How Many Times Have You Passed By?

In person, most of Loretta's face was hidden behind her helmet's visor.

She had clearly noticed Horace too, a stranger dressed in a marquis's attire. Her steps faltered slightly as she cast him an appraising look.

"Good day, Lady Knight." Horace took the initiative to nod politely in greeting.

He did not know Loretta's exact rank or position, but addressing a woman in knight's armor as "Lady Knight" was usually a safe choice.

Loretta visibly froze for a moment.

She seemed not to have expected the newly appointed marquis to address her that way.

She tilted her head slightly, a trace of puzzlement in her gaze beneath the visor. "Are you... the newly appointed Marquis Horace Loux?"

"Indeed." Horace nodded.

"A pleasure to meet you, Knight Loretta."

"You know me?" Loretta grew even more puzzled.

"I've heard something of the Royal Knight's valor," Horace replied vaguely.

He could hardly say, "You hacked me up with that huge blade plenty of times in the game, and I've even played around with your signature move."

Just then, slightly hurried but deliberately lightened footsteps came from the other end of the corridor.

Rellana had evidently heard that Horace had come to the Manor and had made a point of "passing by."

In a rare departure, she wore neither light armor suited to movement nor military attire today. Instead, she had changed into well-tailored dark blue casual clothes, with a leather belt around her waist. Her long hair had been carefully combed and tied into a neat ponytail, with a few loose strands artfully arranged along either side of her cheeks.

She even seemed to have applied a very light dusting of makeup, further accentuating her already delicate features.

She tried hard to make her expression look natural and casual, as though this really were a chance encounter.

But as she approached and heard Horace address Loretta as "Lady Knight," her steps paused, and her brows drew together slightly.

You have another "Lady Knight"?

As perceptive as Loretta was, she immediately noticed the subtle shift in the second princess's aura, along with those eyes fixed on the back of Marquis Horace's head, almost spitting sparks.

She immediately bowed slightly and tactfully withdrew. "So you are His Lordship the Marquis. Forgive my discourtesy. Your Highness, my lord, I still have patrol duties to attend to. I shall take my leave."

With that, the socially astute "magical Guan Yu" turned without hesitation and disappeared around the corner with steady, swift strides, leaving the space to the man and woman between whom the atmosphere was clearly rather off.

Before leaving, she even gave Horace a meaningful look: "You're on your own, my lord."

Feeling the burning gaze on his back, Horace turned around and saw Rellana, who had clearly dressed up but now wore a somewhat dark expression.

"Good day, Your Highness." Horace greeted her as usual, his tone calm, as though he had not noticed the subtle expression on her face.

Rellana walked up to him and stopped, looking him up and down. Her gaze lingered briefly on the dark red hair at his temples before she looked away and asked stiffly, "What are you doing at the Manor?"

"Consulting some documents in the royal collection," Horace answered truthfully.

"What documents?" Rellana pressed, her tone carrying an almost petulant stubbornness.

"Some records concerning ancient faiths and mysterious phenomena." Horace kept his answer fairly general.

"Oh," Rellana replied. She seemed to want to say something, but held it back.

The atmosphere was somewhat awkward.

Horace looked at her. She did indeed look more polished than usual today.

But his mind was entirely occupied with finding information about the Formless Mother. Coupled with the warning of an Outer God's encroachment he had just experienced last night, he truly had no energy to spare on examining why she had dressed this way or why she seemed a little angry.

As far as he remembered, he had done nothing to provoke her today.

So, after a brief silence, Horace nodded to her in acknowledgment and made to walk around her toward the royal Archives.

As he passed her, Rellana's body visibly stiffened.

She had never expected Horace to react like this—calm and distant, even ignoring her?

She simply stood there, watching Horace and his two attendant knights walk away without a backward glance and disappear into the depths of the corridor.

An emotion she could not identify as hurt, anger, or disappointment surged through her, making her bite her lip as the knuckles of her hand around her sword hilt whitened slightly.

The Carian Royal Family's Archives stood in a relatively secluded wing of the Manor, housed in a freestanding stone tower. (Entirely fictional; don't try looking for it in the game.)

The interior was dim, and the air was filled with the mingled scent of old parchment and preservative herbs.

Bookshelves rose to the ceiling, crammed with all manner of files, manuscripts, and illustrated volumes, their organization seemingly rather confused.

Horace had his attendant knights wait outside the door, lit a Glintstone Lamp himself, and began patiently searching.

He primarily sought records concerning ancient faiths, mysterious rituals, foreign deities, and anything that might relate to "blood," "wounds," or "pain."

Such materials were often mixed in with historical records, travelogues, family secrets, and even notebooks of True Magic research considered heretical, making the search quite time-consuming.

Just as he was engrossed in a tattered manuscript concerning ancient sacrificial customs in the Liurnia Lake Region, deliberately lightened footsteps sounded at the Archives entrance, paused, and then... "passed by."

Before long, another set of footsteps "passed by."

On the third "pass," Horace finally lifted his head from a pile of dust and looked helplessly toward the entrance.

Rellana was pretending to admire a long-faded tapestry on the corridor wall, standing sideways to the Archives door, but she was clearly peeking inside out of the corner of her eye.

She had changed into an outfit better suited to movement, but her hair remained impeccably combed.

"Your Highness," Horace said, his voice particularly clear in the spacious, quiet Archives.

"If you have so much free time, why not come in and lend a hand?"

Rellana seemed startled and spun around, a flicker of panic at being caught crossing her face before she immediately covered it with feigned composure.

She cleared her throat, walked into the Archives, and surveyed the mountains of documents around her, wrinkling her nose. "It's so dusty in here... What do you need help with?"

From the pile of ancient files at his side that he had preliminarily selected as relating to "judicial matters" and "law," Horace separated out a thick stack and pushed it onto the empty table beside him.

"Help me organize and summarize these records of Caria's ancient legal customs and territorial jurisdiction. I need to understand how this land handled disputes and maintained order before the kingdom was founded, as a reference for drafting the new laws of Lakeside Town."

Horace spoke with complete seriousness, as though this truly were one of the main purposes of his visit.

"This part of the work is tedious, but important. Your Highness must be more familiar with Carian traditions than I am. Might I ask for your assistance?"

Of course, he could not possibly reveal his true objective.

So fobbing Rellana off with a seemingly reasonable "side quest" that genuinely needed doing could not have been more appropriate.

It gave her a reason to stay, diverted her attention, and let him make a little progress on some actual work along the way.

Rellana looked at the stack of files, which looked unbearably dull, then at Horace's calm and "sincere" face, and hesitated.

Help? This seemed to be the first time he had taken the initiative to ask her for help.

Although it was tedious paperwork, still...

"Hmph, since it's official business..." She tried hard not to sound too delighted as she walked over and sat down.

"Then I suppose I'll deign to help you. As Caria's princess, I have a duty to assist our vassals... especially a barbarian marquis like you who knows nothing about law."

The corners of Horace's mouth curved almost imperceptibly before his expression returned to normal. "You have my deepest thanks."

I suddenly realized the game's timespan was enormous.

The Shattering lasted hundreds or thousands of years. Even the brief Age of Abundance lasted a thousand years. The age gaps between the demigods were larger than I had imagined.