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Chapter 6: The Star of Revenge
“Your outfit looks good on you.”
Khalid smiled as he saw Estelle looking in the mirror. His face was as delicate and beautiful as a work of art carefully made by the Goddess.
Khalid sat half lying on the sofa in a relaxed position.
He was opening and closing the scabbard of the sword he was holding in his hand, yet his face was directed towards Estelle.
Compared to Khalid’s appearance at the peak of beauty, Estelle’s appearance was ordinary.
If she dressed and put on some makeup, she could stay at the level of being pretty, but Estelle had no intention of doing that.
Currently, Estelle was looking at the mirror in front of her with a dissatisfied expression on her face. She was annoyed with the clothes she was wearing now.
Then, her eyes met Khalid’s eyes over the mirror.
Somehow the gaze was unpleasant, so she wrinkled her face and threw the shirt she had just worn into Khalid’s face.
Khalid skillfully grabbed the clothes and folded them finely.
“If you look at me like that one more time, you know that the sword will fly next time.”
“Oh, sorry, sorry.”
At Estelle’s cool warning, Khalid raised his hands and shook them playfully as a sign of surrender. At the same time, he did not take his eyes off Estelle’s appearance.
It was still unpleasant, but it didn’t feel as dirty as men usually do, so Estelle, satisfied with the warning, turned her head and looked again in the mirror in front of her.
She saw herself in uniform.
A uniform mixed with dark navy and white, the left chest was engraved with gold thread with one of the twin stars, Ha-Zohar, born by Astra, the star goddess, the symbol of Ersha.
She stroked the protruding part with her fingers and smiled contentedly.
She’s a knight. She’s finally become a knight.
Finally, with her best swordsmanship, she can protect her country. She could even dream of fame.
She, who was from the back alley, lives here as a knight. What a delightful thing to do. Even her dead grandfather would be delighted. Her mother will be delighted too.
Estelle neatly arranged her disheveled hair.
As she exhaled, she looked down at her clothes, frowning at the discomfort felt in her chest.
Because of one part of the body, the top of the uniform was short, so the waist was slightly exposed.
Just because her most wanted dream came true didn’t mean that the dissatisfaction she felt now disappeared.
The cause of her irritation was the uniform of the knight she so admired.
“It’s stuffy.”
“What?”
“The chest.”
Khalid laughed at the words.
In the end, Estelle pulled out the sword’s sheath on the table in front of the mirror, and Khalid raised both hands as if surrendering again.
“There was no precedent for a woman to become a knight, so the tailor must have just brought something that fits the size.”
“Oh, yes. Well, you must be quite dissatisfied for a commoner and a woman being a knight. You can’t ask for custom clothes like the aristocracy. I knew this would happen.”
She sighed again, stroking her hair with her hand. Khalid got up and walked over to Estelle’s back.
His eyes rested on some part of the mirror that she found stuffy.
Estelle knew that gaze but complained as she adjusted her clothes to make them look more comfortable.
“Do you think I could just ask for a bigger size?  It’s so stuffy.”
It wasn’t that she had no curves in her chest, but her clothes were taut and her waist looked short. Khalid’s brow furrowed slightly as if he agreed with Estelle.
“Come to think of it, it sounds very lewd. I have big breasts, so I’m going to wear the bigger size one. It’s something men will be delighted to hear.”
“You punk.”
Khalid smiled and grabbed her hand as her hand went back to the sword on the table.
“I mean, don’t go around talking like that.”
Sometimes his remarks crossed the line. Does she have to kick the back of his head to make him come to his sense? But she wasn’t a great person to welcome it as it was, so she had to be patient.
“If you wear one size larger, your arms will be long, and you will look like a child wearing it. The shoulders are also stretched out more than this, so either side will be humiliated in front of the King.”
Estelle sighed at Khalid’s advice.
“I have no choice but to take it off again and tie my chest.”
“Yes, do it. You must be frustrated.”
Khalid whispered. He smiled and smoothed her short gray hair.
“Hey, I told you to stop touching me.”
“Excuse me. I just wanted to touch it because the color is pretty.”
Estelle, aware that it was Khalid’s habit to touch her hair, sighed and said, ‘Just touch if you want to. I will go my own way. When did you touch it with my permission?’ grumbled, dragging the uniform button down.
As soon as she completely took off her shirt over her shoulder, Khalid frowned again and said.
“Even though it’s in front of me, it’s too much. First of all, I am a man.”
“What are you saying? Have you never seen a woman’s chest before?”
Estelle shook her head as if she was annoyed and pulled Khalid’s hand off her hair.
Is it because of disappointment? Khalid’s fingers wiggled in the air and went down. He seemed to hesitate about something and then opened his lips.
