Leon, a promising knight trainee.
During the festival, he was mobilized to maintain public order so that the excited crowds wouldn't cause trouble. While on patrol, he discovered a lady being harassed and intervened immediately.
Excerpt: The Bridges of Imperium Town 「If you back off now, I will overlook this as a mistake.」
In the heat of a festival, one could make a mistake once.
If they admitted their fault, apologized, and backed off, he had the generosity to pretend it never happened.
He wasn't that inflexible of a person.
However—.
「Oho~ Is this the high-and-mighty Sir Knight?」
Did they believe in their superior numbers? Or did they think they held Elise hostage? Or was it due to the pathetic male instinct to act tough in front of a woman?
In a situation where they should have run away with their tails between their legs, the thugs instead spat out provocative words.
Seeing them ready to fight right then and there, Leon sighed.
Seeing their inability to recognize the difference in combat power, he realized that trying to talk further would only hurt his mouth.
「It can't be helped.」
Leon smiled bitterly and spoke to Elise, whose wrist was still being held.
「Close your eyes, my Lady.」
Something rough was about to happen.
So close your eyes for a moment.
At those soft and gentle words, the moment Elise unknowingly closed her eyes,
「Ugh!」
「Ack!」
「Gah!」
「Y-you bastard—!」
It was proven that knights are raised as weapons of war, and such a knight trainee was not someone neighborhood thugs could look down on.
There was no need to even draw his sword.
He subdued the enemies lightly with martial arts.
In the process,
「Don't move! If you lift even a finger, this woman will— Keuk!」
The one who held Elise hostage and tried to harm her was subdued particularly roughly.
The thug collapsed making a sound like a trampled frog.
「It seems you didn't learn from your mother to be kind to women.」
Clicking his tongue in displeasure, Leon dealt with all those who threatened Elise.
「It is all over, my Lady.」
Opening her eyes at that gentle voice, Elise met eyes with the knight trainee who saved her.
In that gaze where they entangled with each other, Elise felt something like heat.
Her heart… beat fast.
Whether that pounding was due to the suspension bridge effect or because she really fell in love at first sight, no one could know.
The important thing was the fact that Elise was currently feeling a 'tremble' she had never felt with her fiancé.
「Are you hurt anywhere perhaps? This neighborhood isn't very safe. It's not a place for a lady to walk alone. Come, I will escort you to the main road.」
Seeing Leon reach out his hand while kindly checking her condition, asking if her legs gave out or if it was hard to walk, Elise spoke unknowingly.
「E-Excuse me…! Thank you. If it's alright, I would like to repay you.」
And she was surprised.
To think she could make such a loud voice?
Moreover, even if she had a reason like repaying a kindness, to a man,
「Would you like to… look around the festival together?」
To make such an offer first.
This was truly an unimaginable appearance for Elise, who was usually passive and only followed her fiancé quietly like a trophy.
She herself was surprised at such an appearance.
Was it due to a rebellious sentiment against her fiancé's affair?
Today's Elise was different.
And at such a proposal from Elise—.
「I apologize, but my duty hours still remain.」
Leon answered like this, smiling gently.
Is it a rejection?
Just as Elise thought it might be for the better,
「My shift ends in 30 minutes, so could you wait for me at a cafe until then?」
Like a prank of destiny, the two were drawn to each other like that.
In fact, the moment Leon saw Elise, he felt fond of her as she somehow reminded him of his respected mother.
Just as his respect and love for his mother—who raised him, who wasn't her biological son, with care like a biological son or even more—was great, Leon felt his heart going to Elise.
Thus, the two began to get close rapidly with the festival incident as a trigger.
Hiding her identity and continuing secret meetings with Leon simply as the woman Elise, she felt herself falling deeply for Leon every time.
That was a sin.
To Elise, who had been educated all her life to marry her fiancé as a wise mother and good wife and live as a good wife and mother, feelings toward Leon were a taboo itself.
But because of that, unable to do anything about that heart, Elise only fell deeper as time went on.
And seeing Elise become more beautiful and full of vitality as she fell in love, ironically, her fiancé felt attraction and began to mend his ways.
The past Elise was like a doll.
A doll who just met the partner chosen by the family and lived like that.
Although beautiful, he hadn't felt attraction as a woman, but seeing Elise change while continuing secret meetings with Leon, the fiancé fell for her.
He fixed his behavior and started treating Elise well, whom he used to treat poorly as a fish already caught.
At such a change in her fiancé, Elise couldn't help but be flustered while simultaneously feeling satisfaction.
Elise came to have affection for her fiancé who treated her well and was becoming a proper man.
She began to feel an 'attraction' toward her fiancé similar to the 'tremble' she felt toward Leon.
And feeling strong guilt at such a self, Elise visited the temple for confession.
Immorally conflicted between two men, she couldn't bear it without confessing her heart to anyone.
Since her fiancé had become reliable, she should just say goodbye to Leon as is, leave it as a good memory, and return to being the noble lady Elise.
Her head said it was right to end a momentary love purely and return to where she should be, but the problem was that her heart wasn't like that.
Even if she couldn't get an answer on what to do with this heart, she visited the temple to at least lighten the burden.
But there, Elise met Leon by chance.
And she also met the beautiful lady who was with Leon,
「Mother, this is Elise… actually, the woman I am seeing these days.」
It was Leon's stepmother, Rina.
The mother and son had come to attend mass amicably and ended up meeting Elise, but the moment she saw Elise greeting them with a complicated heart, Rina shuddered.
