Recently, the group that adored Matian was frustrated that they couldn’t harass Giselle. Especially, it was tough trying to please Princess Tolia.
“Ah.”
Only then did Matian’s smiling face contort as if a crack had appeared.
He slowly stroked his chin, pondering something, and then opened his mouth.
“I didn’t plan on visiting after today anyway.”
He held out the graduation certificate he had to Perta.
“What is this?”
“It’s Rukna’s graduation certificate.”
“Gra, graduation certificate? But Rukna couldn’t graduate.”
“As the school schedule was reduced and the graduation ceremony was moved up, Rukna was barely able to meet the attendance requirement.”
“Th, thank you.”
Perta reached out to take the corner of the graduation certificate, but Matian, gripping it tightly, wouldn’t let go.
“Huh?”
Perta looked back and forth between the graduation certificate and Matian.
“Was it for this graduation certificate?”
“Pardon?”
“The reason you adopted Rukna from the Golden family and sent her to the military academy.”
“That, that’s…”
Perta couldn’t find the words to say.
There were complex circumstances entangled in that matter, but he had no obligation to explain it to Matian Wiegratz.
Would he curse him for using Rukna as a means to an end?
Perta bit the tender flesh inside his mouth and steeled himself. He was prepared to hear any resentment.
He couldn’t handle it as sharply as Giselle, but enduring it silently without complaint was the best he could do.
“School life must not have been easy for Rukna. Even for fairly robust fellows, military academy is a tough place to endure.”
“That’s, right.”
“But Rukna, bearing the Golden name, did her best. She woke up early in the morning and consistently devoted herself to training. Her skills were quite impressive. She had a knack for the mace.”
I told her the mace didn’t suit her physique. But she insisted she liked the mace and never gave up mastering it.
Matian thought it would be nice if he meant as much to her as the mace, then shook his head. He felt a bit miserable.
“Ru, Rukna did that well?”
Perta belatedly realized that despite being bound by the shackles of family, he knew nothing about Rukna.
When she was bedridden, his own pain came first, and now he had to revive the family, so Rukna was always next.
“You didn’t know even though she was so close to you.”
“That’s right. To realize only now that I didn’t know… It’s pathetic.”
Perta blamed himself out of habit.
Matian, staring at him intently, thought that he wasn’t as bad a person as he expected and opened his mouth.
“I may sound out of my mind for saying this.”
Matian paused and looked down at the graduation certificate.
“I think it’s fortunate that Rukna entered the military academy.”
“Pardon?”
Is this what the person who just explained how grueling Rukna’s school life was should say?
Perta’s eyes widened in surprise, then he staggered. Matian had let go of the graduation certificate they were holding together, causing him to lose balance.
“Thanks to you sending Rukna to the military academy, I was able to meet her.”
Leaving the words that today was his last visit, he departed without regret.
From a distance, the maids watching the two let out a sigh of pity that seemed to reach here.
Perta also blankly stared at Matian’s back, then opened the graduation certificate cover to look inside.
〈Rukna Golden, the third son of the Count Golden family.〉
The family name clearly written on the thick paper.
When he was lying in bed, unable to do anything, this single sheet of paper was so desperately desired.
With just this, he could revive the declining count family.
The head maid and uncle wouldn’t be able to look down on me anymore. Thinking that, he had tapped the pillow with his emaciated arm.
‘What’s the big deal about this little thing.’
It’s just a piece of paper with a few letters written on it. How hard must it have been for Rukna to obtain this?
“I’m sorry for pretending not to know all this time.”
Perta apologized to the air. His pure eyes were about to shed the tears they held, when one thing Matian had said belatedly crossed his mind.
Wait a minute. Come to think of it…
Didn’t Sir Matian refer to Rukna as ‘her’?
[This is the timeline separator]Rukna was walking with the pilgrimage procession.
The priests toured the historic sites where saints achieved great deeds and provided manpower support to nearby villages and clinics.
It was closer to volunteer work than a pilgrimage.
It wasn’t as physically demanding as military academy training, but it wasn’t easy either. As the chief priest warned, there was also a clique.
The current pilgrimage group had set up tents to avoid the sudden downpour and were having a simple meal.
Rukna, who had taken a corner seat, fiddled with the wooden bowl of soup.
‘Was the military academy graduation ceremony today?’
Rukna stared into the distance and shook her head. What did that have to do with her now?
‘I hope it’s sunny there.’
Then the priests gathered in groups of three or five glanced at her and whispered.
“They say that person is the specially recruited priest who joined this time?”
Yes, that’s right.
Rukna muttered inwardly as she dipped the dried bread in the soup. Oh, it wasn’t easy to get used to this tough bread even after eating it for days.
“They’re so lucky. Some of us worked for years to become priests.”
I’m a bit sorry about that, but I could have easily passed even if I had gone through the biblical studies exam and the verification of holy power, right? Maybe I should have brought my military academy report card.
“Their personality seems bad too.”
Hmm… This is hard to refute. Rukna scratched her chin.
“Right. Did you see how they refused to ride in the carriage with us earlier? Does it make sense to say they’d rather ride in the luggage wagon?”
I clearly explained it was because of claustrophobia, so why are you omitting that?
‘No matter which world you go to, humans are all the same.’
Remembering the school days she experienced in her previous life, a chuckle burst out.
Well, compared to that time, the priests’ cliquishness was at a child’s play level. Perhaps because they were believers in God, there were no severely twisted people.
‘Let’s get more soup.’
Rukna headed towards the large pot.
