“……!”

Iella took a short breath. Despite the distance, and the fact that he wouldn’t know she was here, somehow it felt like their eyes had met.

‘It must be…, my imagination.’

Even so, she looked at him again. But he had already lowered his head. Iella watched Aster facing his opponent and clasped her hands together.

From the moment she thought their eyes had met, her suspicion was turning into certainty.

‘It really is because of me.’

To take her away. Aster had entered the swordsmanship tournament enduring all criticism with only that one thought in mind.

‘Why. I’ll be able to return soon anyway.’

She couldn’t understand how his participation in the swordsmanship tournament was connected to his goal. Rather than that, she just felt troubled and complicated that Aster had become the subject of people’s gossip because of her alone.

Of course, he wasn’t a person weak enough to be swayed by the words of strangers. Rather, he was the opposite. He was a person strong enough to never budge. She knew that well. But she hated the very fact that someone dear to her was receiving malice thrown by people who knew nothing.

‘Aster……’

However, Iella couldn’t say anything more. A bitter smile hung on her lips. It resembled the way he had lived.

There was once a day when he suddenly postponed their meeting the day before, saying he needed to visit the forest. Since he always met her once a week, on the same day, at the same time, in the same place no matter what, it was strange, but thinking it must be important, she nodded readily, saying she understood.

But habits are frightening things, and before she knew it, she was at their secret place at the appointed time. Only when she saw the empty space without him, who always arrived before her, did she remember that the appointment had been postponed.

She was about to go back right away, but thinking that since she had come all this way, she might as well stay alone for a while before going down, she leaned against a tree trunk. The breeze, the freshly swaying grass, and the sound of leaves were so peaceful that she didn’t know she would fall asleep.

When she opened her eyes to the feeling of someone shaking her awake, the sun had already set, and twilight was falling.

[“Already!”]

Startled, she straightened her tilted body, and something fell from her shoulder. Checking, it was a large jacket. The jacket had a familiar scent. The scent of a warm winter forest.

Turning her head, she saw Aster looking at her with a gentle smile. As if he had lent her his shoulder, only one shoulder of his shirt had wrinkles.

Feeling sorry, she hurriedly smoothed out the wrinkles with her hands, a rather meaningless act, when she suddenly discovered red bloodstains between the fluttering shirt collar.

Thinking she might have seen wrong, she pulled his shirt collar to the side to check more closely and saw a wound that was still bleeding.

When she raised her head to question him about it, she saw the wound at the end of his chin, and with her heart sinking, after checking everywhere, she could see that injuries had appeared on his arms, neck, and visible places that hadn’t been there before.

[“Iella, this is….”]

Despite his embarrassed expression, Iella had much she wanted to say and ask, but first, she took out an ointment from the small bag she carried. It was an ointment that her direct maid had put in her bag, telling her to carry it every day after she had scraped her knee recently.

She applied the ointment to all the wounds on his body. For wounds that were still bleeding, either because they were recent or had reopened, she wiped them with a handkerchief before applying the ointment.

Thinking that if there were so many in places she could see, there must be more in places she couldn’t see, she even removed his shirt and saw all the wounds on his muscular abs, chest, back, and waist.

She became embarrassed about her bold act, done solely with the intention to treat him, when she saw his body covered with patches of ointment due to her awkward treatment.

[“Getting embarrassed after doing all that?”]

When she belatedly became embarrassed, Aster asked mischievously. Meanwhile, throughout the treatment, he had kept his eyes closed with reddened ears, flinching and looking only at the sky while sighing deeply.

After joking with him as usual and bursting into laughter, a momentary quiet breeze passed between them. He quietly told her then.

That he had gone briefly to perform training ordered by his father.

It was very rare for him to talk about his own father, but Iella could never forget those stories.

His father, since he was young, had repeatedly subjected him to harsh and severe environments, calling acts close to *buse “discipline.” And he always said this, according to Aster.

‘If you have a goal, don’t look back, focus only on that. The moment you turn your eyes away, your neck will be bitten. Along with your precious things!’

Aster forcibly engraved those words into his head and body to survive, to protect. Since it was a matter of survival, there were no other options. As a result, he became unafraid to throw himself into achieving a set goal.

He smiled, saying that it seemed to have become ingrained in him, even when he returned with injuries because of it. It had already become the way he lived and continued to live.

At that time, believing Aster was just an ordinary knight, she wondered what kind of training would make a young man return in such a state. But after hearing the numerous titles praising him, she understood. The forest he mentioned was a forest teeming with monsters, and his father’s training was to confront those monsters.

‘……’

Her clasped hands tightened. A sense of self-blame heavily settled in her heart that she should have been more careful.

She knew he wasn’t someone who would stand by idly when she was in trouble, yet she had been careless. Just reassuring him that she was fine, that she could return now, wasn’t enough to ease his worry.

“Calver! Calver!”

At that moment, the loud shouts filling the stadium woke her from her thoughts. Raising her eyes, she saw Aster’s appearance, unchanged from before the match. He had ended the bout with a single stroke.

“Truly merciless. At this rate, even making him compete every day will be useless.”

“What do you mean?”

Iella quickly turned her head at the words muttered in an indifferent voice, as if the result had been expected. Helios, who had been resting his chin with a bored expression, looked back at her.

The red eyes scrutinized Iella, who suddenly showed interest.

“With Duke Calver participating, the winner is already as good as decided. We can’t refuse his participation because there’s a rule not to restrict participants, but if we leave it as is, the morale of other participants will die.”

Helios explained that the solution they had devised within possible limits was to make him compete every day. This meant Aster had to win all five preliminary matches and two main tournament matches to reach the final.

“For matches other than the first in the preliminaries and main tournament, he’ll compete against willing participants who lost in their previous matches. It’s like a resurrection match for other participants.”

“Then, what if there are many willing participants?”

“Since the preliminary matches were arranged by ranking from the first and second qualifiers, we’ll organize the willing participants by rank and select the top four for the preliminaries and one additional for the main tournament.”

“You made him use only his left hand.”

Chase’s voice interjected as Helios finished his explanation. It was a rather sharp insight, suggesting he hadn’t been mindlessly watching the arena.

“That won’t be enough.”

“Hmm.”

“Duke Calver is skilled enough to handle a sword freely with both hands. Do you think merely binding one hand is an appropriate penalty?”

“Of course not. I had my own expectations. That there would be participants skilled enough to engage him for at least a few exchanges.”

But Helios’s narrowing eyes revealed that his expectations hadn’t been met. Chase added as he stood up from his seat.

“Then, now that you’ve seen once, I assume you’ve decided to give an additional penalty.”

“Somehow it sounds like you specifically want to give a penalty.”

“Rather than that.”

Chase’s gaze swept across the arena and then returned.

“I think he could win even with his eyes covered.”

“That…!”

Iella, who had been quietly listening to the two, jumped to her feet. However, no further words came from between her parted lips.

There was so much she wanted to say—that it was unfair no matter what, that if they were going to do this, they shouldn’t have accepted his participation in the first place—but the words only dangled at the end of her throat, not coming out.

‘What if I speak up and the emperor and Grand Duke give an even worse penalty? No, before that, would they even listen if Ailexia opposed it?’

Whether she spoke her thoughts or not, it would work against Aster. He was bound to receive a penalty one way or another.

Before the two pairs of red eyes, she was merely a weak existence.

“……The match is over, so I’ll return first.”

In the end, Iella left the place helplessly without uttering any of the many words circling in her mind. Her steps through the corridor beyond the curtain gradually quickened.