ULRBE 01

Chapter 1

I got engaged to the person I had been secretly in love with for five years.

Should I be celebrating? Well, not really.

Tislin burst into tears the moment she heard the news of her engagement from her parents.

“I honestly think you’re being strange.”

Sierra Pontinaire stated firmly. She looked at Tislin—who was slumped in the corner sofa of the dormitory lounge, clutching a large mug with both hands and staring blankly into space—as if she were out of her mind.

Tislin barely paid attention to her words.

“How could they just decide something like this on their own without even asking me? They could have at least asked me once!”

“I get that you might feel hurt, but is it really something to cry this hard about? That’s how most engagements are anyway.”

That was true. In the first place, how many childhood engagements actually consider the couple’s own wishes? The adults handle all the calculating and make the decisions.

And considering the groom they picked after all those calculations, she should be bowing to her parents in gratitude instead of crying her eyes out.

“Objectively speaking, he’s a guy who lacks absolutely nothing, right? And it’s not like you have feelings for someone else.”

“There’s… a reason for this…”

“Did you confess and get rejected or something?”

It was meant as a joke, but look at that—no reply. Sierra’s eyes sparkled. Since the last class of the day had just ended, students began gathering in the lounge one by one. Sierra grabbed Tislin’s arm and pulled her up.

“We can’t talk about anything here. Let’s go to your room.”

Tislin, with dazed eyes, let herself be dragged along like a fluttering piece of paper.

“Tislin, are you sick?”

A classmate walking into the lounge noticed Tislin and blurted out the question.

“You look terrible. Your eyes are completely swollen, too.”

“She just ate late-night snacks last night.”

Sierra cut in smoothly and pulled Tislin’s wrist. Watching Tislin get dragged away weakly, the classmate tilted her head in confusion, but quickly ran off when her friends called her over.

Just as the sofas were filled with students chatting about trivial gossip, the sound of heavy boots invaded the lounge. It was a heavy footstep rarely heard in the lounge of the Department of Administrative Sciences. At the unfamiliar noise, students who had their heads buried in chessboards, newspapers, and thick books sat up one by one.

“Oh, Senior Xsanov?”

“Do I know you?”

The tall young man tilted his head slightly. The student who had spoken without thinking gasped as his eyes met a pair of piercing, brilliant blue eyes. Naturally, it was a one-sided recognition.

The young man, dressed impeccably in the uniform of the Department of Knighthood without a single crease out of place, was one of the most famous figures in the entire school. When the wide-eyed freshmen poked the upperclassmen beside them, the senior students whispered the young man’s name, causing the freshmen to gasp in the exact same way.

“Is that really Lord Xsanov? For real?”

“I told you it is. He looks just like he does in the newspapers.”

Damien Xsanov.

As a disciple of the Grand Duke of Luxen, he was a figure who wouldn’t even need to waste his time at school if not for a royal order.

He had fought in the Great Parpanan War at the age of sixteen and received the highest-grade medal from the King for his achievements in pacifying southern Parpanan. In fact, students outside the Department of Knighthood saw him in the newspapers far more often than at school.

“I’m looking for Tislin Ermiz.”

Removing his gaze from the student who failed to answer his question, he spoke while waving a letter held between his index and middle fingers. He scanned the entire lounge, but the person he was looking for was nowhere to be seen.

“Um, Tislin went up to her room.”

“…Already?”

It was four in the afternoon. She had already gone back to the dorm before even having dinner? Receiving the curious stares of everyone in the room, the classmate fidgeted nervously.

“Uh, she didn’t seem to feel very well. Her eyes were swollen, too.”

“I’m looking for Tislin Ermiz.”

Was that because of late-night snacks? Sierra’s excuse belatedly came to mind, but it was already too late. Damien Xsanov nodded with a strangely stiffened expression.

“If she’s not here, then never mind.”

With those words, he turned around sharply and disappeared.

As the heavy footsteps faded into the distance, the onlookers—who had kept their mouths shut with their eyes and ears wide open—instantly broke out into loud chatter.

“Wow, that was really Damien Xsanov.”

“This is my third year at this school, and it’s my first time seeing him in person. So he really was at school!”

“Is he that famous? Does he usually not come to school often?”

“My younger brother is in the Department of Knighthood, and he says he rarely shows up. Apparently, it’s because of his duties with the Royal Guards.”

“By the way, why was Lord Xsanov looking for Tislin? She’s not someone who has any connection to the Department of Knighthood either.”

As the core question was raised, the students gossiping among themselves brightened with curiosity.

“Does anyone know anything?”

“No idea. She went up with Sierra earlier. She did look a bit swollen and out of it, though.”

