Chapter 311

"Oh my, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Hmm."

"Well, what I want to ask is..."

"Which gift do you like best, Aristia?"

Everyone looked at me curiously, with their eyes sparkling, when one of them asked me.

I suddenly got goosebumps on my back. I felt it all along, but I felt like I would really be in big trouble if I didn't reply properly. Even my father, who was usually indifferent, was staring at my lips.

"Well..."

"You shouldn't say you like them all. Just pick your favorite one, okay?" said Allendis.

How did you know?

Quickly glancing at him, who smiled at me, I was lost in thought for a moment. However, no matter how hard I thought, my answer was still the same from the beginning.

"...Well, I like chocolate best."

"Yeah! I knew it from the beginning."

"Well, why did you pick it, my lady?"

"Oh my, it's the masterpiece of our hard work..."

"..."

Alendis hugged me with great joy, but Sir League and Lina made an upset expression. Although my father didn't express it, he seemed to feel sorry for my choice. As everybody seemed not to have readily accepted my choice, I pulled Allendis apart from me and said, "I like all of your gifts and I really appreciate it, but Allendis made this chocolate after months of hard work. Besides, he asked me first what was my favorite gift..."

"Thanks, Aristia. After all, only you appreciate my hard work. Hey, have another chocolate. I will make a lot more chocolates for you in the future. "

"... You boasted you would beat all the knights, right? Considering that, how could you take time out to make chocolate by yourself? Maybe I taught you too leniently. Verita Jr, I think I can increase the intensity of your training starting tomorrow, right?"

"Oh my... Marquis Monique, that is too..."

When my father turned after speaking to him in a subdued tone, other knights took turns to add their own comments.

"Hey, guys, let's give our master a hand. I'm going to throw down the gauntlet to you next year, Verita Jr."

"Vertia Jr, I'll certainly beat you next year!"

Why are they mentioning next year? No way, they can't mean what I have in mind!

Although the word 'next year' continued to hover in my mind, I tried to ignore it and picked up a star-shaped chocolate.

Later I received a message from the emperor asking me if there was something like white chocolates. He told me he would have a teatime with me if I brought some. Anyway, after the little incident involving Allendis's chocolate gift, I had to find myself letting out a sigh at a growing number of gifts in the following year.

With respect to the so-called White Day, when the man gives back delicious chocolates to his lover, there are many opinions about its origin, but the dominant opinion is that it began when Allendis, who was Duke Verita's second son, called the genius of the times, during the reign of the 33rd Emperor Mircan Lu Shana Castina presented a snow-white chocolate to his longtime friend Lady Aristia of the Marquis Monique family, who later became the empress of the 34th Emperor, Rublis Kamaludin Shana Castina. According to this theory, he made white chocolates for her by himself. Unlike the existing black chocolates, the chocolates he made were white, so the day he gave the white chocolates to her was named White Day.

***

As a child, it was the crest of my family that first caught my eye. You may think me strange, but that was true. My father was always busy, so I could hardly see him, and my mother wasn't the type of woman who was warm-hearted by nature. As my brother was busy learning various things as the successor of my family, he could not take care of me kindly. So, I was all alone, except for the house staff who had to care about me out of duty.

In some respects, it was natural that the crest of the family, which was inscribed everywhere in the house, caught my eye.

During my childhood in my distant memories the crest of my family was marked by the sticking of a large sword in the ground. I don't know the reason exactly, but when I was five or six, it changed to a long silver sword and a red vine coiling around it.

I was fascinated by the crest. Although I was attracted to the red rose whose color was as intense as my hair, what really caught my eye was the sword. I could not take my eyes off the sword shining brightly like silver.

It was natural that I liked what catched my eye. In that respect, it wasn't a coincidence that I grabbed the sword. It was the turning point in my life that when I was seven, my father found me playing with a wooden sword. My father, who praised me for playing with the sword like the son of my family, called the 'Sword of the Empire,' was astonished while teaching me some fencing motions. It was from then that I was called a genius swordsman.

I began to receive attention from lots of people. I wasn't alone anymore. Even if I pushed them out and ignored them first, they reached out to me first. But now I didn't need their attention. Everything was annoying to me because I was only interested in only one thing.

It was a cold but warm, sharp and soft sword shining brightly.

I fell in love with the sword. I found living with the sword much happier than spending time with people. All day long, I practiced fencing and talked with the sword. That was my daily routine until I met the girl.

One early autumn, a few months before my fifteenth birthday, my father came home and said that the daughter of the Monique family would sometimes stop by to learn fencing.

I was annoyed because the women I inevitably bumped into were mostly the same. They were just noisy and troublesome to me, who interfered with my life. When I felt that the daughter of the Monique family would also disturb me on the pretext of learning fencing, I became hostile to her even before I met her.

When my mother called me to attend tea time, I immediately felt it in my bones that she finally visited my house. So, I went to the drawing room full of annoyance, thinking she was bothering me from the beginning.

Only

The moment I looked back at her, ignoring my mother's warning that I should not be rude to her, the girl, who was standing quietly, bowed slightly to greet me. When her silver hair hung down naturally, I saw something like the light of the sword blade that reflected the moonlight. That light was so impressive and beautiful that I got carried away with it for some time.

However, my favorable first impression disappeared the moment when my mother told me to practice fencing with her. I just felt frustrated with her instruction because I was already annoyed by the fact that she would come to my house to learn fencing from my father.

I was so frustrated that I could not even utter a single word. I thought to myself hysterically, 'Does it make any sense for me to teach a girl who seems too weak to wield a sword?'

Maybe it was because of that thinking that I ridiculed and threw a tantrum at the girl who asked for my help. Although I was bothered by her, I didn't like the fact that she trifled with fencing which I loved. Just like other women that showed interest in me did, I thought she would go away if I acted rudely to her.

However, the girl demonstrated her fencing skills instead of getting angry with me. In fact, I felt sorry for my rude remarks to her when I came to realize how much effort she made in improving her fencing skills, but I couldn't apologize to her because my pride would be hurt if I did so.

So I barely gave her a few words of advice when she turned, but I didn't offer any apologies, after all.

The girl didn't come back to me after that. Was it because of that? I kept thinking of her despite my efforts to forget her. I regret I didn't apologize to her, and at the same time I got curious why she would not come back to me for fencing practice, given that she would not give it up easily.