An expensive frilled dress made of teal silk.

High heels and a matching olive-colored parasol.

She was a woman dressed in a style utterly alien to a battlefield or training ground.

She had long, cascading waves of reddish-brown hair.

A style Rosie could never even dream of.

All she had done since birth was endure scorn as a b*stard, never attending a single social gathering, then picking up a sword and charging to the battlefield to fight enemies until she bled.

Rosie stared at the woman, transfixed.

‘She’s beautiful…’

The woman was beautiful enough to draw such admiration spontaneously.

Normally, if attire is too elaborate, it can overshadow one’s looks, but her clothes seemed to function as tools that complemented their owner.

Her skin was ivory, and her lake-like blue eyes were large and lovely.

A high, straight nose bridge; lips with a rosy tint, looking plump.

It was indeed the very definition of breathtaking beauty.

But that wasn’t all.

Her gait, each of her gestures, were as graceful as a swan.

Rosie’s admiration for the beauty lasted only a moment before her gaze fell to her own feet.

The worn-out soles of shoes worn all year, and the dusty, grimy toes of her boots.

In that instant, she seemed to understand instinctively.

‘Someone like me… could never be a match.’

She thought she understood why Arthur had accepted this marriage talk without hesitation.

It was a fight she could never have won from the start.

‘Even as a fellow woman, I can see she’s that beautiful.’

Moreover, a woman backed by the great Oferun family.

Considering all he would gain by marrying her, wouldn’t even Arthur, the bachelor, be swayed?

On the other hand, what could she offer Arthur if they married?

Nothing. The only thing she could offer, her body, she had given and given again—he might have lost interest long ago.

‘Truly, all I had was this body.’

And even this body seemed pitiful compared to that woman.

A woman of a different class altogether.

The man who had built an iron wall of bachelorhood against her had brought here, likely contemplating marriage, a noble young lady of House Oferun.

She couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh. Facing her directly, resignation came swiftly. With such dazzling looks and conditions, even if she were Arthur, she saw no reason to choose her.

Cruelly, a single encounter made her accept the reality she had avoided for three years, all at once.

As Rosie stared blankly at the stunningly beautiful woman, a voice suddenly reached her ears.

“You there.”

The voice, clear as if it had never tasted dust, shattered her thoughts. Startled, Rosie looked up to see the lady’s hand pointing at her.

Why was the unknown Oferun lady pointing at her? Bewildered, Rosie glanced around.

Perhaps she was pointing at someone else?

“Yes, you there.”

But a definitive voice, like a hammer blow, flew at her again.

Only then did Rosie realize the lady was indeed indicating her and spoke up.

“…What is the matter?”

“Come here and brush off this dust.”

Without changing her expression, the lady pointed to her shoes.

A few specks of dust, swept up by the sandy wind, had settled on her teal, expensive high heels.

At the lady’s words, murmurs erupted from various spots around them.

It was clearly a statement treating her as a maid.

But Rosie was an Aura user.

A fairly valuable talent who might even receive a title once this war ended.

To show such disrespect to Rosie shocked everyone. Rosie herself was flustered, but the moment her eyes met the lady’s gaze, she stiffened with a jolt.

It was a familiar look.

An arrogant gaze tinged with sharpness, as if to retort, ‘Don’t want to?’ if one hesitated.

That gaze…

It came back to her.

The gaze of the Countess, who during her days as a b*stard, would summon her—dressed in rags—to perform strange acts before other nobles.

The past she had lived forgetting resurfaced in an instant.

The Countess who ordered the young girl to finish leftover desserts, or made her sweep—shaming her though she wasn’t a maid.

As the childhood memories flooded in, her stomach suddenly churned and her heart raced. Perhaps from the morning retching, she felt like vomiting everything she had eaten.

It was a worse churning than before. Her heart beat so wildly Rosie could barely stand properly. Her body trembled.

In the midst of this, remembering the child within her, her mind went blank.

The lady slowly approached her as she stood there.

“I gave an order, and you don’t listen? Is that how things are done here?”

The arrogant voice rose. Rosie instinctively felt she should obey. Frankly, she could have refused, but she thought if she drew attention by refusing, her improper relationship with Arthur might be exposed.

She didn’t want Arthur to suffer because of her.

Rosie steeled herself and took a step forward.

Lowering herself to approach the shoes, she brushed off the small specks of dust on the toe with her hand.

She closed her eyes tightly and opened them again.

Then she rose and looked at the woman.

‘This is nothing.’

It’s for Arthur’s benefit.

He gave her so much, while all she had been was a burden.

She should at least help with this.

No. If this woman knew she was an officer, she would apologize. In fact, this humble appearance might look even better to the soldiers.

Maybe… this is for the best…

As Rosie thought this and rose from her position—

“You insolent creature.”

Slap.

A stinging pain flared across her cheek. Startled, Rosie looked up to see the woman, her hand holding a fan trembling slightly, looking down at her.

“You should do what you’re told properly. How dare you look me straight in the eye?”

“I…”

Just then.

“Now, now. Can’t you stop?”

“Oh, Father.”

The woman, about to unleash a torrent of words at Rosie, froze on the spot. The reason was the middle-aged nobleman approaching from behind.

Since she called him ‘Father,’ the man was undoubtedly the Duke of Oferun.

Rosie let out a sigh of relief. But it was truly a momentary relief. The gazes directed at her from all around felt like sharp thorns, and Rosie wanted to run away from this place immediately.

Humiliation.

That emotion hit her first.

Despite being an officer, she couldn’t stand up for herself; she had bowed her head.

Because she didn’t want to escalate the situation into a commotion,

she had unknowingly chosen submission.

An un-knightly act.

An act that betrayed honor.

All for a man…

The misfortune didn’t end there.

“So you are here.”

A cold, composed voice rang out. There stood Arthur.

The man who had arrived so silently, with no sound or warning that one couldn’t tell when he’d approached, gave a light bow toward the two. Then his gaze turned to Rosie.

“You, why are you here…?”

His tone was flustered, but his expression held more anger than that. Rosie understood. That her presence was utterly unwelcome.

That he might even find it displeasing.

“……”

Even worse, at that very moment, nausea surged up from within again.

“Hurk, ugh…”

Coincidentally, at the moment she faced him.

And in the presence of his fiancée and her father, her stomach was in turmoil.

Terribly, horribly so. She felt like vomiting everything out.

“Ugh…”

The gazes of the three people fixed on her, and then the gazes of everyone around, began to turn icy cold.