The young lady in front of her eyes… the one her son had given his heart to… was the biological daughter Rina gave birth to in her immature days!
Rina instinctively recognized that Elise, whom her son introduced, was the blood relative she gave birth to after a momentary play with fire and sent away for adoption somewhere without even holding in her arms.
There was a corresponding twist as to why Rina, who was a lady from a good family, married an old noble not as a first wife but as a second wife and became the mother of Leon, who wasn't her biological son.
It meant that it wasn't a simple coincidence that Leon thought of his mother upon seeing Elise at their first meeting.
At the fact that the daughter she birthed with pain and the son she raised with her heart were meeting, Rina received a tremendous shock,
「Break up with that child immediately.」
「Mother? Why on earth…. Elise is a good person.」
「That child… that woman won't do!」
Returning home, Rina contacted her natal family to secretly find out the circumstances and violently opposed her son's love.
That was a mistake.
Historically, people's hearts burn more the more you oppose, and the more you tell them not to do it.
Even while knowing that through experience, Rina opposed violently, and the more she did, the firmer Leon's heart became.
Without explaining exactly why, just unconditionally saying they didn't match and telling him to break up only strengthened the backlash.
At the end of it, facing his mother's opposition that only grew fiercer no matter how he persuaded, the filial son Leon, who used to pretend to die if his mother told him to, made a big decision.
He decided to abandon everything and elope with Elise.
"Oh my god…."
There, the story ended for now.
Rosalyn, who indulged until the last page, the last sentence, couldn't escape the shock even though the story ended.
When time passed and her passion barely subsided and she came to her senses, she was surprised by two facts.
One was,
"M-Morning…? Already?"
Clearly, when she started reading the novel, it was early evening… but somehow, as she came to her senses, the sun was rising.
She couldn't help but be astonished at the fact that she had ridden a time machine.
Even when she fell into a trance during swordsmanship training, it wasn't to this extent, but to read a book without knowing she was sleepy.
She had never had such an experience in her life.
She couldn't help but be perplexed, and,
"Why, why is there no next part?!"
The other reason was that despite reading frantically for that long time, she felt regret.
"So what happens to Leon and Elise? Do they elope? Or do they find another wise method? Where does Elise's heart, wavering between her fiancé and Leon, eventually head?"
Now, the lord and vassal finally became truly one.
Rosalyn now understood why Princess Lydia decided to stay at the Viscountcy while acting so unreasonably spoiled.
Honestly, if she knew it would be like this, she didn't really want to understand.
To feel like she had to wait vaguely for the next story without a promise.
This helplessness── it was a feeling she felt for the first time since she first sparred with her father in swordsmanship.
If she followed her heart, she felt like running to the Viscount's daughter Noel, who would still be sleeping, putting a sword to her neck, and forcing her to write like this:
"Are you going to write the next story or not?!"
Of course, she couldn't actually do such a thing.
If she did, it wouldn't end with Noel just being shocked and screaming "Misery?! Canning?!"
In the end, it meant the lord and vassal were in the same boat, waiting for Noel's next story hand in hand….
Still, it was fortunate if she could call it that.
If she were alone, it would have been very painful, but she had her liege Princess Lydia, and other noble young ladies too.
Rosalyn was a little less pained at the fact that there were many 'comrades' sharing the same suffering.
It was funny that she took comfort in such a thing, and simultaneously amazing.
'To think the day would come when I feel like this because of a novel….'
Her heart fluttered at the experience she was having for the first time in her life.
She felt like going out and swinging her sword a bit as this pleasant pounding led her, but that was troubling.
Although the sun had already started to rise, she had to get some shut-eye for 1 hour… no, even 30 minutes.
To think the day would come when she couldn't manage her condition because of reading a novel.
With a complicated feeling of not knowing whether to laugh, cry, or get angry, Rosalyn hurriedly tried to sleep.
And early morning, Rosalyn started her day after sleeping a nap of 2 hours.
Thanks to using the time for morning training on sleep instead, her condition was decent.
Should she call it the power of the special sleeping method passed down in the Miller family?
Once one succeeds in mastering it, sleeping just about 4 hours a day is sufficient.
Starting the day maintaining her condition with the power of that sleeping method, Rosalyn suddenly thought.
'If I pass down this sleeping method to Lady Noel… wouldn't she be able to buy more time to focus on writing?'
It wasn't particularly a family secret, but it wasn't something to teach others easily either, yet to harbor thoughts of passing it down to someone she met only a day ago.
If someone from the knighthood who knew the usual Rosalyn well saw this, it was a change they would surely be astonished by.
Who could believe the truth that such a change happened in less than a day, and the thing that brought out that change was a novel Rosalyn didn't like that much?
Moreover, Rosalyn's change didn't end here.
"Princess."
"Good morning, Rosalyn. The novel I gave y──."
"I have read 「The Bridges of Imperium Town」 completely. So I am telling you, in my opinion, this novel is…."
Before the Princess even brought it up, she voluntarily spoke about the novel first.
At other times, she wasn't like this.
Even if she read it all, she tried to avoid talking with the Princess on the subject of that novel as much as possible because she couldn't keep up with the Princess talking passionately about the work with high tension.
Stories she read because it was an order, but found neither fun nor relatable.
It was because she couldn't share the talk about the work as fun as the Princess wanted.
But now?
Conversely, Rosalyn was bringing up 「The Bridges of Imperium Town」 to the Princess first, and in the morning at that.
With this, it was clearly proven.
That 「The Bridges of Imperium Town」 written by Noel is a superstar-like novel that drives both fans and antis crazy.
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