Cassel Deuflion Klein
“I’m on the right road to the capital, Sir Knight. Thank you for your kindness to the coachman as well.”
“If you don’t mind, ride behind me. I’ll go slowly. Hand me your luggage.”
“Yes.”
Another knight snatched up Morgana’s bag and tied it to the side of the horse. The sturdy mount didn’t even snort once, which surprised her.
“…Thank you.”
“W-well…”
“I’ll see you again, Coachman.”
Morgana bid the coachman farewell with a shy, flushed face and stepped forward.
Why had she done that?
She had been far too bold.
Accepting a stranger’s kindness and clinging quietly to his waist all the way, Morgana couldn’t understand herself.
Where had this courage come from? He was a knight, yet a complete stranger, and she had accepted his goodwill.
Besides, he wasn’t just any knight—he was the vice-captain. Whatever order he belonged to, he must be someone of high standing…
“You said you were heading to the Magic Tower?”
“Yes.”
“So the young lady wishes to become a mage. It’s rare to see someone from a monastery bound for the Tower.”
“……”
The voice drifting from the man’s broad back was pleasant.
It reminded her of the cool sound of waves she had once heard at the sea, when Priestess Cheryl and the others had taken her on an outing after passing the priestess examination.
It even carried a hint of the fresh scent she remembered from the seashells she had picked up barefoot on the white sand and held to her ear.
He didn’t tease her further. Instead, he guided the horse gently and delivered her all the way into the capital. Along the road to the Magic Tower, he even arranged for a knight to find a technician for the coachman.
‘He really is kind.’
He had kept his word to the very end!
She found herself wishing every knight in the world were like him. Morgana dismounted and, with heartfelt gratitude, finally gave her name.
“Thank you so much, Sir Knight. My name is Pay. I won’t forget the kindness you showed me and the coachman.”
“I’m just an ordinary knight, Lady Pay. Grow into a fine mage.”
The black-haired knight maintained perfect courtesy without revealing his own name.
He must have his reasons—just as she had finally shed the gloomy name Morgana that had followed her all her life.
So Morgana, now Pay, the novice mage, smiled and answered.
“Yes. If we meet again someday, I’ll be sure to show you my magic.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
The knight offered a faint smile, watched Pay disappear into the Magic Tower, then mounted his horse.
The rare smile of the strikingly handsome knight vanished the moment he turned away.
By his own standards, he was not the sort of man who easily offered even small kindnesses.
Yet today he had been drawn to the young lady who had crouched behind the coachman, her eyes clear instead of fearful. He couldn’t say why.
Was it because of those fresh, sprout-green eyes?
Only after turning did he belatedly recall the vivid pink hair.
“Haa.”
Once Pay and the Tower guide were gone, the knight behind him spoke.
“Vice-Captain, shall we head straight to the Imperial Palace?”
“Yes. Ride hard.”
“Yes, sir!”
Cassel Deuflion Klein, vice-captain of the Blue Rose Knights who guarded the border of the lordless Logia territory on the empire’s eastern front day and night, led his men at full speed.
He only hoped the pleasant feeling he had received from meeting the young lady named Pay would linger a little longer.
It was difficult for a person to carry both shyness and courage at once.
Cassel, who knew well how hard that first step could be, did not regret the time he had spent for her sake.
Helping someone take their first step toward a new beginning was always a joy, no matter how many times he did it.
As the smiling afterimage of her faded from his mind, Cassel’s thoughts returned at once to reality.
Why was that?
His mother had wept and begged when he was sent to the front lines at such a young age, the precious heir to the family. After persuading her and heading to the border, Cassel had never once worried about his family or the estate.
His father was still in his prime, healthy, and had never made a wrong decision in the politics of the capital or the governance of the territory.
He had even refrained from pouring money into forcing his second son, Maurice—who longed to be a knight—into knighthood against his aptitude.
So Cassel could have stayed in Logia for at least another ten years without worry.
“……”
A summer wind, unusually cold, sliced across his cheek like a blade.
Lately Cassel often felt an inexplicable anxiety and even suffered sleepless nights—something unthinkable for a man who could boldly snatch sleep in the middle of a battlefield.
In the nightmares that had plagued him for days, the capital Lapice was always engulfed in flames. The Klein ducal residence, which still breathed vividly in his heart, was the first to crumble into ash.
‘There is something happening in the capital that I don’t know about. I must find it.’
To uncover the source of his unease, Cassel had even asked his acquaintance, Crown Prince Silas, to issue a recall order so he could return to the capital legally.
It was easier to move under the pretext of carrying out a “special imperial mission.”
“Let’s go!”
“Yes!”
He believed that once he reached the Imperial Palace, he would finally learn the truth behind his anxiety.
Yet even after scouring documents and questioning people all day and into the next, no clues appeared.
