Chapter 2

“Look, your feet are slowing down again, Master Lucas. Quickly! Where did our Titled Black Panther of the battlefield go? Come on! Faster! Move! One, two! One, two! ”

“Stop rushing me so much, Gelda. Aren’t you moving at the same speed too?”

In the early afternoon, when the bright sun, on an early summer morning, rose high.

Two people were moving in the corner of the corridor leading to the cathedral.

One is a middle-aged woman who stretches her petite body and moves forward with a graceful hurry.

The other is a laid-back young man with a slender body wrapped in a simple shirt and black trousers.

His rich black hair framed his face and piercing indigo eyes is full of masculine and fearless beauty.

With a pleasant low-pitched voice, he was named Lucas von Ludendorff, the son of the late King Werner. He has been called the was know to nobility and common folk alike as “The Second Prince” .

If the first prince Felix, the son of the Queen, were to take the throne, Lucas would simply be called “The King’s Younger Brother”, but he was still called “The Second Prince” because King Werner’s mourning had not finished yet.

There were four princes and three princesses in the kingdom of Luden but there was a rumour that Lucas was the most liked by the Late King, aside from Felix, who was rumored to be foolish at one point.

Despite this, he was a stranger who had abandoned his love and superior competition for the position of the King and had joined the Knights readily.

However, thanks to that, he had not been deposed as a vassal and had not been sent abroad, as he still stayed in the kingdom and kept spending his days freely and Titled still.

Even now, as he walked freely about, one could see the maids who recognized him screaming in delight.

Lucas was accustomed to it and casually waved his hand as a response.

“Give me a break. It’s been 10 days since the last holiday, and I just slipped into bed, you know? Why do I have to go to see my mother just because I turned nineteen? ”

“You can’t let the scent of perfume fool me by you dropping your shoulders, you know. Just what kind of “work” did you do that made you sleep at such times? Besides, it is definitely a knight’s job to save a damsel in distress. Especially if you were the one who brought her to this royal palace!”

Gelda plunges into Lucas, who whines and mumbles, without the hesitation of a former nanny.

“Was it not your decision to make her work in the Royal Palace, Gelda.”

Lucas shrugged gracefully as he walked down the corridor with his long legs.

That’s right.

Lucas and Gelda was the one who decided to welcome the “defected girl” called Elma as a maid with a royal palace.

Everything happened last month.

It goes back to when King Werner, the former king, died suddenly.

Here in the Kingdom of Luden, a system called “Grand Wish” allows the direct descendants of the king to grant only one wish for the people when the king passes away.

The purpose is to shake off the misfortune brought by the king’s death with the blessings of the princes.

Most of the time, it was triggered in the form of a “pardon” to rescue the misjudged people and minor sinners, but prince Felix said, “On my coronation, I want to invite people from all over the country to enjoy a ball.”

Even if it was a statement that seemed to be a child’s wish, a Grand Wish is a Grand Wish.

The aristocrats began to prepare the ball with as much coordination as possible.

However, when that happened, the “pardon” that was supposed to be granted was not implemented.

Moreover, since King Werner, the former king, was a person who had mercilessly signed the execution list offered by the church, despite the fierce demand from the families of the people who were captured innocently.

Though their discontent has not boiled over right away, a bud of dissatisfaction had been planted deep in their hearts.

In the end, Lucas issued an amnesty on behalf of his brother while struggling to make adjustments to the work.

However, the grand wish that was supposed to be completed had an unexpected development after that.

After scrutinizing numerous people in prison and their amnesty charges, it is said that many people were… the hell of the world that everyone fears, imprisoned on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Luden, in Walter Prison.

By the way, in that disgusting and dangerous place where people didn’t try to live, existed a girl who was completely innocent but was in there because she was born the child of a prostitute that was imprisoned there.

As expected, Lucas was appalled to the bone and immediately let her out inorder to mend that situation.

To be exact, he promptly took the girl into his custody without any further excuse.

The fact that an innocent prisoner was thoroughly concealed and that measures were taken to prevent the rumors of the girl’s existence from spreading unnecessarily by due to the prison director’s misconduct had been handled later. He had been thoroughly punished. This had been done to ensure that the girl could live in a bright future.

A girl who would not have been given the right hygienic environment, let alone an education.

Lucas had taken pity on her and was trying to leave her in a reliable orphanage, but the situation also unfolded in an unexpected direction.

To get a better grasp of the situation, he had interviewed the girl by himself. He found out that a minimum education was surprisingly given to her.

Her facial expression is a little lacking, and her posture is dull, but her body was healthy.

When Lucas, who had a good appearance, approached her face, she looked down shyly, and her reaction was really that of an “ordinary girl,” and it seemed that there was no problem with her emotional development.

Well, she looked so shabby and uninteresting that even Lucas, who had a reasonably wide strike zone, couldn’t move his index finger.

