MEBD 15

Chapter 15

 Secrets and Lies (7)

Bledin’s “Joy and Pride.”

There was no need to think too deeply about what that meant.

At least, anyone from the Marquisate of Wiltiéra wouldn’t need long to figure it out.

“Brother’s sword.”

The sword he had received directly from the Crown Prince on the day of his official knighting.

In the end, it seemed the only way to uncover Bledin’s hidden clue was to solve the secret behind that sword.

“We’ve come full circle again.”

With a quiet sigh, Berenice moved back toward the bed.

The magical device had long since stopped working, but with the morning sun now up, she no longer needed to rely on that faint glow to search for anything.

The problem, however, was that despite all this time, she still hadn’t found a single thing hidden within the sword.

Just as she was about to sigh again at the thought of having another staring contest with a sword that could not speak, she noticed a small change — something she had never seen before.

“Wait—why is that… ah!”

The moment she saw a crack running through the middle of the scabbard, Berenice remembered — it had blocked the assassin’s sword when it struck at her.

She rushed to the bed and quickly drew the blade.

Bledin had always been embarrassed by the act of naming things, yet he’d cared for this sword so much that he’d personally named it “Joy and Pride.”

If anything had happened to it, she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye even in her dreams.

“Th-thank goodness…”

Perhaps her worry had reached the sword — the blade that appeared from the scabbard was perfectly intact, not a single scratch in sight.

Berenice stood under the sunlight for a while, tilting the blade back and forth, carefully checking both its edge and surface for any faint damage. When she was finally sure there was none, she let out a deep breath of relief.

As long as the sword was safe, that was all that mattered.

The Crown Prince had bestowed only the sword upon Bledin.

The scabbard, however, was something Bledin himself had commissioned, insisting that such a precious weapon couldn’t be stored in anything ordinary.

“He made such a fuss about matching the scabbard to a royal gift… ha…”

Leather, wood, metal — he had tried them all. He’d switched between raised and engraved patterns, then combined both, and eventually even thought to decorate it with gemstones.

“Diamonds, sapphires, emeralds… and the final choice was a ruby the size of a fist, wasn’t it? I still don’t know how he ever thought that was a good idea.”

If the Marquis hadn’t stepped in to stop him, the result would have been utterly monstrous.

Thinking how her brother never seemed to understand moderation, Berenice sighed, then gently set the sword on the bed before beginning to examine the cracked scabbard.

Thanks to the Marquis’s timely intervention, the Marchioness’s sense of aesthetics, and the twins’ protests, the scabbard had ended up becoming a piece of art in itself.

“But… why did it crack?”

She knew it was from blocking the assassin’s sword — that much was obvious.

Yet that made it even stranger.

Bledin had insisted the scabbard be made of only the toughest materials, durable enough to protect such a rare blade.

Few craftsmen were even capable of handling the chosen metal. They had scoured the land and finally found someone worthy, waiting a full year for its completion.

And now it cracked this easily?

The commission had been placed under the authority of a royal knight of the Crown Prince himself, and funded in the name of House Wiltiéra.

There was no way a smith of such reputation would have deceived them. There had to be another reason.

Berenice took the scabbard and moved closer to the window, inspecting the damaged part carefully.

“It’s been reinforced… with a thin layer of metal.”

The area around the crack — about the length of two finger joints — was ever so slightly thicker than the rest.

It was an almost imperceptible difference, only noticeable if one looked for it deliberately.

The craftsmanship was far too expert — clearly meant to conceal something.

Berenice stared at the spot for a moment, then went into the powder room attached to her chamber. She came back holding a small square sewing kit.

It was something she’d brought all the way from the capital — just in case.

“I didn’t think I’d actually have to use this…”

She opened the lid and dumped all the contents onto the floor. Then she pried open the bottom of the box.

It was designed to come off easily, as if for this exact purpose.

Inside lay tools no proper lady of status would ever own — nor even recognize.

She had secretly purchased them at a black market before leaving for the territory.

After a brief glance at the strange instruments, she picked up something that looked like an awl, held it deftly, and sat down on the floor to begin prying open the cracked section of the scabbard.

Tiny shavings of metal, thinner than a strand of hair, began to fall to the ground.

With metal this thin, it should have shattered completely under the impact instead of cracking.

Yet whatever alloy this was, it possessed remarkable strength.

“There’s only one person who could’ve done this.”

She murmured as if she already knew who had reinforced the scabbard.

Beneath the thin sheet of metal, a small piece of paper slowly began to emerge.

Berenice’s hands grew even more careful. She didn’t want to tear it.

Time passed.

When she finally succeeded in removing all of the thin metal surrounding the small area, she found herself holding a slip of paper just slightly smaller and thinner than the section she’d peeled away.

“What’s this…?”

It was a short sentence — or perhaps just a single word — written in Bledin’s unmistakable hand.

No, not even a word. It was more like a set of letters arranged according to some pattern.

It wasn’t a magical cipher produced by an artifact.

“What could this be?”

Holding the nearly translucent paper up to the sunlight, Berenice studied it carefully, then chuckled softly.

Because she remembered someone who could tell her exactly what it was.

Someone who would surely greet her with a look of irritation and say, “Why should I tell you this?”

A “friend.”

“Thanks to you, brother, I’ll be able to meet them easily this time.”

She had already made preparations to contact this friend — someone who never appeared unless something piqued their interest.

But thanks to Bledin’s diary, she probably wouldn’t need her “preparations” after all.

If their first meeting came through Bledin’s help, what kind of expression would that friend make?

Perhaps she’d finally get to see them flustered — a sight almost impossible to witness otherwise.

Smiling at the thought, Berenice gathered the metal scraps from the floor, placed them back into the sewing box along with the tools, and tidied up every trace of her work.

The scabbard now looked perfectly clean, no sign of damage remaining, and in her hand was the paper containing Bledin’s hidden code.

Had her father ever found this before her regression?

Given that he’d never left the territory, she suspected he’d only searched for it endlessly and died without success.

“The old man’s craftsmanship was just too good. He probably made it extra tricky just to frustrate whoever tried to find it.”

Berenice shook her head, remembering the old craftsman who had helped her many times before her regression.

A man who never expressed worry properly, nor praise sincerely — but who always produced flawless, even excessive, work.

“Maybe I should ask him for a dagger when I see him next.”

She remembered just how sharp the dagger he’d given her once had been.

Picking up the scabbard, she walked back to the bed.

She slid the gleaming sword back into its sheath, then carefully flattened the small paper and slipped it between the last pages of Bledin’s diary.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she placed both the sword and the diary on her lap.

The sword would go to Bledin, the diary — with the coded paper — to the White Raven.

Of course, before that, she would need to check once more for any remaining traces on the sword and memorize every detail of the diary.

That wouldn’t be difficult — her memory had improved greatly since her regression, and she had learned excellent mnemonic techniques during her fugitive days.

For now, though… she just wanted to sit for a while, with her brother’s keepsakes in her lap, and look out the brightening window.

“Brother, did you also see this view when you came back?”

Berenice whispered, imagining Bledin quietly returning to the estate, hiding the diary in her bedside drawer.

Of course, no answer came.

But somehow, she was certain he too had once sat on the edge of his bed, just like this, gazing at the morning sun rising beyond the window.

So, just for a moment — just a little while — she wanted to look upon the same view her brother once saw.

With the faint chirping of birds outside and the distant chatter of servants beginning their morning duties, Berenice listened to the sound of the manor awakening.

And for a long, peaceful moment, she simply gazed out the window at the brightening world.