Winter (1)
It was a sky of pure white.
It was still blue, and yet shattered scraps of cloud drifted down to stain the world with white.
Even the sorrowful flowers had taken on a pale color now, leaving behind only trees and fields that looked lonely as they bled away their color.
The warm breeze that had always wrapped around the body was gone, and in its place remained a cold so sharp that it drove every budding life to hide beneath the earth, waiting for the season when it would rise again.
People called it winter.
The trees that had once been painted in every color were gone now, and all they could do was endure the season by covering their bare bodies with piled snow.
In this season dyed in gray and white, in those cold colors, I spent my time busier than anyone else.
The sword in my hand trembled in tiny spasms. Sweat kept slipping from my grip and making the blade slide, so every movement demanded all of my attention.
The sensation of thrusting forward, or even simply swinging the sword, consuming so much stamina sent a thrill through my whole body unlike anything I had felt before.
“You’re certainly working hard. Your attitude’s changed completely.”
Chris gave a satisfied smile as he watched me and spoke.
My attitude had changed, hadn’t it? That much was true.
Ever since the ball last time, I had thrown myself into training harder than usual.
Training, which I had once considered nothing more than part of my job, now felt like something I could afford to approach with a little sincerity.
The ones I would have to fight in the future were not opponents I could face at my current level.
At the thought of the crown prince, shadows slowly gathered over my face.
By the time the heroine appeared, had he already reached the Master realm?
I was in the Expert realm, and it was by no means a low level. But could I face an enemy I had never anticipated?
Probably not.
I knew well how difficult the Master realm was.
I also knew that the level Evan Fried had reached was one that most people could spend their whole lives refining and still never attain.
So I couldn’t simply throw away that talent so easily.
The fact that she had recognized me as her bodyguard knight relieved something tight in my chest, but at the same time it only added more weight to my shoulders.
The responsibility that had been placed on me: to protect her from whatever danger might come.
It was a responsibility that, as nothing more than a transmigrator, I might never have needed to bear. And yet now, I could no longer let it go so easily.
Hadn’t I already become deeply entangled with her?
My whole body was drenched in sweat and heavy. Like cotton soaked through with water, my leaden limbs exhaled clouds of white steam.
One step, then another. Only after the pain felt as though it were gripping my lungs and tearing them apart, only after my breath had climbed all the way to my throat, did I finally loosen my grip on the sword.
Watching the frost-hardened ground melt beneath the heat pouring from my body, I let out a hollow laugh before I could stop myself.
How long had it been since I’d thrown myself into something this fiercely? Maybe not since I was a child.
The last time I had been praised so purely by another person.
For a moment, as old memories stirred, a bitter taste rose in my mouth. It was a memory I didn’t need to keep revisiting.
It was no longer relevant, was it? No—at least for now, it was a memory I didn’t need to bring back.
I had no intention of letting the past hold me in its grasp forever.
I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them again to the cold air flooding into my lungs.
What met my gaze was a harsher scene than before, but I found that harshness strangely comforting.
This quiet—the cold stillness that could only be felt in winter—seemed to slowly cool the heat in my chest.
“Your expression’s much lighter.”
When I turned toward the rough voice from behind me, Chris grinned and slapped my back hard. He hit me so forcefully that my waist bent with it, and I winced at the sudden pain before he burst into laughter again.
“The knighting ceremony is soon, isn’t it? And you’re already like this. Time really does fly.”
“...I suppose it does. Was it summer when I became her bodyguard knight?”
“I don’t know how you managed to win over the young lady, but you’re definitely much better to look at now. Both you and the young lady are completely different from how you were before.”
As I nodded at his words, a question suddenly surged up and made me tilt my head.
What did he mean, I was different too?
But I couldn’t ask it outright, so I only looked at Chris, who had one hand on his shoulder, and gave him a faint smile.
“I guess I am a little different from before?”
