Chapter 13

Finding a New Husband

Riat was deep in thought as she stared at the blank sheet of paper in front of her.

“How many years do knights usually sign contracts for?”

A few days ago, when she had written the official notice announcing that she was looking for knights to work for her, she hadn’t hesitated at all.

But now that she was actually writing the contract, Riat had been agonizing over it for an entire hour.

For her to spend an entire hour on something meant she was taking it extremely seriously.

The other knights were simply entering into employment contracts with her in exchange for money, but the contract she was about to sign with Lokan de Pendelium was a little different.

Of course, she would still be contracting with him for money, but he had been sent down from the Imperial Capital. On top of that, he was going to become the commander of the Knights Order.

Riat tapped the end of her pen lightly against her lips before asking,

“Ah, do they renew their contracts every year?”

“…Knights becoming affiliated with the Knights Order of a particular territory isn’t usually referred to as a contract. But if you insist on putting a time period to it, I suppose it would be around five years. And that would be the minimum.”

“What?! That long?!”

“That isn’t particularly long…”

“That’s incredibly long!”

That’s about five times the amount of time I have left to live!

Riat shrieked in dismay.

If she signed such a contract, she felt as though she would end up floating around the training grounds as a ghost after she died.

She shuddered at the image her imagination had conjured up, then suddenly wondered whether her soul would even remain intact after making a contract with a god and returning to the past.

Sikarius quietly watched Riat’s thoughts veer off in a strange direction before shrugging.

By now, she was becoming accustomed to Riat acting as though even relatively short periods of time were unbearably long.

“You could specify that period in the contract and add that it can be changed later upon mutual agreement.”

“But…”

Lokan de Pendelium was an exceptionally talented knight.

At present, the Marquisate of Pendelium was under suspicion from the Emperor, which was why Lokan, its heir, had been sent here.

But once the suspicion was cleared, he was talented enough that the Imperial Capital might summon him back.

The fact that someone like that had agreed to take charge of the Knights Order of a count’s territory was both surprising and extremely grateful.

However, if she specified five years in the contract, there was one thing that concerned her.

After she died, would her family, who would undoubtedly come rushing to this territory, really want to let him go?

He was the heir to a marquisate, after all.

They would surely try to hold on to him somehow and maintain a connection with the future Marquis Pendelium.

Riat frowned as she could already picture the situation unfolding.

“Would it be strange if we only signed a contract for about a year and six months? Since he was sent here by the Imperial Capital, would offering such a short contract make it seem as though I’m disrespecting him?”

“There is a possibility he might see it that way, but there are quite a lot of things happening in this county at the moment, so I think it would be acceptable. If you explain that the first year and six months will serve as a period of adjustment, and that you intend to offer him better terms afterward, wouldn’t that work?”

“Sis, you really are the best aide.”

“…But why exactly a year and six months? Why not two years?”

Because if the commander of the Knights Order disappears at the exact same time I die, the territory will fall into chaos…

Riat stared at Sikarius with wide eyes, swallowing the words she couldn’t possibly say aloud.

Then, instead of answering, she changed the subject entirely.

Sikarius’s gaze shifted strangely, but Riat didn’t pay it any mind.

“Come to think of it, Sis, how many years have you worked here?”

“…An aide usually serves one master for their entire life unless they are dismissed. Someone who knows the ins and outs of an entire territory wouldn’t be sent somewhere else. And if an aide leaves of their own accord, other places will become suspicious of their loyalty.”

“Oh, really? So if it isn’t voluntary, there’s no problem with changing jobs?”

“Regardless of the reason, leaving one’s place of employment doesn’t exactly leave a good impression on an employer. Having a letter of recommendation from your previous employer would at least…”

“Oh! A letter of recommendation! So there’s a way to do that. I see. Then I should write one for you as well…”

“…Countess.”

Sikarius interrupted Riat in a somewhat lowered voice.

Her expression stiffened slightly, and after moving her lips a couple of times as though struggling to find the right words, she finally asked,

“…Are you trying to tell me, in a roundabout way, that you’re going to dismiss me?”