But a priest who had just scooped soup noticed Rukna and walked towards her.
Somehow having a bad feeling, Rukna slightly changed direction. But the skinny priest purposely approached right in front of Rukna and deliberately bumped into her shoulder.
“Aah!”
Splash. The person who slipped on the mud wasn’t Rukna, but the priest.
There was no way Rukna, a military academy graduate, would fall for the clumsy provocation of a gently raised anchovy.
The priest, drenched in hot soup, quickly brushed off his clothes and glared at Rukna.
“Wh, what is this! Apologize!”
“For what?”
You bumped into me and now you’re saying this. Rukna sighed and reached out her hand to help him.
“I fell because of you!”
Whack! The priest slapped the back of Rukna’s hand as if hitting her cheek.
What’s going on here? Rukna looked down at her stinging hand.
“You’re the one who approached and bumped into someone who was standing still.”
“Are you blaming the person who fell now?”
“Is that how you want to think of it?”
“…What?”
“If it makes you feel better, think whatever you want.”
She no longer wanted to waste energy on this foolish argument.
Ah, it just spoiled my appetite. Rukna walked to the nearby riverside to wash the empty bowl.
Despite the downpour, the river water was still clear and transparent. She squatted down and rinsed the bowl in the cold river water.
“Oh, my fate.”
Becoming a priest wasn’t as easy as I thought.
Rukna shook the water off the bowl and hung her head low. Her tired face was reflected on the surface of the water where raindrops fell erratically.
Maybe I should have kept a straight face and waited until graduation. Then, thanks to the graduation certificate, it would have been easier to secure a place to stay.
The reason she ran out of the military academy as soon as Chad discovered the holy sword wasn’t just for her own safety.
‘I didn’t want to be hated by Matian.’
She wasn’t the type to fear being hated by someone. She was enduring the priests’ cliquishness well now.
But uniquely, she didn’t want to be hated by Matian.
Rukna tried to fathom the reason, but quickly cut off her thoughts. She turned a blind eye because she felt she wouldn’t be able to change her heart if she faced the obvious reason.
‘I thought I could live more boldly if I possessed a new world.’
Even though she played a fairly significant role in this world, the core was the same.
The reason I can’t be a protagonist who swiftly solves the problems that come my way may be because I’m just me.
A pitiful self who can’t even face her own heart.
“What a gloomy mood, really.”
Rukna rubbed her eyes with her forearm. Tears that she couldn’t wipe away in time drew round ripples on the river’s surface along with the raindrops.
Hoo. Rukna took a deep breath and stood up.
‘Everyone’s acting childish, so I must have gotten childish too.’
Right, Bisbi?
Rukna unconsciously looked for the holy sword.
The sound of grasshoppers chirping somewhere in the quiet forest took the place of an answer.
Rukna stared at the distant sky, suppressing the emotions that had risen to her throat. And she slowly took a step.
“…I should go and get more soup.”
[This is the timeline separator]The pilgrimage procession moved eastward.
‘I’ve heard that monsters have been appearing in various places these days, but to think it would be to this extent.’
Rukna gazed at the village with black smoke rising. There were more corpses than survivors, and only a handful of houses were intact.
The pilgrimage group purified the contaminated land and corpses.
Otherwise, monsters would be born from the land tainted by dark magic, and the contaminated corpses would spread a new plague.
Aargh, I can’t take it anymore! A priest named Jode, the anchovy who had charged at Rukna with the soup, plopped down and stuck his butt to the ground.
“No matter how much we do, isn’t this too much? This isn’t a pilgrimage, it’s labor exploitation!”
He vented his complaints and gulped down water from his water bottle.
Then, seeing something, he spat out the water in his mouth.
Ack, what is this! The priests standing across from him quickly took steps back.
“Lo, look over there.”
Where he pointed, a red-eyed eagle was perched on a tree branch.
With maggot-like wriggling on its rotten and worn feathers, it didn’t look like a living bird, but it flapped its wings just fine.
Each time, disgusting bugs fell down with a thud.
The eagle turned its head back and forth, searching for something, and as soon as it saw Rukna, it fixed its gaze on her.
〈Found it. Found it. Found it.〉
It spoke human words like a parrot.
Male lead is reincarnated to save his wife
I’ve also read this one twice already. The female lead is kinda soft and gets embarrassed easily—not really my type, but the plot is definitely worth reading. Hurry up and read it, y’all!
Intro
When Shen Yuan encountered Su Jin again in his previous life, she had already become the Prime Minister of the current dynasty. As for him, the former top young master of the capital, he had long since fallen into the abyss, becoming a singer on a pleasure boat.
After a song ended, he was redeemed and sent to the Su Residence.
Su Jin respected and cherished him, gave him a roof over his head, and bestowed him with warmth. Shen Yuan fell deeper and deeper, but before he could express his feelings, Su Jin passed away.
Shen Yuan died to follow her in death, but instead, he returned to when he was fifteen years old.
At that time, he was not yet engaged, and Su Jin was just a poor scholar.
Shen Yuan gritted his teeth, casting aside all his pride, and thought of ways to coax and entice her every day.
The colder and more indifferent Su Jin was towards him, the more proactive Shen Yuan became.
He was not afraid of being mocked by the world, only wanting to marry his Wife-master early, to hold her hand and never let go for a lifetime.
[Note: This story will not specifically point out the male lead’s reincarnation time point; it’s all in the details. Whenever you feel that the male lead is acting strangely, he has most likely been reincarnated.]
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
