-A week after the duel.

I was enjoying the view of the sky along with August on top of the watchtower as we had our nightwatch. Kiefy was sleeping beside Krolve opposite of us.

“Ha, I remembered the time when my sisters lock me in the closet for three hours when it was night.”

“Isn’t that domestic abuse?”

August taking a sip from the wooden bottle containing alcohol chuckled after he told me that.

“Well, Love comes in all forms.”

“… Hey, you still have some lingering longing on Earth?”

I asked him as I actually felt no longing. It’s kind of unnerving.

“Yeah, it’s hard to forget completely but you know that’s normal right? We can’t just forget about our life back then.”

“Dejavu, didn’t we have this sort of talk before?”

“I feel you man, I had the same feeling too.”

We resumed watching the sky while slowly sipping the drinks in silence.

“I missed Dekhine… actually I just missed her hair. Her fluffy, bouncy hair… so soft to pet… those animal pets they kept at the village just doesn’t cut it.”

I kept quiet as I have no way to give out any satisfying responses to such a drivel…

After a few minutes…

“So, uh, you and Rino got a thing going on?”

With a careful tone, August had asked me such question.

I pondered for a while.

“I’m not sure what to say. I’m not that dense but its kind hard to believe.”

“Well, what happened after the duel was weird.”

Oh ye gods, I don’t want to be reminded of that. Every time I envisioned that moment, I remembered when her eyes was genuinely confused after she twisted my nipples and it was so innocent bordering to the point of being forgivable.

“Let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about you and Fralein. So how’s it going?”

“We only communicated through letters. Sometimes she replied and those replies were viciously heart rending!”

“Secretly that excites you, you sicko.”

“I can’t help it.”

We both laughed.

“Can I join in?”

From behind, we both turned and saw Kiefy with a smile on his face.

“Sit beside us!”

August pat the floor next to his left side as I was sitting on his right.

Kiefy sat there and held up his right arm towards our bottle and took a sip.

“It’s only been a few months but we all seem to be fully adjusted living here.”

Kiefy muttered as his eyes stared at the sky as well.

Then, the three of us stared at the night sky solemnly.

“By the way, Ruigne, be sure to make both of them happy.”

“What?!”

Both August and I immediately turned our head, staring at Kiefy.

He then went quiet but there was an uneasy expression on his face. Throughout the night, we chatted but I couldn’t get him to go further on what he said earlier.

--

Almost two months had passed.

These two months were in short, fun. I had bonded deeply with these three from the Group Syozan especially Rino.

With the native, we also learned how to effectively forage the abundance resource of the rainforest from them after we had grown quite close with. At the same time, we also went and hunt for some the wild games here, creatures similar like deer’s or wild boars. Most of the Non-Maleur’s or animals here are pretty harmless except a few that can be threatening but only a level akin to a tiger or the likes.

But there was one type of animal -a bird- that we weren’t allowed to hunt. It was a taboo to kill these birds. The natives called this bird Garsedav or ‘War-blessed’. Although some of them can be found in the wild, most of these birds have their own controlled sanctuary in Tchekaz and the cities of the East. They were multi-coloured birds that were similar to a condor.

The natives here prized them for their feathers and those feathers were the one that every combatant here had worn them proudly like military insignia. It was said that this tradition had originated from the east and the military organization of Tchekaz had adopted it.

Aside from that, despite our influence here, most of the soldiers here are staunchly loyal to Athryshiayl and the western land was a newly claimed one just fifty years ago, so there was no base of power that I can claim or allied in secret.

One slow step at a time.

So anyway, about what happened after the duel, I actually learned why she twisted my nipples on that day from Vassil on the same day. Apparently, that’s how her parent had consummated their love. I was truly impressed and at the same time, perplexed hearing such a bizarre way for people to fall in love. I foolishly asked whether that’s one of their traditions but Vassil told me-

‘Seriously, who in their right mind want to make nipple-twisting a part of marriage traditions?! Maybe August would but not in any normal society.’

Although still, that doesn’t alleviate the tension of when she would confess to me but it never did came. Although she was always close to me, she never tried to approach me in a way like that ‘nipple-twisting’ incident.

As a matter a fact, I now felt that it would be weird without her on my side. I feel like I betrayed Vefal but in the letter exchanges, Vefal always seems to ask about whether I taken care of Rino.

This was weird. The most ludicrous theory that I thought of was that the two of them were sharing me or in other word, I gained approval of having two partners but I’m not conceited enough to think I was worthy of such thing.

But in these three months, I had seen every side of her from the temperamental to the awkwardly soft and much more. At this point, she was the second closest to me after Vefal.

Right now, standing in our sparring space on the evening, she had knelt down on her right knee like a knight, pledging an allegiance towards me.

“Uh, Rino, what are you doing?”

I frowned as I stared at her.

“As a sworn warrior, I pledged my allegiance, this body, this soul and these spears, to protect your life. I pledged this life, this heart and these hands to fulfil your ambition.”

She then offered up her Soul Weapon to me.

I was taught the knight etiquettes both from Kiefy and Vassil, so I do know how to proceed.

After doing all the step by step ceremony, she stood up and smiled at me.