“What? No, no. Absolutely not. Why would I dismiss you? You do your job perfectly.”

“…If you’re thinking that because I was assigned here by imperial decree…”

“Hmm, that’s even less true.”

Riat firmly denied it and gave a small smile.

Was Sikarius perhaps worried that Riat was trying to replace all the people sent from the Imperial Capital?

Resting her chin on her hand, Riat tilted her head slightly.

Her gentle voice sounded almost affectionate, but at the same time, there was an excessive lack of emotion in it.

“Honestly, I don’t really care whether you came here by order of the Imperial Capital or whether you have some other purpose.”

This wasn’t merely how she felt about Sikarius personally.

It was simply how Riat treated everyone.

She had barely managed to obtain a year and three months of life, and she had no desire to spend it worrying about other people’s opinions or analyzing every little thing they did.

As long as they didn’t interfere with her too much or make things troublesome for her, everything was fine.

In that respect, Riat rather liked Sikarius.

She didn’t know the full story behind her, but at least Sikarius couldn’t voluntarily leave this county.

That was probably why she hadn’t left despite all the bizarre things Riat had done so far.

She had politely asked Riat once whether she had perhaps lost her senses a little, but even that was quite mild.

“I just… don’t know what might happen in the future, so I thought I should prepare a letter of recommendation in advance.”

“…I like this territory.”

“Oh, really? I like it too, actually. It’s quite a beautiful place. I never realized it before…”

Autumn sunlight fell across Riat’s face as she glanced out the window of the study.

Sikarius stared blankly at her for a moment.

Riat Pshikia was someone who suited sunlight extraordinarily well.

Her platinum-blond hair shimmered as though it had captured the sunlight itself, while her pale skin reminded one of clear, gentle sunlight.

And yet, paradoxically, she always seemed like someone who belonged in the shadows.

Sikarius couldn’t tell whether it was because of her gray eyes or because the expressions she occasionally wore contained emotions that were simply too difficult to read.

“Anyway, if you’re happy working here, I’ll make arrangements so that you can continue working here later. I’ll see what I can do so that you can have the authority to negotiate your own salary as well…”

Riat’s voice trailed off ambiguously as she continued staring outside.

Simply liking this territory wasn’t enough reason for her to stay if the person she would have to serve next turned out to be terribly difficult.

Her father was completely incapable of managing finances.

Her eldest brother was excessively rigid about principles.

Her second brother was simple-minded.

Wouldn’t they all be incredibly frustrating masters for someone as capable as Sis?

Should I add a clause saying that an aide is allowed to hit their master over the head with a flowerpot if they become too angry while working?

As she reached that thought, Riat suddenly realized something.

When it came to making Sikarius suffer, she herself wasn’t all that different from the others.

In the end, Riat burst out laughing.

When she saw that Sikarius still looked as though she had many questions, Riat merely gave her a smile with her eyes.

It was the smile of a rather terrible master that clearly said:

I’m not going to answer your questions.

“Until then, I’ll be counting on you.”

The long-awaited day finally arrived.

The moment the warm morning sunlight streamed into her room, Riat’s eyes flew open as though she had been waiting for it.

She immediately ran to the window and leaned as far over the railing as she could, staring outside.

Riat’s gaze ultimately settled on the large vacant lot beside the annex.

It was filled with people.

The sun hadn’t even fully risen yet, but there were already countless people gathered there, and more continued to arrive and line up.

Today was the day when the candidates for the husband Riat had publicly announced she was seeking would take their examinations.

Riat couldn’t hide her excitement.

Even while washing, she had felt as though she were flying through the sky.

Even as the maids helped her into a beautiful dress, she felt as though she were walking among the clouds.

Sikarius had entered while Riat was getting dressed to give her a report, but after seeing the happiness spread across Riat’s entire face, she had developed an extremely dubious expression.

“You seem very excited.”

“Of course! Today is finally the day my journey to find someone I can ‘love’ begins!”

