Our journey went very smoothly.

On the way, I realized how far from civilization the manor was.

I once asked Shania’s parents where they lived, and they told me “Dubhan: the nearest town”

It was the nearest town, I’ll give them that but I wouldn’t dare to use the word near to describe how far from each other that town was from the manor.

It took us half a day to reach the nearest thing that could be called a semblance of civilization.

This means that Shania and her parents have to do a similar ride each week to supply the manor with food and stuff.

What a bunch of brave people.

They usually arrive in the manor early in the morning, just after breakfast, which would mean they probably left their homes the night before.

It must be quite a tedious task to do each week.

Maybe I should ask Maa to reduce their delivery to once every two weeks?

But doesn’t that mean that they would be paid less?

All in all, I should maybe keep it shut. After all, I've seen them doing this for nearly nine. I have no say on that matter.

It might not even be a matter for them.

That is, I should mind my own business.

Let us go back to our journey:

Despite not being able to read the book I planned to read on the road, I managed to find something else to distract myself:

The landscape.

I was used to seeing the green countryside, but the lovely green I saw scrolling along the road was on another level in terms of beauty.

On the road from inside the carriage windows, I could see green and full of life landscape, mountainous reliefs, and blue and cloudless sky.

The winter was getting closer but the sky was graciously clear and the sun radiant.

It was the same sky, the same sun as the one in the manor but coupled with the exquisite landscape, it felt very different.

On the road, we took several breaks in a few of the multitude of towns that were littering the duchy.

Not all nobles were stationed in the duchy main city.

Usually, it’s only the high-ranked and middle-ranked who were living there.

As for the low-ranking nobles they were usually assigned to a small estate like the towns we stopped over.

These low-ranking nobles were usually subordinate to one of the five great families and were sent there to exploit the resources their domain had to offer on the behalf of one of the five great families.

All the towns we stopped over were run by nobles who were subordinate to Lord Emilien.

We mostly stopped in these towns to eat, to get some rest, and to give the horse pulling the carriage a rest. Once we’re done we resumed our journey

After four days on the road, our destination finally came into view.

“You see that boy. That’s the city of my ancestor -Our ancestor.”

From inside the carriage, I could see the city.

An immense city surrounded by a giant wall.

This city was Beaufort, the duchy's main city.

The buildings inside the city were imposing but six tall buildings stood out particularly from each other.

Four giant castles were disposed at each cardinal point of the city, another one that seems definitely more overbearing than the others were in the middle of the town and the last one was a giant cathedral, situated between the castle in the north and the castle in the middle.

These six buildings were the castles of the five great families and the last one is the church’s Cathedral.

***

We finally reached Lord Emilien castle.

We were now in the courtyard.

When Lord Emilien and I got out of the carriage, several people who, from their clothes, I assume to be servants, were already in the courtyard waiting for us.

“Welcome back My Lord.” They all said in unison while bowing their heads.

At which Lord Emilien just dismissed their welcome with a wave of the hand.

“Where is he ?” Lord Emilien asked the bunch.

“He is in the library, as usual, my Lord.” Replied a man dressed as a butler.

“I see. Landau, Get one of the guest rooms and a room for his butler the masked man over there, ready for this boy and his butler. And Rufus, get someone to show you around.”

The masked in question was Syrus.

It has been established in advance that Syrus would have to hide his identity under a mask, after all, he had served my father since he was 2, it would be very obvious if the former head-attendant of the son of Duke were to serve a mysterious young boy with unknown.

Thus it has been decided that Syrus would wear a mask and would go by the name.

“Yes Lord Emilien,” said Syru Rufus respectfully.

“I see, Come boy, there is someone I want to introduce to you.” He said while patting me in the head.

“Someone?”

“Yes.” He said with a smile.

We then headed to the castle entrance door.

As soon as we went in, all I could see was a giant entrance with a multitude of stairs and doors.

We climbed one of those stairs for around five minutes straight until finally, we reached a sort of large hallway.

Coming from the other side of the hallway was a group of people led by the shortest person of short stature, they were coming our way.

Once they were close to us.

I could finally see what the person with a short stature looked like.

Each of them bowed their head and said,

“Welcome back my Lord.”

Each bowed and paid their respect to Lord Emilien, except the person who had short stature.

From afar, I thought that it was a girl. But once his mouth opened to utter a word, I realized that I was wrong.

“Welcome back grandfather. I’m sorry for not being able to greet you at the entrance.” A boyish voice came out of the one who I assumed to be a girl.

I assumed it was a girl because just like me, he had long hair.

A long and let loose silver hair.

The same blue eyes as Lord Emilien.

The silver hair and the blue eyes, that was all that person had in common with Lord Emilien.

Other than that, that person had the facial features of a cute little girl.

Yet from the voice I knew it was clear he was a boy.

When I was younger, It would be hard for someone who’s never seen me tell if I was a boy or a girl, but with the years maybe thanks to the time I spent training in the forest, I have developed a certain air of masculinity but this guy kept the same girly air I had years ago.

He was around my height.

I couldn’t tell if he was actually older or younger than me, but judging from his long hair, he couldn’t be over ten.

“This is nothing, It’s not like you I announced my arrival. Mael, I have someone I want to introduce to you.” As he said that, he gave me a pat on my back urging me to introduce myself.

“This one is Ronandt, May the mighty blessing of Djeem the accursed be upon us.”

“This one is Mael, May the eternal blessing of Kiady upon us.”

“Ronandt is the son of a friend of mine, he came from far away to see the famous hero of our Duchy and one of the seven holy paladins: Armand Aubrecht.” Said Lord Emilien while patting my head.

“But isn’t Lord Armand supposed to come back in three months,” asked Mael with skepticism painted all over his face.

“Yes, You see, this Ronandt over here is an extremely punctual person. So he came here in advance to not be late. Thereby he’s going to be our guest until then.”

“I see.”

It was clear that he was still unconvinced by Lord Emilien's explanation and just didn’t want to continue the debate.

“So Mael I’m counting on you to get along with him.”

“I’ll do my best grandpa.” Said Mael with a small nod.

“And where is she?” Lord Armand asked Mael.

To the Lord Emilien’s question, Mael's face morphed into a dejected one.

He let out a long sigh and said.

“Grounded since Grandpa's departure. She won’t be able to come over for at least one week or two.”

“Oh, that’s a shame.” From his tone, It was clear that he was really disappointed by the news.

“Don’t tell me, you have the intention to introduce him to her.” As if completely horrified by the idea.

I still don’t know who “her” is, but it was clear that the “him” Mael was referring to was me.

“Yes. I’m sure they will get along. After all, you know the saying, bird of feather flock together”

Mael then began to inspect me from the toe to the head. At some point, he began to stare at me in the eyes.

“Now that I look closely he does really look like her.”

“Who is “her,” I asked Lord Emilien.

To my question, a nasty smile began to appear on his face.

“her” is- well I don’t think I need to reveal who she is, you’ll eventually bump into her on one of those days.”

“I see.”

It was clear that I won’t get anything about the identity of the famous “She” from Lord Emilien.

When I looked over at Mael, he immediately averted his gaze.

“Since you two have now made the acquaintance, though it is a shame that “she” isn't here, it is time for us to get some rest. I am sure that Ronandt over here must be exhausted by our long journey. Right?”

“Yes.”

Well, I wasn’t particularly exhausted but it would be impolite to say no here and I was quite curious what my rooms look like.