Chapter 6
Our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/PazjBDkTmW
You can buy coins here to unlock advanced chapters: https://gravitytales.com/coins-purchase-page/
Chapter 6 : My Start Will Be Small (1)
After her regression, various changes occurred in Legina’s life. Most of these changes were intentional, so Legina happily embraced the variables that arose from them.
Except for one thing.
“I’ve told you several times, but I anticipate being indisposed, so I cannot accept His Majesty’s invitation, my lord.”
“But, Your Highness. His Majesty personally requested…”
“Isn’t His Majesty always busy? Every time I sought an audience with him, he claimed to be too busy to meet me.”
“T-That is…”
“I must preserve His Majesty’s precious time.”
The one change Legina did not welcome was the Emperor. For some unknown reason, ever since the day she declared she would live as she pleased in the Emperor’s study, Larousse had been desperately seeking his daughter. He tried to receive her morning greetings, which he had never done before, or wanted to share meals, or invited her to tea time, or even sent for her to take walks together. Legina felt like she wanted to learn some curse words and unleash them if only she could.
What conversation does he possibly want to have now?
Having never experienced such attention, she couldn’t even guess what the Emperor might want to say when he called her. Legina ignored the Emperor’s sweating attendant and checked her reflection in the mirror. The voluminous white shirt, designed for easy movement, with tightly cinched bishop sleeves, and black leather pants that clearly revealed the curves of her body, suited her quite well.
Legina gathered her long hair and tied it up high, then observed her shimmering hair fall to her hips. Before her regression, she had cut her hair short above her shoulders because the time spent washing and drying it felt too precious. Seeing her hair now swaying above her hips, she almost shed tears without realizing it.
“I thought I was the type who wouldn’t care about things like this… but it seems I was wrong.”
While having no time to bother with her hair in urgent, time-sensitive situations was one reason she cut it, she had also cut it with her eyes squeezed shut, following her escort knight Johan’s advice that long hair could be a weakness during battle. However, having regained what she had lost, she no longer wanted to return to how she was before. If long hair could be a weakness during battle, then couldn’t she simply become strong enough to cover even that weakness?
Legina ran her fingers through her glossy hair, steeling her resolve.
“Are you still there, my lord?”
“Your, Your Highness, please…”
“Una.”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
Una, looking like she was about to cry herself, pulled the pleading Imperial attendant out of the room. She was worried about Legina constantly refusing the Emperor’s invitations, but she couldn’t disobey her command either.
“Selma, the information you researched is definite, right?”
“…Yes. But Your Highness, is it truly alright to send His Majesty’s attendant away like that?”
Selma, who had been watching the Emperor’s attendant disappear out the door, pulled away by Una’s hand, sighed and asked. It was a question she had already asked Legina several times, but Selma, as her governess and head maid, couldn’t give up asking. She knew the weight of an imperial summons.
However, as if such worries were solely someone else’s responsibility, Legina indifferently checked her reflection in the mirror one last time and replied, “It’s fine. If there was going to be trouble, it would have happened when I refused the first summons.”
“But…”
“How many eyes do you think His Majesty has in this Imperial Palace, Selma? There’s no way His Majesty doesn’t know I’m lying. Yet he’s quiet, isn’t he? So, Selma, stop worrying and tell me again what you investigated.”
“…Yes.”
Legina, having thoroughly checked her appearance, sat with her legs crossed on the chair and lifted a teacup. It was the same chair she had recently thrown at Theore.
Swallowing another sigh that threatened to escape, Selma slowly began to speak. “Aaron Vestein. He is the second son of the Ducal House of Vestein. The successor to Egil Vestein, the Margrave of the East, he is currently seventeen years old. He spends more than half the year with the Margrave at the eastern border, and when he’s not at the border, he spends his time outside the capital with the ducal house’s private soldiers, so he rarely stays in the capital. Furthermore, his appearance is exceptionally beautiful…”
“He’s definitely not engaged, right?”
“Yes… Several engagement proposals did cross the ducal house’s door, but he seems to have rejected them all himself.”
When she decided to become a troublemaker, especially one madly in love, Legina began to very carefully choose the person she would ‘love.’ First, her current fiancé, Hermann, was out of the question. Why would she, a supposedly crazy person, love that traitor? Her craziness was merely an act; Legina had no intention of actually going mad.
