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Chapter 4
As Jade mentioned, the Tilrods were a family of knights.
Their ancestor, Alexis Tilrod, was a knight of Dantes Alfred, the First Emperor of Cardia. And it was said that he was called the ‘Sword of Fire.’
As the First Emperor’s knight, he had opened a new era through the reclamation of territories occupied by demonic monsters.
But ever since his time, the Tilrods had been on a steep decline as they failed to produce decent knights generation after generation.
Then, Alexis Tilrod’s talents had been misplaced.
It manifested in Radis, the outcast of the Tilrod family.
‘She’s a genius.’
Armano realized that he found a single pearl amidst a sea of mud. Now he realized that this mud wasn’t just mud.
But the tutor, who secretly visited Armano, had tipped him off before he even met the child.
“Don’t compliment Miss Radis. If you do, you might get kicked out without getting a letter of recommendation.”
Armano didn’t want Radis’ talent to be buried away. He poured all his passion into Radis and her talents, pretending to teach both David and Radis together.
And the lazy David liked it this way. It was an interesting sight seeing his sister sweating under the scorching sun. David laughed at Radis to his heart’s content, happy to take a nap under the cool shade.
In the same way, Radis was also glad that she could learn swordsmanship and receive compliments from a reputable teacher.
Armano, the one who taught them, was also happy.
But this bubble of happiness amidst the mud was bound to pop.
It didn’t last long.
* * *
The year David turned fourteen years old, everything was revealed.
“Sir, I’m sending David to the Imperial Academy.”
“I heard it’s the elite training grounds for knights. I’m thinking of entering David for early admission. What do you think?”
As he looked at Jade and Margaret’s shining eyes, Armano realized that the time had come. He opened his mouth with great hesitation.
“It’ll probably be difficult.”
Jade’s face was stiff. The same was true for Margaret, but she pulled it together and smiled, then asked again.
“As expected, fourteen is too early, right? Would it be alright if it’s next year, or the year after that?”
“No, it won’t be possible no matter how old he is. I apologize for letting you know this late. David doesn’t have a talent for swordsmanship.”
“
”
Armano tried to explain to Margaret—that David had no talent, no perseverance and no motivation to become a knight in the first place.
Instead, Radis had it all.
But Margaret didn’t want to hear any of it.
“This sly bitch
!”
The target immediately became Radis.
“You seduced your teacher like the fox you are! That’s how you ruined your brother’s and your family’s future!”
Margaret screamed and slapped Radis on the cheek, hard.
Radis didn’t even so much as whimper as she kept her head down. She was already used to accepting and enduring all the violence and verbal abuse directed at her.
Armano grabbed Margaret’s arm.
“Madam, please stop!”
Margaret slapped him on the cheek, too.
“You’re fired! You even ruined my jewelry!”
Armano was promptly kicked out, but the current situation had yet to be resolved.
Margaret needed to somehow get her son into the Academy. She always did everything to give her precious jewel a bright future.
“You do it.”
Radis, whose face was swollen after being slapped on the cheek, raised her head.
“You ruined it all, so you fix it. Go take the test in David’s place.”
“Yes
?”
“You’re about the same height, so no one will know if you wear armor and a helmet. Your faces are similar, too.”
Margaret brought out a pair of scissors used for cutting cloth.
Margaret hit Radis on the head one more time, which made her bow her head, then Margaret yanked the child’s hair and swooped down with her scissors.
Radis couldn’t say anything and just trembled, watching her tangled hair falling in front of her eyes.
She could see the faces of her two younger siblings through the gap in the open door.
David’s face was red from trying to hold back laughter, and Yurhi’s big eyes were fraught with terror.
Then, after Margaret had cut Radis’ hair, she said—
“I’ll forgive you if you do well for David’s sake. You are the Tilrod family’s eldest daughter. Isn’t it natural for you to do your best to support your brother since he’s the pillar of our family?”
The eldest daughter.
The word sounded like a revelation to Radis. She had never been called ‘daughter’ before.
“Okay
”
Radis did everything Margaret told her to do.
She took the entrance test at the Academy, wearing her brother’s armor with her chest, which had just started to grow, bound tightly.
