24 Hearts

38====================

The twenty-fourth fragment, Carpe Diem

The letter was wrinkled, but it could still be read. Tia read it and handed it over to Judah, who was curious. There wasn’t much difference between the letters, both were written along the same lines, and both included an invitation to dinner.

“Are you going?”

“Of course. It’s a lord’s dinner. Judah, you don’t know this yet, but if lords use the word ‘dinner,’ then it really is a dinner. The food will be more delicious and high-class than any you can eat at the commander’s mansion. You simply have to go there and eat it all.”

Tia had been invited to dine with lords a few times, and every time she did, she enjoyed food of the highest quality.

“In this case, let’s skip today’s lunch. We should go to dinner with empty stomachs and eat a lot.”

Tia gave a single glance at Kaseun and then left the room with a snort.

“Hmm. Grandpa, are you going, too?”

“Aren’t you excited that we’ll be going to something together? I am your guardian, Judah. I will accompany you to the castle, and luckily, someone is coming to pick us up.”

Judah nodded and re-read the letter. At seven o’clock in the evening, a carriage will pick them up from the front of the house. It was written that casual, everyday clothes were acceptable – There was no need for formal dress.

“By the way, I don’t know anything about etiquette. Would it matter?”

“They won’t care. Whether you value etiquette or not, you are still well-mannered, Judah, and you are still young.”

“Hmm, that’s a good thing then.”

Kaseun nodded as he looked at Judah.

“But if I want to enter the wider world, shouldn’t I know basic etiquette?” Judah asked Kaseun, who replied that he would teach him if he wanted.

“Etiquette can be handy, and the day will surely come when you will use it. But it differs from country to country. You just need to be polite. Well, it’s okay to see what others do and then to imitate them.”

“Please teach me only the basics. You don’t have to go into all the details.”

Fortunately, there remained a lot of time before Lord Peerchen sent his carriage.

However, after Judah heard the basic manners, there was nothing much to it. When you say hello, you must politely lower your head and then look right under the lord’s eyes. If you shake hands, make eye contact. When you eat food, don’t eat it out loud, and when you drink water, don’t slurp it up or make any other noises.

If you need something, don’t shout at the maid; raise your hand.

They were all simple things.

While Judah learned about etiquette from Kaseun, Tia was choosing which clothes to wear. Although she had been a mercenary for a long time, she was also a woman. So, she had a lot of clothes to choose from.

She even had a dress or two that she had bought at high prices. Kaseun glanced at Tia as she headed in and out of the bathroom trying on clothes, and then asked, “Judah, what are you going to wear?”

“My clothes? Well, the letter said I could come in comfortable clothes, so I’m thinking of wearing what I wear every day. I’m a child anyway, so I don’t need to put much emphasis on etiquette when it comes to clothes, right?”

Even when Judah bought clothes, he didn’t buy stuff that was fancy. Since he was growing, he wouldn’t be able to wear them after a year anyway, so he tended to refrain from unnecessary spending.

Occasionally, Tia took him to buy clothes for fun, but he didn’t buy neat clothes except on such occasions. Kaseun thought that he should buy Judah some clothes, but when he saw the boy’s annoyed expression, he relented.

He had already told Judah that there was no reason to enforce etiquette on young children, nor was it necessary to force them to wear fancy clothes.

Kaseun sincerely taught Judah a bit more about etiquette as he understood it, and as time passed, he lay down on the sofa and fell asleep. Kaseun’s last thought was that the sofa could be slept upon surprisingly comfortably.

“Judah, come here for a bit.”

Judah sighed as he heard the call from Tia’s room and then headed into it. Tia was sitting and wearing a white dress, a beautiful and revealing dress. However, the back of it was wide open, and Judah saw that the zipper had not been lifted because Tia struggled to reach it properly.

“Come to my back and pull up this zipper.”

Tia’s healthy, smooth skin and her white underwear were very much visible. She didn’t seem to use anything like a corset. No, Judah decided, her slim body did not require one.

“Quickly.”

Even though she only showed her bare back to him, Judah was still a bit sad that she did not seem ashamed in his company at all. Judah still seemed to be just a child to her, even though her [favorability] had risen.

“Aren’t you too brash, too exposed? Remember, I’m a man too,” Judah complained as he pulled up the zipper. He saw her ears wriggling above her dark silky hair.

“Huh, what? Exposed? Man?” Tia asked as she turned her head and looked down at Judah. There was some mirth in her expression.

“Well, well. My Judah is a man. I want to eat him.”

Tia licked her lips and smiled. Usually, children grow afraid if she says this to them. Even though Tia had said it, Judah blushed rather than looking surprised.

Of course, Judah was not thirteen years old, but rather a young man in his mid-twenties.

There was no way that he didn’t know what she meant. When Judah gulped in surprise, Tia laughed.

“I’m kidding. Now, how does your mistress look? Beautiful?”

Tia stood from her seat and turned in a full circle. The white dress clung to her body, showing her curves and the lines of her legs, and it suited her well.

“Pretty,” Judah said as he looked at her and nodded. He thought that she looked okay with her hair loose, yet if it was properly done, Tia would look really good with it tied back. He told her this.

As he wondered about it, he mused that his tastes had changed.

“It’s so nice when our Judah says I’m pretty, huh?”

Her tail flicked, and she seemed very happy. Suddenly, Tia’s gaze roved over Judah’s clothes.

“By the way, you’re not going to wear that, right?”

She told Judah that he looked unacceptable, so she grabbed him and headed straight for his closet on the second floor. They passed Kaseun, but he didn’t notice as he snored away on the living room sofa, taking his nap.

Tia started taking all of Judah’s clothes from the closet and dressed him in them. Judah was repeatedly dressed and undressed like a doll for a long while. He finally came to wear black trousers, a white shirt, and the black coat that he usually wore when going out hunting.

