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Chapter : 2
Agatha Nobilis was the heir to a staggering fortune, known to everyone not only in the Roxbard Empire but even in foreign lands.
Vast territories and merchant guilds, seven mines, five islands, fifteen ships, the right to collect taxes outside her lands and to use ports, tax exemptions, inheritance rights to three titles of nobility, and private soldiers to guard her domains, among many other things.
And was her bloodline lacking in any way?
She had an imperial princess for a grandmother, and after the Duke and Duchess of Nobilis and their two sons died in an accident, she had the Emperor as her godfather and even the Crown Prince as her childhood friend.
Because of that, she ended up living an extraordinarily tumultuous life of six marriages and six divorces. But regardless, no one could deny that she was a power broker who could shake the continent and the most coveted bride imaginable.
From the time she was five, when her political marriages began, up until now at the age of twenty-three.
Agatha Nobilis, who had once again shaken the continent with yet another divorce, had just finished the procedures for her sixth divorce and was hosting her first salon as an unmarried woman at her own residence.
Agatha, who had broken her seclusion for the first time in a while, widened her eyes.
“Enoch Aratus?”
“Yes. You’ve heard of him too, Miss Agatha, haven’t you?”
“They say he’s the young head of House Aratus who just returned in triumph.”
The noble ladies seated around Agatha, including her friend Marchioness Iris Domunia, looked delighted.
Enoch Aratus. Currently twenty years old.
It was said that at the age of ten, he had been forced to march off to war under pressure from his relatives.
This young lord was known to excel both in appearance and ability.
Above all, what made him famous was the wave of purges that followed immediately after his return.
“They say he drove out all his relatives?”
“So you’ve heard as well. Society is buzzing about it.”
It wasn’t just one or two families that were expelled because of this incident.
While the head of the family had been absent, the relatives who had freely drained the prestige and wealth of the noble House Aratus were all driven off to the provinces, and even some engagements were canceled as a result.
With such an uproar happening within a single month, it was inevitable that news of Agatha’s sixth divorce would gradually be replaced by this new topic.
Agatha smiled and joked,
“Marquis Aratus has been quite helpful. He cleaned up the war my third ex-husband lost, and now he’s even diverting attention away from my sixth divorce, isn’t he?”
“My, my, Miss Agatha.”
“How mischievous of you, Miss.”
The noble ladies burst into laughter. Though she spoke lightly, Agatha was quite sincere.
It was probably about seven years ago. Even the expanded borders gained through Agatha’s first marriage had not fully satisfied the Emperor’s ambitions.
This time, desiring a new port, the Emperor decided to wage war against another nation and pushed forward Agatha’s third marriage.
The man he assigned then was George Fortis, a knight who was “called” the greatest in the Empire.
A man so ugly it was hard to look at him, and whose personality was as flawed as his formidable martial prowess.
In the end, George lost the war he had ambitiously set out to fight. And though Agatha didn’t suffer too great a blow since she had married and divorced him in lightning speed—
‘It was fortunate.’
She still remembered the name of the commander who had somehow cleaned up the aftermath of that defeat.
‘Enoch Aratus.’
He had been a mere thirteen-year-old boy at the time.
That he later went on, seven years later, to pacify every battlefield and earn the title of war hero was, in a way, special news for Agatha as well.
Though he probably hadn’t intended it, his competent cleanup had made her divorce easier.
“Anyway, I hear House Aratus is in quite dire straits right now.”
“Yes, I’ve heard. They say the war rewards aren’t nearly enough to keep them afloat.”
“Well, considering how much money those relatives spent all that time. I hear they couldn’t touch the lands or the manor, but they scraped together every last coin and valuable they could.”
“True. Ten years is long enough to shake even a prestigious family like Aratus. Of course, Miss Agatha’s House Nobilis would be a completely different matter. Hohoho.”
Agatha merely smiled and listened to the noblewomen’s chatter. Then her close friend, Marchioness Iris Domunia, slightly inclined her head toward her.
“Miss Agatha. You haven’t found an escort yet, have you?”
“No.”
“Then what about House Aratus? The direct line is just the marquis and his younger sister, and most of the remaining retainers are knights who fought in the war. It seems like they might be willing to accept.”
