Chapter 20

Serenia listened with both envy and warmth as Derkan spoke lovingly about his daughter, who was not even a year old yet. Since Derkan was about the same age as the last memory of her own father, her heart softened with longing.

Derkan keenly noticed Serenia’s moment of vulnerability. It was a moment when the sociability and intuition that Lucien valued most in Derkan truly shone. He hadn’t meant to get involved, just to watch from afar… But faced with Serenia, who listened intently and sincerely to his stories about his daughter, Derkan’s characteristic meddlesome kindness kicked in.

“You know, you and the Commander both feel like my own niblings or child…”

Lucien’s emotional struggles could be brushed off as ‘the Commander’s karma,’ but perhaps because he was a father himself, Derkan couldn’t just watch Serenia suffer. He cautiously brought up the topic.

“Are you two… dating?”

“W-what? No, no, absolutely not.”

Derkan expected Serenia to deny it, especially given Lucien’s behavior, but her reaction was even more intense than he imagined.

She wasn’t just surprised or flustered—her face drained of color and her fingers trembled as she denied his words. Her anxious eyes shook and she clung to her clothes, looking so tense and scared that Derkan considered another possibility.

“Ah.”

“If there’s some rumor going around, I’ll take care of it quickly…”

“So, is it maybe… a crush?”

Serenia was so frozen that she couldn’t even answer, just staring blankly at Derkan. Though she said nothing, her reaction was such a clear answer that Derkan could only laugh softly.

One was a jealous spirit who didn’t even understand his own feelings and kept talking about friendship, while the other didn’t realize how intensely she was being watched and talked about having a crush.

At this point, Derkan wondered if maybe it was his own sharp intuition that was the real problem, for picking up on the sweet tension between the two so quickly. He felt conflicted about whether he should step in for these adorably awkward young people.

But first, he had to calm Serenia, who looked devastated and even started hiccupping. Feeling genuinely sorry for her, Derkan gently patted her shoulder.

“Really, I only asked because I’ve served the Commander for a long time and was personally curious. There aren’t any bad rumors going around, so you don’t have to be so nervous.”

“……”

“I mean it. No one here would even imagine such a thing. Haha.”

Honestly, Derkan thought that if Lucien kept acting jealous and kind only to Serenia, the other soldiers would start to notice soon, but he kept that to himself so as not to scare her more.

“If someone said the Commander was in love, I’d bet my finger no one would believe it, even if he actually got a girlfriend.”

He shook his head kindly, and Serenia curled up beside him, her small shoulders jumping with every hiccup. Derkan comforted her, but worried that if Lucien saw this, he’d be a dead man for sure.

After a while, Serenia finally calmed down and shyly glanced at Derkan.

“If you could keep the crush a secret…”

“Oh, of course! I’m not the type to gossip.”

“Really… Thank you.”

“If you ever want advice, just call me. After ten years of having a crush, I finally got married—so I’m the best in the field.”

At his playful words, Serenia finally smiled softly. She thought Derkan’s sociability and confidence suited him. Honestly, she was a little envious, but his success didn’t give her hope. After all, her own feelings were for someone as daunting as Erisa.

“If you nurse a crush for a long time, your heart hardens like a callus. Sometimes, it’s good to just vent in a bamboo forest. That’s my experience.”

“…Is that so?”

“I also need someone who understands my troubles. Since you do the same work and serve the same Commander, Serenia, I thought you’d be perfect. Let’s be each other’s bamboo forest—listen, and then forget everything. Even if I complain about the Commander’s temper, don’t tell anyone.”

Sharing secrets builds trust. Derkan’s tales of hardship after working with Lucien were surely half jokes and half gripes, but Serenia could feel he was just trying to make her feel better, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

Even though she’d always thought she must keep her feelings hidden, maybe she’d secretly wanted someone to understand. Because Derkan wasn’t Lucien or from the Delaroz family, she felt unexpectedly relieved after her initial shock passed.

Every time she saw Derkan, she kept seeing her father’s face, and maybe that made it easier to open up to him. Serenia nodded, thinking of that missed, beloved face.

* * *

Serenia thought her life was always a storm of misfortune and luck tangled together.

Her first misfortune was her mother’s death. She passed away so early that Serenia had no memories of her at all. Her misfortune was like two sides of a coin—since she had no memories, she couldn’t even feel the pain of loss deeply.

Still, the world gave Serenia a gentle fortune. Her kind father was always by her side. Because he loved his wife so much, he cherished the only daughter she left behind. He was only a lower noble, a knight without even a granted estate. But he was a positive man, always promising Serenia that he would raise her as a beloved young lady who would never have to suffer.

<Are you Belinga’s child?>

<…Yes.>

<Oh! I’ve finally found you. If I’d known you were in an orphanage, I would have searched sooner… You must have had a hard time.>

Serenia felt the touch of a strange woman gently stroking her hair, and in that warmth, she sensed the presence of the father she could no longer meet.

Just as the world had taken her mother but left her a loving father, when her father was gone, another stroke of luck filled the empty space. Before she even turned ten, Serenia’s father was killed by bandits, and she barely escaped with her life. But before her misfortune could drag on, luck found her again—Serenia, hiding in the orphanage, was discovered by kindness.

That’s how Serenia came to follow Helena to the Delaroz mansion, bearing the incredible fortune of being the only child sponsored by the Delaroz family.