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Chapter 38
Emilina set down her quill for a moment.
Before she realized it, the letter she was writing had turned into nothing more than a lament about her own misfortunes.
At this rate, with so little space left on the page, she wouldn’t even be able to ask how her friend was doing.
With a soft laugh at herself, she shifted the topic.
She wrote the usual polite greetings—whether he was doing well, eating properly, and whether he’d been hurt. Then she carefully slipped in one final question:
How was the war going? Was the end in sight?
The capital had been growing more lifeless as the war dragged on.
The last report of victory had already been six months ago.
Since then, no new word had arrived, and anxiety was spreading among the people.
The fear that they might actually lose was slowly consuming Rioneph.
It was a silence like the calm before a storm.
Emilina vaguely assumed this was a sign that the war was nearing its end.
If someone were to ask if it was just intuition, she would have answered yes.
Because the story—the original story—was supposed to begin around now.
She didn’t know the exact day the war would end, but she knew this much: the day Duke Ditrio claimed victory and entered the capital, the main tale would finally begin.
But before that, her first concern was ensuring the survival of her extra character friend, whose life was anything but guaranteed.
Rosie had better not have forgotten my warning.
When Rosie left for the battlefield, Emilina had told him:
Stick close to the Duke if you want to survive, no matter what.
It had been more than half a year since she’d last received word from him.
Since she hadn’t heard of his death, she assumed he was safe—for now. But she couldn’t afford to let her guard down until the very end.
She only hoped he remembered her advice when he went into battle.
With that last, worried reminder, Emilina finished the letter.
This time, she didn’t add a postscript asking for a reply.
In times like these, it would be a miracle if the letter even reached him.
Slipping the paper into an envelope, Emilina sealed it carefully and wished for his safe return.
“Still… the beginning of the original story…”
She stared down at the neatly sealed letter with complicated feelings.
She had nearly forgotten.
Kierzen Ditrio.
Now that she realized he would soon return to the capital, a strange mix of emotions welled up inside her—unease, too.
Even though she had avoided Serica Chase to keep her distance from him, she felt it wasn’t enough.
She needed to keep herself completely out of the protagonist’s line of sight.
That meant staying sharp at all times.
After all, she never knew when or how she might get entangled with him—just like with that boy, Kier.
It was a name she hadn’t thought of in a long time.
I wonder how he’s doing now…
She tried to recall the boy’s face, now faded from memory.
But his strikingly handsome features weren’t so easy to forget, and she could still vaguely picture him.
Adding the passage of years to that handsome face, she imagined the young man he must have become—a heartbreaker, surely.
He must have grown taller, too… and yet he hadn’t written her even once.
The more she thought about Kier, the more a sense of disappointment built inside her.
And why, of all things, did his name have to sound so much like Kierzen?
Emilina pouted, grumbling at no one in particular.
Two weeks later, Emilina was stunned.
Not only had her letter been delivered unusually quickly, but she had actually received a reply from Rosie.
Such a short turnaround was impossible unless the couriers had worked without rest.
It was so unexpected that she couldn’t help but feel suspicious, as though the letter carried some urgent, crucial information.
Alarmed, she skimmed through it at once. Fortunately, there was nothing alarming inside.
Still, the rushed handwriting betrayed the haste in which it had been written.
The message itself was simple:
Lady Emilina,
I can’t write much, so I’ll be brief.
As for the problem you asked about—my answer is this: it’s not too late to try and regret it later. You said you’ve been seeing him for almost two years. Surely you’ve judged he’s trustworthy? Being timid isn’t like you. Push forward with confidence.
The battlefield is going well. I think I’ll be heading home within a month or two. We’re preparing for the final battle soon.
This is top secret, so only you should know it. Please give my regards to your father.
P.S. The rumors will die down quickly, so please keep your composure.
—Your friend, Rosie
And then there was the overly formal tone.
It was Rosie’s handwriting, no doubt about that, but his phrasing was nothing like the casual style he normally used with her.
They’d known each other too long for him to be so stiff.
It felt unnatural, out of place.
But even stranger was something else entirely.
