Chapter 7: A Company from Clear Tide, Raising Huts on the Southeastern Hills
“Did you enjoy your holiday, Vivianna?”
Faust looked at his childhood friend and asked with a smile.
“It was indeed a holiday worth remembering. Please allow me to return to my post.”
Her voice flowed like a clear spring. Its cool, tranquil timbre was a pleasure to hear in itself.
Faust nodded. “Of course. To be honest, without your company and protection, I truly am not used to things.”
Vivianna Roseline.
She was the commander of the kingdom’s Royal Court Guard, and also the heir to the Roseline family.
As a small kingdom founded only a few decades ago, the Kingdom of Clear Tide naturally did not possess many old noble houses with long inheritances.
In fact, there were very few nobles in the entire kingdom, and most of them were wealthy merchants who had bought their titles with money. There was no helping it. If a poor backwater wanted to develop, it could only rely on selling offices and titles.
After all, money was money. There was nothing shameful about earning it.
In any case, Faust did not think honorary noble titles were especially precious. Nobles without a mystic inheritance would never be regarded as “true nobles,” so the more of those honorary grandees there were, the better. It was not as though he had to bestow the titles himself. On the contrary, he could continue extracting wealth from that group.
But even with so many pretenders mixed in, the kingdom still had real great nobles who held actual power.
Vivianna’s father, Count Roseline, was one such man. He had once been a close friend of the King of Clear Tide, and during the War of Independence that swept across the entire empire, he gathered a large number of like-minded countrymen and rose in revolt.
They waged a roaming guerrilla war along the empire’s southeastern frontier, gradually growing in strength and laying the foundation of what was now the Kingdom of Clear Tide.
A company from Clear Tide, raising huts on the southeastern hills, as the saying went.
After that brutal struggle, only the old king and Count Roseline survived in the end. The latter became Clear Tide’s greatest power-holder outside the royal house—indeed, one could say he was the only true power-holder besides the crown.
It was precisely because their bond had been tempered through blood and fire that the king trusted his old comrade so deeply, entrusting the kingdom’s sole Royal Guard to Count Roseline’s command.
And because of the relationship between those two old men, Faust and Vivianna could naturally be called childhood friends.
In truth, their relationship could no longer be described so simply.
Vivianna had once been Faust’s fiancée.
That was not hard to understand. Count Roseline and the old king had been so close that—they might as well have worn the same pair of trousers. Under such circumstances, arranging a marriage alliance for the next generation had been the most reasonable decision imaginable.
This was strength joined to strength, kinship added to kinship—surely someone could see the beauty of that.
Yet Faust had been unwilling. Do not misunderstand: it was not that he disliked Vivianna. On the contrary, from every possible angle, this childhood friend was wholly satisfactory—unfortunately, she was from Clear Tide.
What the prince held in his heart was the whole world beyond the Nine Provinces and the myriad lands!
His ambition was vast enough to swallow the cosmos itself! If all he wanted was to govern the Kingdom of Clear Tide, then marrying Vivianna would have completed centralization once and for all.
But if he wished to expand outward and push beyond his borders, then such a match would be of no help at all. The Kingdom of Clear Tide still had quite a few friendly neighboring states.
They could band together for warmth, or even rule in union. Faust truly could not accept wasting such precious marriage-alliance resources. He had a particular taste for foreign brides; not marrying one simply would not do.
And so His Highness could only hint, in an indirect way, that he did not particularly wish to marry Vivianna.
This engagement had never been a purely political arrangement. It had been, to a greater extent, the earnest hope of two intimate friends. Since one of the younger generation was unwilling, it could only be called off.
Though he did feel somewhat sorry toward Vivianna, Faust firmly believed that what he had done was right.
Looking straight at the lovely face half-hidden beneath the young woman’s hood, he said softly, “Now that I have you guarding me, I can finally feel at ease. Sure enough, I simply cannot do without you.”
Although the engagement had been canceled, that did not mean his relationship with Vivianna had turned sour.
After Count Roseline stepped down from office, his daughter quite naturally took over the post of commander of the Royal Guard.
Whatever else might be said, Vivianna’s loyalty was absolutely beyond doubt. And what let Faust sleep especially soundly was the certainty that Vivianna liked him. The deep feelings forged over the past ten years had by no means been false.
Moreover, this commander of the Royal Guard had quite an easy temperament to handle.
“Perhaps that is not so, Your Highness?”
To the prince’s surprise, his flattering words did not work as they usually did. Vivianna said coolly:
“I heard that at the ball, you encountered a young woman who captured your heart, and that you are now searching the streets for her everywhere. Is that not so?”
…Was this jealousy?
Faust lowered his gaze slightly and tried his best to study the expression beneath the girl’s hood. That lovely face looked somewhat colder than usual.
This truly was a rare sight. Under ordinary circumstances, Vivianna would never display negative emotions on her face. Besides, when His Highness held his licentious parties, the golden-haired girl usually stood outside the door keeping watch. Why would she care about something like this?
Faust could not make sense of it in so short a time, so he simply brushed it aside with an airy reply. “You could say that, yes. But more than anything, I am curious. What happened over those few nights felt like a dream. At the very least, I ought to know who she is.”
Seeming to accept Faust’s explanation, Vivianna gave an almost imperceptible nod and asked, “Then why not search for her by portrait instead?”
Faust pointed toward the great shoe-fitting assembly in front of the palace. “If I still remembered, I would not be searching in this way. I can no longer recall that girl’s face or voice at all.”
That was the truth. The very instant 「Cinderella」 left, Faust’s related memories seemed to have been smeared away.
Even so, he still remembered his interactions with 「Cinderella」 with perfect clarity.
But everything beyond that refused to come back to him, no matter how hard he tried.
Vivianna curled her lips. “You have forgotten even her appearance, and you still call that love?
By your own account, even if she truly stood right in front of you, you would not recognize her!”
Faust maintained his composed smile and replied, “Even so, I still want to find her. I will find her without fail. Even if I forget her again and again, an indelible love and obsession will still guide me to meet her.”
For His Highness to say such words actually damaged his usual image a little. He had never spoken lightly of love before. Even when whispering sweet words, he usually kept them vague and ambiguous.
But Faust naturally had a basis for saying this. Since he now clearly knew that he was in the script of 「Witches’ Banquet」, he naturally had to do his utmost to play his role well…
At least for the moment, he had no intention of defying fate. There was nothing in 「Cinderella」’s script that warranted resistance, either.
Mephistopheles had already warned him: do not play clever games, do not try to be too smart, and do not assume the wheel of fate cannot grind you to dust.
Faust naturally followed that advice and planned his words and actions according to the mindset he had before his awakening.
Fortunately, that was not difficult, because awakening did not mean one became immune to the influence of “fate.”
If he did not deliberately keep his mind taut, it was all too easy for him to slip back into the lovestruck state he had been in before.
Vivianna froze for a moment when she heard that. She lifted her snow-white chin slightly and let out a soft sound of surprise. “Your Highness, it seems you really are serious this time.”