Chapter 22………………………………….
Startled, I took a closer look and saw a young woman struggling up the mountain, carrying a bag at least twice her size.
“Onyx Privetina!”
“Huh? This isn’t the right path, I guess. Sorry, you keep doing what you were doing.”
Privetina stepped back and muttered, and for a moment, the whole area went silent.
“Um… I just wanted to ask, did you leave the house, Lady Onyx?”
Adamas asked cautiously.
“Ne-niyo… Ah, no. No, it’s nothing.”
She said “ne-niyo.”
Could it be she really ran away?! Sister!
“You’re not taking the main gate of Mano Castle but climbing the mountain instead?”
“No! Why would I climb a mountain? This is just… a walk. A walk! Ah, the air feels so nice.”
“And carrying such a huge load?”
Privetina’s eyes darted around, clearly at a loss.
Adamas slowly approached her, unsure what to do with her flustered state.
“Lady Onyx, why don’t you sit down and have a cup of tea before you go?”
“No, I have somewhere to—”
“You said it’s just a walk. Just sit for a moment. Come on, shall we go inside?”
Go. Go. My sister’s getting special treatment—no two-day-old desert beans for her.
Adamas hurriedly took Privetina’s hand and guided her to the cabin.
“Here we are. When a beautiful lady comes as a guest, Sapheiros must entertain her. Handsome gentlemen, please step aside.”
Come to think of it, a duel was out of the question! We couldn’t have Sapheiros fight these suspicious brothers. Better to just chase them away.
At Adamas’ words, the three men frowned and quietly sheathed their swords. Pantheon, as if nothing had happened, gave a faint smile.
“What rotten luck.”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you hear that, Lady Onyx? Don’t worry. That wasn’t directed at you.”
Adamas smiled as he escorted the future Mercenary King into the cabin.
The basic rule of saving a marquisate.
If she came from the future, recruiting talent was a given.
“Sapheiros, give Lady Onyx some black tea.”
“Hey. We all get rotten bean water, and she gets black tea?”
“Quiet. I’m thinking, so be quiet.”
Onyx Privetina.
Until recently, Adamas had thought of her merely as Sapheiros’ lover.
The truth was very different.
Year 620 of the Empire.
With Sapheiros’ death, his retainer father and the Marquis of Mano entered a full-scale power struggle. The 15-year-old girl caught in the middle: Onyx Privetina.
She also had dreams—the path of a swordsman.
That September, she participated in the Marquisate’s harvest festival martial arts competition.
Pantheon and Stephan had come from the capital just to see Sapheiros, so in actual history, if Sapheiros had died, they likely wouldn’t have participated at all.
Even if they had joined, they wouldn’t have aimed to win, and might have withdrawn midway. So Onyx Privetina was almost certainly the competition winner in the past as well.
And her victory would have been annulled by her father, Onyx Romel.
Eventually, she chose to run away from home, as she does now.
Yes. That must be it.
Only then could the lives of the future Mercenary King, Nixtina, and the 15-year-old Onyx Privetina overlap in Adamas’ knowledge.
Adamas first learned about Mercenary King Nixtina in his first year at the academy.
Before then, he had lived thinking, “The greatest swordsman must be Sapheiros!” But unfortunately, Sapheiros wasn’t recognized as a swordsman by the Empire.
Whenever Adamas mentioned Sapheiros, he was treated like a clueless mage.
Some even said, “Sapheiros? Who’s that?”
The academy was, after all, a social environment. When asked, “Do you have a favorite swordsman?” Adamas needed a suitable answer.
And then he discovered Nixtina’s autobiography. Simultaneously, he admitted that he didn’t really know swordsmen.
Nixtina: the youngest and the only female guild master of the Black-Headed Wolf, one of the Empire’s most famous guilds, nicknamed the first female Mercenary King at just thirty-five.
I hadn’t known Nixtina even though she had lived until forty years ago!
Adamas read her autobiography more than three times.
How she went to the Luisino marshlands for crocodile tears and lost a pair of livestock boots, how she joined monster hunting in the Schweiren duchy and didn’t wash for three months…
Nixtina’s autobiography was both funny and sad.
And at the end, she wrote:
“The place I miss most is my hometown. I wanted to return but could not.”
Now Adamas finally understood.
