TRECM 3

Chapter: 3

The knighting ceremony was suspended due to an unprecedented incident.

“Ughhhh…”

Alexis lay sprawled on a sofa, one hand submerged in a basin brimming with holy water. After thrashing about wildly and nearly collapsing while clutching the back of his neck, the High Priest had lent him a private room.

The hand that had been smeared with vomit had been doused not only in holy water but also in fragrant oil, until it was cleaner than any other part of his body.

Even so, Alexis hated filth more than anything else in the world. The mere thought of coming into contact with something dirty was unbearable.

Imagining that the filth had seeped into his skin made his whole body crawl, as if insects were writhing beneath it. If he could, he wanted to peel his skin off entirely and replace it with a new one.

“How dare she vomit that kind of filth onto a royal body.”

Jeanne—who had been his beautiful sword just that very morning—was instantly branded as an ungrateful wretch.

He had first met Jeanne six years ago. At the time, he had been on an inspection tour by order of his mother, Queen Marie de Brienne, when they encountered monsters.

His guards protected him, but a small monster slipped past them and lunged straight for Alexis. With death looming before him, it was Jeanne—only fourteen years old at the time—who saved his life.

The boldness and valor with which she swung a chipped axe, missing several teeth, and struck down the monster captivated him. More than that, her striking beauty shone through despite her ragged appearance.

When he learned that joining the Royal Knights was her lifelong dream, he sent her to the Royal Military Academy.

For a commoner to become a royal knight, a diploma was the bare minimum. His plan had been to make her his woman once she achieved her dream and seemed satisfied.

Jeanne completed the entire five-year curriculum and graduated as the valedictorian runner-up. He had secretly hoped she would take first place, but her opponent had been that accursed Claude de Lorraine. Though he had expected much from Jeanne’s abilities, she ultimately failed to surpass him.

Even that failure to claim the top spot, he had magnanimously forgiven. He had even gone so far as to reserve a temple and hold a special knighting ceremony just for her sake—and yet!

His body trembled violently. Unable to contain the fury boiling inside him, Alexis abruptly sat up.

“Philip! Are you there?”

At his call, Philip, who had been waiting outside, entered the room.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“As soon as we return to the royal palace, inform them that Jeanne Leclerc is to be sentenced to flogging.”

“Pardon?”

“Have you gone deaf? Why can’t you understand me the first time!”

“N-no, that’s not it…”

Philip hesitated, wavering on the edge of speaking. Alexis was already seething with rage, and the servant’s silence only made him feel like he would explode.

“Why aren’t you answering!”

“I—I apologize, Your Highness. I was simply thinking about why Miss Leclerc might have acted that way, which delayed my response.”

“Whatever the reason, she humiliated me. She deserves punishment!”

“T-that may be so, but shouldn’t we at least confirm the reason? She might have been ill—or perhaps she was nervous.”

“…Nervous?”

Alexis, who had been shouting in fury, perked up at Philip’s words. Sensing his chance, Philip hurriedly continued.

“Yes! Being chosen by a descendant of the great Brienne bloodline would make even high nobles tense, would it not? The pressure of such an important occasion—the fear of making a mistake—she may simply have been unable to bear it…”

As Philip calmly reasoned with him, Alexis gradually settled down and fell into thought.

Jeanne… nervous?

Now that he thought about it, the argument made sense. No matter how bold Jeanne might be, she was still only a common woman.

Thanks to his benevolence, someone of such lowly birth had graduated from the Royal Military Academy and now stood face to face with the High Priest and royalty itself.

She must have felt a crushing burden—one Alexis would never experience in his lifetime.

If Jeanne, who hadn’t even flinched before grotesque, filthy monsters, had made a mistake simply because of that—

‘Isn’t that rather cute?’

If that were the case, shouldn’t he comfort her as a ruler should? Surely Jeanne would be moved to tears.

As he imagined dew-like tears spilling from her eyes, the corners of his mouth curled upward of their own accord. Moreover, the Jeanne he had met again after so long was no longer the fourteen-year-old girl of his memory. She was a fully grown woman now.

‘The ceremony’s been canceled anyway. Should I just take her now? No—she’s just graduated. If it gets hard, she’ll come to me herself and ask to be held.’

“Philip.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Take me to the underground prison.”

