Chapter 14

Finding a New Husband

After going through the documents several times despite there being hardly any useful information in them, Riat finally headed outside when Sikarius told her it was time.

Today was Group 1’s day to participate in the swordsmanship tournament, and Arvid wasn’t on the Group 1 list, so it would be several days before she could see him.

She had heard that participants from the other groups had come to watch Group 1’s skills, but somehow, Riat didn’t think Arvid would be the type to do that.

He had a relaxed and leisurely personality.

At first, she had wondered whether he was simply lazy, but his relaxed attitude seemed to come entirely from his confidence in his own abilities.

Riat remembered how effortlessly he had dodged the attacks when he fought some of the other participants before.

“Can I watch the swordsmanship tournament from the place where it’s being held?”

“If Your Excellency wishes to watch, of course we can make the necessary arrangements. However, you’ll only be able to watch from a distance. Actually… I expect it may be rather boring at first. There are simply too many people. Wouldn’t it be better to watch once the tournament gets closer to the finals?”

“The road to finding the person I love is supposed to be arduous!”

“…Arduous, and apparently quite boring as well.”

Despite Sikarius’s heavily sighing response, Riat nodded with sparkling eyes.

The final winner of this tournament wouldn’t be determined until spring of the following year.

In fact, after the third examination, which tested general knowledge and cultural refinement, Riat herself would meet the participants and choose among them.

So the earliest she would find her husband was spring, while it could be as late as summer.

Of course, Riat was hoping that she might fall in love at first sight, so she was even looking forward to early spring.

That meant her goal was to fall deeply in love for anywhere from six months to a year, then leave this world.

Today is the first day of my search for my husband!

Once again filled with anticipation and excitement, Riat happily walked down the hallway.

Just as she was about to descend the stairs, someone approached her and greeted her.

“Your Excellency. Are you heading to the annex?”

“Oh, Sir Lokan.”

Lokan de Pendelium had become the commander of the county’s Knights Order five days ago.

Riat had worried that he might change his mind the day after agreeing and leave, but fortunately, that hadn’t happened.

Instead, he had merely given her a strange look when she hurriedly drew up the contract.

Even when he saw the rather peculiar one-year-and-six-month term written in it, he had simply remained silent.

After that, however, they hadn’t really had much opportunity to meet.

In fact, Lokan was a knight influential enough that Riat would have been willing to overlook even a certain amount of negligence as long as he simply maintained his position.

Yet he had genuinely devoted himself to his duties, exactly as he had told Riat he would.

He inspected the condition of the knights Riat had hired with money and conducted simple entrance examinations, selecting the most capable among them.

About two days ago, he had sent her a document requesting that they be accepted as members of the Knights Order, and Riat had immediately stamped her approval.

“Yes. The swordsmanship tournament is about to begin, so I thought I’d go and encourage the participants. If there are any documents that urgently require approval, and you need my authorization, I’ll approve them all. You don’t even need to bring the documents to me right now. Just…”

“No. It’s not about any documents.”

“Oh, if you want to watch the swordsmanship tournament as well, you’re more than welcome to!”

“…No, that isn’t it either. I wanted to tell you that I would like to escort you.”

“Why?”

“…Pardon?”

Riat immediately asked why at Lokan’s barely uttered statement.

It was a question born purely from curiosity, so Lokan looked somewhat flustered as he explained.

“It’s dangerous for a noble to walk around alone without an escort. Furthermore, it may cause people to question your authority.”

Surprise spread across Riat’s face as she listened quietly to Lokan.

What he was saying was perfectly reasonable, but she had never expected it to come from Lokan de Pendelium.

Nor was it something she had expected from him.

She had intended to leave her escort to the people she had hired with money, and Lokan knew that as well.

He hadn’t seemed particularly pleased about working in this territory.

But since he had agreed to work for a year and six months, perhaps he still cared about the authority of the territory’s lord?

Or perhaps, as a knight who valued honor, he also wanted to protect the honor of his lord?

Riat herself had absolutely no interest in such things.

Nevertheless, she obediently held out her hand.

Lokan took it with a slightly stiff expression, and Riat let out a small laugh at the gesture.

Then she whispered softly to him,

“As I said before, I’m not going to force you to swear loyalty to me, so don’t worry.”

Was Lokan acting this way because he was worried that later she might use proof that his family hadn’t participated in the rebellion to pressure him into swearing loyalty?

No matter how much she thought about it, that was the only explanation she could come up with.

Riat smiled reassuringly, and Lokan’s expression stiffened strangely at the sight.

But before she had time to read his expression, Riat stepped outside the mansion and was greeted by a gust of wind.

Her golden hair fluttered freely in the breeze.

The weather was exceptionally beautiful today.

It almost seemed as though the world itself were telling her that her journey to find love would be smooth and uneventful.

A clear smile appeared on Riat’s face.

There was a wide open space beside the annex.

The swordsmanship tournament had originally been scheduled to take place at the training grounds in front of the main building, but there were simply too many participants.

Besides, the training grounds were now being used by Lokan and the Knights Order for training, so they had chosen this location instead.

“Her Excellency, Countess Pshikia, has arrived.”

