Temple Calendar, Year 937, May 10, late spring.
Central Plaza, Gino Royal City, Kingdom of Aesaya.
Sunlight poured from the cloudless sky onto the forest of snapping banners below, each one bearing the crest of a great house. The eight most renowned Temple Knights of Aesaya stood in gleaming ceremonial gold, beside them a table laid with the gifts to be bestowed upon the new knight: cloak, armor, spurs, and more.
The knights in golden robes exchanged puzzled glances. None of them understood why Her Highness the Princess had summoned all of them to the capital just to attend the ennoblement of a mere trainee knight.
But out of respect for the royal family, they held their tongues.
The people of the entire city had flooded into the square. Below the platform, heads and shoulders pressed together in a sea of bodies. Tens of thousands of eyes focused on the young girl half-kneeling at the center of the high stage.
She still wore the same washed-to-pale coarse linen, poor and plain. One knee to the ground, she recited the oath with solemn gravity.
“First, I swear I will be kind to the weak!
Second, I swear I will bravely stand against cruelty!
Third, I swear I will oppose all that is wrong!
Fourth, I swear I will fight for those who cannot fight!”
Each time the soon-to-be knight spoke a line, clear and ringing, one of the golden-robed knights would rise, touch the greatsword in his hand three times lightly to Leif’s shoulder, to show that from the moment she swore herself a knight, these vows would rest on her shoulders as well.
Then he would present her with one of the eight items—cloak, spurs, armor, and so on—and leave her with a brief maxim, whether encouragement or admonition, as a parting gift.
“Fifth, I swear I will help all who call upon me!
Sixth, I swear I will harm no lady!
Seventh, I swear I will aid my brother knights!
Eighth, I swear I will be true to my friends!”
The golden-haired princess walked toward the trainee knight. Sophie looked deeply at Leif. The latter was already clad in slightly too-large armor, a helmet on her head that covered most of her face, leaving only a pair of bright, pure black eyes exposed.
Leif’s voice had gone hoarse from the strength of her recitation. After finishing the first eight articles of the oath, faint, heavy breaths escaped through the slit in her helmet.
It wasn’t hard to picture the face beneath the helm, flushed red, taut with that almost comical, earnest seriousness.
She must really, really want to be a knight.
Sophie frowned slightly, then took the greatsword from Duchess Lystinger, who stood at her left. She touched Leif’s right shoulder three times with the flat of the blade.
Then she took a black knight’s sash from the hands of Natiaveda, the lady-officer standing on her right, and fastened it across Leif’s chest. A white medal was already pinned to the sash, marked with the hyacinth motif of the Kingdom of Aesaya—proof that this trainee knight had completed an S‑rank mission in her homeland.
Not just because she had slain the Prophet-Beast and brought the late king’s dying words to light before the world, but because she had brought the exiled princess home, and rescued the entire kingdom from Noren’s hands.
The lady-officer stepped behind the trainee knight to adjust the position of the sash.
Leif’s voice rang out:
“Ninth, I swear I will be faithful to the one I love, until death!”
Duchess Lystinger stepped down from the platform. A moment later she led up a chestnut-red horse.
It was of medium build, its coat gleaming with a healthy, oiled sheen. Its long mane shone a bright golden-red, its four legs long and powerful, its head held high, exuding no small majesty. Steam puffed from its nostrils; the teeth bared between its parted lips marked it as still young. In its large eyes flickered a stubborn, untamed spark.
“Leif, you are a knight now.”
Sophie bent at the waist, resting her forehead lightly against Leif’s neck.
“‘From the moment a knight mounts a warhorse, it is decided that their life will be spent on the road, that they are fated to shed their blood protecting others, and to cast aside all thought of their own life and death’…
I hope this horse can walk that road with you, the way I once walked with you.”
Leif squirmed, embarrassed by the princess’s sudden burst of sentiment. She turned her face away, only to see that Sophie’s emerald-green eyes were already misted with unshed tears.
Something in Leif’s chest went oddly sour and soft.
—
Early the next morning, Leif left Gino Royal City.
She had stowed her knight’s uniform and all the items that proved her status inside the backpack of her system interface. For now she still wore the same coarse linen she’d arrived in, a leather scabbard strapped to her back.
The only difference from her arrival was the animal beneath her.
Back then it had been a foul-tempered sheep.
Now it was a young warhorse with a dozen generations of battle-bred blood in its veins.
The trainee knight sat astride the just-of-age chestnut mare and looked back at the city that had been her home for the past month.
It was still early. The diligent merchants had long since driven their beasts into the city with their goods for sale. Yesterday these same people had all been staring up at her. Now, in their weary yet lively yawns, there was no trace of mind for a trainee knight—only thoughts of their own rice, oil, and firewood.
Even among the common folk brushing past her at the gate, barely one in ten even glanced her way.