“Yeah. Before you brought up the bodyguard knight business, you looked like you could drop dead any minute. Honestly, even when I went to fetch you that day, I was on edge. I kept thinking, what if this kid opens the door and he’s already dead?”
“...Dead?”
At that, my eyes narrowed. Looked like I could drop dead any minute? What kind of life had Evan been living before this?
But that line of thought scattered quickly, because I heard light footsteps from far away, running over fallen leaves.
“Sir knight, are you here?”
It was a voice I heard all the time, and yet whenever I heard it, why did I feel oddly better?
I caught my breath for a moment and answered loudly, and soon after Ropena trotted over and popped her head in close.
“Wow, you’re sweating like crazy.”
“I worked pretty hard today. But why am I needed all of a sudden?”
“The young lady is looking for you.”
Irene was looking for me? But no matter how I thought about it, there wasn’t anything in particular she’d need me for, so I looked at Chris with a puzzled expression.
“Beats me. Guess something urgent came up.”
“She doesn’t usually send for you during training time, though.”
If that was the case, maybe something really was urgent.
After staring at Ropena for a moment, I nodded and started walking.
Well, I’d know once I got there.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Whenever I walked down the corridor, I realized just how much the atmosphere had changed since before.
The maids’ looks, which had once felt awkward, were now pleasantly familiar, and even Ropena, who was walking beside me, had initially found me hard to deal with.
Of course, compared to the other maids, we had become close quickly.
Back then this corridor had felt so bleak, but now I found the mood comforting.
It was like coming home. No matter how hard things got, knowing there was always somewhere to return to was an astonishing kind of happiness.
Come to think of it, lately I hadn’t even thought much about going back to my original world.
Maybe it had been after the last ball. Since then, Irene’s attitude had changed a great deal too.
The chilly looks she used to send my way from time to time were nowhere to be seen anymore.
Sometimes she even laughed softly, and though her habit of rubbing her eyes and saying she was sleepy felt awkward, it was still better than the expressionless version of her from before.
“Oh my, where are you off to?”
“Lise, I told you not to touch my hair!”
Before long, Lise had come up beside us and was patting Ropena’s hair while asking me a question, and Ropena puffed out her lips in annoyance.
The way she looked then was exactly like an angry cat hissing, so I snorted, and Ropena snapped her head around.
She really was easy to sulk.
“I was on my way to the young lady. I’m in the middle of training, but it seems like something urgent came up.”
“Is that so? She didn’t call for us in particular. Then hurry along. Still, you should wipe the sweat off first, so take this.”
After I took the towel Lise handed me and wiped away the sweat, she suddenly clapped her hands as though she’d remembered something and spoke again.
“Ah, right. I left your letters on the desk in your room. There were only three today.”
“...Three?”
It had grown a lot more than before. I smiled wryly, and Lise, seeming to find that amusing, covered her mouth and giggled.
After the ball, the letters that had once come once or twice a week had turned into several a day, so to be honest, I’d long since given up.
I’d stopped replying altogether, and now I just skimmed them before tossing the unopened rest straight into the trash.
Shaking off those thoughts, I gave my shoulders a small shrug. I didn’t have time to stand around here.
Lise seemed to notice that too, because she said she had to get going as well and shoved us gently onward.
“Seriously, I don’t get why everyone keeps treating me like a child.”
“Hmm, yeah, that’s true.”
Honestly, who wouldn’t treat Ropena like a kid?
But I couldn’t say that to her face, so I just agreed with her and kept walking down the corridor.
That seemed to lift her mood again, because Ropena looked at me with a bright little laugh.
“But you’ve been training really hard lately, haven’t you?”
“The knighting ceremony’s coming up soon, after all. I was a little lazy before.”
Maybe it was because I had finally found a goal. If I was going to be Irene’s bodyguard knight, I needed to become at least strong enough to restrain the crown prince.
To be honest, it might have been an abstract goal, but I felt like I needed at least one goal like that if I wanted to do anything at all.
Besides, once the knighting ceremony was over, the Hunting Festival would be coming soon.