“I have to buy you some clothes. I bought some, and you only wore them a few times. And now there is a whole lot of them that don’t fit you anymore,” Tia said in a regretful manner as she looked at all the clothes she had thrown onto a separate pile on the bed.

The preparations were finally done. Tia returned to her room and sat before the mirror, following Judah’s advice that she would look prettier with her hair tied up.

After about two hours, a knock was heard on the door.

“Are you there!?”

‘Dufk dufk dufk!’

It seemed as if the person was politely knocking, but the sound resonated loudly through the house. When Tia and Judah went out, there stood a middle-aged gentleman dressed as a butler.

He put his right hand over his heart, and politely made a deep bow as he greeted them.

“The Lord has invited Judah Arche and Gentia to dinner. I think you know this, but I have to ask: Are you ready?”

+ + +

Serenia Castle – Lord Peerchen’s Office

Chapelin Peerchen.

It was the name of the current head of the Peerchen family, a family that had been protecting and developing Serenia for three generations.

Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, Chapelin had maintained the title of b Wielder of the Sword], and even though the Peerchens were called lords, they were, in fact, more like the kings of this land.

True enough, when Chapelin visited other countries, he was treated just like a king.

This was also because he was a man of honor. He had an especial admiration for those who practiced the martial arts – He always went out of his way to treat them well.

Just like the two trainees who now sat before him.

The knight with the red hair in leather armor was Ea, a probationary Flying Fighter from the Baekje empire. The blue-haired knight on the other side wore ordinary clothes and was named Jeanne, a Blue Lancer from the Byron Empire.

As knights that belonged to states which clashed with each other like fire and water, the two of them had naturally shown hostility toward one another. However, because Lord Peerchen was present, Jeanne had closed her eyes and ignored Ea’s deadly glances so as to not offend her host.

If Lord Peerchen had been absent, they would have drawn their swords and fought without a moment’s hesitation.

“Hmmm.”

Peerchen was reading the documents handed to him by the two knights.

Each one was stamped by the emperors of the Byron Empire and the Baekje Empire, respectively, yet their contents were similar.

I would like you to inform my Imperial Knight about any new developments related to the fragment, and I would like you to attach a mercenary to them who is familiar with the geography of the surrounding area… Well, that was all they said.

And this was a request that Peerchen had received several times before. He didn’t need to read a sentence more.

Peerchen glanced at the documents and threw them down on his desk.

Jeanne now opened her eyes when she heard the sound, and Ea, who had been staring at her, looked away.

“…!”

The two knights became flustered when they saw the documents discarded to the desk.

Peerchen’s actions were rude, plain and simple.

He throws down documents with the personal seals of the two emperors who are fighting for supremacy of the first continent, and he had not even polite when he had done it.

There was no hesitation in Peerchen’s actions, even though two knights who had pledged allegiance to the emperor were in front of him.

Of course, even though they had seen it, they couldn’t say anything. They couldn’t shout at a man for being rude while they sat in his castle.

“Every time the Baekje Empire and the Byron Empire dispatch their knights here, the contents of these documents are exactly the same.”

There sat the Flying Fighter, Ea, and the Blue Lancer, Jeanne.

They didn’t know anything, so they couldn’t say anything. Peerchen’s gaze was indifferent, as he had not been expecting an answer in the first place.

“However, when my father and grandfather reigned, it was elite or advanced knights who came to bring me pieces of paper. But this time, it’s two apprentices… It seems that the empires have almost given up. Even after one-hundred-and-fifty years, they have achieved nothing.”

“…”

“Can you ever find all the fragments?” Peerchen asked in a mocking voice. Not only his eyes but also his words were dismissing those before him.

“If they start sending me trainees, it means that they are about done.”

In the past, elite and senior knights, far superior to these two, had been dispatched at regular intervals to find the fragment that Pernen had dropped near Serenia.

But they couldn’t find it at all and so went back to their empires. Not only they but many other people flocked here to find the fragment, yet none did.

What shape it has or what it looks like; what powers and characteristics it has, and where it could be found: No one had the slightest clue.

In addition, there are many ruins of the Magic Empire from ages past, which made it doubly difficult to distinguish a relic from a fragment.

“Even if you assemble the most professional of teams, you’re unlikely to find it. So what can two barely-trained knights from the empires hope to achieve?”

“It will be hard, but I can find it,” Ea stated.

“I don’t think it’s impossible at all,” came Jeanne’s response.

Peerchen just shrugged and lay back in his chair.

“Well, okay, if you can find it, then go look for it. It’s been a hundred and fifty years, so it’s high time for it to appear. If you’re lucky, you’ll find it.”

“Then what about the support the emperor asked for?” Blue Lancer Jeanne asked Peerchen politely as she looked at him.

“No. Why would I grant his request?”

All the knights dispatched by the Byron Empire had brought their emperor’s letter, yet the request therein had never been granted.

Moreover, it was not possible to send an assassin against the Peerchen family, as they have been b Wielders of the Sword] for generations. Economic sanctions were meaningless against Serenia, for it was so geographically distant from the empire.

It was a very useless territory overall, and to invade it, the empire would have to march its armies through several other countries.

Peerchen did not have to be afraid because he was in a position of strength, thus his confidence.

‘Duk Duk.’

Just as he was about to let the two silent knights go, there came a knock on the door, and then someone entered as they opened it.

It was a maid in a classic maid’s uniform. She looked down at the knights as if they were nothing much and then delivered a message to Peerchen.

“My lord, your guests have arrived. Where shall I guide them?”

Peerchen’s face suddenly became bright, an expression that he had not shown to the two knights until now.

“Oh, yes? Then politely guide them to the dining room. Let’s go right away.”