“Now, I am your premier knight. I am at your beck and call, my lord. Regardless where you and I are, when you call, I will swiftly be at your side.”

“Are you sure about this? This is important. Am I truly worthy and how would it be possible for you to be at my side in the hour of my need in an instant?”

I was still frowning as I asked her again. I should have said this first before I knighted her.

“Yes, I am absolute sure you are worthy of my service and that was just a metaphor.”

She said with a reassuring tone.

I can’t match her conviction or decisiveness. It was one of the things that I admired the most about her. She and Vefal were birds of the same feather when it comes to this.

“Then so be it, Dame Katarinova.”

I finally smiled back and then both of us were walked back inside the tower.

“I’ll be taking a shower. As a lord, it would be dishonourable if you were to found to be peeping.”

“As a lord, I decided to exercise my tyrannical right to do so, Honour be damn.”

We both chuckled.

“What will you do actually?”

“… I’m gonna continue studying that arm.”

In these two months, I was still stuck trying to ascertain the formation on the palm of that arm. It was clearly not Eomancy in nature as it had no traces of any Eomancy energies but I learned that the underlying theory behind the formation was almost similar as the Eomancy Enchantment.

Well, plenty of time to research about it.

--

It was night just after our knighting ceremony.

I made a sumptuous dinner due to the fact this is the last week together and most of us had gathered on top of the tower except Vassil and Rino.

We brought a table from the dining room below. For me, I was what the people in this world called ‘Eomancy dependent’ as I mostly do tasks like carrying heavy object or heating the stove with Eomancy. The watchtower only had an Eomancy home system that was truly the basic of an Fhagec and it couldn’t do the advance function like the Fhagec in the palace.

Another thing I learned about Eomancy was that it was common to find people that learned one or two Eomancy colours but it was rare to find anyone that had mastered most or all Eomancies Colours and while there are ten Primary Colours, if included with the Light category and the Deep category, there’s about thirty of them not including Colourless or [Caelux]. The prerequisite of obtaining the understanding of advance Eomancy or combining the effect of the Colours was that you have to be able to use at least of the twenty-two Colours.

I was only able to use fifteen of them at the moment.

Oh, we forgot desserts.

“I’m going down for a while.”

I told August and went down to the kitchen.

After a minute, I heard two voices just outside of the entrance as I was on my way to the kitchen.

I stopped and then cupped my left ear with my left hand, trying to eavesdrop while enhancing my hearing with ‘Amplified Hearing’ spell.

“So you choose that huh? You could have done it better like straight up, attack him in a frontal attack and take over his fortress.”

Vassil said some weird analogies.

“Perhaps but I made a promise. Anyway, you are serious with that girl, Amila right? If I find her running to me with a broken heart, I’ll promise that I would break both of those useless balls hanging low on your manly pride.”

“That’s a bit too much but I resent the fact you called them ‘useless’ as they contain my future generations and what I take pride of is not that but my honest, burning love!”

They both laughed at their ridiculous conversation. I wanted to laugh along but I remembered I was eavesdropping. Control myself.

“Love is kind of hard.”

“I supposed so but being around him is enough for now.”

At that point, I stopped eavesdropping and hurried to the kitchen and took the desserts.

Checking the ground floor, good they’re still outside; I quickly scurried back to the top.

As I reached there-

“Okay, when a tree fall in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

“I heard of that before from Ruigne. When I couldn’t get the answer, he said that ‘of course it does unless the tree is able to defy the various laws of physic mainly in how a sound is made’ or the likes.”

Krolve and Kiefy were engaging in their routine of improving their senses of humour by telling each other jokes that only someone experiencing paternity would laugh on although that one was less of joke and more a philosophical question.

I took my seat which was next August.

We chatted awhile and after fifteen minutes, we heard footsteps from the entrance.

I turned and saw a figure that made my heart skipped a beat.

Rino wore an exquisite white dress while her fiery long red hair was draped on her left shoulder. With the backdrop of the star-filled night skies behind, she looked like a descended celestial being gracing us with her soul stirring presence.

I almost gaped at such beauty. Just a few moments ago, she was in her leather armour. So the reason she was late before she had changed into a dress.

“Ruigne, a gentleman doesn’t stare!”

From behind Rino, Vassil came out with a grin.

“I don’t want to hear that from you.”

“Today, I am so proud of Rino!”

Ignoring me, he went and presented Rino with his hand like how an auctioneer introduces a bidding item.

Rino shifted uncomfortably and then she walked towards the seat next to me.

“You looked quite femininely beautiful tonight.”

“It’s a waste to at least not wear this once.”

It was hard not to eye on her exposed nape but the lustful desire died down as I realized my staring was too excessive at this point.

As we ate, she had a hard time trying to eat in an elegant manner so I assisted her.

“This is embarrassing.”

“Yeah, what kind of a noble descent that doesn’t know proper table etiquette.”

“Good lord, I am a true knight who had spent the majority of her life in the battlefield. This etiquette is wasted on someone such as I.”

“As a good lord, it is only proper that he reminded his subject on how to behave while dining!”

We both laughed at our roleplay. Ever since she swore an oath of loyalty to me, we been doing this every once in a week.

On that night, we chatted and laughed to our content.