PART 1.

Chapter 5. Freedom is Living with Constraints

Viett was walking briskly to begin his new daily routine. During the short break between morning training and the officers’ meeting, he would visit the information command center in the camp to read the latest installment of <Pepe> in the newspaper.

“Why do you repeat this bothersome task every morning? After all, the ‘Evening Whisper’ is delivered to the officers’ quarters too.”

Esca, drenched in sweat from his training uniform, followed him and grumbled. Viett ignored him and entered the information command center. He had no time to kindly explain that the information command center received the newspaper the fastest within the camp.

“Welcome, Commander!”

The interpreters, busy typing, stood up in unison and saluted him. Viett gestured for them to sit down and immediately looked for the newspaper.

“Is, is today’s ‘Evening Whisper’ translation f-finished?”

“Yes. The summary has already been delivered to the General Commander.”

The interpreter in charge carefully handed the newspaper bundle to Viett. He stepped out of the information command center and opened the serialized novel section of the newspaper.

There were some dark fingerprints on the serialized section. It was evidence that the interpreters had passed the novel around among themselves. Esca, waiting for Viett outside the building, clicked his tongue as he flipped through the fingerprinted pages.

“Everyone seems to be deeply interested in our prince and the Little Lady’s love quarrel.”

“Love q-quarrel, my ass.”

Viett muttered a curse with a fierce expression. It was absurd that others saw this situation as a petty lovers’ quarrel.

Since the day he unintentionally broke the necklace, Viett hadn’t seen Phenelity Cochrun even once. Four days had passed, yet he hadn’t come close to even a strand of her hair.

Even when he visited the field hospital, he couldn’t meet her. All he saw from a distance was her busy cleaning bloody bandages. He couldn’t get close due to the piercing glares from the nurses. To them, Viett was nothing but a scoundrel who tried to violate an innocent woman.

His only way to meet Phenelity alone was to visit the dormitory at night, but Viett didn’t want to resort to that. He didn’t want the vulgar rumors surrounding him and the Little Lady to snowball.

“Who would have thought the great Viett Hartmann would end up following his fiancée around like a puppy.”

Esca laughed, slapping Viett’s shoulder hard. Viett angrily brushed off Esca’s hand.

“Who’s f-following whom? And… we’re not even e-engaged yet.”

“Oh, right. It was decided to skip the engagement and go straight to the wedding, wasn’t it?”

Viett glared irritably at Esca, who shrugged. This damned guy, now he acts like it’s none of his business.

“A prince who learns about his soon-to-be wife’s whereabouts through a newspaper novel. It’s so pitiful and sad it brings tears to my eyes. Tears.”

Ignoring Esca’s teasing, Viett turned his attention back to the newspaper novel. Today’s installment started almost identically to yesterday’s.

Phenelity woke up early, drank coffee, meditated briefly, went to the dormitory cafeteria for breakfast, diligently took her handmade fatigue recovery tonic, and started her busy day at the field hospital.

Despite the scandal that was the talk of the town, there wasn’t a single scene where her fellow nurses asked Phenelity about that night. It seemed Tenessa had firmly silenced the nurses under the Ministry of Magic’s orders.

With the surroundings quiet, Phenelity acted as if she had completely forgotten about the incident. Either she didn’t want to recall that night, or she truly dismissed it as a ‘bad dream.’

Thanks to this, the truth that two princes visited her room that night remained undisclosed.

“You selfish bastard. Let me read too.”

Esca pulled the newspaper towards himself. Viett tilted the newspaper slightly and continued reading the novel intently.

The content was similar to usual. Phenelity spent her day working tirelessly at the field hospital. During that time, she didn’t think about Viett even once. There wasn’t a single sentence mentioning him.

Not even once did you think about me yesterday…? Not even once? Unconsciously, Viett clenched the newspaper in his hand.

Four days had passed since he broke the necklace chain. During that time, Phenelity hadn’t mentioned Viett even once in the novel.

For the past four days, while Viett had been pathetically following her, watching from a distance, and unable to focus on training because he was thinking about how to talk to her… Phenelity Cochrun hadn’t thought about Viett even once.

There wasn’t even any mention of the broken necklace chain. The incident with the heirloom was simply wrapped up with the relieved thought, ‘At least the watch Mom left me is safe!’

The narrative was so bland that it seemed she had no resentment or regret towards Viett for breaking the necklace chain.

As he later found out, the necklace chain Viett broke wasn’t an heirloom from the Countess. The only heirloom left by the Countess was the body of the pocket watch, and the necklace chain was a common mass-produced item.

For a moment, he wondered, ‘Then why did she make such a fuss?’ but he didn’t feel particularly wronged. He wasn’t angry at the thought of being deceived. Even if it wasn’t an heirloom, it didn’t erase the fact that he had broken the necklace chain without permission.

However, he was deeply hurt by the fact that Phenelity had completely forgotten their promise, that the necklace she entrusted to him wasn’t that important to her, and that only he had poured his emotions into it.

He cherished the promise tied to a forgotten item. Meanwhile, she had completely forgotten about him. The disparity made him feel pathetic and upset.

“That’s… that’s impossible.”

When he muttered unconsciously, Esca, who was reading the novel, raised an eyebrow.

“What’s impossible?”

How could it be possible that she hasn’t thought about me even once? No matter what, we’re about to get married…

Viett almost blurted out his thoughts but clamped his mouth shut. My thoughts? About to get married? If he uttered such a cringe-worthy complaint, he would be teased for the rest of his life.

“N-nothing.”

He shook his head, feeling his pride being trampled.

This damned woman. Did she really forget about me completely? Viett clenched the necklace chain in his pocket and gritted his teeth. She begged me to fix it within a week. How dare she forget about me?

He stood there with a hard face, then continued reading the novel. Finally, something different appeared in the latter part of the novel. Phenelity went out alone to the city after work.

「As soon as I arrived at the bakery, I craned my neck like a turtle. It was hard to see the remaining bread in the display case because of the crowd at the counter. I could barely see two employees sweating profusely as they attended to customers.

— Customer! If you’ve come in, get in line first!

An employee who spotted me shouted loudly.

— No cutting in line! Order must be maintained, especially during wartime!

He said this while glaring fiercely at a few customers in line. A few skinny boys whistled innocently. (Were they the ones who had already tried to cut in line?)

— Okay!

I shouted loudly enough for the employee to hear and moved to the end of the long line. The young women in front of me were grumbling about their distrust of the government. Thanks to their chatter, I could eavesdrop on the political situation in Costonia.Ah. The Costonian government moved the curfew earlier again? No wonder the bakery is crowded at this hour. Everyone came to buy food before the sirens go off… Huh? The airships have disappeared from the special forces hangar? Oh, they said they moved all the airships to a secret runway for deployment.

— Then the prince will also be leaving for the battlefield soon…

I muttered to myself without realizing it and was startled. Huh? Why am I worrying about that fool? No, I should worry about the prince. The prince doesn’t even know how to apologize, so he probably doesn’t have any friends like me… (Calling him a ‘fool’ shouldn’t count as insulting royalty! Probably…)Should I have at least seen his face before leaving Costonia? I smacked my lips in regret.」