered Calyx’s ears.
“Argh! Aaargh!”
‘She finally hit someone!’ Although his sister had never attacked humans, Calyx knew that her wild nature was not completely dead. Her wildness was like a crumpled ball that didn’t know which way to bounce. If rolled to the left, it bounced right. If you threw to the right, it rolled down. Once thrown away in anger, it would go into the goal and score points.
Therefore, it didn’t seem too strange if his sister attacked someone to steal something. Instead, it was unfamiliar to see his sister socializing and showing her human side. It’s only been a few months since he’s known this crumpled ball, but in some ways, he’s more familiar with it than the former Rosaline, whom he’d known for 20 years. This kind of stable irregularity was already deeply engraved on him. Calyx let out a sigh of relief.
Calyx followed Rosaline up the wall. As he climbed, there was the slight sound of his palm hitting the wall. Which was in sharp contrast with the deep, heavy, thumping sound he heard from the other side of the wall.
By the time Calyx stood on the high wall and looked down, Rosaline was subduing a man. Calyx tried to quickly say, ‘You must not kill!’ or ‘You must not steal someone else’s food!’ But Rosaline had no murder intent, and the man had no food in his hands. Calyx decided to keep an eye on things from atop the wall.
The man with tied-back ultramarine hair was lying on the floor under Rosaline. Also, not too far away, a reddish-brown haired woman was running while on her knees. Rosaline did a nice backflip and landed in front of the woman who was running away.
The woman on the run, Leticia, saw the hem of Rosaline’s trousers descending quietly, and she shrieked.
“Hiiiyy!”
Rosaline squatted down and tapped Leticia’s forehead.
“You guys died again, Leticia, Eberhard.”
“Haaaa…”
The man and woman lay flat on the floor at Rosaline’s sentence. Their backs and chests went up and down, representing their feelings at the urgent moment.
“Did you not hear the sound of someone climbing up the wall?”
“I didn’t hear it…”
“Seriously, Leticia.”
“I heard it vaguely, but I thought it was just the sound of someone pounding the wall…”
“If one scales the wall, wouldn’t the position of the sound be different? If you hear a sound from the upper part of the wall, you should have been alert, Eberhard.”
Before Calyx was even aware of the unknown situation, he was moved by his sister’s neat and polite words. ‘You go, Sister…!’
Leticia and Eberhard looked up at her with injustice-filled eyes. They had been ambushed with death dozens of times in mock battles and were now thinking that they could now read the wind to some extent. It was only yesterday that they were so proud of themselves, but today, her footsteps became even quieter. ‘So, does she mean that until now, she hasn’t shown her true power?’
If they couldn’t stop Rosaline’s attack, it was their explicit rule that they had to do ten sets of rigorous physical training. Since Rosaline had never been by their side every time they worked out, Eberhard once asked timidly, ‘How do you know if we’ve been training or not? What if we lie…?’ At his question, Rosaline narrowed his eyes and smiled slightly. And then:
[Do you want to try it?]
Eberhard felt that her reply at that moment was even more frightening than his angry mother. Rosaline was far scarier than an assassin who openly said that they would kill you.
