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As soon as I opened the door, a symbol of three interlocked shields came to my eyes. The emblem engraved upon black metal was familiar to me. I lifted my head and saw that Vincent was looking down at me. He clucked his tongue as if disappointed.

“What?” He spat out, then glanced back inside the hall. Because of Vincent’s uselessly large body, I could hardly see the scene inside the room.

“It’s time to go.”

“Who the hell is visiting?” I asked, and Vincent frowned in reply

“I’ll not allow it, your Highness.”

I ignored Vincent, who spoke harshly to me, and twisted my head. However, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t see past him.

“When you made your vow, you said you would be my castle, become my wall… now you’re blocking me?”

I trembled with a sense of betrayal as I stared at him. Of course, my jibe didn’t work. Rather, Vincent laughed.

‘Thud!’

He stepped forward with a heavy tread, easily pushing me back. It was easier for him than for the palace knights, who would not readily touch my body.

“Uh- Uh.”

As Vincent pushed me back, I stumbled.

“Oh, all right. I’ll go.”

Even when I said I would leave, he didn’t lower his guard for a second. Eventually, I had to blankly watch as the hall’s door was shut. This came after I had used the finest subtlety to get past the palace knights—in that moment, all my hard work came to naught.

“Should I take you to the palace?” Vincent asked

“I have my own feet. I’m going.”

I fled from there with a whimper but came back after a short time. Vincent was still standing at the door looking towards me—with a mirthful face as if he had known my intentions from the start. I frowned. It was no hard task to fool the palace knights, but Vincent was another story altogether. I gave up halfway and turned around, thinking that I wouldn’t be able to sway him. I went straight to my palace and sat down in a corner of the garden, recalling the situation at the hall. I hadn’t been able to look inside because of Vincent, but that didn’t mean I had seen nothing. Just before the door was closed, I had seen strangers over Vincent’s shoulder, unknown folk wrapped in brown cloth from head to toe. They were probably the rumored guests.

“Who the hell are they?”

In the middle of the royal palace, they had stood in front of the monarch without even having removed their hoods. I couldn’t even guess who they were.

“If I wait, I’ll find out.”

When his business is done, Vincent will come to my palace, and if I waited until then, I would be able to sate my curiosity. But-

“Why won’t he come?!”

Vincent didn’t visit my palace, even when the night grew deep. It was the same case the next day. I then intuitively knew that he must be deliberately avoiding me. He didn’t want to meet me and face my questions, never coming to my palace.

“Then I have to go.”

I was about to leave and find Vincent or someone who would tell me the guests’ identity when a messenger came. He informed me that, in the name of the king, I was denied access to the main palace until the order was countermanded.

“Oh, really?! That’s shit!”

I would rather let him punish me; I would ignore the message and go to the palace. The messenger spoke on, saying if I did that, other knights would be punished for not preventing me from sating my curiosity.

“Why don’t you just tell me?!”

I could no longer hold down my resentment and irritation and I shouted, then suddenly felt someone gazing at me—Adelia. She was clearly afraid I would faint again as I let my temper loose. While I watched her anxious gaze, my pulse slowed. It seemed that coming back from death wasn’t always good, especially when I couldn’t get angry, like now.

“What about the marshal or prime minister? Arwen?” I asked Carls where the others were.

“I know everyone is in the hall with his Majesty.”

“Ha.”

I could only laugh at the insulting situation, with everyone deciding to turn away from me, keeping me in the dark. I felt like I had in the past when I had secretly checked the identity of visitors from the wall.

“Wall?”

Suddenly, a thought entered my head “His Majesty has banned me from accessing the main palace.”

Realization slowly dawned on me.

“That means it’s okay for me to go anywhere except the palace, right?”

“What do you mean?” Carls asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I mean, I’m going out of the palace,” I replied profoundly, facing him.

Carls shifted his eyes, twisting his face into a frown.

‘Shh!’

While he blankly stared at me like that, Adelia quietly began to move around the room. She grabbed a fur cloak and other paraphernalia and brought it all to me.

“Sir Adelia?” Carls, who still drew a blank, asked Adelia what she was doing.

“I’m trying to get his Highness ready for the wind,” she replied, as if it was completely natural. Curls puffed his mouth up. “A different one, Adelia. It’s too grand. Please pick modest clothes, for example,” I ignored Carls as I ordered Adelia, “pick clothes that wouldn’t be used by royalty.”

We were going to sneak about on this outing, so I told her we had to prepare accordingly.

“Your Majesty! No!” Carls cried in fear as he snapped out of his vacant state, but neither I nor Adelia responded.

**

“Maybe your highness will fall again.”

Carls’ nagging was constant.

“Your Highness, can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“Your Highness, even now …”

He said that if his Majesty knew, he would be punished severely and that it was not too late for me to change my mind, even now.