“Estelle.”
“Oh, tell me.”
“It’s okay in front of me, but I ask you to be careful in front of others.”
“Yes, I will.”
It’s annoying, but it’s not hard. Estelle nodded.
If Khalid said anything of her, at least he thought of her, so she mostly listened to him.
Estelle looked over the mirror at Khalid who was standing behind her.
His face was slightly red, and he was rolling his eyes as if he didn’t know where to look.
Then their eyes met in the mirror. Estelle smirked at Khalid’s purple eyes. Warm gazes were exchanged.
I don’t know what those eyes have in mind.
In Estelle’s eyes, it was as deep as night, as quiet as the forest, and deeper than that, there was a strange sparkle in it.
But somehow, it was strange. This was Khalid’s usual expression, but it was a look he could never show to her again.
In an instant, Estelle realized. This has already happened. She’s dreaming now.
It was a thing of the past. Khalid always looked like that.
However, Estelle was not particularly interested in that face. Because, of course, Khalid was just a good friend of her.
But now, Estelle, who fell into this memory of the past, wanted to ask. To him, in this past that will never happen again.
“Khalid.”
“Yes?”
“This is a dream.”
“…..”
Khalid didn’t say anything. The smile that had been between them earlier disappeared.
“Why did you kill me?”
Khalid’s face is distorted at once when he hears the question. A sulky smile appeared, and the shy expression disappeared.
Crack.
Crack.
The mirror in front of her began to crack. The part of Khalid’s face was missing.
When she looked back, Khalid was gone.
“Khal-.”
Lucifella barely opened her eyes. The ceiling was lower than expected.
She tried to turn around, but she lay still, knowing that she was now lying in a very narrow place as she guessed where this place was.
I can hear the sound of wheels turning with the sound of a regular horseshoe.
She was in the carriage now, lying on the chair of the carriage.
“Seeing you wake up calling another man’s name, you must have been fine enough to have a dream.”
Hearing a familiar voice, her eyes turned to where she could hear the sound. The Duke of Heint, Zedekiah Heint, sat with his arms crossed in front of her.
Seeing that arrogant face, Lucifella’s dazed mind began to return.
Why am I here now? Oh, yeah, I tried to chase after Liam. As she tries to chase Liam, she was unluckily caught by a serial killer. And when it was all over, the man came.
She opened her mouth and tried to say something, but all she could do was cough. It must have been because she was strangled.
She coughed painfully for a long time. The Duke of Heint frowned at her and gave her a little piece of advice.
“You know you’re strangled, right? It would be better not to talk right now.”
But she cleared her voice and asked, neatly ignoring it.
“Did Liam Hirka get caught?”
Duke Heint was speechless for a moment when he saw Lucifella ignoring his words.
She frowned slightly and sarcastically as she looked at Duke Heint to urge an answer.
“If you were so scared of Liam Hirka, shouldn’t you have made such a big accident?”
Lucifella thought about what the hell this man was saying.
She woke up from sudden fainting, and her head hadn’t worked properly. She’s afraid of Liam Hirka? I? The Duke of Heint continued.
“The one who attacked Young Lady is not Liam Hirka.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Liam Hirka wasn’t a murderer, the guy who attacked Youngae was the serial killer.”
Isn’t that obvious? What are you talking about?
Ah! Lucifella realized what was wrong with this conversation.
That guy thought she thought that idiot was Liam because Lucifella Aydin would never have seen Liam.
She wanted to ask the pretentious face that she asked the real Liam Hirka, not the loser, but Lucifella held it in. There was no need to raise suspicion by saying suspicious things for no reason.
“Then was the real Liam Hirka captured?”
“No, the report was wrong. It was just someone who looked like him.”
“…..”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, the report was false, so it did not seem he had been caught.
He may have misunderstood the meaning of that sigh, Duke Heint said.
“Well, there’s nothing for Young Lady to worry about now. The killer was captured, and Liam Hirka didn’t exist in the capital in the first place.”
Oh God, hearing something like that from not one else but Zedekiah Heint!
Life was full of mystery. But she didn’t have time to admire life, purely saying it was amazing.
She raised her body. The Duke of Heint, of course, did not help her as she got up, causing her to let out a whimper.
In fact, she didn’t want help either, so there was no big complaint.
Lucifella looked out of the window, not caring that her long hair was disheveled.
The sky was already dark. The moon and stars were floating. The streetlights with luminescent stones passed by, and the appearance of the city was dimly reflected. The Capital here was very large.
“Do you know how many knights were mobilized to find Young Lady? I hope you don’t do this mindless thing again. Because I don’t exist to take care of you.”
