“Is this a new assassination technique?”

The Grand Duke asked with his usual calm face. I was truly flustered and hurriedly got up. But in doing so, I ended up pressing hard on the Grand Duke’s thigh with my hand as I sprung up.

The Grand Duke’s brow furrowed ever so slightly.

“This too?”

“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”

I couldn’t lift my face. I couldn’t come to my senses.

“Is something wrong?”

Arcadia asked from outside.

“No, my new attendant almost tripped. On the table.”

“Is that true?”

“It’s true. Relax a bit, Arcadia. Otherwise you’ll get indigestion.”

Arcadia closed his mouth.

As I hesitated for a long while, suddenly a “pfft-” laugh was heard. It was the Grand Duke.

“Are you alright?”

To my desperate question, he answered.

“I’m fine. This level of heat isn’t even hot.”

He casually dusted off his shirt stained with soup. The white shirt was now tinted with a pale scarlet color.

“I’m truly sorry.”

“Mm. Shall we continue what we were doing?”

“Pardon?”

“Finishing the meal. Moby will be curious, about whether I ate well or not and such things.”

“…Yes.”

“The soup can’t be helped… Shall I share some of the steak?”

“I, I will do it.”

The Grand Duke’s insistence on eating together seemed unbreakable. If so, it’s right for me as the attendant to move.

I carefully cut off a very small portion of the steak.

“Sit.”

At the Grand Duke’s order, I pulled out a chair and sat. But I happened to sit on the Grand Duke’s right side.

I could feel the Grand Duke looking at me.

Of all places, I sat on the side of the collapsed face.

I felt uneasy for no reason.

As I was about to put my hand on my mask to remove it to eat,

“If it’s not uncomfortable, would you sit on my left?”

“…Thank you.”

I moved to the left side of the Grand Duke who was seated at the head of the table.

I took off my mask and ate. The steak was so tender it melted in my mouth. It was the most delicious food I had ever tasted in my life.

Unlike what he said to Arcadia, the Grand Duke didn’t ask me any particular questions. But I was nervous.

Because I could feel the Grand Duke’s gaze fixed on my face from time to time.

Just once, while eating dessert, our eyes met as he was looking at me. His eyes were deeply sunken. An unreadable expression.

I quickly turned my eyes back to the food.

As I was clearing the dishes after the meal, I remembered Moby’s words about asking the Grand Duke for laundry.

“Your Highness, if you have any clothes that need washing, would you give them to me?”

Then the Grand Duke looked at his soup-stained top.

He went towards the bed and took out a new shirt. Then he turned his back to me and took off the shirt he was wearing.

A body like a divine statue I had seen displayed in a temple before.

The broad shoulders and moderately tanned, swollen muscles showed how he had wielded his sword in war.

Feeling embarrassed, I quickly turned my head away.

The Grand Duke handed me his removed shirt.

“Just this, please.”

“Yes.”

I received the clothes and hurriedly went out of the tent.

In front of the tent, Arcadia was standing majestically in the moonlight. The white skin, platinum blonde hair close to silver, and green-eyed face glared at me.

“Remember that I’m always watching.”

“Yes. I will keep that in mind.”

I bowed to him and turned around.

The Grand Duke’s shirt in my hand smelled of wind I had once smelled in a rainy dawn forest.

Suddenly I became curious.

‘Is this the smell of the northern wind, or just the Grand Duke’s scent?’

It was a kind and nostalgic smell.

[This is the timeline separator]

The next morning, after staying up late doing laundry I had never done before.

I woke up to noisy sounds outside.

“What? That patient brought from the south?!”

I can hear people running.

A patient from the south?

Suddenly I became wide awake. I hurriedly put on clothes, grabbed my mask, and ran outside.

When I was almost at the medical tent, I heard a beast-like howl.

“You, who are you! Get away!”

Yellow caterpillar. He woke up!

I entered the tent at a fast pace.

‘No!’

I froze at the sight before me.

In the middle of the tent, the caterpillar standing on two feet was swinging a sword. He was threatening people to not approach him. Two knights and several soldiers were holding swords, pressuring the caterpillar.

“Don’t want to die!”

“What is he saying?!”

“Half of that guy’s tongue is cut off!”

“Huk… Uwaaa!”

The caterpillar raised his sword. At that moment, someone brushed past me.

Arcadia.

He drew his sword towards the caterpillar.

“No! Caterpillar!”

In an instant, I ran and stood between Arcadia and the caterpillar. With my back to the caterpillar, I spread my arms to block Arcadia’s front.

Arcadia’s sword blade that was flying as if to cut stopped in front of my face. The sword swung by the caterpillar struck my shoulder.

‘Thank goodness.’

Perhaps in a state of panic, what the caterpillar swung was not the blade part but the back of the sword. I staggered a little, but quickly regained my posture.

“What are you doing!”

Arcadia shouted angrily.

“You can’t kill him, this person is my friend.”

Arcadia looked at me with an absurd face.

“Get out of the way, he threatened the injured soldiers.”

“I cannot step aside.”

“What?”

“Please give me a little time. Give me time to explain the situation to this friend. I beg you.”

Arcadia, who was glaring at me, put away his sword after a moment. Because the caterpillar had dropped his sword.

“White… caterpillar?”

“Yes, caterpillar. It’s me.”

I turned around to face the yellow caterpillar. To calm him down, I gently grabbed his shoulders. He was trembling like an aspen tree.