Then, she saw her brother leave the house after passing the test.
“Good job.”
It was the first compliment she heard from her mother. Radis smiled.
Her hair had been cut badly, and her face and body were covered in bruises, but she was happy.
Radis wrote a letter to Armano saying that she was grateful and that she was sorry he got fired because of her. One day, she found that he replied. Margaret, with one letter in her hand, came to her room.
No matter how hard she tried to practice swordsmanship and to strengthen her resolve, Radis was still afraid of her mother. When she saw her mother’s angry face, her heart pounded heavily.
Radis habitually raised her arms around her head. Because she thought she would be hit.
But Margaret didn’t do that this time.
She wordlessly threw Armano’s letter into the fireplace in front of Radis, a sly smile on her face.
It hurt significantly more than being slapped.
* * *
A long time had passed, and David graduated from the Academy. He became an apprentice knight after that.
But an apprentice was still just an apprentice.
He had to be acknowledged with merits to officially be appointed as a knight.
In other words, he had to go hunting for monsters.
“I don’t want to go!”
At eighteen years old, David cried.
“Demon subjugation? Why should I join something like that?! I’ll get hurt! I’ll die!”
“Oh, my son! You’ll only have to go a few times.”
“Brian’s not going on the subjugation! His father made him a pupil of a knight he knew. Dad, don’t you even have some connections to make that happen for me?!”
Listening to David, Jade limped out of the drawing room.
Then, Margaret said coldly to his retreating back.
“Ask your father!”
“You said our family was a founding family of the Empire, but what now?!”
David spoke as if the sky was about to fall.
“How many times will I have to go? Mom, please don’t pretend you don’t know! Do you have any idea what goes on in the subjugation? I’ll have to fight in the woods. Do you think I won’t die? Besides, they shoot out demonic energy!”
David got sick of it.
“Do you have any idea how awful demonic energy is? It’s like poison! They say that if you go hunting for a month and come back home, people need to rest for half a year or else they’ll die. Or they should go to the temple to pay a lot of money and be blessed by priests. Do you have that kind of money in this house?!”
“But
 If you kill a monster, you’ll get a magic stone, right?”
“How can I kill one? I’ll get hurt. I’ll die!”
So the story cycled back to the very beginning.
After listening to the conversation silently, Radis slipped out and went to her room.
At this time, Radis was twenty years old. If she was a normal noblewoman, she would have already been married.
But she couldn’t. In this era, the parents or guardians of the women had to prepare dowry for the groom.
Neither Margaret nor Jade paid any attention to her.
Besides, as David said, they had no money. The taxes they collected were too little and it was difficult to manage their territory.
The Tilrods were also carrying a huge debt from sending David to the Academy, for both his tuition fees and living expenses.
Furthermore, Radis, who wasn’t active in high society, had no relationships whatsoever.
There were boys dating Yurhi, who was three years younger than her, but Radis hadn’t even been in a conversation with a man.
Radis lived like a shadow.
There was no place for her anywhere.
Margaret mistreated her and Jade turned a blind eye.
Her younger siblings considered her to be a nuisance.
The only place she could relax and be herself was at the empty lot where Armano taught her swordsmanship a long time ago.
She continued training there.
She practiced the same swing over and over. Only that.
It was the same that day.
As she wielded her sword, she stopped in the middle of training when she saw her mother approaching.
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She wondered if she was going to be slapped again, but Margaret didn’t do that.
Instead, she spoke.
“The Wehnz’s Lord wants you to be his wife. If you’re a healthy woman, shouldn’t you give birth to a son? They don’t need dowry, and he’ll give you money. If you give birth to a son, he’ll give you the estate. Ah, I feel rewarded for the first time for giving birth to you. You know, it’s only right that the eldest daughter is the breadwinner. He’s a 70-year-old man, but he’s still alive, so just live like newlyweds.”
Margaret smirked when she saw the blood draining from Radis’ face.
“You don’t want to? Go hunt demons in your brother’s stead. You’ll be able to wield that sword that you like so much. It’s so humiliating to have an unmarried daughter stay at home. But if you go on that expedition, I’ll allow you to stay here.”