“If you’re going to do that, it will be the same as entering the palace. Don’t go out and do something.”

“I’m just doing my job,” I snapped at Carls, who would usually have stepped back at this point.

“Look, Adelia is being quiet, the other knights are being quiet, so why do you alone complain, Carls?”

“Because the others can’t speak, I do,” Carls nagged on, and I wondered whether Vincent had infected him with his behavior.

“If you keep flapping your mouth, I’ll leave you behind.”

I couldn’t put up with it and made clear that if he said another word, I would separate him from our sortie. Carls’ nagging, which seemed as if it would never end, ceased only then.

“And how do you know others will know?” I asked.

“There is no place in the palace without eyes, no place without ears. Earlier or later, his Majesty will know.”

“So? If we change into this and go out, we’ll be okay.”

I grabbed a black cloak and pushed it out to Carls. It was a cold-weather cloak worn by the Balahard Rangers.

“No matter how frequently the Balahard Rangers come and go, the guards will quickly notice. The number of rangers who’ve entered the palace today is not the same as the number that have left.”

“But they aren’t out already?”

“What will you do when you come back? The checkpoint security will be loose when you leave, but the situation will be different if you try to come back.”

“Ah, I don’t know! I’m already going out, so what should I do?”

Carls sighed as he faced my stubborn temper.

“I’m really going to leave you here, so stop it.”

So I once again sealed Carls’ mouth, and we began wandering the capital. The citizens weren’t particularly alert even if they saw us in our ranger disguises, and this was natural. Many of the rangers Vincent had led here were stationed in Templar Castle, with the others staying in the capital with their lord. For the citizens, the sight of Balahard Rangers wasn’t uncommon, nor was it a group they had to be wary of.

“Oh! Balahard Rangers! Come and taste this.”

“It’s cold, but there is a lot here to ease your hardships!”

Rather, hospitality followed us everywhere we went. I was proud of it and very happy to know that the rangers, who had only suffered in their harsh fortress, were welcomed by the capital’s populace.

So, instead of pretending to be unaware of their hospitality, I approached them and went along with it.

“Oh! It’s delicious!”

“By nature, this fruit is real good when it’s cold!”

I stopped at a kiosk and chewed the fruit the kind merchant handed me.

“It’s so impossibly cold today that I feel like melting myself in the flames.”

“Is that so?”

People who were gathered around a fire warmed themselves while chatting with each other.

“Your Highness, please… I won’t tell you to go back to the palace anymore, but keep a little distance.”

Each time, Carls pleaded with me with a tight, nervous face, but I didn’t even pretend to hear him. I wandered about the capital like that for a long time. The sun had been floating in the middle of the sky, now it began tilting toward the horizon. I finally stopped a citizen who was about to pass me by, then asked him where the busiest tavern in the city was.

“No! People who are drunk can lose their reason! They can get caught up in quarrels!” Carls shouted, opposing my intentions.

“That’s the beauty of a bar!” I exclaimed.

“Your Highness-”

“You’re very worried about it? We have a few knights gathered here right now, and even champions. What the hell are you so worried about?” I scolded Carls, saying he wasn’t bold.

“No! Please reconsider!”

He continued to pressure me, but I had already made up my mind. At least one half of my purpose in leaving the palace was to go to a bar. It wasn’t as if I had never been in one, though. When I was with the Mercenary King, I had visited bars several times. Even if I had just been a piece of metal, the noisy atmosphere at the time had felt very lively. I wanted to experience that vibrant scene and feel the overflowing vitality with my very own human body. In addition, the Mercenary King had been a surly miser, so I only ever saw him sitting in corners and eating his meals in the dark. I had never experienced the true atmosphere of a bar.

Eventually, despite Carls’ continuous pressure, we finally headed to the tavern.

“Oh! They’ve already started!”

The bar was busy this early already, with the sun still in the sky, and I was excited by the noise that reached my ears through the door.

‘Dwak!’

I opened the door with vigor and entered the bar. Many drunkards looked at our party at once. The noise I had heard from outside suddenly stopped, and energy bloomed from the bodies of the tense knights. But before the energy washed into the room-

“It’s the Balahard Rangers!”

“Here! Here! Come sit this side!”

“Barman, put away the fine liquor! The rangers are here, and they’ll drink it all!”

The drunkards greeted us with shouts. Even I, who had wandered the capital all day, growing accustomed to the citizens’ hospitality, was surprised. The next thing I knew, I was sitting at a table in the middle of the bar.

“What- Aren’t you too young? No… Should I say young?”

One of the drunkards stared at my hooded face as he spoke.

“Sure looks young,” another stated. “Are you new?”

“No matter how much I look at you, I can’t think that you’re old enough to have participated in the Orc War.”

“Ah, it’s been a long time since I listened to the sagas of the good rangers… Just our luck that younglings came here.”