“Here… where is this?”

“This is the medical tent of the Northern Knights. You were killed by Medeia’s sword, but you didn’t die. When I went to find you abandoned in Rachel Forest, I saw that you were still breathing and I saved you. You. To save you and to survive myself, I came here. We were able to come because His Highness the Northern Grand Duke took us in.”

“…”

The caterpillar seemed confused. He slumped down on the spot. And he looked up at me pleadingly.

“Why, did you, kill me?”

I felt sorry for him. At the same time, anger towards Medeia welled up again.

“They framed you for the crime of trying to poison His Highness the Northern Grand Duke. Lady Medeia did.”

“…Why?”

He asked with a face that couldn’t understand. Then he put his hand in his mouth and felt his tongue. His eyes gradually filled with shock.

I knelt down on one knee in front of him.

“They cut off your tongue, yellow caterpillar. So you couldn’t say that you weren’t the culprit. Because we are just tools. You know what I mean, right?”

After a moment, the yellow caterpillar began to sob. I gently embraced him as he couldn’t control his body.

“You survived. So you shouldn’t do things like this. Understand?”

“Uuueung…”

“It’s safe here. Don’t worry.”

As I comforted the crying caterpillar, I looked at Arcadia.

He was looking at me with his sword sheathed. And behind him, Grand Duke Sion Belfast was standing. Looking at me with rippling blue eyes.

I said.

“It was a momentary misconception due to the shock of being killed, thinking this was the south. Deputy Commander, please show mercy.”

Arcadia, who was thinking for a moment, put his sword back in its sheath. And he opened his mouth.

“Your body moves very swiftly.”

He’s talking about how I blocked him just now.

“Yes, I’m a bit quick.”

At my response, one of Arcadia’s eyebrows twisted.

“We can’t just let this disturbance go. Just because you escaped from the south doesn’t mean you can unconditionally become a person of the north. Last time, you said you would prove your usefulness, right?”

“Yes, anytime.”

“Seeing your movements today, I think it wouldn’t be bad to give you a chance to prove yourself. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

I knelt on one knee in front of Arcadia, fixing my posture.

‘I’ll do whatever you want if only I can be accepted.’

“The format will be a tournament. There will be a total of 3 sword matches. I will choose your opponents from among the soldiers.”

I bowed my head in acknowledgment.

At that moment, Grand Duke Belfast opened his mouth.

“For the 3rd, final opponent, would you make it a knight? Arcadia.”

“What?”

Surprised, Arcadia turned to look at the Grand Duke.

“Anyway, if you can’t win against the first and second opponents, you won’t be able to reach the final match. So how about making the last opponent a knight. A very strong knight at that. Our Northern Knights are the strongest in the empire after all.”

“Understood.”

As Arcadia bowed his head, the Grand Duke turned around. For a fleeting moment, our eyes met. It was an inscrutable gaze.

Then the Grand Duke suddenly stopped in his tracks. Turning back towards us, he spoke to the yellow caterpillar.

“I heard your hometown is in the north, is that right?”

You remember, what I said.

The caterpillar, who was starting to calm down a bit, hurriedly wiped his tears at the Grand Duke’s call. And he bowed his head to the floor and nodded greatly.

“Is your name Caterpillar?”

Then the caterpillar shook his head.

“No, it isn’t.”

“He says it’s not,” I said, interpreting the caterpillar’s words and adding,

“Caterpillar… was a casual term used to call people like me and this child.”

The Grand Duke said.

“Do you have a name? If not, may I give you one?”

The caterpillar looked up at the Northern Grand Duke with a moved face. With an expression like he was about to cry again.

[This is the timeline separator]

I told the yellow caterpillar, only to the extent that I could talk about, about the bare face of Medeia that I knew. No, not caterpillar anymore, but to the boy one year younger than me who received the new name ‘Yora’.

Yora’s hometown is said to be in a frigid rural village that’s a long way further north even from the Northern Grand Duchy. The name of the village is Bern.

Fortunately, there was an injured soldier from near Bern, who reached out a hand to Yora.

Gradually, the wariness towards Yora changed to sympathy.

An orphan boy from Bern, who wandered and wandered until he was sold to the south and lived being treated like a bug inside Lahert’s castle.

Thanks to Yora, the gaze of the northern soldiers looking at me also softened incomparably compared to before.

But Arcadia’s gaze looking at me became sharper than before.

That evening, the Grand Duke did not ask me to serve him when I brought the meal.

The sword match was set for tomorrow afternoon.

After tomorrow’s match, if I am judged to be useful, Yora and I will be able to go north with the Northern Knights.

“Good luck.”

That night, when we met again in the medical tent, Yora secretly cheered me on. We had unknowingly become close. Yora looked at me as if I were his elder sister.

On the way back to the quarters, I ran into Arcadia. He was leaning against a large old tree and straightened up as if he had been waiting.

“Esther.”

“Yes.”

I stopped.

“There’s something I’m curious about.”

“Ask me anything.”

“…I heard from Moby that you’re clumsy at both cooking and laundry. In fact, you’ve never properly cleaned before, have you?”

I tensed at his question that came straight to the point. So I needlessly changed the subject. I was afraid of what he was going to say.

“…I’m sorry. Even when I was in the south, I was often scolded for being clumsy at work.”

“You can be clumsy, if it’s work you’ve never done before.”

“…”

“It’s better to speak honestly. Truly, what was your role in the south?”