Her lord was a person accustomed to enduring and bearing things alone. He would be the best if used as a safe, but a person’s heart isn’t a box. The more one didn’t speak and swallowed things, the more both the person himself and those watching would get hurt together.

“Hey, cut me some slack. There was a secret operation.”

“Commander moved personally for such an operation?”

“There’s no one more suitable than him for moving without anyone knowing.”

If there are those who have awakened aura above knights who compete with swordsmanship, then at the top of aura awakeners are sword masters. Beings whose mana moves like limbs when they raise their will.

It also meant they could move around having erased their existence rather than just hiding their presence, so the more secret the operation, the more efficient it was for Alkaid to participate.

‘He said it’s not time to reveal it yet, so I’ll only say this much.’

Megrez, who had been scratching her head, changed the topic.

“You know…. what do you think of our Commander, Spica?”

“What do you mean? Um…… I think he’s a good person.”

“That’s not what I meant……”

What should she say to get scolded less by Alkaid. Megrez rearranged her disheveled hair again.

She knew that staying still was the way to avoid getting scolded, but Megrez was someone who had continuously watched Alkaid’s waiting. Now she hoped that he would finally taste something called happiness and become stable.

It wasn’t because she couldn’t date due to taking care of Alkaid. Really.

“……Um, Commander resembles the Duke in many ways.”

Spica nodded, recalling Alkaid’s unforgettable face even now.

‘He inherited his beauty from his mother.’

But why was Megrez suddenly saying such things.

Even knowing that Spica was puzzled, Megrez didn’t stop talking. Lepus, who had been stealing glances this way, disappeared swiftly like being dragged away by a wolf, and Alkaid’s presence could be felt from that direction.

‘Surely he wouldn’t cause big problems at His Highness the Crown Prince’s banquet……’

That would only be until Lepus brought up Spica. Megrez didn’t trust the character of that scholarly-looking rabbit beast-human.

“Just in case. Even if you get to see Commander’s face, you don’t need to be scared.”

“What? Face?”

“You said it yourself, that he’s a good person. Just remember that.”

Spica still had a puzzled expression.

Worried that questions might start, Megrez sent her away with playful gestures.

“Ah! He seems to be over there. Could you bring Commander? I don’t know how long he plans to enjoy solitude like that.”

“That……”

“I don’t know how long he thinks he’s fifteen years old, sheesh!”

“I’ll go, go.”

Spica muttered while being pushed away, still unable to resolve her bewilderment.

“His face is scary?”

Scary to the extent of tremendous beauty…… she thought it might mean something like that, but the context before and after was completely different.

Saying she didn’t need to be scared. That was more fitting for the atmosphere surrounding Alkaid rather than his face.

‘By the way, earlier she asked if I had seen Commander. Wasn’t Dame Megrez also asking because she didn’t know where he was?’

Everything was strange.

But even while grumbling like that, the reason she faithfully went in the direction Megrez had indicated was purely out of curiosity.

Whether the operation had been completed well, whether he had any injuries, and whether Alkaid was indeed that person from the next room.

And…….

Spica bit the tip of her tongue. A strange emotion that couldn’t be expressed in words seemed to be wriggling near her heart.

‘Did he already leave?’

That’s when Spica was looking around. She saw one of the servants guarding the door over there subtly gesturing with his hand.

‘Why is he calling me…… Ah, because of the knight order uniform?’

When she headed that way with her nerves on edge wondering what was happening, she heard a familiar voice.

Spica narrowed her brow. Alkaid wasn’t someone who enjoyed talking to himself. If he was speaking, it meant he had company.

‘Eavesdropping is a bit……’

She had already had that wall…… ahem, that incident, so she didn’t want to press her ear and listen even in a place like this.

However, that was the moment when Spica was about to leave politely.

“I was curious why you hired someone who can’t even use a sword.”

It was Lepus’s voice. Spica’s ears began to perk up.

‘Why are the two of them having a private conversation, no, it couldn’t be something like a private conversation.’

Thinking about the atmosphere when they encountered each other near the tournament grounds last time, the servant’s gesture earlier might truly have been a warning about a dangerous situation.

Spica, who had quickened her hesitant steps, was startled by the sight of the two people visible right after turning the corner.