Alexis hurriedly grabbed his outer garments and headed outside. Because of that, he failed to hear Philip’s quiet mutter as he followed behind.

“Honestly… that man’s whims.”

Creeeak.

With a grim, grating metallic sound, the iron-barred door slammed shut, and Jeanne was locked inside a tiny underground cell scarcely larger than a single pyeong.

Her charge was assaulting a member of the royal family. Alexis had ranted and raved that even getting vomit on his hand constituted assault, and in the end, the aide who tried to restrain him gave up and obeyed the order.

Normally, she should have been confined in the royal palace’s underground prison, but since they couldn’t take her there immediately, she was temporarily imprisoned beneath the temple.

“Never thought I’d see someone puke during a knighting ceremony.”

“Does she think being knighted is a joke?”

The two guards clicked their tongues and firmly locked the iron door.

Watching their retreating backs, Jeanne felt deeply unsettled.

Back when those two were low-ranking members of the Royal Knights, they had a history of tormenting her simply because she was a commoner—and a woman.

Forcing her through harsher training than the other recruits and making her skip meals was routine. Once, during a monster subjugation, they had even used her as a shield while fleeing.

Not long after, both had been devoured by monsters.

If she didn’t intervene, they would die. Even so, she had no intention of warning them.

‘Why should I? They wouldn’t believe me anyway.’

Snorting, Jeanne plopped down onto the stone floor.

Right now, there was a far more pressing issue than those two. Somehow, she had to escape Alexis and start a new life.

But in her current state, a new beginning was impossible. If she tried to quit without a proper pretext, Alexis would simply lock her up and tell her not to think about leaving prison until she “came to her senses.”

‘I was locked up for nearly half a year in my past life just for casting a dissenting vote.’

But in this life, she had no intention of letting him control her.

‘That incident will happen one year from now.’

For this life to turn out differently, escaping Alexis’s grasp was her top priority.

The problem was that as long as she remained in Brienne, the new life she desired was nearly impossible.

No matter how incompetent he might be, Alexis was the first prince. Jeanne, on the other hand, was merely a knight-in-training who had just graduated from the academy and was on the verge of employment—in other words, unemployed.

That meant she had to go somewhere beyond Alexis’s reach, somewhere that would accept her.

There was only one such place.

To the east of Brienne lay a land that belonged to the kingdom yet was not ruled by the royal family—a power that rivaled the kingdom itself.

The Grand Duchy of Lorraine.

There was a historical reason Alexis could not lay a hand on the Grand Duchy of Lorraine. In the distant past, Brienne had been on the brink of annihilation due to a foreign invasion, but with Lorraine’s aid, they had driven the invaders back.

At the time, the lord of Lorraine sent reinforcements on the condition of a non-aggression pact, and to uphold that pact, it was said they swore an oath before the Golden Dragon, guardian of order and peace.

[Those who break the covenant shall face the judgment of the Golden Dragon.]

Afterward, on one single occasion, a foolish king of Brienne dismissed the pact as mere superstition and invaded Lorraine.

True to the oath, the Golden Dragon appeared and annihilated Brienne’s army. Since then, the non-aggression pact between the two powers had only grown stronger.

Thus, once she entered the Grand Duchy, even Alexis would be unable to touch her. More than that, Jeanne had someone she could rely on.

Claude de Lorraine.

He was the Grand Duke of Lorraine and—

[Just wait! Next time, I’ll definitely beat you!]
[Sure. Try your best.]

—the one and only rival she had never once defeated throughout her time at the Royal Military Academy.

[I’ll teach you—how to use aura and divine power at the same time.]

The friend who had helped shape the hero Jeanne Leclerc. And—

[Have you ever thought about coming to Lorraine?]
[What?]
[Come to me instead of Prince Alexis. I won’t let you regret it.]

—her one and only lifeline.

“Everyone, step away.”

Just as she was finishing her thoughts, Alexis’s voice rang out from beyond the iron bars. The soldiers obeyed, and soon only the two of them remained in the pitch-dark underground prison.

“Jeanne.”

Alexis called her name in a low voice.

‘Bastard.’

Suppressing the urge to reach through the bars, grab his neck, and twist it, she knelt on one knee and offered the proper courtesy.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Did you truly find me that unworthy of trust?”