She remembered how, at the farewell banquet last night, Lystinger had secretly told her that Princess Sophie couldn’t bear to see her go, which was why she’d kept the knight’s sash back so long before finally giving it to her.
In rare form, Sophie had teared up and told her,
“Leif, you really are my favorite girl.”
Her parting regret had been written all over her face.
But Leif hadn’t had time to be moved before Sophie hastily corrected herself.
“My second favorite girl. My favorite is Lystinger.”
Then Sophie seemed to forget Leif even existed, running off to chase after Lystinger, who had suddenly clutched her chest and claimed she wasn’t feeling well.
Afterward, Leif couldn’t shake the sense that the atmosphere between Sophie and Lystinger was a little… strange. She’d tried to follow them to check on Lystinger’s condition, but Natiaveda had held her back, telling her not to disturb them.
And so the clinking cups and crossing toasts of the farewell banquet only made her present solitude feel sharper by contrast.
Just as the maxim Sophie had quoted said: after becoming a knight, the road ahead would be a solitary one.
Leif ran a hand along the long mane at the base of the chestnut’s neck. To bless Leif, Sophie had named the mare “Lily.”
From here on, Leif might meet many people on her journey. But no matter how many encounters there were, when everything was said and done, it would probably be just her and Lily, relying on each other to survive.
The trainee knight tightened her grip on the reins, ready to urge the horse forward.
The hooves did not move.
Lily turned her head to look back toward the city gate, then even backed up a few steps.
A four-wheeled carriage soon rolled out, and on it sat Natiaveda.
“Lady Knight, what a coincidence. We meet again—where are you headed?”
“I’m going home for a bit. Then I’ll continue my journey.”
Leif had received a letter of introduction from the Kingdom of Aesaya. According to proper procedure, she needed to return to her birthplace so a priest could stamp a special seal bearing the mark of the Temple onto her knight’s sash.
Being recognized as a knight by the Temple meant she would stand on equal footing with those who served in holy orders, becoming a free person on the continent of Dea—able to travel any realm without restriction, without layers of approval or tedious identity checks.
For someone trying to quickly earn military merit, this was a tremendous advantage.
“The Kingdom of Elioport, Ed Village in Selong County.”
The lady-officer’s expression was all surprise and delight.
“What a coincidence. Oh, I’m heading in that direction myself…”
Leif’s eyelid twitched.
The lady-officer wore only a silk white robe that would stain at the slightest touch, and a pair of delicate white boots whose thin soles looked ready to fall apart at a single scuff.
Leif, at least, had packed some flatbread and jerky and brought a few waterskins. But aside from what the lady-officer was literally wearing, she didn’t seem to own a single thing.
This was not what someone looked like when they were about to travel far.
Leif doubted she was even prepared for a casual outing into the countryside.
As for that four-wheeled carriage festooned with ribbons and fresh flowers… Even if there would be no more foreign guards chasing them down and trying to drag her back home, the trip to Ed Village would normally take three full days.
While Leif was staring at the ribbon-festooned, flower-decorated carriage and thinking that it was entirely unsuited to long-distance travel, the woman in white stepped down lightly.
She tipped the driver with a few coins, dismissed him, then walked toward Leif with a gentle smile.
Leif’s eyes widened more and more. Her first instinct was to retreat, but Lily remained rooted to the spot—whether from courage or sheer terror, it was hard to say.
“Lady Knight,” the lady-officer said, her expression tinged with melancholy. She tilted her head back slightly to look up at Leif in a way that made it nearly impossible to refuse her.
“Princess Sophie and Duchess Lystinger no longer have need of me, so I must leave the Kingdom of Aesaya and seek a new livelihood elsewhere…”
At that moment, Lily moved.
Sensing her rider’s inner struggle—a wish to refuse, weighed down by embarrassment—and the strange, unsettling aura the woman gave off, the brave chestnut mare executed a very practiced maneuver.
She lifted one hind leg, keeping the other three firmly planted to hold her rider steady, and kicked squarely toward the white-robed woman’s backside—precisely the spot Leif’s namesake sheep had always liked to strike.
“…The road ahead is long, and I fear evildoers may seek to harm me…”
The white-robed woman barely seemed to move. Lily’s hoof simply landed back on the ground on its own. The mare stamped in place a few times, her big eyes clouded with confusion as she stared at Natiaveda, unable to understand why she’d hit an invisible wall in midair.
The lady-officer continued,
“Lady Knight, can you truly bear to let a delicate, defenseless lady travel alone?”
Leif hadn’t yet found an answer when the lady-officer vanished from in front of her eyes.
A moment later, the weight behind her saddle shifted. Warm fingers slid around her waist from behind, closing over the hands that held the reins.
By her ear, Natiaveda’s voice came soft and breath-warm:
“Lady Knight, won’t you give me a ride…?”
