24 Hearts

39====================

The twenty-fourth fragment, Carpe Diem

Lord Peerchen cleaned up his desk. The two knights were confused. What manner of guest visits that Chapelin Peerchen, who had handled them so coldly, would suddenly moving around with a bright expression on his face? There wasn’t much clutter, so he quickly finished tidying up and stood from his chair.

“I think that our business is done, so can you go?”

“I have one question. Is that okay?” Ea asked.

“Does it matter that much? Can’t you hold onto your questions for longer?” Peerchen looked at Ea, and she held a hard expression as if dissatisfied.

“Who the hell are these guests to suddenly make you smile so brightly?”

After having talked with that damned blue spear knight, Peerchen had ignored Ea, even looked down on her. They were also his guests; the treatment they were receiving was very different. Ea was dissatisfied with it.

“Curious about that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what can I say, Ea? I can say that he is a young hero who has helped me get rid of the anxiety that was festering in the hearts of my people.”

‘A young hero? A hero is a hero, calling him young is a waste of words.’ Peerchen laughed when he saw Ea’s expression.

“I’d like to explain, but I can’t make my guests wait. Come and see for yourself. Then you’ll understand what I mean.”

Peerchen had stood near the door and now left the office, with the two knights following him.

The two glanced at each other and said nothing.

While walking through the corridor, Ea walked past the window and absentmindedly looked outside. Two maids of the castle were waiting; a soon enough, a carriage came trundling through the wide-open gates of Serenia Castle.

The luxurious carriage was led by four white horses and was definitely a carriage fit for lords.

My God, was he such an important person that he is brought here in the lord’s personal carriage?

The carriage came to a gentle halt. One of the maids approached it, politely opened the door, and bowed her head.

‘Who the hell is this hero?’

Contrary to Ea’s expectations, it wasn’t a young man who stepped out. It was a very young-looking boy, and her expectations collapsed.

“It’s a child,” Ea said as she stopped descending the flight of stairs.

Upon hearing her voice, Jeanne, the Blue Lancer, also looked out the window.

There was a black-haired boy, a pretty Suin woman, and a sturdy old man with white hair: A total of three people had exited the carriage. It was certainly a stretch to call such a boy a hero.

“Oh. They came faster than I thought. Hurry up.” Peerchen moved quickly, clearly happy, and his long strides were still somehow taken leisurely.

He really wanted to go down those stairs to meet his guests.

Jeanne followed behind the jolly Peerchen, as if she was content, and Ea bit her lips in resentment when she noticed this.

+ + +

“We are here,” Kaseun said while looking at the surrounding landscape from where he sat by the window.

I stayed silent, nodding.

I hadn’t visited Serenia Castle from the northern idea what the distance between here and my house would be via carriage.

We arrived almost immediately at the gates, after only twenty minutes in the carriage. If I had known it was so fast, then they wouldn’t have had to send the carriage out for us.

Of course, it was a new experience for me to ride in the grand and gorgeous mode of transport used by lords. Still, it was a bother to look out of the window, because all the citizens we passed by figured us for the lord, so they kept waving and staring.

I looked at Tia, who sat across from me in the carriage.

She had dozed off for a while, and Kaseun was looking at the scenery with his arms hanging out of the window. The carriage soon stopped, and I saw two women dressed as maids waiting with their hands neatly folded.

One of them opened the door of the carriage.

I got out first because I sat by the door. After that, Kaseun and Tia followed me out, one after the other.

I admired the fortress-like appearance of the lord’s residence. I had always looked at it from a distance, but now that I was so near to its walls, it looked completely different than it did from afar.

Serenia Castle was truly a unique structure.

There was a single wall surrounding the castle, but the double wall that ran to the east, west, north, and south reached all the way here, so it was possible to set up a first and second line of defense.

If you included the castle itself, there was a third line of defense as well, but the truth was that once the second line was breached, the third line became meaningless, near-indefensible.

The fortress would stand, but it would then be only a matter of time for it to fall by siege.

