Chapter 14
Mia, bowing slightly toward him, asked a question. Though the one she spoke to didn’t get a chance to reply—his face hit the ground immediately afterward.
“This is a form of sparring, wouldn’t you agree? I wonder if a halfwit without divine power, humiliated like this by an honorary officer, can even walk around with his head held high… how pitiful.”
So, what should she do with him? After a moment of thought, Mia finally came up with a use for him. After all, even a constant nuisance could be repurposed somehow if you looked hard enough.
“Lenard. After all the lights on the castle’s top floor go out tonight, wait in front of the inn’s main entrance…”
Mia didn’t finish her sentence. A black silhouette passing through the edge of her vision made her stop.
The moment she saw that shadow, everything else disappeared. The strategies she’d been revising. The fool flailing desperately beneath her feet. Even Étienne, who had returned and was clutching her hand.
It all froze. And just like that, Mia sank into the past.
Have you ever come face-to-face with ‘terror’?
Anyone who had served in the Étalon army back then would find it hard to deny.
The woman with obsidian-black hair, who always appeared when Rochefort was at his most precarious, moved freely across the battlefield after his death, throwing the remaining officers of the Holy Legion into disarray.
Other officers possessed divine powers too. Weary and broken though they were, they were still trained soldiers—capable of fighting. But none of them could stop her. In fact, they couldn’t even figure out how she did what she did.
Wherever she appeared, formations collapsed. Their panicked allies would stumble into traps. Or at least, Mia believed they were traps. No one would spontaneously disarm themselves and self-destruct without any sign of coercion.
It wasn’t her combat prowess, nor fear of death, that scared the officers. Truthfully, Mia had never once seen the woman physically fight.
Strange things just happened when she was there. She’d merely observe from a distance. Sometimes, with a cold, unreadable expression. Other times, she’d burst into manic laughter.
She was like a reaper on the battlefield. Because her first appearance had coincided with the death of the Legion Commander, some genuinely believed she was a hallucination—or death personified.
But Mia didn’t believe in reapers. The woman was real. Mia had heard her referred to as “C.” Some of her comrades called her “Ciccy.”
Whether real or not didn’t matter. The fact remained: she dismantled every one of Mia’s schemes with ease. She had even trapped Mia multiple times in return.
Her methods of fighting were unorthodox, to say the least. Even Mia couldn’t fully anticipate her intentions or next moves.
No matter how hard she tried—whether she investigated her, created traps tailored only for her, or even attempted to kill her—Mia often came up empty-handed. There was clearly something Mia was missing. But to the end, she never learned what it was.
And so, Ciccy became the first person Mia couldn’t trap with a plan—no matter how determined she was. Inevitably, she became Mia’s first embodiment of fear.
Without knowing the woman’s intentions, Mia instinctively followed her. A habit from her past life that had become second nature. Behind Mia, an echo followed.
“…Ah.”
“…”
“Mia. Are you listening?”
No—it might not have been an echo after all.
Only then did Étienne come into her field of view.
He stood in front of her, watching her with concern, calling her name for what might’ve been the hundredth time.
Thanks to Étienne’s timely intervention, Mia snapped out of her panic relatively quickly. Even a fool’s teasing might’ve been welcome, had it helped clear her head. In a way, it did.
She was finally able to focus on more practical matters. Mia turned to Étienne.
“Is it alright to bring the entire army here? The castle looks too small to house everyone.”
“It’s a situation where splitting up would put us at a disadvantage. There are a few inns within the territory. The soldiers who can’t enter the castle can stay there for a few days without issue.”
Étienne fidgeted with Mia’s hand as he answered. She didn’t bother to pull away. To be more precise, she was so focused on his response that she barely noticed the contact.
‘That’s the same answer I heard in my previous life.’
Some events unfolded the same as in her past life, while others diverged completely. Mia couldn’t always pinpoint the difference.
The bizarre explosion—believed to have stemmed from the prisoners. The date they finally arrived in Glen. Even the solution to the issue of excess personnel. All of it was just like before. And the differences?
Every deviation traced back to one thing: Rochefort’s attitude.
The reason she learned swordsmanship. The recognition of her authority within the army. Her status as the war hero’s close aide. Even receiving personal instruction and treatment from him.
And now, this ridiculous charade of being lovers.
It all happened because Rochefort had become strangely affectionate compared to her previous life.
So, in essence, the line between what had changed and what hadn’t… was whether Rochefort was involved.
‘Then why is he…’
Suddenly, the warmth playing between Mia’s fingers vanished. She looked down—then up again. The castle gates were opening.
As Mia predicted, the lord who emerged from the castle appeared startled by the army’s size. Yet ever the opportunist, he quickly composed himself and greeted the group in clumsy Imperial tongue.
“Oh! What an honor to meet the famous Sir Rochefort in person! I’m Rufus Galois. My, your face practically glows!”
He rambled on: how Rochefort saved the Empire with that very sword, how his stature screamed “hero.” A stream of nonsense. Étienne glanced at the hand offered in greeting and walked right past him without a word. One might have felt embarrassed, but the lord turned to Mia instead and held out his hand.
“And this young lady… We haven’t met before, have we? Hehehe. Pardon me, but may I ask which noble family you hail from?”
Somehow, he gave off the air of someone who’d try to escort her around the moment she shook his hand. Mia gave him a half-hearted greeting at best.
Though she never gave her name, she had an odd certainty that the lord would find out who she was before the day was over.
‘A man that nosy won’t resist chatting with others. And there are plenty who don’t like me enough to keep even minor details to themselves.’
Even the wild rumors about Blanchard’s eldest daughter had become infamous outside the Empire. Once he had her name, it wouldn’t take long to learn what sort of person she was. It was a familiar but still unpleasant thought, and Mia sighed inwardly.
“Baron.”
Mia batted away his hand and murmured. Her sunken tone carried far more weight than the “noble young lady” he expected.
“It would be wise not to take the courtesies we offer you for granted.”
Only a few Holy Legion officers remained inside the castle, including Mia and Étienne.
Mia had minor objections when she learned Lenard had been placed in charge of the remaining troops, but it was swiftly resolved—with a firm dismissal. The private status of “commander’s lover” held little sway in such matters.
Mia set down her few belongings and lay on the bed. Her body, worn from the long march, refused to fall asleep easily.
Before long, someone knocked on her door. Judging by his attire, he was the baron’s attendant. He informed Mia of a dinner banquet to be held in an hour, then quickly rushed to notify others. The order must have just been issued.
They’d told them to rest and recover from their journey—yet the moment most had unpacked, the baron was hosting a banquet. It reeked of desperation to make a good impression.
Still, considering Glen’s geography, it made sense. Though now part of the Veridian domain, it had until recently belonged to Étalon. Border regions like this, caught in the middle, often bent over backward for neighboring nobles.
But if impressing them was the goal, hosting a banquet when everyone was exhausted and barely unpacked was a poor choice. Opportunists really should be smarter.
Mia decided the baron’s foolishness wasn’t worth her attention.