“Hmm.”
Was that so?
Indeed, Lady Iris’s words made sense. The marquis was young, and without elders in the family, he wouldn’t be as rigid as other long-established houses.
Normally, old and noble families like Aratus, with long histories and pure bloodlines, lived and died by their honor.
‘But this is a special situation.’
Aratus’s current financial state was dire. Most of their war rewards had come in the form of land, and the ten thousand kar in gold they received was too little to sustain such a large house until it recovered.
At best, it might last a month.
“How do you think, Miss Agatha?”
The noblewomen and young ladies who had been pretending not to listen all pricked up their ears at Agatha’s answer. Agatha smiled sweetly.
“It sounds good to me. What do you all think?”
“Aratus would be fine. They were the centerpiece of the war, so their knight order’s skill should be guaranteed.”
“Of course. What’s the best thing about a knight order with a long tradition? Loyalty, isn’t it?”
“And since the head has just returned, they must have money pouring out in all directions. You should drop a hint, Miss.”
Opinions poured out eagerly. They aligned well with Agatha’s own thoughts.
She had already begun to see the limits of relying on friendly houses or the city guard for help.
Now that her husband’s protection was gone, until she remarried, Agatha needed a knight order that could protect her from the dangers of kidnapping and assassination.
Before long, the noblewomen fell silent, their eyes shining with interest. Having finished thinking, Agatha fluttered her fan.
“Alright. Shall we look into it?”
“A wise decision, Miss.”
That single remark was enough. Through the mouths of the noblewomen around her, Agatha’s words began to spread through high society.
—
They say Agatha Nobilis has House Aratus in mind as her next escort!
—
That rumor exploded when it combined with the triumphant general’s sensational behavior upon his return to the capital.
The weight of the gold Agatha was said to be offering for protection spread, along with the names of knight orders that had escorted her in the past and the list of her suitors.
It was such a commotion that no noble could possibly be unaware of it.
Naturally, it was Agatha subtly revealing her intentions through rumors.
That news also naturally flowed into House Aratus, which had only barely set foot in high society.
Early morning.
A man hurried across the grounds of the capital’s Aratus estate, which looked stately and old-fashioned on the outside.
He was Conrad Rancel, a knight who had excelled at managing supplies and logistics even on the battlefield and had been appointed as House Aratus’s administrator after returning.
Fortunately, the person he was seeking had just ordered the knights to take a break at the training grounds.
“My lord!”
The man who was called paused and lifted his head.
Beneath his still rugged blue hair,
he had an exceptionally handsome face.
A straight forehead, deep gray eyes set beneath thick lashes, a sharply defined nose, and well-shaped red lips.
Even his distinctly masculine jawline was perfect. His body, honed on the battlefield, was built with perfectly sculpted muscles that drew admiration from all.
If there was one flaw, it was the sword scar that ran from his right cheekbone across to his left cheek.
Even so, it couldn’t fully hide his beauty.
If anything, the scar seemed to double his manly charm. The man, Enoch Aratus, who had dismissed those around him, turned his gaze to Conrad.
“What is it, Conrad?”
“This is no time for that, my lord. Do you know what news I just heard?”
Conrad, who had run over in a frenzy, was now practically bulging his eyes.
“‘That’ Agatha Nobilis says she wants our house to serve as her escort!”
The near-scream was loud enough for the other knights resting in the distance to hear. Enoch, sheathing his sword, let out a short breath.
“You ran all this way over that?”
“How could anything be more important than this? Now, now we’ve only got enough gold left to last maybe two weeks at best. Considering how much those fellows eat, it might not even last one week…”
Glancing toward the knights in the distance who were subtly pricking up their ears, Conrad lowered his voice and whispered urgently.
“Listen, my lord. I’ve heard that all the operating funds of her previous knight orders came from Miss Nobilis herself. Operating funds and escort fees—doesn’t that mean we’d have a golden opportunity to run our knight order for free while restoring our finances at the same time?”
And so on, and so forth.
He went on explaining for quite a while, but in the end, his conclusion was this:
“Please go to the Nobilis estate right now and tell her you’ll accept, my lord!”
