Damn it! Walter Asner.

This is all because of that bastard.

“Hey! Don’t fall asleep! Sidney! Hey! Open your eyes!”

Walter’s shouts faded into the distance. Despite the rough hands shaking Sidney’s body, sleep overcame her. Then her terrible childhood unfolded before her eyes.

“Sidney Warden, you must become a great knight worthy of that name.”

That again. Young Sidney frowned at her father, Hugo Warden’s nagging.

The motion of raising the sword high above her head and bringing it straight down. She had repeated it so many times that sweat beaded on her young face.

Not just her arms and shoulders, but her whole body trembled and ached. As soon as her posture wavered, the harsh smell of alcohol approached.

“Sidney! Your arms are shaking!”

With a whoosh, the sound of cutting through the air, a thin switch struck Sidney’s small forearm.

She’s only 11 years old.

An age where she could cry from the sudden beating.

But young Sidney gritted her teeth, trying not to make a sound.

“Your posture is wavering!”

Slap, slap, …

Count Warden’s beatings and shouts continued. While he himself could barely stand straight from being drunk… he blamed his innocent daughter.

“Damn it! Sidney Warden! Straighten your back!”

“Ugh!”

Sidney cried out and collapsed with a thud. Red blood was seeping through her shirt, soaked with sweat that had fallen like rain.

“Get up!”

The faded glory of the past must have blinded Huey Warden.

Otherwise, he couldn’t have kicked his young daughter so mercilessly.

“Damn it! Pick up the sword again!”

Is he not pitiful for his daughter trembling in all four limbs?

The small child who had silently endured the kicks while curled up spat out a curse.

“I won’t. So… stop hitting me.”

Sidney’s small hands scratched the dirt ground to make a fist. The daughter who stood up staggering glared at her father with bloodshot eyes.

Resentment, anger, and contempt.

All the emotions in the daughter’s eyes were directed at her father.

Did he finally realize what he had done?

Huey Warden’s cloudy eyes shook uncontrollably. Young Sidney took a step closer to such a father, grinding her teeth.

“What’s the point of a ruined family! What’s the point of such a name!”

“Eek! How dare you insult the family!”

Huey Warden raised his pot lid-like hand high into the sky. Then came the sound of a slap, but it didn’t hurt.

When she opened her eyes that had been tightly shut, she saw the back of her brother’s turned head.

“Please… stop now, Father.”

Anthony Warden.

He was so weak that he had to stay in bed. Such a brother, Anthony, pleaded with a tearful voice.

For ‘Sidney Warden’? Sidney blinked in disbelief.

Her father’s face was hidden behind Anthony’s back. Instead, she heard her father’s long sigh and tired voice.

“You go inside.”

“No. I am the eldest son of the Warden family.”

“Anthony Warden.”

To Huey Warden, his sickly son Anthony was a useless existence.

Then a second child was born with the red hair he had longed for. Although a daughter, she was sturdy and healthy too.

Huey named the girl ‘Sidney Warden’, after the founder of the Warden family, and raised her as a boy. Sidney, who grew up like that, thought it natural that she would inherit the Warden family.

“Yes. Not Sidney, whom you raised as a man… but I, Anthony Warden… am the heir to the Warden family.”

“With that frail body.”

“Yes, this xx who can’t even wield a sword properly… has been accepted to the Military Academy.”

“What?”

It was bewildering. How could he, with a body that got short of breath from just a little running and couldn’t even hold a sword…

Sidney tapped her brother’s fist with her finger to stop him.

“Brother, that’s enough.”

Anthony turned around startled.

His face, with fine features resembling their father’s, was as pale as paper, and his lips were as lifeless as faded flower petals. But the hand that held her small hand was warm and dependable.

“It’s older brother, Sidney.”

After correcting the form of address like that, Anthony faced their father again and continued speaking.

“I will! Take the knight exam, join the imperial army… and become a knight that brings no shame to the Warden family.”

This was a first.

Never before had her brother’s blonde hair and frail voice been so appealing, or had she felt such reassurance from his back view.

“So please, let Sidney go. I beg you.”

Though she knew her brother couldn’t bear it, Sidney didn’t stop him. Because their father’s harsh training and beatings, and the burden that wasn’t hers, were too much to handle.

Even after Anthony left for the Military Academy, Huey Warden still enjoyed drinking and gambling. The only difference was that Sidney didn’t have to forcibly hold a sword anymore…

Two years later, war broke out.

“Sidney, it’s finally war! At last, a chance to achieve military merit and raise the family!”

He’s crazy. Thirteen-year-old Sidney felt disgust towards her father who saw war as an opportunity.

Moreover, Huey, who left so triumphantly, returned as a cold corpse.

After reading her father’s will, Anthony also declared his participation in the war.

“Sidney, I must go to the battlefield too.”

What’s the point of such a pathetic family.

Sidney found such an Anthony pitiful.

“You find me pathetic, don’t you? Actually, I don’t care about the family. As you know, I’m not capable of achieving any merits.”

“If you know that so well… Brother, just do something else.”

“But… you know. Even someone like me… doesn’t want to run away. And I need to prepare dowries for you and Emilia. After all, I am your older brother.”

She was afraid. Afraid that Anthony would return cold and lifeless, just like their father had.

So until the very end, not even once, did Sidney call Anthony ‘older brother’.

“…Who says you’re my older brother. I’m not grateful at all, you know.”

“I know. I’ll do what I always do – cowardly, but definitely, come back alive.”

It was the winter Sidney turned 13. Anthony, like their father had, left for the battlefield in uniform.

Despite the horse bought by scraping together their meager savings, and Anthony mounted on it both looking like they might collapse at any moment.

Sidney Warden just silently watched Anthony leave.

Sending him off like that.

Not knowing that she would never see Anthony again.

That he wouldn’t return even as a cold corpse.

Just.

Anthony’s stubbornness seemed ridiculous.

The burden she had to bear for so long in his place was still resented.

And the abusive words and discipline from her father were still so vivid…

She just hated it. The grinding poverty, the utterly incompetent family, and the whole situation.

Even if it was a dream.

Though it would be of no use now.

Sidney struggled to utter the words she couldn’t say back then. She opened her mouth and forced out the unspeakable sound.

“Don’t… go.”

As tears welled up, she felt the pressure weighing down on her body ease. Sidney opened her mouth again and spat out the name she had longed for as much as she had resented.

“Anthony…”

As the tears she had been holding back suddenly overflowed, a familiar warmth covered her eyelids. Drawing strength from that warmth, Sidney spoke the words she couldn’t say before.

“You crazy bastard… don’t you dare die…”

Where had such sorrow been hiding? Sidney wailed and cried endlessly.

Just a single hand placed over her eyes.

Yet damn it, it was so reassuring.

Sidney placed her hand over the hand pressing down on her. And once more, she poured out her resentment.

“You said… you’d definitely… come back alive… cowardly… heuheuh.”

The hand covering her eyes trembled slightly. Along with that trembling, came a low whisper…

“…It’s just a dream.”

Could it be that person? It couldn’t be… Sidney blinked as she removed the hand covering her eyes.