I would probably be taking part in that festival, and if I prepared well now, the odds of reaping the results later were high.
By the time we reached Irene’s door, Ropena knocked and spoke softly.
“Young lady, it’s Ropena.”
“Come in.”
The door opened, and inside was Irene, sipping tea.
Seeing the relaxed look on her face, far more at ease than before, made my own heart loosen as well, and I lowered my head slightly toward her.
“You’re here. Sorry for calling you during training.”
“It’s all right. I was about to finish anyway.”
When I said that, Irene gave a faint smile and set down her teacup. A rose placed by the window caught my eye.
While I stared at the rose in a daze, Irene looked at me and continued.
“Why are you standing there in a daze? I called you because I had something to say, so come sit down here.”
The little sofa in front of the desk wasn’t especially plush, but perhaps because my body had been soaked through with fatigue from swinging the sword, the moment I sat down it felt as soft as a cloud.
As I hid the slackness from my face and rubbed at it with my hand, Irene looked at me and hesitantly parted her lips.
“You look tired.”
“I’m not that tired. I was just being a little lazy before.”
“Try to rest a little more. There’s no need to push yourself that hard, is there?”
I stared blankly at the worried look in her eyes, then gave a thin smile.
Why did it feel so strange that she was worried about me?
Whenever those blue eyes rippled warmly, my face somehow grew hot, and before I knew it I was swallowing down a breath.
The concern hidden in her gaze toward me felt almost absurd.
Back when we first met, she’d scolded me just for calling her “young lady.”
And now there was no trace left of the sharpness or thorns in the way she treated me.
Before long, Irene began asking me this and that—small, ordinary things about daily life.
Whether any of the maids were especially lazy, how the knights in the duke’s estate behaved, that sort of thing.
As we talked about things like that, time passed before I knew it, and the tea in front of me quickly went cold.
And yet its rich fragrance never faded.
Though the tea had gone cold and I could no longer feel that strange warmth spreading through my body, the scent of expensive Darjeeling still lingered in my mouth.
When I closed my eyes, it felt as though I were tasting greenery again in the middle of this bleak winter, and just as I kept my eyes shut, Irene spoke.
“By the way, the Hunting Festival is soon, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’ll be here in two weeks.”
When I nodded, Irene studied me silently.
I had wondered whether there could even be hunting in winter, but this was a fantasy world, so there were bound to be plenty of animals that did just fine in the cold.
Click—
Irene set down the teacup she had been holding onto the saucer, then looked at me again and spoke.
“After the Hunting Festival ends, you’ll probably be busier. There’ll be events after that too, and once the knighting ceremony is over, you’ll officially become my bodyguard knight, so you’ll have to follow me to places like that as well. It means you won’t be able to enjoy the kind of leisure you have now.”
“...I’m prepared for that.”
That was why I was working so hard now, wasn’t it?
After the knighting ceremony, Chris wouldn’t be standing in for me like this either.
I knew as well as anyone that the days when I could sit in the garden eating cookies and idly passing time were numbered.
But I couldn’t figure out why she had brought this up, so I only glanced at Irene and quietly sipped my tea.
“...Honestly, I still feel sorry about dragging you to that ball last time.”
“I’m fine. Back then I was only a little surprised, nothing more.”
I waved it off and told her not to worry, but she shook her head and went on.
“I said it then too, but it was nothing more than a choice made on impulse. So I wanted to apologize to you, and maybe give you something too, but...I can’t really think of anything.”
“You really don’t need to give me anything.”
“Then come out with me. Just like the day I first met you.”
“...Pardon?”
At that, I stared at Irene blankly.
Go out all of a sudden? As I frowned slightly, Irene smiled faintly and spoke again.
“What I mean is, may I spend your last bit of free time with you?”
Once again, that soft curve formed at the corners of her lips.
Whenever I saw that smile, my mind somehow went completely white.
I could only sit there dazed and nod.
Really, smiling like that should be illegal.