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Chapter : 2
The captain’s office, which I had thought would be empty, already had someone inside.
It was Elias, whom I hadn’t seen in almost three years.
Nineteen years old—his face had grown a little more defined since the days when he was transitioning from boy to young man.
But his platinum-blond hair, like sunlight reflecting off ice, and his deep blue eyes reminiscent of the ocean depths remained unchanged.
“Eli? No, I mean… Captain.”
I tried to greet Elias warmly after such a long time, but quickly corrected my address.
Elias was now my 358-day superior officer.
Fortunately, he didn’t properly register my slip of rank.
Only a detached glance, like someone scanning the source of a sound, reached me.
Our eyes met in the air.
I tensed up, worried that Elias might recognize me.
‘No way. Surely not.’
I straightened my shoulders, which had instinctively shrunk, brushing the thought aside.
Even if I put aside the gap between the fifteen-year-old me he might remember and the eighteen-year-old me I was now, I had dyed my light pink hair into a plain brown and even wore glasses that dulled my impression.
“Who are you?”
As expected, Elias didn’t recognize me.
His eyes, cold as the deep sea, turned toward my trainee knight uniform.
“I-I’m Chloe Evergreen. A trainee knight of the 10th Knight Order.”
I answered a little awkwardly, unsettled by Elias’s icy tone.
‘This is way more awkward than I expected.’
The Elias I remembered wasn’t particularly talkative, but he had been surprisingly kind to me when I was younger.
He was more mature and gentle than my brother’s mischievous friend—almost like an older brother figure.
Elias narrowed his brows after hearing my answer.
Then he let out a small sigh and asked again.
“What is a trainee knight doing in the captain’s office?”
“I… I was cleaning…”
“Cleaning?”
Our eyes met again.
The moment his previously rigid expression shifted into mild confusion, I could see the Elias I remembered.
“Uh—y-yes!”
I almost nodded and answered casually out of habit, but switched my tone with the fastest reflexes in the empire.
If I wasn’t careful, I might accidentally act like I knew him.
‘Absolutely not.’
The “Will” left behind by the dragon said to be the contractee of the First Emperor was constantly monitoring whether I broke the rules.
‘They said if my score drops below a certain point, Princess Violetta’s existence will be erased.’
No one had ever failed the coming-of-age ritual before, so the exact meaning of “erased existence” was still unknown…
I glanced down at the glass bead bracelet around my wrist, which looked like a pair of shackles.
Fortunately, it was still a clear blue.
If it turned completely red, it meant disqualification.
The pressure made my wrist feel heavy.
Elias gestured indifferently.
It meant I should just leave.
Honestly, that was a relief for me, who was tense about making mistakes.
To be honest, pretending to be “Chloe Evergreen” around the people of the 10th Knight Order who didn’t know me wasn’t difficult.
But pretending in front of Elias, who had known me since childhood, was an entirely different matter.
I awkwardly saluted, then hesitated as I turned around.
‘Would Hugo-kyung check this later?’
‘He’ll definitely scold me for not doing what I was told.’
I looked around, pretending to search for a broom.
“I feel uneasy about it, so I’ll clean before I go.”
As I rustled around deliberately, Elias’s expression stiffened slightly.
‘Right? It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? Come on, tell me to leave again!’
I was secretly hoping he would clearly tell me not to, so I could use that as an excuse.
“Don’t make me say it twice.”
Elias frowned as he spoke.
I flinched at the unexpectedly cold reaction.
He looked away from me and continued.
“I don’t like others touching my space.”
‘Tch. You could’ve said that from the beginning. You’ve gotten so much more prickly.’
I pouted, but then realized he had just given me a perfect excuse.
“Oh, I see! Then I’ll be going now. Please rest comfortably!”
Before Elias could change his mind, I quickly left the captain’s office.
I could feel his bewildered gaze following me from behind.
But I didn’t care at all.
If I didn’t have to clean the captain’s office, I could just return to my room in the knights’ dormitory and rest.
Elias’s changed personality was a bit surprising, but my rest was more important right now.
Bed, wait for me!
I dragged my heavy limbs, stiff from intense training, and headed to the dormitory via a shortcut.
“Ugh, I need to get in, wash up, stretch, and sleep.”
Tomorrow would be training again at dawn.
If I didn’t loosen my tight muscles, I would be the one suffering.
By now, I even missed Anna, the maid who used to massage me more than my parents.
Lost in such thoughts, I walked almost unconsciously until I reached the trainee knights’ dormitory.
Everyone must have been exhausted from training, because it was quiet all around.
I dragged my heavy feet forward.
All I could think about was getting back quickly to wash, sleep, and rest.
Even the stretching I had planned to relieve my muscles had already vanished from my mind.
I was that tired.
But people energetic enough to still be awake at this hour stopped me with a lazy voice.
“Hey, commoner!”
At first, I was too tired and didn’t even think they were calling me, so I tried to walk past.
But these trash grabbed my shoulder and stopped me.
“Are you deaf?”
Their tone was openly mocking.
Oh, this is new. What an experience.
Someone mocking me in front of me—this was a first.
It was so new that instead of feeling bad, I actually found it fascinating.
“Wow! Were you talking to me?”
I answered with a hint of excitement, curious about what would happen next.
The trash burst into exaggerated laughter.
“Who else here is a commoner besides you?”
The trainee knights sneered like alley thugs.
Now I was starting to feel slightly irritated.
I decided to remember that these guys were serious classists who would give up sleep just to harass a fellow commoner.
Until the coming-of-age ritual ended.
But that was still 358 days away.
“I see. So why did you call me?”
I asked calmly, trying to be reasonable.
But they looked at me as if I were absurd, as if they hadn’t expected this reaction at all.
“Why did we call you?”
“You don’t even know shame?”
“If you had any dignity, you’d quit the knights right now.”
So that must have been their intention—to make me leave the knights voluntarily.
There were rather exceptional rules applied to my entrance exam, so from their perspective, it wasn’t unreasonable to question it.
‘But even so, I can’t quit.’
I had a serious reason for staying in the knights.
Although I was tired, I decided to try reasoning with them for smoother knight life.
“So you’re unhappy that I was given eligibility to take the entrance exam through the captain’s special recommendation…”
All three nodded vigorously, as if that was exactly the issue.
“So you’re saying you’re unhappy with the captain having that authority?”
That couldn’t be it.
During his tenure, the captain had the right to grant entrance exam eligibility to up to three people regardless of origin, among other privileges passed down for centuries.
‘Of course, those privileges were mostly symbolic of the royal family’s trust, so they weren’t often used.’
Unused didn’t mean unusable.
“Don’t twist the issue!”
“That’s not what we’re saying!”
“Stop pretending this is about the captain when you don’t deserve the qualification!”
They shouted angrily as if offended.
“Then why exactly am I unqualified?”
The captain’s recommendation only granted eligibility to take the exam.
Passing the exam was entirely my own ability.
‘In fact, I even held back during most of the exams so others wouldn’t suffer because of me.’
It was just a swordsmanship hobby I had learned, but it was taught directly by the captain himself.
Combined with strict imperial training, if I had taken the exam seriously, I might not have been guaranteed first place, but top ranks were easily within reach.
‘Even you guys who competed with me in the lower ranks—I could beat all of you at once.’
I shrugged as if genuinely puzzled.
The trash boys, clearly irritated, began to argue back in a rush.
