The First Meeting of the Two Protagonists

Buena Village. In the village stood a two-story wooden house belonging to one family. In the courtyard, a cheerful child was playing with his father. Inside the house, the mistress of the household was preparing lunch with the maid.

Just then, a boy with red hair, around eight years old, wearing an ordinary cotton windbreaker, passed by the wall. Perhaps because red hair was relatively rare, the little boy and the older boy met each other's eyes for a second.

The older boy and the little boy both looked away at the same time, and then the older boy walked off down the village's dirt road.

The little boy was somewhat afraid of strangers. Seeing his son's expression, the man hugged him tightly with a grin and teased, "Haha, Rudy, only in this way do you actually seem like a child."

At lunchtime, the magic teacher hired by the family returned home and told them what she had seen and heard today.

"I heard a noble came to our village for an inspection. I saw several carriages, and knight escorts too."

The man asked curiously, "Really? Did you get a clear look at the family crest on those carriages? What did it look like?"

"I didn't see it clearly. I was standing rather far away, after all, I'm Devil Race. Oh, right. In the end, a red-haired boy got into the carriage. After he got in, they left."

Red hair. The man seemed to know what family they were from. But none of that had anything to do with him. Right now, the only thing I cared about was protecting my own little family. Nothing else mattered anymore.

After returning to the carriage, we set off back to Ars. I felt like this trip had changed a lot of things.

If I had known about Rudeus's existence in advance, I wouldn't have run my mouth to Philip about making Eris focus on swordsmanship. But I had also told him to find Eris a magic teacher, and Rudeus was qualified in that regard too. Maybe history wouldn't change—or maybe it would!

In my conversation with Philip after the birthday banquet ended, I reached a deal with him. I would help him gather intelligence from the royal capital, and I proactively hinted that it would be intelligence related to James.

In return, he would be responsible for helping me keep an eye on whether anything strange appeared in the sky above Roa. I did not describe it as a sphere, because I had not personally seen the Seven Star Orb either.

And I hinted that among the stewards under him, someone had already sold out his family's information.

I was afraid that, because of my intervention, Rudeus would not be hired as a home tutor, resulting in Eris being sold off as a slave.

Actually, I had always been guessing whether the noble who wanted to buy Eris as a slave back then had been my grandfather, Darius. But surely he could not be that perverted! Eris should count as his granddaughter through marriage. Could he really bring himself to do that?

When it came to perversion, if my grandfather claimed second place, ordinary people truly would not dare call themselves first. So I did not dare gamble on luck. Better to add a layer of insurance in advance.

Since Rudeus existed, then as long as I figured out whether this timeline was the diary life or the novel life, that would be enough. Everything else would return to my grasp.

My future sight had returned again. That improved my mood quite a bit. The feeling of everything returning to the right track was really nice.

After returning to Ars, my daily life also returned to normal.

However, I heard that Princess Ariel, who had been staying in the Silver Tear Palace, had recently begun appearing frequently in the public eye.

For example, visiting the families of wounded soldiers, aiding the disabled and orphans, and going onstage to speak at celebrations.

As expected, she was someone with great ambitions. Even without me, she probably could have continued walking the path of fighting for the throne.

At dinner one day, my grandfather Darius even brought up Princess Ariel with me. I told him about what I had experienced on Ariel's side, and also said things like how much they disliked me.

After hearing all this, Grandfather did not reprimand me, nor did he tell me to return to Ariel's side and take up the responsibility of a guard knight again. He only nodded lightly, then continued eating dinner. That left me like a monk two zhang tall, unable to scratch my head. Not being able to figure out his thoughts was a little frightening.

In the third month after returning to Ars, today was my turn to go study at the Water God Style dojo.

Early in the morning, I prepared the necessary items and set off for the main dojo of the Water God Style family.

Before I knew it, I had already been studying at this dojo for almost five years. Isolte could also be considered the person who had spent the longest time with me over these five years, aside from the maids.

Our relationship had already gone from comrades in swordsmanship at the very beginning to good friends in life now.

From the first time I met her, I had known that her speaking voice was pleasant to listen to, but back then I rarely heard her speak.

