RNB 10

Chapter 10

The scariest thing was Duke Roelrn himself taking action after seeing Lady Julia Nine heartbroken by the rumors.

‘From what those noble ladies were saying earlier, it sounds like they’ll be getting married soon. If a scandal starts because of me, he definitely won’t let me off easy… right?’

Naturally, she wouldn’t be invited to the wedding.

And if that happened, she would never get to taste the duke’s household food for the rest of her life. He’d probably request that the Magic Tower send someone else to the knight order too.

Which meant she’d never get to eat the duke household’s desserts ever again…

‘No!’

I’ll stop this somehow. I can’t lose the duke household’s food in such a meaningless way!

Already imagining herself invited to a wedding that didn’t even exist, Yvonne steeled her resolve as she watched Hayden emerge from the knight order entrance.

At some point, he had changed clothes. His training attire had been replaced by the formal uniform of the knight order, and he carried a paper bag in his left hand.

“Let’s go.”

Speaking indifferently, Hayden started walking toward the imperial palace exit.

Yvonne hurriedly pulled her hooded cloak over herself and followed behind him while carefully maintaining a distance of three steps.

Silence settled between them the entire way.

It wasn’t as though they were close enough to chat comfortably, but more importantly, Yvonne was far too busy nervously scanning left, right, front, and back to see whether anyone was watching and about to spread strange rumors.

Fortunately, they didn’t encounter anyone while following behind Hayden, and before long they reached the palace checkpoint.

‘First hurdle cleared.’

Whew. To Yvonne, those ten minutes had felt like ten hours. Simply putting a little more distance between herself and the possibility of scandal already made her feel accomplished.

Being rumored to be a debt-ridden spendthrift was enough for her. Anything beyond that was unnecessary.

“Could you wait here for a moment?”

Hayden spoke to Yvonne, who had been quietly enjoying her private sense of victory.

“I need to bring the horse.”

“Yes. Understood.”

Yvonne nodded at his explanation.

After waiting about five minutes, Hayden returned holding the reins of a horse.

“Let’s go.”

Once again, Yvonne followed behind him while carefully keeping about three steps of distance.

‘Maintain a safe distance. Safe distance. Make it look like we’re strangers, not companions.’

She repeated the words to herself like a magic spell, and before long they reached the palace checkpoint.

“Heading home, Commander?”

At the checkpoint employee’s greeting, Hayden gave a small nod.

“And the person behind you is…?”

The employee looked suspiciously at Yvonne, who stood a short distance behind Hayden with her hood pulled low.

‘Damn it. Is this bastard going to spend another thirty minutes inspecting me again?’

Every single time she passed through this checkpoint, Yvonne had practically been strip-searched down to her soul. She nervously wondered whether it would take another thirty minutes this time too.

‘Should I take off my hood?’

No. That bastard didn’t need that. Hood or no hood, it always took thirty minutes.

‘Ugh, what do I do? I can’t make the commander wait thirty minutes either.’

Yvonne anxiously tapped her thumb against her lips while bouncing her leg nervously.

Unlike her, Hayden calmly answered the checkpoint employee as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“She’s with me.”

“Ah! Understood, sir!”

The employee then flashed Yvonne the brightest smile she had ever seen from him throughout all her errands and shouted:

“Pass through!”

‘Pass through? Paaass through? PASS THROUGH?!’

Yvonne immediately stopped flicking her thumb against her mouth, and her shaking leg froze completely still.

Inside her hood, her eyes narrowed murderously.

Just one sentence—She’s with me—and the inspection that usually took thirty minutes was over in three seconds.

And despite the fact that she looked incredibly suspicious with her hood covering everything, they didn’t even ask who she was!

‘So for me, entering the palace takes thirty minutes and leaving takes another thirty—one whole hour total. But for the commander, one sentence equals three seconds? Ha!’

I swear I’m not letting you bastards get away with this.

Yvonne ground her teeth so hard they almost creaked.

She was so consumed by rage that she barely realized she had already walked out of the checkpoint.

Then suddenly, a large calloused hand appeared in front of her vision.

“I’ll help you onto the horse.”

Yvonne jerked her head upward.

There, seated atop the horse with his hand extended toward her, was an icy-looking handsome man straight out of a fairy tale.

Far from admiring the picturesque scene, Yvonne panicked internally.

“What? No! I can just rent a carriage and go myself!”

At Hayden’s suggestion, she frantically waved both her hands and shook her head in refusal.

Hayden frowned slightly, looking unable to understand her reaction.

“Is there really a need to make things so troublesome? It would be faster if we went together and finished things quickly. So ride with me.”

The handsome man continued holding out his hand.

He truly looked like the ideal knight every noble lady dreamed about.

Yet despite how dazzling and perfect he appeared, Yvonne could not smile.

Where were they right now?

In front of the imperial palace entrance.

The busiest place in the capital.

And at the perfect hour for evening crowds.

‘Everyone’s staring. Ugh.’

People weren’t merely glancing anymore. They were outright stopping to stare openly.

Yvonne decided it would be better to leave quickly rather than continue arguing about whether or not to ride the horse.

“Then… excuse me.”

Hesitantly, she placed her hand atop the man’s rough, calloused hand—a stark contrast to his polished, flawless face.

Hayden grasped her small hand, lightly wrapped his other arm around her waist, and effortlessly lifted her onto the front of the saddle.

The moment she mounted the horse, the surrounding whispers seemed to grow even louder.

‘As long as I keep the hood on, nobody will know it’s me.’