Anyway, he wondered if he could arrange a job in the city instead of in an orphanage, but Gelda, a stubborn and credible person who was there as a witness and of same gender as her immediately said, “I will protect her, so let’s make this child work in the royal palace!”

Apparently, she had already developed a lot of fantasies about the background of “growing up in prison without a crime” before she even met the little girl, and the fact that she had answered her questions quietly and had no facial expression on her face was all proof that she had survived in a lousy environment by neglecting her emotions.

Besides, Gelda had always been too friendly or a little too vulnerable to emotions, to begin with.

If a maid made a fake excuse of being sick, she would kindly take care of her, and say, “I’m sorry I didn’t notice it.”

Her subject of that excessive love for humankind is directed to Elma this time, but she said she had no particular objection when she was asked by her.

In the end, Lucas kept the girl’s origin a secret and allowed her to have work in the royal palace.

“I was aware that she was out of my hands and is now under your supervision. So how did you end up with this “emergency” again?”

“That said, there’s still half of it, that is your fault, you know. Since you used your that useless handsome face to uselessly chit-chat with the maids and interviewed that child. Odd rumors had begun to spread ever since she had started her first day working. She had been the target of all the envy of the maid’s who worship you.”

With that said, Gelda explained that one of the older maids forced Elma to overwork, while she had been talking to the gardener boy this morning.

“Irene…was it a girl with blonde hair and cat-like eyes? She has called me out a few times.”

“You sure do have an impressive memory for those kinds of things, don’t you? Anyway, I’ve scolded Irene, but Elma…”

“Huh? Are you saying she got lost in the castle?”

Gelda sighed and shook her head at Lucas, who raised his eyebrow

“If it was, it would be the guard’s job to search for her.”

“No, it’s not, she seems to be getting her work done faster than I expected.”

“What?”

“When I followed the memo of the work that was assigned to her, I was told, ‘She has already finished her work and left’, no matter where I went, the chicken coop, the yard, or the hallway …”

Lucas was puzzled.

That was a surprising development.

However, if she could handle that excess amount of work without any problems, it seemed as if they could leave it as it is.

But when Lucas told Gelda that, she refuted and tried to argue about it.

“How ruthless! She was a girl who was in jail until yesterday, don’t you know? That is far from a maid’s duties, that’s more like making a child work like a horse on the first day without letting it rest not to mention she literally does not know the ins and outs of the buildings layout! ”

“Well, I guess you’re right.”

“Moreover, she even almost completed all the work assigned, and what’s left is …to serve tea to Lady Juliana.”

Upon hearing that, Lucas also slightly raised his eyebrows.

“For a newcomer, that’s a pretty harsh thing to do.”

“Yes”

Gelda muttered a distressed follow-up, saying, “Lady Juliana is a noble person.”

Juliana.

Her official name is Juliana Fitz Roy.

As you can hear from the sound of her name, it is different from the names given in Luden, she was a foreign princess married from the Duchy of Rutland. She is also Lucas’ mother.

With her lustrous blonde hair and deep indigo eyes, her beauty made her second in line to become the Queen consort. She is a thoughtful, intelligent and a ruthless woman, with vicious aggression towards anything that would hurt her loved ones.

Juliana’s most beloved person was her first son Lucas.

And secondly, the culture of her motherland.

She loved her country’s culture, especially the custom of drinking tea in the afternoon, which was a holy ceremony for her. Her maidservants were often discharged by her mercilessly.

“I had decided that I would be the one to serve tea to Lady Juliana or an experienced maid with more than ten years of service… It is said that Irene lied to the maid who was on duty until she lied to her and let her rest while she pushed the work onto Elma. What kind of disaster would happen if that girl, who wouldn’t even know how to drink tea, dropped the pot…”

The wrinkles between Lucas’ eyebrows deepened.

It’d be great if it ends up with merely a scolding.

However, in the case of her mother, Juliana, everything was dependant on her mood. She’d behave as if she were trying to break the spirit of the other person.

“I don’t want to see that girl naked on the terrace in the middle of winter because she’s cooled the tea too much, or had worms crawl all over her body just because there are some worms in Lady Juliana cup. If something should happen… Lord Lucas, you are the only one who can save her. ”

Juliana, the fierce consort, also said that she would fix her mood at her beloved son’s request.

Lucas, who was usually noisy about that woman’s tastes and thoroughly cuts off whenever he was not interested in, is struck by the spirit of chivalry and shrugs a little as starts to speed up his pace.

He made his way into the corridor through the cathedral gate and to the backyard facing Lady Juliana’s room.

At that moment, Juliana’s excited voice could be heard, as the two looked at each other with rugged faces.

“…Whaa?”

The moment he tried to step into the garden in a hurry, Lucas and the others were rendered speechless by the sight that met their eyes.