Chapter 5

Like Jenna Fleur Herbon, she also had three long names, but they meant something slightly different. Having ‘de’ before a surname indicated belonging to a certain family. To put it nicely, it meant belonging; to put it bluntly, it meant being a servant.

Less than half of the continent’s people had a surname, so having a ‘de’ surname was still considered honorable. In fact, lower-status knights aspired to earn even a ‘de’ surname through hard fighting.

Magda, who was Olivia Belbard’s closest friend and maid, was now restless. She kept grabbing and releasing the heavy iron latch of the library door where Earl Herbon stayed, sighing heavily at the innocent wooden door.

It’s all because of that cursed legend!

Trying to deny reality was useless. The story that God entrusted two divine relics to the Fleur Maiden, granted the Stone Killer to the Maiden who lost them, and foretold that the one who possesses both relics would unite the continent split into four is now known even by three-year-olds.

It should have been a story that ended beautifully with ‘given’. As the legend spread across the continent, those in power who desired the power of the Lion Stone and the Red Eye Stone tried in every way to secure Fleur Maidens. Because only they could find and handle the divine relics, the four nations even gauged their national power by the number of Fleur Maidens.

However, ironically, the more they cherished Fleur Maidens, the fewer there were.

Fortunately, Magda’s beloved Olivia was a Fleur Maiden, but unlike her twin sister Estelle Fleur, she did not possess extraordinary talents. Thus, she could live a proper and peaceful life as a beautiful noblewoman with a special ring. God was indifferent, allowing this until she died from childbirth.

Afterwards, Magda raised the twins Olivia left behind with utmost care. To Magda, Jenna and Graham were treasures given by God. Every night she prayed to God that these two children would not be swept up in war and could live peacefully and smoothly. But eventually, trouble arose.

Jenna Herbon! She, with the finest lineage in the Ingénes Empire, Magda’s beloved, ran out of the room in the middle of her personal tutoring session on military applications. Damn… Her menstruation started, and the little girl’s eyes sparkled.

When Olivia experienced her first menstruation, Magda had foolishly jumped around, proud that her lady was becoming a Stone Killer. But when the same happened to her daughter-like Lady Jenna, worry and fear flooded in instead of joy.

Magda caught her breath, steadied her heart, and knocked on the thick, large wooden door. Once permission was granted from inside, she opened the door and entered.

“Hmm!”

Morgan Herbon was a man of few words. One would imagine a chancellor of a nation to be eloquent, sociable, and energetic, but Morgan Herbon was a man with brown hair, slender, fair-skinned, appearing delicate with a beautiful appearance, who loved books and was truly a man of few words.

Even more so after his wife Olivia passed away, his words became even fewer.

Magda, who knelt and bowed, moistened her lips with her tongue and hesitated for a moment.

“Lord Herbon, I have something to tell you.”

Morgan Herbon stared intently, prompting Magda to clasp her plump, small hands that matched her short stature and open her mouth.

“My lady, that is… Lady Jenna… has…”

She couldn’t get the words out all at once and exhaled heavily.

“Started her period… It’s natural, of course. I’m not shocked. She’s already fourteen, and it’s such a natural thing, and my lady, my lady, um… oh… I… oh…”

In the end, she burst into tears in front of Morgan Herbon, who frowned. He closed the book he was reading with a loud snap.

“Magda. Oh dear, I know you still think of Jenna as a baby. But she’s already fourteen. Soon she’ll have to debut as a lady. If she didn’t have it, that would be more worrying. Right? Stop sniffling and bring Jenna here.”

Morgan Herbon shrugged his shoulders as if it was nothing, but he couldn’t look Magda straight in the face.

Leaving the room, Magda dragged her weakened legs slowly up the round stone stairs. At the end of the stairs, she saw her little jewel sticking out her lips, standing with arms crossed.

“Oh, Lady Jenna! How many times have I asked you not to stand like that with one leg bent? Huh? Now that you’ve started your period, you should be more careful, in everything…”

“Hmph! I was glad to skip military application class for once… but now my stomach hurts. And it’s too uncomfortable to sit on a chair, Magda. Is this really something to fuss over and say I’ve become a woman?”

Magda’s jewel is very impatient, cannot tolerate even slight discomfort, and does not yet fully realize she is a lady. 

“Ah, Lady Jenna. The master is calling for you. Please go to the study. Ah! What kind of walk is that? Lady Jenna! Do you want to meet the etiquette teacher again? Or the dance teacher? Why are you walking with your legs spread like that! Oh, how scandalous. Oh, my lady! Please.”

Jenna, finding the experience very uncomfortable for the first time, walked down the stairs with her legs spread wide. Her figure overlapped with that of her younger brother, Graham. She looked just like a boy.

* * *

She was five years old. She still remembers. At five, all sorts of lessons began… Tactics, military applications, agricultural management, land ledger writing, independent studies, the history of war, and even wretched dance and social etiquette. Fortunately, since she hated it so much, they exempted her from learning musical instruments.

Her father said that she wouldn’t have time to spend playing musical instruments anyway. Her annoying younger brother Graham took a few classes with her. But that rascal, due to some excuse about not progressing much in his studies, spent his afternoons at the estate’s training grounds, sword fighting with other boys and squires.

The one left behind was the smart Lady Jenna, all by herself.

Lady Jenna Fleur Herbon. No one around her had the somewhat amusing word ‘Fleur’ attached to their name, but because her deceased mother did, Jenna was called Jenna Fleur for such a trivial reason.

More bizarre than having an extra name in the middle was the reaction of people who looked at her with strange reverence whenever the word ‘Fleur’ was mentioned.

“Oh… I am honored to see a Fleur Maiden in person, My Lady.”

Or,

“Do you possess the Stone Killer, My Lady?”

As they scrutinized her hands or neck… It happened countless times.

But neither Magda nor Cloud, nor any of the other servants, relatives, or anyone told her what the ‘Fleur’ in the middle of her name meant, or what a Stone Killer was. They just deferred, saying they would tell her everything once she became a woman, later when she grew up.

And the time had come. Haha. The day of becoming an adult had arrived.

When the military applications tutor, whose thinning hair revealed his scalp, tried to provoke discussion by slapping a heavy tome, Jenna grinned and said,

“Mr. Tribble… I’m feeling uncomfortable down there! I’d like to end today’s class.”

She didn’t forget to subtly smile and gesture downward.

The professor’s expression turned beet red. Jenna, unable to close her thighs due to discomfort, couldn’t help but laugh as she headed to her father’s study.

Knock, knock.

As expected, her father was leaning against the giant wooden desk in the study, waiting for his daughter.

“You called for me.”

“Hmm. Jenna, what about your lesson?”

Ha. Father, I am a lady who has reached a significant turning point in my life today. Isn’t military application not the priority right now? 

She gave him a look, but her dull father didn’t catch on. Then he said,

“Today, Jenna. There’s a lesson you must take with me… my dear.”

Damn it… another lesson!

Lady Jenna stood in front of her father, stamping her feet like a child. But contrary to her expectation that he would bring out some old tome, her father presented her with an ugly stone he had picked up from somewhere. Then Morgan Herbon’s trembling voice followed.

“This is the Stone Killer. Jenna Fleur Herbon.”

What is this…?