Anyway, the walls of Serenia Castle had been erected by the people who had settled here first, so they a stronger symbolic meaning than their purpose as a means of defense.

Like a tourist on a trip, I looked at the castle grounds with admiration. Tia was watching me, and I caught her smiling at me as if I was cute.

“I guess you haven’t come here yet?” Kaseun asked as he looked around. The maid next to him bowed and said, “Lord Peerchen is talking with solicitors right now, so he told me to guide you to the dining room at once. He said he’d be coming soon, so I’d appreciate it if you wait a moment. Then he-“

“No, we’ll wait,” Kaseun said as he interrupted the maid, smiling and nodding. He was looking toward a closed door.

“I don’t think we need to go first. If he’s coming down, we’ll all go together.”

Just as Kaseun said this, the door was flung open and crashed into the wall with a loud banging noise. The noise was enough to draw everyone’s attention. Tia and I had been appreciating the castle’s scenery, so we looked around in amazement.

A middle-aged man walked out with a bright expression, followed by two women, one red-haired and the other blue-haired.

I made eye contact with the blue-haired girl behind the man, who I presumed to be Chapelin Peerchen.

‘That’s Jeanne.’

It was the girl I had seen last week before I went out to hunt black wolves. Jeanne Art Loire. I didn’t know why she, a Blue Lancer, would be here.

When our eyes met, hers stretched wide, and she looked surprised as if remembering me.

I naturally shifted my gaze to the red-haired woman next to Jeanne.

If Jeanne, a Blue Lancer, is here, and there is a woman of opposing colors next to her…

She would be the Flying Fighter, ‘Ea.’

And my prediction proved correct.

──────────────────────

「Status Window」

[Name: Ea]

[Title: None]

[True name: The Proud Rose]

[Level: 18]

[Occupation: Fighter (B)]

[Race: Human]

[Strength: 33(D) / Potential A]

[Health: 28(D) / Potential B]

[Agility: 34(D) / Potential S]

[Magic: 46(D) / Potential A]

[Magical Resistance: 41(C) / Potential A]

[Charisma: 55(C) / Potential A] ◀ Special

[Knowledge: 25(D) / Potential C] ◀ Special

[Luck: 62(C) / Potential B] ◀ Special

[Likeability: -30 (dislike)]

[Reliability: -35 (boundary)]

「Talent 4/5」

[Rose Flower Thorns]-Rank: A

[Unyielding Spirit]-Rank: A

[Unstoppable Attack]-Rank: B

[Master Fighter]-Rank: D

「Skill 3/5」

[Battle Stance]-Rank: B

[Ready to Counterattack]-B

[Imperial Swordsmanship-Fighter 3333]-Rank: B

──────────────────────

I knew it. When I saw a Blue Lance Knight here, I had a hunch that the other woman was a Flying Fighter, and I was right. There was a hidden quest in my game with similar conditions.

Flying Fighters were the elite knights of the Baekje empire, just as the Blue Lancers were the elite knights of the Byron Empire.

The Flying Fighters wield swords in both their hands and deal with their enemies with their immense offensive powers. Their ability to evade attacks is high, and they are able to spot most incoming attacks and avoid them.

I knew that, like Jeann, Ea’s progress through the game becomes quite smooth once the player meets her.

The Blue Lance Knights of the Byron Empire, and the Flying Fighters of the Baekje empire: The two orders are diametrically opposed. You can say that their values, inclinations, and combat methods are the exact opposite.

Since the founding of the two empires, these two knightly orders have faced each other countless times. If a Blue Lancer is an impenetrable shield, then the Flying Fighter can be likened to a spear that can pierce through anything. They have clashed in numerous wars to prove whose methodology is correct.

The spear has pierced through the shield, and the shield has shattered the spear.

The two knights might have entered the meeting together, but they had been raised to believe that they were sworn enemies, and the one had to defeat the other if they met.

Of course, when they meet in another country, it is common for them not to duel lest they tarnish one another’s honor. These two, I knew, were different. They would fight later; that’s what happens in the hidden quest.