Has he completely lost his mind?
Why would he write down classified military secrets?
He could have just said, I might be home soon, and left it at that.
This was outright treason. If discovered, he could easily be branded a spy.
Rosie probably hadn’t thought it through at all.
Now she was the one burdened with this dangerous knowledge.
Damn Rosie. She wanted to live a long, peaceful life—she had no wish to know such things, let alone be caught up in them.
He was always more trouble than he was worth.
But… how did Rosie even manage to send a letter?
And so quickly, too.
Even higher-ranking men in the army hadn’t managed to send word home.
For an apprentice knight like him, sending correspondence was nearly impossible.
Especially if he really was preparing for a final battle.
There were too many things that didn’t add up.
But Emilina had enough on her plate already, and she chose not to dwell on it.
The last thing she needed was another worry.
Still, Rosie’s letter had given her one small advantage.
At least this means I’ll have time to calm the drug rumor.
If the war ended soon, public attention would shift there instead.
With that thought, Emilina decided to use the letter as reference and began planning her next steps.
She would meet with Merlin in the near future.
Around that time, rumors about Duke Ditrio began to spread.
The Black Beast of the Battlefield.
The Bloodthirsty Commander.
A man so cruel he would cut down even a child without hesitation.
The more victories he claimed, the more terrifying the nicknames became, branding him as something monstrous.
Two weeks before Emilina received Rosie’s reply—
Rosie stood outside the Duke’s tent, hesitating.
Should he tell the Duke or not? He couldn’t decide.
Ever since that letter incident two years ago, Kierzen had given one peculiar order to the censors:
Do not open or inspect any letters addressed to Rosie.
Thanks to that, his mail reached him directly. But it wasn’t all good news.
Because how could he smile when the Duke, with cold, sharp eyes, asked him about Emilina’s well-being?
Jerome had laughed it off as jealousy, but Rosie couldn’t.
If the Duke truly wanted to know, he could just confirm it himself. Yet he never did. He always asked Rosie instead.
And they seemed to cross paths far too often.
Each encounter forced Rosie to endure that piercing, icy gaze—it was exhausting.
Lately, though, the intensity had lessened somewhat, ever since Rosie cleared up the misunderstanding that he was Emilina’s lover.
But even so, the Duke continued to ask after her, always through Rosie.
Rosie couldn’t make sense of it.
The Duke clearly cared enough to be curious about Emilina’s every move… yet for some reason, he avoided direct involvement.
Rosie had his doubts, but assumed it must be some matter above his station and let it go—
Until a conversation with Jerome a few days ago.
“Ha! Rosie, you’ve got to listen—our lord has finally lost his mind.”
“What happened?”
“He told me to head to the capital. In the middle of wartime! Doesn’t that sound like a bomb waiting to explode? Unbelievable, right?”
“…Maybe the Duke has his reasons?”
“Reasons? Don’t kid yourself. It’s obvious. What else could it be, except keeping tabs on that sly old fox and your young lady?”
“Lady Emilina? Why bring her up all of a sudden?”
“Oh, right. You wouldn’t know. I can’t go into detail, but let’s just say our lord has been… handling things in his own peculiar way. Cleaning up pests, so to speak. Though it’s left some bizarre rumors trailing behind.”
“….”
“Anyway, things got messy because of that. Seems the sly old fox has caught the scent.”
Rosie wasn’t slow on the uptake.
He knew exactly who “the sly old fox” was—Count Monteiro, a name often mentioned in Jerome’s company.
And he could guess what “handling things” meant.
It had to be related to Emilina’s rumors.
The deputy commander himself had said it—bizarre rumors had been trailing in their wake.
It seemed the Duke had played no small part in the hardships Emilina faced.
Rosie couldn’t just ignore it.
Not now. Especially not after seeing the letter Jerome had brought him that morning.
There was some hidden scheme at work—he could feel it.
It may be presumptuous of me, but…
Rosie took a deep breath and announced himself to the man inside the tent.
“My lord Duke. This is Rosie. I’ve come to speak with you… about Lady Emilina.”