Looking down at her expensive cloak—an elegant blend of beige and gold supposedly hand-embroidered stitch by stitch by a master artisan—Yvonne tried to think positively.

‘And since I’m wearing pants too, maybe I’ll pass for a boy if I’m lucky?’

No wonder she had randomly chosen her uniform trousers today.

Since things had already come to this, Yvonne quickly fluttered the edges of her cloak around herself so it wouldn’t cling to her chest and reveal her silhouette.

‘Now nobody will recognize me, right?’

“Excuse me. You could fall otherwise.”

While Yvonne busied herself with such pointless efforts, a firm arm suddenly wrapped around her waist.

The unfamiliar sensation of someone’s arm around her waist—something she had never experienced before—made her body stiffen instinctively.

Whether Hayden noticed or not, he casually wrapped his arm around her waist, took hold of the reins, and started riding.

As he did, Yvonne was drawn completely into his embrace.

Thump. Thump.

Yvonne felt trapped within the steady rhythm of Hayden’s heartbeat.

Surrounded by the sound echoing through his entire body, she couldn’t think about rumors or scandals or anything else anymore.

All that remained was the sound of this man’s heartbeat… and the strange tingling sensation deep within her abdomen.

‘What is this? Why am I like this? Is it… because I’m hungry?’

Flustered, Yvonne dismissed the unfamiliar sensation as hunger.

She just wanted to arrive at the Magic Tower quickly and shake off this confusing feeling.

Gripping the saddle so tightly her hands turned white, Yvonne stared desperately at the black horse’s mane in front of her.

Because otherwise, it felt as though this strange feeling might completely swallow her whole.

Yvonne barely remembered how they arrived at the Magic Tower.

‘Forget fluttering my cloak around—I just stared at the horse’s mane the whole time.’

And even now…

“Excuse me.”

Hayden dismounted first, then before Yvonne could even respond, he gently held her waist and carefully lifted her down from the horse.

Startled once again by the sudden touch, Yvonne froze.

But by then her feet were already on the ground, and the large warm hand had already withdrawn, leaving behind only traces of its warmth.

“Thank you.”

Yvonne thanked him awkwardly.

Though his hand had long since moved away, she still felt strangely alone with that unfamiliar sensation lingering around her.

Ignoring the lingering warmth as best she could, Yvonne quickly approached the security device in front of the outer gate of the Magic Tower and pressed against it the “Absolute Ring of the Magic Tower”—the same ring Dan had mistaken for an ordinary jewel.

A blue light flashed from the security device, and the tightly sealed outer gate slowly creaked open.

Removing her hood, Yvonne gestured toward the open gate.

“Please, this way, Commander.”

Holding the horse’s reins, Hayden entered through the gate.

Then, apparently intending to tie the black horse near a tree by the entrance, he pointed toward a suitable tree and said:

“I’ll wait over there.”

“W-Wait! Commander!”

Yvonne urgently called out to Hayden just as he turned toward the tree.

He stopped and looked back at her with a puzzled expression.

“What is it?”

“Could you… wait just a moment before going over there?”

Without questioning her further, Hayden simply stood there holding the reins.

Yvonne looked at Hayden with a serious expression, then looked at the tree with utter horror, then looked back at Hayden looking even more serious than before.

‘Sigh… I can roughly guess why he wants to wait there.’

After all, because entering the Magic Tower’s inner fortress was so troublesome, she had planned to ask him to wait in the outer area anyway.

‘But how can I possibly make him wait there?!’

The problem was that the tree was swarming with bugs—far too many bugs for such a sparkling, handsome man to stand beside.

Of course, if it had been that administration department bastard, she would have deliberately found somewhere with 1,023 times more bugs and made him stand there for an hour and twenty-three minutes.

But unfortunately, this was Commander Roelrn.

So that absolutely wouldn’t do.

‘That spot is rejected. Somewhere else!’

Yvonne quickly scanned the outer grounds of the Magic Tower.

Under the bug-infested tree? Terrible.

The overgrown grass swarming with bugs? Also terrible.

The corner littered with rocks? Equally awful.

‘W-Was the outer Magic Tower always this poorly maintained?’

For the first time in twenty years, Yvonne realized this fact and felt rather shocked.

Then she immediately understood why.

The only buildings truly used by the Magic Tower were inside the inner fortress beyond the outer walls.

‘So nobody had any reason to care about this place.’

And to enter the Magic Tower’s inner fortress, one absolutely needed a special magically enchanted visitor pass.

Your identity had to be verified. You had to write down the exact visit time, route, and reason in extreme detail. And you needed signatures guaranteeing you from at least three Magic Tower members.

That was the very reason Yvonne personally delivered errands to the knight order.

‘Why is entering the Magic Tower inner fortress so ridiculously complicated anyway?!’

Just one week ago, she herself had been enthusiastically tap dancing in front of the Tower Master while insisting they make the entrance process even more difficult because “fewer visitors is great.”

Completely forgetting that fact now, Yvonne grumbled inwardly about how absurdly troublesome the entrance procedures were.

‘…Which is why I patiently accepted spending an entire hour getting inspected at the imperial checkpoint.’

Petty to the very end, Yvonne once again remembered the injustice the checkpoint staff had inflicted upon her.

‘Since entering the Magic Tower is so complicated, I generously assumed the imperial checkpoint must naturally be the same.’

But it turned out they only treated her that way.

‘Hmph. If it had been someone else, I would’ve let it slide. But to discriminate against me specifically?!’

I’ll make them suffer hell for this.