The Blue Lancer and the Flying Fighter both came here to find the fragment, and they will meet in a specific place, where they will wage a deadly battle.

Of course, since it is a hidden quest, certain conditions are to be met for it to happen, but it isn’t that difficult to trigger them.

I quietly looked down at Ea’s status screen and then saw something that made me feel ashamed.

‘Her likability and reliability… Why are they running into the negative?’

It was an unexpected development, and it made me feel embarrassed. This was the first time I’ve ever met her, so if her personality sliders were in the negative, then it meant that something was wrong.

Some of Ea’s background settings came into my memory.

「… She is proud of her nobility. However, Ea is cold and harsh to those who are not aristocrats.

She regards mercenaries and adventurers as insignificant and thinks that she can control them with money. But… 」

Was she currently following that setting?

‘I’m in trouble.’

If her likability and favorability were this low from the beginning, then it would be difficult to raise them. So as things stood, I now had no choice but to choose the Blue Lancer as my companion.

Just as I was about to check his stats, skills, and characteristics, I made eye contact with the lord. I shut the status screen when I saw him approach with a bright smile.

“Oh, welcome young hero, and beautiful-“

“Lord Peerchen!” Ea shouted just as he was about to greet Tia. I chuckled when I saw the lord stop trying to speak. His bright expression slowly hardened.

His nice smile disappeared.

Even if you spoke with a voice filled with kindness, if someone else shouted out in irritation or anger, then the polite voice will be overpowered by the rude pig’s shouting.

No one wanted to hear someone shout like that unless they happened to have rather peculiar tastes. Fortunately, there seemed to be no such rare exceptions among all those gathered.

As I saw the lord’s stern face, I thought that I might have to pray for the Flying Fighter’s silence. Still, whether it was because he figured that he was with his guests, or whether merely due to his lordly nature, Peerchen remained patient.

I was right, though: Chapelin Peerchen had suffered a rapid deterioration in his mood when he heard the voice of Ea, who had interfered with his attempt to great his guests in a pleasurable manner.

I took a breath and closed my eyes as I felt emotions starting to flare up.

“Yes, do you have anything else to say?” came Peerchen’s deadpan reply.

“Yes, I do. A lot, in fact.”

If you are in the position of a lord, you will have doubtless experienced a lot of things. Ea was still blue in the face and young, so she probably didn’t know proper manners yet.

‘But she’s a noble, aren’t manners supposed to be second nature to her?’

Even if a person doesn’t know anything about etiquette, they must surely understand that it’s not polite to interrupt someone else and that certain things should only be said at certain times.

Peerchen gave us a wink and stuck out his tongue, and he then turned and looked at Ea.

“Tell me. What did you shout at me for? If you are on your way and just wanted to say goodbye, go well. It was nice to meet you.”

‘So please leave my presence right away: of course, he didn’t say this aloud, but I saw it in his bearing.’

Ea wasn’t foolish enough to misinterpret the true intent of Peerchen’s words. She was rather intelligent, so she understood all too well. She knew her behavior was rude, but she groaned and moaned inwardly at the feeling of being ignored. I could see all of this from studying her face.

“I don’t understand! Not at all! Does it make sense to treat us like this if we came here with letters from empires? Not from some two-bit kingdom, but a letter handwritten by the emperor himself? This is an obvious act of disregarding the empire! It’s rude!”

“…’

“So, we’re to be handled worse than some little kid? I wasn’t hoping to be treated, and I don’t know what’s written in the letter, and it doesn’t even matter if you refused it! If that kid is your guest, then we’re also guests. I was hoping for proper courtesy and conduct when I came here.”

“…”

“A kid? A mercenary? Some old guy? It’s ridiculous! What kind of hero can a kid be? And it’s natural for the peasants to do things for their lord. It is definitely wise to praise them now and again to boost their morale, but to do thi-“

“Stop,” Peerchen interrupted Ea. He looked to her side and met Jeanne’s eyes, and the Blue Lancer held his gaze.

He then asked, “Jeanne, do you think I’m being harsh?”