After finishing his reading for the night, Rex didn’t go to sleep.
He looked out the window.
The moonlight was completely obscured by clouds, not a single star visible.
He tiptoed downstairs and pushed open the ancient castle’s door.
It seemed like it was about to rain.
The night wind carried a damp scent as it hit him.
Rex walked slowly along the newly repaired road, without any destination, just trying to quiet the chaos in his mind.
That sentence Seweina had said yesterday stuck in his heart like a thorn.
“If you hadn’t hidden your abilities, those people in the Empire Capital wouldn’t have called you a waste. Your fiancée wouldn’t have…”
Wouldn’t have what?
Called off the engagement?
Rex stopped and leaned against an old tree by the road.
He closed his eyes, but his mind uncontrollably began to flash back to scenes from the past.
Under the sun in the training ground, Alisiya sat on the steps, hugging her knees, looking at him practicing swordsmanship with admiration in her eyes.
Back then, she was still a young girl who hadn’t fully grown up, with a bit of baby fat on her face.
“Rex, will you really become a Dragon Knight one day?”
He remembered being drenched in sweat at the time, slinging his sword over his shoulder and laughing boldly.
“Of course! The Klein family has produced three Dragon Knights. Why can’t I be the fourth?”
Rex opened his eyes and pushed that image back.
“…Forget about me.”
His voice was very soft, and he didn’t know who he was talking to.
Was it to Alisiya?
Or to that fifteen-year-old self?
He crouched down slowly against the tree, burying his face in his arms.
For the first time in all these years, he showed true exhaustion when alone.
It wasn’t physical fatigue—it was a weariness that seeped from the bone, impossible to shake off.
‘Father.’
He remembered his father Wilhelm standing in the center of the banquet hall, his hunched back as he was looked at with sympathetic eyes.
That old general who once dominated the battlefield now had his fair words secretly ridiculed in the council hall.
“Father, I want to revive our family in my own way,”
Rex murmured.
“Not by humbling myself or by reading others’ expressions. I want the name Klein to be remembered by everyone again.”
Now he had done it.
Something no one in the Klein family had achieved in three hundred years.
He became the fourth-generation Dragon Knight.
But those five years had turned him into a different person.
‘Dragon Valley’ — it wasn’t the peaceful paradise written in books where dragons and humans coexisted harmoniously.
There were battlefields, slaughter, and Dragon Hunters using poisoned weapons to ambush lone dragons.
He had killed there, bled there, and walked the edge of death countless times.
He had seen dragon flame incinerate an entire squad of Dragon Hunters into ashes.
He had seen Hilda’s blood staining the entire ground when she was surrounded under attack.
And he had seen his own hands covered in blood.
After returning from Dragon Valley, he found he couldn’t go back to being that cheerful young man anymore.
The Empire’s decay was deeper than he had imagined.
Those who smiled at him at banquets were all scheming behind his back about what they could take from the Klein family.
He didn’t want to act anymore, and he didn’t want to prove anything.
So he chose silence.
Silent to the point that everyone thought he was a waste.
Silent to the point that Alisiya broke off the engagement publicly.
Silent to the point that his father personally exiled him to the North.
“It’s fine like this,”
he told himself.
But was it really fine?
Rex had no answer.
He leaned against the tree, eyes closed, letting the night wind mess up his hair.
Then, an extremely soft and faint sound came from not far away.
It wasn’t footsteps—it was the barely audible rustle of clothes brushing against leaves.
“Come out. No use hiding.”
He opened his eyes, his voice returning to that indifferent tone.
There was a rustle from the canopy above, and Seweina jumped down, landing steadily in front of him.
She wasn’t wearing armor, only a dark casual outfit.
“And you still noticed?”
“When did you follow me out?”
“I noticed when you left the door. Sneaking out alone in the middle of the night—I thought you were going to do something shady.”
“And then? You secretly followed me all the way, just to find out I was taking a walk?”
“Who knows if you were really just walking? What if you ran away? How would I answer to the Prime Minister?”
Rex looked at her and noticed a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth when she said that.
She was joking.
“Why did you sneak out alone?”
Seweina naturally leaned against the tree next to him.
“Feeling lonely? Why not go have some fun with your little ‘maid’?”
“I told you, there’s nothing like that between Hilda and me.”
“Fine, fine. Whatever you say.”
Seweina waved her hand, clearly not believing a word.
So she changed the subject.
“Do you want to know why I reacted so strongly when you knocked off my earring that day?”
Rex turned to look at her.
“I know the atmosphere is right for this kind of talk, but if you don’t want to talk about it now, we can stay silent here for a while and then just go back. That’s fine too.”
Hearing this, Seweina laughed out loud.
Her laughter was especially clear in the night.
“Hahaha! You really don’t play by the rules, do you?”
She waved her hand after laughing.
“Alright, I won’t talk about it then. It’s just a cliché story anyway. A little girl born and raised in the North, climbing her way up through hardships to where she is today. Nothing new.”
She took off her earring and looked at it in the faint night light.
“When you knocked it off, I almost thought you’d broken it. Good thing we used wooden sticks for the sparring; if it had been a real sword, this thing would have been split in two.”
“Since it’s that important, why not store it away properly instead of wearing it every day?”
“Well…”
Seweina put the earring back on, gently rubbing its wooden surface.
“That’s my secret. Just like you have your secrets.”
“You’re right.”
Rex didn’t press further.
Seweina looked at him.
“By the way, why did you choose to come to the North?”
“Because I had no choice.”
“You’re lying.”
Seweina’s tone was firm.
“Even if his power is hollowed out, a duke still has the autonomy to choose where he gets exiled.”
Rex, seeing he couldn’t hide it, confessed the truth.
“This is our Klein family’s original fief. It’s just that we’ve been stripped of power and can’t govern it now.”
“I want to rebuild it through my own efforts. Not to prove anything to anyone, but… I’m sick of those nobles in the Empire Capital.”
Hearing this, Seweina nodded in agreement.
“I feel the same way. I’ve spent so many years in the North that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone back to the Empire Capital. Every time I return, I feel like I can’t breathe. The way those people talk, the way they look at you, the way they smile… it’s all fake.”
“So you don’t like it there either.”
“Who told you I did?”
Seweina snorted.
“If it weren’t for military orders, I’d never set foot in the Empire Capital in my life. The North might be poor, but at least the people here are honest. Almost no one has bad intentions.”
“Too bad,” Seweina sighed.
“There’s not even a bottle of wine here right now. Otherwise, we could talk all night.”
“If you want some, I’ll have Li Ya bring a few bottles next time.”
“Li Ya? Who’s that?”
“The president of the Granchester Chamber of Commerce.”
Seweina raised an eyebrow.
“The one who helped you repair the road?”
“Yeah.”
“…A woman?”
“Yeah.”
Seweina didn’t ask further.
“Forget it. Let’s stop talking. Let’s go back. We have work tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to work every day.”
“I want to. It’s better than being idle.”
Seweina took two steps, then suddenly stopped.
“Rex.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a really interesting person.”
She turned to look at him.
In the night light, her expression was hard to read, but her voice carried something genuine.
“I really like you.”
Rex wasn’t particularly fazed by that.
He just followed behind her, looking up at the sky.
The air felt even more damp than before.
“It’s going to rain.”
Seweina didn’t turn back, just waved her hand.
“Then let’s hurry back.”
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