Chapter 7
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Then one day, it happened.
Lucy discovered one thing she was unexpectedly good at.
Polishing Laegar’s armaments.
In one corner of the bedchamber stood a majestic weapons rack. On it hung all manner of greatswords and maces, battle axes, halberds, and jet-black armor forged from dark iron—a breastplate, a helmet.
Standing before it, she felt her chest thrum and pound.
‘Good heavens! Insanely cool!’
Just standing and looking at them, she felt as if she knew exactly how much blood these fearsome blades had spilled across the battlefields of the continent.
She had no idea how she knew such a thing, but somehow… she just felt it.
“Incredible….”
Lucy reached out and gently stroked a sharply honed blade.
Where her skin grazed it, white sparks suddenly burst forth, startling her so badly she jolted as if shocked.
Curiosity spiking, she touched it once more, but the phenomenon had already vanished without a trace.
From that day on, Lucy diligently lifted, polished, and maintained the weapons—gripping them with a familiarity that made their weight feel like nothing.
Since Laegar always returned at night and didn’t seem to know yet, she intended to show off once she was finished. She worked hard, sharpening their edges.
Oddly enough, the same girl who got cut by teacup shards on a daily basis never once nicked herself on those terrifying blades. Even to her own mind, her handling of them was skillful.
‘Could it be… I was a squire in charge of weapons?’
The way they felt so natural in her hands, there was no way that wasn’t it.
She was giggling to herself, thoroughly convinced, when a head suddenly jutted out over her shoulder.
It was Laegar.
“What are you doing.”
The metallic, rasping bass scraped her ear, and she flinched so hard she practically dropped the sword she was holding.
Transparent gray pupils were sharply fixated on her.
For a moment, that cold gaze felt like it might slice her heart, but Lucy soon smiled brightly and said.
“Great Emperor, I was waiting for you to come. I’ve finally found the one thing I’m good at!”
“…….”
Laegar straightened his back, fixing her with an apathetic gaze as if to say, go on.
At that, Lucy’s line of sight had to climb even more steeply upward, creating a somewhat threatening angle—but she paid it little mind and drew closer to him.
“It’s, it’s~ polishing Your Majesty’s weapons! Ta-da!”
His gaze followed where her fingertips proudly pointed.
True to her words, his weapons gleamed brilliantly.
But from his mouth came none of the praise Lucy had been hoping for. Instead, a suffocating silence descended over the bedchamber.
It even sounded as if the thin layer of ice that always hung in the space was crackling apart.
Sensing the presence of others hastily vanishing around her, Lucy glanced about—the hems of the maids’ skirts were slipping away between the side corridors.
As if everyone was fleeing to avoid what was about to happen.
‘…What’s this? Did I mess something up again? …The atmosphere’s strange.’
Dumbfounded, Lucy looked back up at Laegar, but it was hard to read an expression that seemed sunk deep into the abyss.
While she was at it, she took her time quietly appreciating his serene yet exquisite features.
The more she looked, the more his face mesmerized.
The disheveled jet-black hair covering his ears, the deathly pale skin, the prominent bridge of his nose, and above all, the crimson lips that rarely ever parted.
Lucy found she liked the deep voice that spilled out once those red lips did open. The bass, distant as if echoing from inside a cave, gave her a strange sense of calm.
So, as if urging him to say anything at all, she grabbed his sleeve, shook it lightly, and pressed on.
“…Don’t the blades gleam far more now? I even got rid of all the remaining bloodstains. But it looks like you haven’t used them in quite a while. The stains seemed fairly old.”
Only then did Laegar’s brow twitch.
Oblivious, Lucy kept hold of his arm, shaking it as she chattered on.
“But the strange thing is. When I was polishing them, it felt like something I’d done once—no, ‘always.’ Was this what I originally did? Right?”
For some reason, a single, cutting answer finally came from the lips of Laegar, who so rarely reacted to anything.
“Touch them again, and you will be executed.”
“Hiek!”
Lucy jolted back in alarm, then soon jutted her lower lip out in a pout. It was the same sort of thing she’d been hearing for days now.
The words Laegar threw at her were always only that.
‘I’ll kill you.’
‘I’ll behead you.’
‘Move aside.’
‘Remove it.’
‘Tch.’
Now ‘execution’ had joined the list.
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