Lord of Rot

After dinner, the butler approached with a letter sealed with wax.

Grandfather smiled apologetically, then rose and left.

With Grandfather’s departure, the banquet could be considered over.

”Why don’t you all go for a stroll?” Lewis suggested, wiping his mouth. ”Wander around the castle, look at the stars and the moon together.”

Leech stood up. ”Cousin Stacy, would you mind showing me around? I’m curious if the moon seen from Green Forest Castle is the same one seen from Porcupine Castle.”

”The moon should be the same no matter where you look at it from.” Stacy didn’t refuse.

”Oh,” Leech said, turning to Bode. ”Cousin Bode, perhaps we can go see those things you mentioned next time.”

A beautiful cousin on one hand, dissecting a sub-human girl on the other... Leech knew which to choose.

”Don’t mind Bode!” Lewis walked over to Bode, clamped a hand over his mouth, and then pretended to tilt his head as if listening to him. ”Oh, oh, uh-huh... Bode says he’s busy for the next couple of days! You two go on ahead!”

With one arm in a headlock around Bode’s neck and the other hand clamped over his mouth, he forcibly dragged Bode out of the dining hall.

Leech looked at Stacy.

She asked, ”To the battlements?”

She wasn’t quite used to this sudden private date.

”Alright.”

They left the dining hall, chatting side-by-side as they headed for the battlements of Green Forest Castle.

The maids cleaning the dining hall watched them leave, whispering among themselves.

”Miss Stacy and Lord Leech, they look so good together.”

”He’s so handsome,” another maid nodded. ”So bright, with such a lovely smile. His dark eyes are captivating, just like a Knight from a minstrel’s song.”

”Didn’t you notice? Miss Stacy wore makeup today,” another maid chimed in as she approached.

The maid who had been interrupted rolled her eyes. ”Of course we saw. Miss Stacy is so beautiful she doesn’t need makeup. But with it on—oh!” The single sound conveyed all of her amazement.

”But Lord Lewis and the others aren’t used to it. Everyone was laughing. But did you notice? The way Lord Leech looked at her then... he seemed mesmerized. And then their eyes met.”

They were young girls in the throes of first love; they knew they could never be a match for the handsome Baron, but that didn’t stop them from watching the scene, fantasizing, and adding their own rosy filter to savor the sweet romance.

”Is that so?” a cool voice cut in from the side.

The maids shivered in unison, turning to see the approaching head housekeeper before lowering their heads together.

But the head housekeeper said, ”Miss Stacy wore a dress today. That’s a huge step forward. Right, tell me what happened at the dining table... the part about Lord Leech and her. In detail!”

The young maids glanced at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

Then they began to chatter away again. With the head housekeeper backing them, their voices grew even bolder.

Meanwhile, the two people at the center of all this gossip had reached the walls of Green Forest Castle.

Leech’s vision was superb. The powerful eyesight of the Earth Folk allowed him to see as clearly as if it were day.

”Is Porcupine Territory by the sea?” Stacy asked. ”The last time I visited, your father hadn’t become a Baron yet.”

They hadn’t moved to Porcupine Territory back then.

Leech, however, gave Stacy a strange look.

”What is it?” Stacy asked.

”Nothing,” Leech shook his head. He could now be sure. ’It’s not a split personality. The person who wrote those letters to me wasn’t my cousin. It was someone else.’

’No wonder the person in the letters was so different from the person in front of me.’

”Um... we talked about the sea in our letters, didn’t we?” Seeing the change in Leech’s expression, Stacy suddenly had a vague recollection. It seemed the sea had been mentioned many times in the letters between Leech and Fami Port. ’Didn’t I just blow my cover with that last sentence?’

If it were any other time, facing any other young nobleman, she wouldn’t have cared if her secret was out.

But after everything that had happened today, she found herself feeling rather fond of the cousin she hadn’t seen in so long. Having someone else write her letters for her... that would be terribly awkward.

Leech wasn’t about to interrogate a lady, especially since he had only written those letters out of courtesy himself. ”Actually,” he said, ”I’d rather talk about the stars than the sea.”

’Most of what I wrote was just copied, anyway.’

Stacy let out a sigh of relief.

She lifted her head to the river of stars that stretched across the night sky. It hung directly above them, the stars like countless eyes that opened at night and closed at dawn, a single blink marking the passage of a day and a night.

Just as she was about to say something, Stacy heard Leech speak again. ”Alright, to be honest, I’m not that interested in the stars either.”

He was looking at Stacy as he spoke, as if to say: I’m very interested in you.

It was the truth, but his gaze was easily misunderstood.

Stacy didn’t enjoy this part. As the only daughter of Green Forest Castle, she was often subjected to declarations of love from young noblemen trying to act dashing.

”You are more delicate than a flower.” ”You are the sun in my heart.” ”I would compare you to the stars.” And so on. Perhaps Miss Water Hyacinth would be thrilled by such lines, but Stacy just found them tedious.

It was enough to quickly cool her mood.

Nothing killed the mood faster than a cheesy pickup line.

But then Leech asked, ”Do you also train at night in Green Forest Castle?”

”Of course!” At the mention of training, Stacy immediately perked up, her head held high. She quickly caught herself and reined it in. ”Green Forest Castle trains at night as well. Night combat is unavoidable, and Soldiers must learn to adapt to any environment!”

She thought that this cousin, whom she hadn’t seen in years, was completely different from those other nobles who only knew how to wag their tails like fawning puppies.

”Want to spar?” Leech asked.

’Although I don’t love fighting, this is an Extraordinary Knight! An opportunity like this doesn’t come often. I want to understand Extraordinary Knights better, to gauge what role this power might play in future conflicts, and to see if I can master it myself. The rise of a powerful new force will inevitably lead to war. The continent’s political landscape is bound to change, and I need to be prepared.’

”What?” Stacy was stunned.

’You’re asking a lady in a dress to cross swords with you?’

However, it was exactly what she wanted to hear.

”Alright!” she said with a grin.

「Green Forest Castle Study」

Lewis, his arm still around his son Bode, pushed open the door and found his father sitting in a chair.

He looked at his father admiringly. ’I just asked the butler—there was no secret letter! To use a trick like that for a graceful exit... The old man’s still the craftiest of them all.’

”Where did they go?”

”Looks like they went to the battlements to watch the stars,” Lewis said. ”We can really count on Leech. I hope he can win Stacy over. She’s already twenty!”

In an age where girls were having children at fourteen, twenty was practically an old maid.

He still remembered Stacy’s first ball at fifteen. She had been the most dazzling girl there, and for that, the men of the Old Crocodile family had been bursting with pride for a long time.

At sixteen, she was still the most beautiful one, with countless handsome young men lining up to dance with her.

At seventeen, she was still the star of the show. Even though some fifteen-year-old noble girls had appeared and stolen some of the limelight, none could shake her status.

At eighteen, she was still unmarried. Most of the girls who had debuted with her were already married. Some had even become widows and remarried—some for a second or third time, dropping from a Baroness to a Knight’s wife. At the balls, she went from being the main attraction to a supporting character. Thankfully, some gentlemen were still willing to line up to ask her for a dance.

By nineteen, Stacy’s light had faded. Young, pretty girls are the eternal center of any ball. Being unmarried at nineteen with a penchant for fighting had ruined her reputation. Some even called her the ”Lady General.” If she hadn’t been a noblewoman of Wisdom, her nickname would likely have been ”that mannish girl.”

They had wracked their brains and gotten headaches over Stacy. Thankfully, Leech had appeared. And from the looks of it, he seemed capable of taking the lead in their courtship.

’This could work. It will definitely work! It has to work!’