“……”
“If you continue to behave like that in the future, I will tell your father to restrict you from going around outside.”
Lucifella nodded gently. Rather, Zed was surprised by the naive acceptance. Zed was suspicious of the woman who suddenly appeared meek.
“I’ll keep that in mind. It’s true that a lot of people, including you, have suffered. I wasn’t too aware of my position.”
“…..”
Jed felt guilty about Lucifella’s naive reflection.
In fact, he was at the scene because he was chasing that bastard. Technically, he wasn’t looking for Lucifella.
He pondered for a moment whether to correct this misunderstanding. However, following the words that followed, the emotion disappeared.
“You don’t have to take care of me from now on. I’ll take care of myself.”
“What?”
“Ah…… I will also tell my father so that he will never ask you for help again. It was too rude.”
Lucifella was determined, although I didn’t mean that far that she would never ask for help again.
Zed stared at her face. What stood on her face was her determination to cut like a knife.
She seemed to be offended that he was so entangled with her.
“Did I do something wrong to Young Lady?”
She was cold. Zed wondered again if he had ever done anything wrong to that woman.
But on second thought, there wasn’t.
Did he notice that gaze? Lucifella said.
“At least if you considered engagement important, I wouldn’t have throwed someone over the other side of the seat on a sick day like this. Don’t you have to have a conscience?”
“That’s…..”
As soon as Jed hugged her, he put her in the carriage irritably.
Usually, if they were engaged or in a relationship, even if you don’t lie on her lap, you should at least protect her from falling off the chair of a moving carriage.
But when Zed found out she was safe, he put her across his seat without hesitation and observed her face whenever she woke up.
Come to think of it, that seemed a bit harsh.
When Lucifella pointed out her conscience, she felt a little guilty. But she had the ability to erase the guilt that rose from her mouth at best.
“Well, I didn’t expect anything from your nature, so you don’t have to reflect on this. You seem to be very unhappy with the engagement, but just because we’re engaged, you can’t try to limit where my legs are going, Duke Heint.”
The light of a street lamp caught her eyes. The words of warning were so trivial and unpleasant. So, instead of answering, Zed gave a twisted smile.
Lucifella Aydin was a very strange woman. Zed thought about the woman’s sudden action.
Lucifella, whom I encountered at the Imperial Palace, was not this type of woman. She was one of those people who had a stereotyped face. Was she so good at hiding her feelings?
At that time, Lucifella, who was looking at the window, looked at a point and fixed her eyes there.
Then she shook her head. As if it couldn’t be.
“Well, who knows?”
Is it because of her behavior that went beyond her expectations? Zed suddenly became curious about that person.
Thus, Zed who rarely opened his mouth tried to talk first.
But Lucifella ignored the question. Zed tried to say something to her but soon shut his mouth.
It was because there was a strange sadness on her face, which was covered in bluish light, inside the carriage lit by the deep blue light.
Zed couldn’t deny being curious about this woman.
It didn’t mean much, but Zed couldn’t take his eyes off her.
***
“Liam?”
The man in the hood turned his head to the woman’s voice. His gaze was fixed on a carriage passing slowly through the street.
“What’s wrong with you?”
When the hooded man couldn’t take his eyes off the carriage, one of the men’s companions naturally turned to the carriage.
“What a fancy carriage.”
“You’re right, it’s very fancy. It must have been a great nobleman riding on it.”
If the size and design of the carriage symbolized the dignity of the family, it would belong to the high-ranking nobles among the central nobles.
The horses pulling the carriage were of the highest quality, shining even in the dark, and they were splendidly crafted and flashed.
“Shall I break it?”
“Crazy guy. It was a woman who was riding there.”
The man wearing a hood answered with a grimace at the curious words of the other party.
“Oh, as expected, you seem to be weak in women. A serial killer who only kills women.”
At the giggling joke, the man, Liam, spoke in a low, subdued voice.
“If you call me that one more time, I’ll break your neck.”
The other man giggled at the words. Liam turned his head.
“I was unlucky to come up to Green Hill when a crazy man was running around. Oh, that’s disgusting.”
A murder occurred while Liam was in the capital, and Liam was fully charged with the crime.
Worst of all, his portrait spread throughout the capital because his face was seen. They were all bent on catching him. So he decided to leave as soon as he came up to the capital.
“There will be another chance.”
“Yes, there must be more.”
He looked up at the sky.
Among the innumerable engraved stars, Ares, the star of revenge, was shining red as if it had drunk blood.
They did not forgive the man who took away their morning star, Ishtar.
The man gritted his teeth.
“Khalid, as long as the bastard is alive.”
The stars of revenge were shining in the man’s eyes.