At fifteen, she left Mano to pursue the path of a swordsman.
And less than three years after leaving Mano, she would have learned that the Mano Marquisate had been taken over by the country of Robiana.
She was just turning eighteen.
Everyone but Onyx disappeared with the marquisate. She survived alone, holding a sword while abandoning her home.
Adamas glanced quietly at Sapheiros.
His clear blue eyes gave Adamas a constant sense of certainty.
Sapheiros had said when he first saw her, “Even if you are Onyx, you are still of Mano, so I must protect you.”
Adamas now felt the same.
His reason for being here was no different.
He wanted to save the people of Mano. As many as possible.
So Nixtina… perhaps you are also someone I must protect.
“Lady Onyx! I will hire you!”
“Cough! Wha—? Eh?”
Privetina spit out her tea in surprise, spraying Stephan across from her.
“S-Sorry!”
Flustered, she tried to recover.
“Oh! Lady Onyx, nice aim!”
“What? Nice? That strange girl really! Hey, aren’t you stopping her?”
Stephan teased, but didn’t dare curse the young Privetina.
“Adamas is just a little unusual. He’s not a bad person.”
Sapheiros offered a half-hearted defense.
Meanwhile, Pantheon smiled in disbelief.
Adamas did his best to persuade the future Mercenary King.
“Even if you leave the Marquisate now, Lady Onyx, you’re still too young. Why not be hired by us as a mercenary first?”
He pulled Sapheiros closer beside him.
“A mercenary, you say?”
“Yes. We’ll soon be heading to the desert. How about it?”
“Hmm…”
“The world is still harsh for a fifteen-year-old, sob sob.”
“That crying is a bit forced, isn’t it?”
“Please be quiet, Stephan! Lady Onyx, did you bring enough money?”
“Money…”
Privetina gestured to the massive bag she had carried.
Ah, the bag was huge. That could be a problem.
“Even if you brought a lot, it’ll run out quickly. You’ll need to work, but as you know, jobs aren’t easy to find these days.”
“If you go to the capital, jobs aren’t scarce.”
Stephan interrupted.
“Lady, you won’t listen to these suspicious people, will you? Don’t. Do you know how rough the capital people are? It’s no place to live.”
“Is that so?”
“What nonsense. This girl is really weird. The capital isn’t a monster den! A third of the Francis Empire lives in the capital. Lady, don’t stay in the boonies. Go to the capital.”
Stephan didn’t stop.
This guy! Trying to ruin my life-saving project for the marquisate with rotten bean water!
“You look soft and spoiled. Don’t cause trouble. Go. Now.”
Adamas gritted his teeth and whispered to Stephan.
“Soft? What? I wasn’t wrong! I said don’t cheat because she’s young! She’s finally chasing her dream!”
“Do you know how dangerous it is for a young girl to live alone in the capital?”
“How would you know?!”
Adamas had been alone after losing his father, Doss, and had to survive by himself. Privetina was even younger than he had been then.
Those irritating blonde brothers had no idea!
“Hmph. You can tell just by looking. Children from rich families like these fleeing to this remote manor. You two, stay put, before I roll you up and toss you into the Baran River!”
No. Before persuading the future Mercenary King, I must get these brothers out of the manor.
“Now, gentlemen, could you leave the house of the happy Sapheiros? What audacity brings you here so boldly? Out, now.”
At Adamas’ clear banishment order, the two brothers exchanged glances. Then Pantheon, with a shameless face, spoke.
“Can we join the desert trip you mentioned? I guarantee my skill.”
“No. This party has three members only.”
“The more members, the better, right?”
“Why are you following? Have you fallen for me?”
“Rude. Lady Adamas.”
“Pantheon, don’t get serious only at times like this. It’s unpleasant.”
Ignoring the glaring Adamas and Pantheon, Stephan pointed at Sapheiros.
“Shut up. I need to face him.”
“Come anytime.”
Sapheiros quietly caressed his scabbard as Stephan pointed at him.
“Ha… they really don’t listen. Leave. Get out. Leave the Mano Marquisate!”
Adamas couldn’t hold back and shouted loudly.
A silence fell over the remote cabin in the mountains.
Seeing Adamas’ furious face, Sapheiros sighed.
“…Adamas. Let me speak with you for a moment.”