……Alkaid was strangling Lepus.

“Shut up.”

“You know yourself? Putting a noble lady in the adjutant position instead of a courtesan and fondling her.”

Spica’s legs stiffened and froze.

‘Could he be talking about me right now……?’

Her head rang like she had been hit by a hammer.

Lepus might not love her, and they might break up. A person’s heart isn’t something that can be manipulated according to another’s wishes.

But denouncing her in such a way was a completely different problem.

Whether Alkaid was also angry, he raised his hand strangling Lepus’s neck higher. Seeing Lepus’s legs struggling, Spica quickly came to her senses.

“Co, Commander.”

Alkaid slowly turned around.

To a party where they were told to come wearing masks, Alkaid had stubbornly appeared wearing his silver helmet again today. He kept his face hidden from her while it had been visible in front of Lepus.

“……”

Spica bit her lips. Megrez’s words came back to mind, but both he and Alkaid were equally incomprehensible.

“What are you doing here.”

Still, she was grateful that he had gotten angry because of her and somehow…… she felt a little choked up. Without waiting for an answer, when she grabbed and pulled Alkaid’s hand, he smoothly came along.

Lepus was collapsed on the floor, coughing.

‘I still can’t believe it. Does he think I’m easy because I say this is fine, that is fine?’

How should she teach that insolent guy a lesson to feel satisfied.

Even while taking Alkaid away, Spica kept looking back at Lepus. Whatever meaning he took from that, Alkaid put strength into the hand that was caught.

“Stop looking. Don’t pay attention to what trash says either.”

When he put strength into his hand, now it wasn’t Spica pulling him but they were holding hands together.

The moment she recognized that, her anger toward Lepus flew away. Of course it came back quickly, but it was true that her mood had improved considerably.

Spica also put strength into her hand and moved her steps. There was no specific destination. It just had to be anywhere but the banquet hall. Even though she had received Megrez’s order(?) to bring Commander, she didn’t want to return right now at least.

“……Why were you doing that?”

“Anger rose to the top of his head and he came charging. It seems an order to return the mansion was issued.”

“Charging at Commander, what was he thinking…… Ah.”

In the middle of speaking, Spica realized.

‘He was caught trying to humiliate me in front of people.’

The surprising thing was that Spica was shocked by Lepus’s level being lower than expected, not by the sense of betrayal that he would do such a thing ‘to her.’

Spica finally looked straight at her own heart.

When she witnessed Lepus’s affair, she was so angry, wronged, and embarrassed by the fact that she had been deceived by him. Back then, she had passed by without being able to recognize it due to such shame and the shock of having her house taken away.

But there was something more important than that.

It was that her heart beat faster when she almost got hit by the carriage than when she struck Lepus and left the courthouse.

‘In the end, I was much more important to myself than Lepus.’

Even after seeing her fiancé’s affair, Spica wasn’t sad about losing a lover, but was only angry at the person who had hurt ‘her.’

Lepus’s words that she didn’t love him were somewhat correct too. Spica had become infatuated with him when she was briefly wandering after injuring her right arm.

‘Back then, I might have just needed something to focus on instead of the sword.’

Then both Lepus and Spica herself had used each other.

They had hidden that fact and lived for over five years, so it was time for the festering emotions to burst.

‘That’s the kind of relationship we had. We has.’

Once she reached a conclusion, she felt relieved.

It was the moment she completely sent the time with Lepus, which she had only uncomfortably avoided, into the past.

But the realization didn’t end there.

This person who was now firmly holding Spica’s hand.

She recalled her heart that had beaten undeniably loudly the moment she saw Alkaid get angry for her sake. A heart that had pounded more like it would burst than when the carriage brushed past her before her eyes.

The pounding, and the trembling.

‘Could this be real emotion? Not wanting to have someone who’s running away, but this kind……’

Was this strange feeling, a mix of tickling and pounding, the emotion of liking someone?

She became newly conscious of the hand she was holding.

Why didn’t this person let go of her hand, why did he walk silently as she led him, did he really come running the moment he heard the story from Megrez…….

The sound of her pounding heart mixed in among the circling questions in her head.

Feeling like this wouldn’t do, Spica stopped.

Then this time, Alkaid pulled her hand and began walking.