“Are they acquaintances?”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense that it’s an errand for a professor?”

“Which professor would leave all the other students aside and use Damien Xsanov to run an errand?”

“How should I know! Maybe a professor from the Department of Knighthood…”

Speculations ran wild. However, during a boring break with nothing better to do than playing the same old chess and having predictable debates, the students passed the time picking apart this single piece of gossip.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

Tislin muttered, leaning her body against the headboard of her bed.

The dormitory room she had lived in for three years was fairly spacious and well-equipped since it was provided for young nobles, but today it felt unusually desolate and shabby. It felt chilly, as if a cold wind had swept past her body.

“Hasn’t something bad already happened?”

Sierra, stretched out on the sofa like laundry left out to dry, chuckled softly while gesturing with her chin toward the letter from Count Ermiz that Tislin had carelessly spread across her desk. Well, she wasn’t wrong. Could anything worse than this possibly happen?

“I really didn’t want something like this.”

“Why? Did Lord Xsanov say he’d rather die than marry you?”

If it had been that, she could have spoken her mind comfortably. Not only was Damien Xsanov not the type of person to say such a thing, but the actual situation was a bit more complicated.

While Tislin hesitated, Sierra brought up the fundamental question.

“By the way, your family doesn’t live anywhere near the Grand Duchy of Luxen. How do you two even know each other?”

“That’s…”

As Tislin mumbled for a long time, an impatient Sierra drew a firm line.

“Look, if you’re going to tell me, tell me. If you’re not, make it clear right now. Then I’ll just comfort you and go to sleep.”

Tislin let out a deep sigh.

“Well, Damien and I… Ha, there isn’t really a specific way to define our relationship. It’s just…”

Because it was difficult to explain, Tislin stammered for a moment. Sierra clicked her tongue.

‘Damien.’ That’s definitely not a normal relationship.

Siedel Royal Academy, sponsored by the Cassady-Minorca Royal Family, was quite large compared to other schools across the continent. However, the student society—mostly consisting of young noble boys and girls in their late teens to early twenties—was small, and rumors spread fast.

If there were a female student close enough to call Damien Xsanov by his first name so casually, rumors would have spread long ago. Yet even Sierra herself, Tislin Ermiz’s closest friend, had no idea about any connection between Tislin and Damien.

The reason was simple: no one had ever seen them hanging out together! They didn’t even greet each other in classes shared with the Department of Knighthood.

‘Of course, the semester only started two weeks ago, and Lord Xsanov was always surrounded by a huge crowd of people…’

Anyway, they had never even acknowledged each other, but they were actually close enough to call each other by their first names casually? This was no ordinary story.

“It’s hard to sum it up simply, so should I just explain everything from the start? Do you want to hear it?”

“Hold on a second, I’m gonna grab some popcorn.”

Tislin couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh.

Sierra actually brought back a huge armful of popcorn from the dormitory kitchen and settled into the sofa across from the bed. Then, she brought up an unexpected piece of news in passing.

“Tis. It looks like Lord Xsanov came looking for you earlier. I stopped by the lounge to share some popcorn with Kisha and Irina, but everyone was talking about you and Lord Xsanov, so I had a hard time sneaking away.”

So that was the source of her bad feeling. If she had been unlucky, she might have run right into him.

‘We almost ended up talking about the engagement in the lounge where all the upperclassmen and underclassmen could see!’

‘We almost ended up talking about the engagement in the lounge where all the upperclassmen and underclassmen could see!’

Tislin buried her face between her knees and let out a silent scream. Just thinking about it made her dizzy.

“But seeing how Lord Xsanov came all the way here looking for you, it doesn’t seem like you two are on bad terms, right?”

Sierra’s eyes sparkled as she hugged the bowl of popcorn, practically begging her to explain what on earth was going on.

Tislin pondered where to start, then decided to go all the way back to the very beginning—their very first meeting.

“When I was eight, and Damien was ten.”

“Whoa, from all the way back then? Is this story even going to finish today?”

“Uh, should I keep it simple?”

“If you can, try keeping it simple.”

In that case, she had to leave out all the minor explanations in between and only tell the most recent event. After all, that was the decisive reason why she burst into tears over the sudden engagement notice.

“About a month ago, I kind of… confessed impulsively, but I was rejected on the grounds that if we broke up, it would become difficult for Adele to see me. I was so flabbergasted and embarrassed that I told him I’d never see him again and ran away, but then this letter arrived.”

“…Hey, explain from the beginning. Who’s Adele?”

The conversation went right back to their first meeting—when Tislin was eight and Damien was ten.

So, this is how it all happened.