What was going on? His intuition had never been wrong before.
Crown Prince Silas regarded the unusually impatient Cassel with a puzzled expression.
“Cassel, are you really all right?”
“…Yes.”
“I didn’t question your reason when you suddenly asked to return, but now tell me. What pulled someone as steadfast as you back here?”
With only the two of them present, Cassel’s answer came easily.
“I don’t know myself. I simply sensed that something was happening in the capital.”
Silas offered a warm smile to his friend and future political ally—or perhaps his most formidable rival someday.
Even if time eventually changed them both, it could never erase this shining moment.
“It’s fine, Cassel. Since you’ve returned, you may rest at your leisure. By the way, have you stopped by the ducal residence yet? The Duchess would have been overjoyed.”
“No. I stayed at the Mizuang Hotel near the palace last night.”
“You should at least show your face to your parents. Did you send word that you were coming?”
“…Not yet.”
Silas shook his head at his rigid friend.
“Work is important, but now that you’re back, take it easy and think about your future as well, Cassel. You can’t stay on the frontier forever.”
“For the empire’s sake, I can do more.”
“Four years at your age is contribution enough. You don’t need to stay there any longer.”
“Your Highness.”
“If you—Cassel Deuflion Klein—are in the capital, it is nothing but help to me. Think about that while you’re here.”
“……”
The refusal he meant to give did not come easily.
It was because of the gloomy shadow that had fallen over Silas’s face. The Crown Prince’s self-imposed seclusion had begun while Cassel was away from the capital.
The marriageable-age heir to the Akkan Empire had not appeared in high society for nearly three years. The exact reason was kept quiet, but one major incident had occurred around that time.
The daughter of the Latzel family, politically betrothed to him, had suddenly demanded to break the engagement, and Silas had agreed.
Up to that point it was nothing unusual in a world of frequent political marriages. Yet afterward, while Silas continued to handle official duties, he reportedly rejected every invitation to balls and social gatherings.
It was a truly strange affair.
‘Your Highness…’
Since Cassel had been absent from the capital for four years, he did not know the precise reason.
Even now, facing the Crown Prince, he would not ask unless Silas chose to speak first.
Whether it concerned the Latzel daughter or something else entirely.
Still, if there was anything he could do to ease Silas’s burden, Cassel was prepared to do it.
“Return to the ducal residence tonight without fail.”
“Understood.”
Silas hid his inner thoughts and saw his friend off, pleased at the thought of how overjoyed the family would be.
In doing so, he forgot to mention something important: that a nobleman of Cassel’s stature should send a messenger ahead to announce his arrival.
And Cassel, true to his straightforward knightly nature, rode straight to the ducal residence without any prior notice.
The unexpected, joyful return threw the Klein ducal residence into chaos.
“Ah… no, no! Goodness, Young Master!”
“Butler. Have you been well?”
Cassel greeted the butler who had come to meet him, the man’s eyes twice their usual size.
“Welcome home, my lord. We must prepare bathwater at once—no, first we must inform Their Graces. Jeff, Lydia! Move quickly! The Young Master has returned!”
Watching the flustered butler hurry away, Cassel finally felt it sink in.
He was truly home.
…Yet one thing he had not expected awaited him.
In a place that should have held only family, an unfamiliar girl stood among them. Her attire suggested she was slightly above the servants in rank.
Moreover, the girl curtsied gracefully, as though she had been warned in advance.
“Good day, Lord Cassel. My name is Dorothea.”
Who was she?
As a high-ranking noble, Cassel knew it was basic courtesy not to address someone by name alone upon a first meeting—especially not someone of title.
An outsider who ignored even that simple etiquette and spoke so boldly left him deeply displeased.
Whatever he was thinking, the Duchess beamed, delighted to see her eldest son after so long.
“Come in, Cassel. If I’d known you were coming, I would have prepared more! You won’t be leaving for such a distant, dangerous place again, will you?”
“I…”
He had been about to repeat the cover story he and the Crown Prince had agreed upon—“special mission”—but stopped.
His parents and Maurice were one thing, but he could hardly speak so openly in front of this strange girl whose identity he didn’t even know. Honestly, he was reluctant to speak even in front of the loose-lipped Maurice.
Who was she, that she remained even after the butler had withdrawn?
Suppressing his displeasure, he asked,
“By the way, Mother, who is this child?”
“You already know from the letter that His Grace received an urgent oracle, don’t you?”
“Mother!”
The matter was extremely sensitive, and to Cassel it was nothing short of a reverse scale.
The Klein ducal family had not two sons, but one beloved daughter who should have been cherished.
He used the past tense because that pitiful younger sister had disappeared after becoming entangled in an accident as a child.
Right after birth, the infant daughter—barely given a name—had been diagnosed with a serious health problem. She could not even breathe properly on her own, and there had been nothing they could do.