“So it really is such a grand occasion…”

Sikarius gave her an awkward look for a moment before, as though accustomed to such things by now, composing herself and beginning a brief report on Riat’s schedule for the morning.

Today was the first examination: a swordsmanship tournament.

Before the tournament began, Riat was scheduled to appear before the participants and encourage them.

Since most of the participants had never even seen Riat’s face, she had insisted that if she was going to find someone to love, she should at least know what they looked like.

There were well over ten thousand participants.

Because it was impossible to examine everyone at once, they had divided them into groups of several hundred and planned to conduct the examinations over several days.

They had also prepared various categories to evaluate their basic swordsmanship abilities rather than relying solely on tournament results.

In other words, they would first assess their basic swordsmanship before moving on to the tournament.

Professors from the Swordsmanship Academy had also been invited to ensure that the scoring remained objective.

All the examinations would fundamentally use an absolute evaluation system.

Anyone below a certain score would be eliminated without mercy, while those who passed would be ranked thoroughly.

Hundreds of participants were expected to be eliminated every day.

In other words, only those who survived both the literary and martial examinations with high enough rankings would qualify to take the third examination.

“When you give your speech to the participants today, please don’t get too close to them. The knights will be watching, but there are so many people gathered that you must always be careful to prevent accidents.”

While listening to Sikarius’s tedious warnings, Riat’s preparations were finally completed.

She dismissed all the attendants and casually looked at herself in the mirror before simply getting up.

She wanted to go outside as quickly as possible rather than wait around here any longer.

Unfortunately, Sikarius blocked her path.

Just as Riat was about to ask why—

“I’ve gathered the information on the man you mentioned before. Arvid.”

At the mention of Arvid’s name, Riat paused for a moment.

Then, when she recalled his face, her expression immediately brightened as she took the documents from Sikarius.

At the time, the strange sense of déjà vu and discomfort she had felt around him had prompted her to ask Sikarius to investigate him.

That strange feeling is gone now, but as the host of this examination, it’s still my duty to learn as much as possible about the participants. Of course it is.

Riat smiled as she checked the first page of the documents.

Then she slowly felt the corners of her mouth droop.

“I tried to find as much information about him as possible, but there are almost no traces of him. He said that it had been a long time since he had come to the city, and according to our investigation, there really are no records of him being here.”

“Then did he come here after living in some remote region?”

“We did find one place where he had apparently lived. It’s a tiny village deep in the countryside, near the foot of a mountain. After making inquiries, we learned that he suddenly arrived in the village a year ago. So we went to the village where he had stayed before that, but all they could tell us was that he had arrived there four years ago and stayed for three years before leaving.”

According to Sikarius’s report, Arvid had been constantly moving.

And it wasn’t as though the villages he moved between were close to one another.

They were scattered from one end of the Empire to the other.

His usual pattern was to move every three years.

Sometimes he stayed for only a year, and even at the longest, he never remained anywhere for more than five years.

He hadn’t formed any particularly close relationships with the people in the villages where he stayed.

The only thing anyone could say was that he would arrive like an outsider, live there quietly, and then leave.

Riat turned the pages with an increasingly unfamiliar expression.

He had no family.

He had no particularly close acquaintances.

He simply appeared in a village with no connections whatsoever, then quietly disappeared three years later, repeating the same behavior over and over.

“Was there some reason he kept moving like this? Or was he simply a wanderer?”

“There is one thing several of the villages mentioned in common. Apparently, whenever he arrived at a village, he was looking for something.”

“Something?”

“Yes. They said he was looking for something related to a god. He never said which god, but in the last village he left…”

A god.

For a moment, Riat forgot to breathe.

She slowly blinked.

Somehow, there seemed to be more and more strange connections.

She had turned back time.

Then the Emperor had asked her whether she believed in a god.

And the temple of the god in the territory she had returned to had mysteriously disappeared without a trace.

“He said that he had finally found it.”

Arvid had spent years wandering in search of something connected to a god.

And the place he ultimately came to after saying that he had finally found it was—

This very place.

Riat was overcome by an indescribable sense of unease.