Though the patrons’ faces were still expressive, the anticipation they had shown a little while ago was gone.

“You think so!” I exclaimed. “I’m the one who saw the beginning and end of the Orc War! No one knows better about the war with the greenskins than I do!”

Seeing them listen to me like that, I grew a little troubled. Carls and his knights looked at me with hard faces. I felt that it was too late to stop now; I had already made my entrance. Looking at the expectant faces of the drunks, I kept making noise.

“Now, I will tell you about the orcs’ rise and fall!”

“Oh oh oh oh!”

The drunkards shouted as if they doubted me.

“It was just seven years ago! Unusual signs were found everywhere in the Blade’s Edge Mountains beyond the fortress, and the atmosphere was strange!”

I stood from my seat and shook my arms as I gesticulated, not giving my throat a moment’s rest as I told them of the battles with the orcs.

“I severed an orc’s head! I crushed one’s throat under my boot!”

“Ooh oh oh oh oh!”

“… That day, none of the orcs survived to leave the fortress.”

“Kyaah!”

“But they’re a persistent tribe, with more groups assaulting the walls the next day …”

“Fuck Orcs!”

The drunkards rewarded my hard work with laughter, cries, curses, and earnest cheers.

So, I became excited.

“It feels good to tell this tale! Drinks are on me today!”

It was then that their mood reached fever pitch, with the drunks starting to jump about wildly.

“Ranger! Ranger!”

“Rangers! Rangers!”

They chanted, praising the name of the Balahard Rangers.

“For Balahard!”

“For the shield of the kingdom!”

The drunks raised their glasses and shouted cheers.

“I’ve seen a lot of Balahard Rangers, but I’ve never seen an angry guy like you. If you tell me your name, I’ll definitely remember it.”

One of them asked me for a name.

“I’m-”

I almost said my own name, then immediately gave him another one in my eagerness.

“Jordan! Ranger Jordan is my name!”

“Oh oh! Ranger Jordan!”

Several times, I gave alcohol to people who were already drunk. The tavern heated up, with the air becoming moist and clammy. Even my face was getting hot.

There was laughing, screaming, and a whole lot of noise—somewhere, a glass broke and a table was overturned. There was no greater mess than this.

“Your Highness… No more.”

Carls grabbed me, saying it was time to leave. I, too, had gotten tired of the utterly chaotic atmosphere, so I pretended I had to get some fresh air and went out of the bar with Carls. I only realized it after leaving-

“Oh, I didn’t pay for the drinks.”

I was so distracted that I had forgotten to calculate what I owed.

“Shall I go back now and settle the tab?” Carls asked.

“It’s okay. I told them my name, so they’ll know who to ask.”

“Didn’t you name yourself Ranger Jordan?”

“Uh-huh.”

Carls turned away from me, his face showing that he didn’t know what to do anymore. Then, as we walked down the road, he gently recommended that we had to go back to the palace.

“No, there are still more places to go to.”

“Where is your Highness talking about now?”

Hearing Carls sigh, I turned to Adelia.

“Take the lead.”

“Your Highness?”

I smiled at her, her whose dreamy eyes showed she didn’t understand.

“I’ve decided to have a meal with your family, Adelia.”

Her head jerked, and she stared at me.

“Go- You mean suddenly?”

“Why not?”

“No… How can your Highness go to such a shabby place…”

“What? It’s shabby? I told Gung Jungbaek to find them a proper home. Did he not do his work properly? I didn’t kill him slowly enough, then…”

“I meant that it wasn’t a place for a noble lord like your Highness to step into.”

“Why isn’t it a place I can enter? You said you have a family, Adelia. Your younger brother is there too.”

“He is, but-”

“If you are Adelia’s younger brother, you are not simply ‘no one’ to me.”

I wasn’t just saying it—if he had Adelia’s blood, he was Anne’s descendant. It was rather ridiculous to treat Anne’s family like peasants. Of course, even if he had not been of the fact that he was Adelia’s brother already meant enough to me.

“Your Highness…”

Adelia looked at me, clearly not thrilled. She then began to guide us, taking the lead, her face remaining worried. It wasn’t clear why she needed such great convincing to head to her own home, but we reached it eventually as we followed her. It was not far from the royal palace in a residential area with quite large structures. Adelia came to stand before one with an impressive red roof and looked at me.

“I’ll go in first and get things ready…”

“What’s there to prepare? We’re ready. We’re going in.”

I walked to the front of the house, pushing the hesitant Adelia’s back.

‘Sdak’

Perhaps having heard the sound of the door, someone inside poked his head around a corner. He had smooth light brown hair and sharp green eyes.

“Sister? Why are you back so sudden? Who is that next to you…”

He was a very handsome boy, one who looked just like Anne.

Looking at the boy, who looked at me with those eyes, I-

“Hello?”

I decided to greet him nicely.