Other than the impulsive occasion when she had stepped forward after Arvid’s face was injured, this was the first time Riat was appearing before the participants.

In other words, this was the first official moment when Riat Pshikia would come face-to-face with the candidates.

Every eye turned toward Riat as she approached the temporary platform.

No, it wasn’t so much that they consciously chose to look at her.

It was as though their gazes had simply been forcibly drawn toward her.

Her platinum-blond hair swayed softly with every step, while her gray eyes glittered beneath the morning sunlight.

Most of the participants had never seen Riat’s face.

Many had come from remote regions on the outskirts of the Irmak Empire, and some had even crossed the borders from other countries.

They had only heard rumors about Riat’s appearance.

The most beautiful woman in the Empire.

They had heard countless claims that there was no woman who could compare to her, not only in the Empire but even across the entire continent.

But most of the participants hadn’t believed those rumors.

If she really were that beautiful, would she have resorted to such a bizarre act as publicly recruiting a husband?

She was the head of a count’s family, and it was said that enormous quantities of magical stones had been discovered in her territory, making her extraordinarily wealthy.

What could someone like that possibly lack?

Following that line of reasoning, nearly ninety-nine percent of the participants had concluded that Riat must be horrifically ugly.

Otherwise, why would she offer one billion gold coins as a prize to find a husband?

But the moment they actually saw Riat, their assumptions vanished as completely as cotton candy dissolving in water.

“…Wow.”

She was so beautiful that there was absolutely nothing strange about someone gasping aloud in admiration.

Until Riat appeared, the participants had been eyeing one another warily, each thinking about the one billion gold prize.

Now their eyes became hazy.

Was this what a statue would look like if the greatest sculptor in the world spent more than ten years painstakingly creating it?

If God had ever taken particular care when creating a human being, would that person look like this?

If beauty could pay off a debt, could that face buy an entire kingdom?

All sorts of admiration erupted inside the participants’ minds.

Riat, apparently completely unconcerned by their gazes, walked forward under Lokan’s escort with the ease of someone accustomed to such attention.

The naturalness of her reaction only made the participants even more amazed.

She looked incomparably beautiful with one delicate white hand resting on the arm of Lokan de Pendelium, the genius swordsman rumored about throughout the Empire.

When they reached the platform, Lokan lightly took her hand to help her up.

Riat even gave a soft laugh.

Once again, gasps of admiration arose from various places.

Riat soon stood on the platform and casually surveyed the participants.

Her gray eyes swept over them for a moment.

She blinked slowly a few times.

Yet to the participants, those few seconds felt as though an eternity had passed.

Then her gentle voice echoed through the open space.

It was a calm, clear voice that suited the morning perfectly.

“I won’t take up much of your time before this important tournament.”

She could take as much of their time as she wanted.

If they didn’t have enough time, they would make time just to hear her voice.

“There must be many of you who have traveled a long way to come here. I hope you remember the feelings you had when you first set out and the reason you came all this way, and that you don’t become discouraged during the examinations ahead. Please see them through to the very end.”

For countless participants who had come here saying they were going to marry for one billion gold coins, this was the moment their entire purpose in life changed.

Riat met their sparkling eyes once more.

Then she fell silent and gave a shy smile.

Before stepping onto the platform, she had received countless warnings from Sikarius.

Don’t suddenly raise her voice because she was excited.

Don’t run toward a candidate the moment she found someone she liked.

And so on.

Those warnings told Riat quite clearly how Sikarius viewed her.

But since there was actually a fairly high chance that Riat might do exactly those things, she had listened to the warnings very seriously.

And true to Sikarius’s instructions, Riat kept her speech as calm and restrained as possible.

But by the time she finished speaking, she could no longer hide her shy excitement.

So many people came here who know how to love!

She found it truly amazing.

They were such fascinating and incredible people.

Riat smiled brightly.

It was a fresh, clear smile like a drop of dew falling from a blade of grass in the morning.

Soft sunlight poured over her round cheeks as though gently embracing them, while her platinum-blond hair, reaching all the way to her waist, fluttered softly.

It seemed as though sunlight itself were breaking into pieces among the strands of her hair.

And the smile captured by her gently curved eyes was so breathtakingly adorable that no one noticed that there was something slightly unhinged about the look in her eyes.

Of course, even if they had noticed, by this point all the participants had reached the stage where they would probably shout that if Her Excellency the Countess was crazy, then they would gladly go crazy with her.

Only that morning, some of them had felt ashamed of themselves for participating in such a bizarre competition.

They had told themselves they were only participating for the money.

That they were merely sacrificing their pride for a moment because the prize was an unbelievable one billion gold coins.

But now…

What was wrong with accepting an opportunity to marry someone whose beauty was so heavenly that she could practically be called a goddess?

If the Countess wanted something, she could do whatever she wanted.

Whatever the Countess said was the law of the world itself.

It was the primordial truth.

“I hope to see all of you again in the next examination.”

With a clear smile, Riat stepped down from the platform.

Hundreds of eyes followed her back as she walked away under the escort of the knights.

Having set a fire ablaze in the hearts of every participant, Riat leisurely left the annex.