At the sound of horses' hooves kicking up the ground and approaching, people's hands hesitated.
A thunderous voice echoed as if piercing the sky.
“Is that what you're doing?!”
Flags embroidered with eagles waved through the falling snow, filling the entrance to the village. As gleaming helmets lined up in a single file atop warhorses, the villagers scrambled back. It was the army of the Empire.
The knight at the head of the pack rode his horse forward. It was the knight commander with a greatsword at his waist. He scanned the people with a gaze as sharp as a blade.
"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's carriage is waiting. What on earth is such an ungrateful act?"
The villagers stirred at the firm voice.
"Crown Prince, why are you here? Your Highness..."
Young Odelia's heart sank. She knew instinctively. Ah. This is the road leading to the battlefield.
The village head straightened her hunched body and stepped forward. She clasped her hands together and spoke in a trembling voice.
"This child is cursed. He has brought misfortune into the heart. He must be offered as a sacrifice. If left as is, everyone will die!"
The Knight Commander's gaze turned toward Odelia. After staring intently at the young face for a long time, he paused for a moment and spoke in a low voice.
“Stop.”
He immediately turned his horse around and headed toward the carriage at the rear. Standing before the window where a curtain bearing a golden crest was drawn, the Grand Master bowed his head and reported something.
It was that moment. Odelia's eyes snapped open.
Inside the carriage, the face of the man known as the Crown Prince was barely visible, but what was clear was that he was the only person who would become Odelia's savior.
Odelia dragged her feet and ran toward the carriage. She knelt on the snow and slammed her head against the cold ground. A trembling voice burst out in desperation.
"Please hire me, even as a peasant or a servant! I will do anything you tell me to do. Please, please take me in!"
After a brief silence, a low voice came from beyond the curtain.
"...There's no need to hold back. This is tantamount to a road to death. Those who have no intention of risking their lives, turn back."
Just as Odelia caught her breath, a voice continued.
"However, if you are willing to risk your life to become my soldier, I will give you a year's worth of grain in exchange for your life."
Odelia's eyes widened. Cold tears streamed down her cheeks.
"I will become a soldier... Please take me in!"
A moment of silence followed. The Knight Commander turned his horse around again and approached Odelia. He pulled the child's small body onto the horse. It was clear permission.
On the way to the battlefield. She had brought plenty of food anyway. Since she was on the move anyway, she also had the purpose of observing the lives of the people while conducting an inspection.
Soon, the sound of villagers rejoicing as they clutched the sacks of supplies the soldiers had brought out could be heard. It was food.
The eyes of the people who had been driving Odelia out as a sacrifice just moments ago had suddenly changed. Odelia, who had been watching her heart sway in the wind from atop her horse, slowly turned her head.
A carriage draped with golden curtains. The presence of the Crown Prince inside it strangely tightened her heart, even from afar.
That was her first meeting with Calix.
And the second meeting
"Where on earth did this worthless piece of trash come from?"
"Calling me a worthless piece of trash is rude."
"It looks like you survived a wiped-out unit too, doesn't it? I'm the same."
"...It wasn't total annihilation. Besides, we didn't lose the war, so it was clearly a trap."
"What do you mean it wasn't annihilation? Whether it was defeat or a trap, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would have passed away back then, just the same."
"..."
“Hey, are you crying?”
"I won't cry. As long as the Knight Commander is alive, again—"
"Enough. If you're going to eat secretly, follow me. If you eat there, the seniors will take it from you."
"...What is your name?"
"It's Odelia. Why?
"...Odelia."
"Yes. Odelia."
"Nice to meet you, Odelia. I am... Hicks."
"Hicks? What kind of name is that? It's not a pseudonym, is it?"
"..."
"Follow me, I'll share some emergency rations."
That encounter was neither special nor dazzling. It was merely the wretched moment when an orphan and a worthless person, who had barely survived the trap of an Emperor who had nonchalantly abandoned his own people to kill his younger brother, met face to face.
Come to think of it, it was always like that. Ever since abandoning the name Rubis, she started out clumsy, insignificant, and always in a poor position.
She had nothing, and she had to endure just to survive; it was so precarious that even surviving was called a matter of luck.
And that was probably the case for him as well.
Why are we always like this, Calix?
Amidst the wreckage of a defeated battlefield, in the shadows of a military camp, and now inside the cold bars of a prison.
Why did our meeting have to hang on the edge of wounds and misfortune?
Even at this moment
You are lying in bed, and I am still bound in chains like this.
If we had been just a little more ordinary, if we had lived a smooth life like others, would we be able to stay by each other's side and laugh together by now?
When she finished reminiscing and opened her eyes, a hollow laugh escaped the corners of Odelia's lips. However, the laugh did not last long. Her gaze soon grew heavy with loneliness, and her fingertips trembled slowly on the cold stone floor.
The two guards could not say a word at the sight of that expression. The atmosphere, which had seemed ready to crack a joke at any moment, vanished without a trace, and only a heavy, drawn-out silence filled the prison.
***
In front of the castle walls of Talamand, firmly closed like a heavy snowdrift.
"Open the gates! It is an order from Lady Fabiana!"
A shout rang out. Then, boulders tumbled down from the top of the walls.
This standoff had been going on for the past few days. As Fabiana's army and the forces of the House of Devon advanced, blasting drums, Talamand locked the gates even tighter, halting their march.
Soldiers struck by stones in the head screamed and collapsed. Following them, something flew in from inside the castle. It was not an arrow, but a snowball tightly packed and hardened like stone.
"We won't open the gates until you return our Lord, you scoundrels!"
At the shout of the man standing on the wall, cheers erupted in unison from both above and below.
Another woman threw a basket full of potatoes.
"These are potatoes from our field! Taste them!"
The soldiers staggered, struck by potatoes as heavy as stones.
From boulders and logs to chunks of ore mined from the mine, when the exceptionally hard ore struck the soldiers' helmets squarely, they collapsed, unable to withstand the impact resonating inside their helmets with a metallic clang.
"That's... raw adamant!"
A soldier shouted as if screaming.
The raw adamant had tremendous hardness. The people inside the castle used it as a weapon, rolling and throwing it from the castle walls, pouring it out as if they were catapults.
Even a sturdy helmet or shield cracked instantly when struck by a raw stone.
“Ugh!”
"Head! Head!"
A soldier was shattered helmet and all and fell into the snow, and another raw stone that rolled in afterward struck the shield with a gong.
Laughter burst out from atop the castle. However, that laughter was by no means light.
"We who make the money will protect it!"
The echoing shouts shook the castle walls.
A battering ram slammed down toward the castle gate, but it had long been thickly reinforced with adamant ore. Only a dull thud echoed; not a single crack appeared.
The shoulders and forearms of the soldiers hanging from the hammers trembled and slumped down as if paralyzed.
"Th-Why is this door so hard!"
"Hit it harder! You have to break it completely! Ow!"
A raw stone rolled down from the top of the castle wall, plunging down and sweeping away all the soldiers holding hammers.
Even the stewards and ladies-in-waiting of the castle went out to the battlefield. As the chief steward drew out and gripped a heavy sword, Philip's eyes widened.
"Can you guys... do it?"
To that question, the white-haired butler narrowed his eyes and replied.
"We are originally from the Rubis Manor. Martial arts were a given. If the Lord cannot protect us, isn't it now our turn to protect Her?"
The ladies-in-waiting raised their spears, and the servants raised their bows. Lights flared up simultaneously throughout the castle.
"We will protect the estate! For Lady Odelia!"
A boy's shout erupted from atop the castle wall. In response to that cry, everyone from children to the elderly grabbed the weapon they could get their hands on.
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