Now that five years had passed, her speaking voice was still very pleasant. But when the two of us were together, she had become the talkative one.

She was probably the type who, although not good at communicating with strangers, had an extremely strong desire to express herself.

As soon as practice ended, I would hear her chattering nonstop beside me. Sometimes she talked about her insights or opinions on swordsmanship that day.

Sometimes she would discuss gossip among the other senior and junior disciples. For example, the gossip about those two Sword Emperor disciples secretly holding hands in private.

I had never imagined that someone who used to have the traits of a sword maniac would also go around collecting this kind of street-corner gossip. It was truly rare.

Today, after sparring ended and it was time to rest, she once again ran over and sat beside me to chat.

Her trouble today was that her mother was a believer of the Millis Faith, and her mother also hoped she could believe in the Millis Faith.

But she was somewhat hesitant.

"What's there to hesitate about? If you're interested, then believe. If you're not interested, then don't. Faith is free. Any belief forced onto a person is a mistaken act. We must firmly resist it."

"But I heard from Mother that people who believe in the Millis Faith all have to strictly abide by monogamy. Because of this, my parents often argue. Every time my father goes out drinking and fooling around with women, my mother argues with him."

"Ah, then you have to decide for yourself. I can't really say anything. This faith should be relatively rare among nobles, right? After all, this is the Asura Kingdom."

Then I heard her suddenly hum in a voice as thin as a mosquito's buzz, "It's precisely because I heard nobles don't like this faith that I'm hesitating."

"In short, if you want me not to believe in the Millis Faith, then come shopping with me tomorrow! There's a big market tomorrow, and you can buy lots of things you usually don't see. Also, the knights who went to clear monsters from the Great Forest are returning. My father's colleagues are among them, and I want to go to the city gate to welcome their return."

In my heart, I thought about tomorrow's schedule. Tomorrow, I did not need to go to Teacher Bradycond's place for magic class. I had basically almost finished learning the magic theory lessons on her side.

The reading, writing, and etiquette lessons did not have much meaning anymore either. I could skip them.

"Fine. As it happens, I don't have much to do tomorrow. I can go shopping with you. But my family has quite a few enemies. When the time comes, I'll have to disguise myself a little."

"Good, then it's settled. Tomorrow morning at nine, we'll meet at the fountain pool on Triumphal Avenue."

"Okay."

After breakfast the next day, I found a plain-colored hooded cloak in the storeroom. I also wrapped the scabbard of that treasured sword of mine in black cloth, making it look less conspicuous.

After tidying myself up, I went out right on time.

As a well-educated noble, I did not end up playing out one of those anime scenes where a dense protagonist arrived late and made the heroine wait far too long.

I reached the area near the fountain at around 8:50 in the morning. To my surprise, however, Isolte had also arrived early. It looked as though she had been there for quite some time already. She was sitting on a seat beside the pool, gazing up at the sky.

On a sudden impulse, mischief rose in me. I quietly slipped behind her, planning to cover her eyes and make her guess who I was.

Sigh, I could only say that she was worthy of being the most outstanding disciple of the current Water God. Just as I walked up behind her and had only just begun to stretch out my hands, she reacted as if by emergency reflex, using the Water God Style intermediate grappling technique, Tiger-Capturing Hand. Her left hand seized my wrist and yanked it forward, first making my body lose its center of gravity, then she pinned my arm across her chest while her right hand pressed down sideways, using the strength of her whole body to snap the opponent's arm.

"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Whoa, my arm's going to break! Let go! Are you a demon? You ask me out for a stroll, and then you try to crush one of my arms?"

Only then did Isolte react. The hand pressed against her chest was my hand. She immediately let go.

I was not about to show weakness either. As I withdrew my hand, I collected a little interest in front of her chest.

Sigh, unfortunately, she was a child, with basically nothing worth praising. If a purebred member of the Prodia Family had come, they would have had to disarm themselves on the spot right here.

Because of my little "interest collection" just now, I felt somewhat guilty. So I immediately changed the subject.

"If Senior Sister wants to spar, let's go back to the dojo and have a proper match. My arm nearly broke!"

"Sorry, Junior Brother. Wasn't that just an emergency reflex? It proves my reaction speed is fast, and that I'm already an expert."

