Hello, Readers! I am celebrating my birthday with extra chapter updates, so please enjoy this special chapter release of 4 bonus chapters! 🥳

(Lurelia’s Birthday Bonus – Update 3/4 🎉)

♡ To all readers who purchased these chapters before my Birthday: I can’t express this enough – Thank you for your support. (*ˊᗜˋ*)/ᵗᑋᵃᐢᵏ ᵞᵒᵘ*

[Warning! Open the door immediately!]

“Everyone, make sure you’re properly dressed. Sir Knight, would you please open the door?”

“Yes.”

The purple-haired knight approached the door and placed his hand on the doorknob.

I specifically chose him to open the door for a reason.

Because I didn’t want any of our household members to get hurt if they opened it.

[Let me say it again…]

SLAM-

The knight solemnly opened the door, and outside stood a line of knights and mages, armed and pointing their weapons toward the inside of the mansion.

[…I’ll say, Rian! You’re alive!]

The person shouting loudly while holding a megaphone at the front looked extremely delighted upon seeing the knight. It seemed the knight’s name was Rian.

Following that, the elite soldiers of House Kalschmitz cheered upon discovering Ante standing blankly inside the house.

[Lord Ante!!]

“It’s Lord Ante!!”

“Woooah! Lord Ante has arrived!”

“The criminal has surrendered to us!”

My ears felt like they would tear from the megaphone and shouting.

Besides, who surrendered? Surely, they don’t mean me.

This isn’t a parade of fools.

Sharing my thoughts, Ante covered his flushed face with his hand and spoke.

“You don’t need to shout like that, I can hear you perfectly well, Captain Hesium.”

I opened my eyes wide in surprise. That annoying megaphone user was actually a captain.

What exactly was Kalschmitz?

Ante, the capable strategist of Kalschmitz, the clearly elite knights, and even the mages who came to rescue him.

I was genuinely curious about what kind of person the Grand Duke of Kalschmitz, their leader, might be.

At this point, it seemed like all that talk about being the iron-blooded guardian of the north was probably just nonsense.

[I’m so glad you’re safe! Lord Ante!]

The captain continued speaking into the megaphone despite Ante’s roundabout attempts to stop him.

The vibrations piercing my eardrums and echoing in my head finally made me speak up.

“Could you please speak without the megaphone? My ears hurt.”

The captain glared at me with full hostility.

Huh? This is thrilling. At that moment, I felt a tingling sensation from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

This must be what killing intent feels like.

While I was marveling at this, Ante stepped in front of me.

It seemed he was finally going to be useful.

“That’s enough. Lady Lora is my benefactor who saved me, Captain Hesium.”

“That’s right. Lady Lora is a good person.”

“Kidnapping is out of the question.”

As the knights joined in to protect me, Captain Hesium became even more displeased.

“You, what have you done to Lord Ante and our knights?”

Well, well. Now informal speech too?

“Captain Hesium! You should mind your words!”

I couldn’t be bothered to respond and simply remained quiet while Ante stepped forward to stop him.

But the knight captain now approached, sobbing, and grabbed Ante, shaking him vigorously.

“What kind of threats have you been under all this time?”

“It’s not threats!”

Wheeee-

The quarrel between Ante and the knight captain continued.

And through the open door, the harsh winter cold that had not yet ended rushed in mercilessly.

Wearing only a shawl without a robe, I felt my blood turning cold.

“Ugh, it’s cold.”

Shivering from the cold, I suggested to everyone:

“It would be better if we talked inside. It’s quite cold out here.”

The knight captain immediately put on a fierce expression.

“How can we trust you and go inside?”

“Then would you rather freeze to death out there? Ante, go outside and talk with him.”

Why are they so suspicious?

The cold made my words come out less politely.

At my pointed remarks, the members of the Kalschmitz trio rescue operation team glared at me very coldly.

“If you want to stay outside, suit yourself.”

I simply shrugged my shoulders, and the atmosphere became even more hostile.

The people of the mansion, including Sion, glared back at them without backing down.

After a brief standoff, the knight captain’s lips moved.

“Be prepared, for if you try anything foolish, we won’t let it slide.”

He must have been cold too.

I raised one corner of my mouth in a smirk at his words.

“Yes, yes, do as you please. However, when the misunderstanding is cleared up, you’ll have to properly apologize for your rudeness.”

“If the ‘misunderstanding’ is cleared up, I will do so.”

“Good. Come in.”

***

The seating arrangement had the mansion’s people, including Ante, on the sofa where I sat, while the knight captain’s people stood on the opposite side.

In the tense atmosphere where no one stepped forward to speak first, I lowered my eyes with a bored expression.

“Irena, could you bring me some coffee? I need to wake up a bit.”

“Yes, miss.”

“So, let’s have a proper explanation now.”

As I leisurely sipped my coffee, it was the knight captain who became impatient.

“Lord Ante. Please explain.”

“Yes, but before that, could you have your people step back a bit?”

Finding everything bothersome, I passed the baton to Ante.

He asked the knight captain to have the people standing behind him step back.

It was perfectly understandable.

He probably didn’t want to reveal this tremendous black history of being the “memory loss trio.”

However, the captain was firm.

“No. I came in trusting Lord Ante, but I don’t know what that person might do.”

“…Well,”

“Is there another reason you can’t speak? Are you being threatened after all?”

Once again, the cycle of kidnapping and threat allegations began.

We all immediately put on bored expressions and found things to do.

Lionel looked around here and there, found my personal blanket, and wrapped it snugly around me.

Irena continued to refill my warm coffee from beside me while Soho had somehow acquired a poker and was standing solemnly next to me.

I pulled Soho to sit beside me.

The Grand Duke’s people watched this natural progression with dumbfounded expressions.

I kindly moved the situation along.

“Please continue.”

“What insolence is this!”

As the knight captain shouted with a heated expression, Ante finally squeezed his eyes shut.

And then he poured out his words rapidly.

“Lady Lora rescued me when I had collapsed with a sword wound to my abdomen from a chase with them!”

“As I said before, that’s impossible to believe.”

Oh, how resolute!

I adjusted my posture as if watching a drama.

The knight captain seemed irritated by my attitude but listened to Ante’s words for now.

“Not knowing this, I mistook her for a kidnapper and took her hostage, even causing a wound to her neck.”

“What?”

“And just as Lady Lora’s explanation cleared up the misunderstanding and I was about to return to the Grand Duke’s residence, I collapsed.”

“What?”

“When I woke up, I had lost my memory, and Lady Lora allowed me to stay until my memories returned.”

“What is this?”

The Grand Duke’s people, including the knight captain, wore incredulous expressions as if they couldn’t believe what they had just heard.

Yes, it’s natural not to believe when someone tells you such an absurd thing happened.

But what can we do? What comes next is even more absurd.

“And when I went down to the village to buy groceries, I saw knights looking for me, and with my memories jumbled and feeling anxious, I ended up hitting them with a shovel and knocking them unconscious.”

“……”

“When the knights later woke up, they had also lost their memories like me.”

It was a perfect summary. I let out a small exclamation of admiration, while the household members frowned as they recalled that distant memory of that day.

Ante seemed unable to believe his own words as he couldn’t lift his head from where it had dropped toward the floor.

The Grand Duke’s residence people could only remain silent with bewildered faces.

At that moment, Captain Hesium barely smoothed his twitching face and asked a question.

“Have your memories returned now?”

“Yes, to some extent…”

Ante answered in a nearly dying voice.

“This matter is confidential. It must never leak out.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, understood.”

The knight captain stared into empty space for a moment, then announced a top-secret matter.

That’s why Ante asked for people to step back, and they should have listened.