A second or third son from a family comparable to Slyveig, he must not have an fiancé and no current plans for marriage. His appearance doesn’t have to be exceptionally good, but it wouldn’t hurt if he’s handsome…
When she first thought of the conditions, no suitable person immediately came to mind. It was Una who helped her.
[“Couldn’t you just say Sir Aaron, Your Highness?”]
[“Huh?”]
[“The second son of the Ducal House of Vestein. I heard he returned to the capital a while ago?”]
Legina had forgotten that the Vestein family even had a second son, as she had never met him before her regression, having died early. If asked how she could be unaware of a ducal figure, it was because Aaron himself spent extremely little time in the capital and had no interest in social gatherings, never attending them. On the rare occasions he did attend, Theore would coincidentally cause trouble, and Legina would be busy running around to clean it up, never having time to meet him face-to-face.
“My beloved brother certainly… did many great things in various ways.”
“What?”
“It’s nothing. Is it also confirmed that the second son of the Vestein family will be in charge of sword lessons starting today?”
“Although he hasn’t had his coming-of-age ceremony yet, he possesses swordsmanship skills recognized throughout the empire. And there’s no one else to call, either…”
He was, remarkably, Theore’s seventh sword instructor. True to his nature as a born troublemaker, the time it took Theore to dismiss the previous six instructors was merely one month. Sword lessons, which should have begun after his tenth birthday, were postponed again and again—”I don’t like it when pollen flies in spring,” “I don’t like it because it’s hot in summer,” “I simply don’t feel like it in autumn”—until they finally began in winter. Even then, he only reluctantly started because the Emperor commanded that he absolutely must complete basic swordsmanship before his eleventh birthday, despite his aversion to the cold.
And Theore, true to form, caused all sorts of trouble in these hard-won lessons. Of the six instructors who came and went, the one who lasted the longest was two weeks. The rest lasted only two or three days, and one even fled within a single day. As a result, no one was willing to be the Prince’s sword instructor anymore, forcing the Emperor to “request” the Ducal House of Vestein’s help.
Though unintended, it was a very good opportunity for Legina.
As expected, the timing of my return was good. It’s almost as if I was deliberately sent back to this time.
Legina once again offered her gratitude to the First Emperor, who had left her the necklace, then rose from her seat and walked towards the training ground. The lesson time was still far off, but she intended to arrive early and wait for Aaron. Her beloved brother, who had no concept of time, would surely be late for the lesson, so she planned to use that time to propose a “deal.”
Arriving at the empty training ground, Legina examined the scenery of the training ground, a place she was setting foot in for the very first time, both before and after her regression. If she had realized her talent for swordsmanship even a little earlier, would she not have had to choose such a death?
‘If Your Highness had only taken up the sword ten, no, even five years earlier, everything would have been different,’ her escort knight Johan, who was currently away, had once said. While she didn’t blindly trust his words, Legina, who had learned various sword techniques from him before her regression, decided to view this situation positively. She had failed to kill the traitor, but she had at least gained something in return. Moreover, she had gone back not just five, but ten years, so as he said, something would surely change.
Legina picked up a wooden sword lying in a corner of the training ground and lightly swung it, beginning to review her future plans.
“Your Highness, Sir Aaron has arrived.”
“Oh?”
How much time had passed? At the news of Aaron’s arrival, Legina put down the wooden sword she was holding and turned her head towards the entrance of the training ground.
“Gasp…”
And Legina, upon seeing Aaron slowly emerge from the entrance, froze.
Golden hair rippling over his shoulders like a lion’s mane with every step, sharply defined eyebrows visible between bangs that lightly covered his eyes, red eyes sparkling like jewels in the sunlight under the shadows cast by abundant eyelashes, and the naturally emanating spirit and dignity from his distinct features and upright posture were breathtaking. And what of the ascetic yet decadent aura exuded by his perfectly tailored black uniform? Two qualities believed impossible to coexist blended together, instantly drawing one’s gaze.
“Aaron of the Ducal House of Vestein greets Your Highness Legina B. Alpere of the Ellias Empire.”
“Oh my God…”
Crazy! What the heck. Why is his voice so good too?
Legina instinctively covered her mouth with one hand, screaming internally lest an uncouth sound escape. Was this just “beautiful”? Legina, recalling the peculiar note in Selma’s research, shook her head. This was not just “beautiful.”
“Your Highness? Have I done something wrong?”
“No, you’ve done nothing wrong. Even if you had, you haven’t.”
“What?”
A stunned Legina and Aaron, who was puzzled by her reply.
It was their first meeting.