"A truly strong expert should have noticed me before I even got close to you. Who only reacts after I've already touched their back? Forget it. Since I didn't get hurt, I'll forgive you. Next time you run into an enemy like that, your first reaction shouldn't be to drag his hand to your chest and twist his arm. That's a move for men. You can just kick him directly instead. That opens up distance while causing damage at the same time. Got it?"

"Got it. Next time, I'll only use that move on you (●'◡'●)"

Sigh, you should wait another ten years before using it on me. I'll be even more grateful then.

Of course, I did not say that out loud.

"Let's go. Where are we going now?"

"To the main gate. The patrolling knight corps is about to enter the city."

Because the main dojo of the Water God Style was set in Ars, and as one of the three great schools of swordsmanship, the Water God Style was especially widespread among the knight corps of the Asura Kingdom.

Out of ten Asura knights, five were swordsmen of the Water God Style, another three were swordsmen of other schools, and the remaining two were magicians.

That was the personnel distribution of the Asura knights.

Of course, there were also archers and users of other weapons. But because magic and swordsmanship were so powerful in this world, archers and users of other weapons were all extremely rare.

Isolte's parents were both knights of the Asura Kingdom, and their colleagues were spread widely throughout the army.

So among the ranks of this returning patrol knight corps, there were many who knew Isolte. They all sat on their horses and waved to greet her. She also waved back very happily.

The patrol knight corps was, in truth, the armed force that inspected the kingdom's borders. They would enter many deep forests where human tracks were scarce, drive away bandits, and hunt down Demonic Beasts. It was precisely because of their existence that the society of the Asura Kingdom was safer compared with other kingdoms.

The place where that showed was that, in Asura, the profession of adventurer basically could only take commissions like delivering letters and running errands. There were very few commissions requiring the elimination of Demonic Beasts.

Most adventurers, after rising to D-rank, had no way to advance further in Asura. They could only leave this city.

Adventurers were groups formed by idle people in society who accepted commissions to earn rewards. Many cities had an institution called the Adventurers' Guild, where adventurers could accept corresponding tasks. Adventurers also had ranks, from high to low: S, A, B, C, D, E, F, seven ranks in total. In principle, they could only accept commissions within their own rank and one rank above or below. After the number of completed commissions met the standard set for each rank, they could rank up. However, if they felt their own strength had not yet reached the required level, they could also maintain their current rank. In addition, after failing commissions a certain number of times in a row, they would be forcibly lowered by one rank.

I had gotten off track.

So in other words, it was precisely because of the patrol knight corps's existence that the commoners of the Asura Kingdom could continue enjoying peaceful lives.

But all of this still had a price. While Isolte and I watched from the roadside, we saw someone holding a box containing ashes. On top of the box were a knight's uniform and a precious sword, and they were handed into the arms of a sobbing woman.

"That should be Cain's wife. It seems Uncle Cain was very unlucky this time."

This was even someone Isolte knew. But seeing how calm her expression was, it seemed she often encountered this kind of thing and had already grown used to it.

Near the triumphal arch, I even ran into an acquaintance. Ariel was wearing her splendid princess dress as she received the leader of this knight corps. It seemed she even pinned a medal onto him.

She also gave a speech before the crowd. The content was something like praising the knight corps for the contributions they had made to the nation and extolling them. The crowd then erupted in enthusiastic cheers.

This kind of formal "performance" really did help with national unity and stability. This was also the political wisdom a country had accumulated over so many years.

Unlike the Millis Holy Country, the Asura Kingdom was relatively good at winning over commoners. Most of the commoners here lived rather stable and prosperous lives, even though some nobles were extremely wicked.

But most nobles and commoners were still mutually dependent, after all. The nobles and the nation needed the commoners' taxes to maintain their rule. Because of that, they would not harm commoners on a large scale.

Another reason was also the fertile land of the Asura Kingdom. If this were placed on the Demon Continent, the nobles would probably be surrounded and killed by starving commoners within a few months.

Because I was wearing a hood that covered my hair and the upper half of my face, Ariel did not notice me.

After Isolte and I watched for a while longer, we left the plaza and went shopping in the trade market.