When My Enemies Began to Regret

“With this, I declare, in the name of God, that a pact has been made between the two!”

“Woow!”

“Congratulations. Have a long and happy life!”

After a while, the wedding was over. All participants moved to the reception hall. The party at the rose garden, prepared by the bride’s family, was elegantly held amid abundant food and soft music.

Then she went straight into the action. “Cecil, I want to play with other ladies in the garden. Stay in this place, and if my mother asks about me, tell her where I am.”

“Yes, Lady.”

Obviously, somewhere here, there must be Vasago, the main character in the novel she read and the main cause of the catastrophe of her engagement. However, meeting Vasago wasn’t her purpose for today. 

Fanora went through the noisy party hall to the corner of the garden. After a while, a small maze appeared. A maze of bushes carefully nurtured by the gardener. However, the difficulty level was very low, so it was practically impossible to use this as an escape game.

“…”

Then, did she need to enter the maze and look for its exit?

“It’s cool because there’s shade around it. It was like that back then too.”

Fanora’s purpose wasn’t to solve this maze built for children. She immediately sat down at the maze entrance and started waiting for someone. If her memory was correct, she would meet someone at the maze entrance.

It happened before her head was distorted with anger. That person passed by in front of the naive Fanora, who was playing around the maze until she was tired. She didn’t know who he was at that time, but now she could have called the man’s name.

“…It was spacious. But it wasn’t that the Count was pleased with the offer.”

“Shall I contact him again?”

“No, rather than that, I’ll just do it myself…”

When she heard the sound of someone walking nearby, she stood up and straightened up.  

“…!”

She heard their last steps while trampling the grass. Fanora confirmed their appearance and calmly greeted the two men who stopped. She hated studying etiquette in the past, so her greetings etiquette should be poor, but that doesn’t mean her skill would be poor.

“Greetings.”

Fanora bowed my head slightly, placed one of her hands on her chest, clasped the hem of my skirt with her other hand, and greeted them gently. It was the noble etiquette she had become accustomed to until the age of 21 in the society, and now it was close to perfection. 

“Is there a person like this in this place?”

Among the two figures who appeared from the east direction, the young man with dark hair responded similarly to her greeting.  But their conversation didn’t end there.

Of course, this was the first time the current Fanora and them met, so she could ask for their name because she didn’t know who they were. 

Even if she started such a forced conversation, that man would only give a short answer and leave. In addition, there was a possibility of being rejected to even have a conversation. 

Fanora wanted him to listen intently to her story, so she took action regardless of the price. 

“!”

When she finished greeting them, she pretended to leave this place and obviously dropped her handkerchief.

* * *

“Huh. That…”

“The Lady dropped her belongings.”

“That old-fashioned trick.”

A man in a dark blue robe touched the collar of his shirt. He pointed to the handkerchief dropped by the lady with curly black hair they had just met.

“Pick it up, sort it out somewhere or burn it.”

“Aren’t you going to return it to its owner?”

“I don’t have time to spend on this lowly trick.”

At his command, the servant, standing next to him, carefully lifted the handkerchief that had fallen on the ground. It was  difficult to make a fire here, so he could only throw it away where people couldn’t see it.

“Hmm? This…”

A man in a servant’s uniform showed an unexpected reaction when he saw the small piece of cloth in his hand. When the servant observed the handkerchief, the black-haired man also set his eyes on it, wondering what was happening.

At first, he thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. However, when he found the handkerchief’s handwriting at a glance from a distance, the servant’s owner opened his mouth, “That, bring it here.”

When the servant came with the handkerchief, he grabbed it and looked at it.  The more he looked at it, the more his expression became cold.

“This is amazing. How would the young lady I met for the first time know this?”

The white handkerchief had only one sentence drawn in black ink.

[Dear Duke Rose Jalier.]

There was something completely wrong with this sentence. Recognizing this, the man began to laugh bitterly. “…Find out which family she’s from. Right now.” His current emotions were anger and curiosity.

“Dear Duke Rose Jalier?”

The man had hazy, amber eyes. It was distorted in half, and soon an aggressive smile settled on his face.

“It’s not enough to touch the Duke’s name recklessly, but to attach the title to my younger brother, not me. What do you think this means?”

“It’s disrespectful… but there is room for it to be taken as a declaration of war against the young master, the successor of the family.”

“But, to make this crazy provocation?”

Looking at the handkerchief lightly waving from his hand, he ordered his servant to find the lady who dropped it. Since the reception was still in full swing, finding the Celsius family in the garden wasn’t difficult.

“I need to hear her intention of this.”

Upon hearing the news that he had found her, the man gladly began to move.

“Whether or not to be beheaded for insulting the little Duke, I can decide after we have talked about it at least once.”

* * *

15 minutes later.

The news she had been waiting for came sooner than expected. 

“We’re meeting again. Isn’t today our first meeting? I like to introduce myself. I’m Aloken from the Duke Jalier family… What about Lady?”

“My name is Fanora Celsius.”

“Ah, you are the daughter of Count Celsius.”

Fanora heard the call from the tall servant she had seen earlier and came out to the most hidden corner of the party. There, the black-haired man she met at the maze entrance was waiting for her. 

She didn’t look closer at him earlier because she only greeted him from a distance, but seeing him up close gave her a new feeling. 

Duke Aloken Jalier. He was a man who would be at the top of the Kingdom’s power structure in the future.

Unlike my expectation, he was a young man with neatly cut black hair that looked sharp. 

Aloken’s life had always been more than just a rumor, whether or not he had been talked about by nobles for no reason. Almond-shaped eyes, a high nose bridge, and soft, tightly closed mouth. Even from a distance, one could tell that he had an attractive appearance. 

However, Fanora wasn’t interested in his appearance. She had no interest in anything other than her revenge. 

In fact, she didn’t like his eyes. Perhaps because of the shape of his eyelids, but Aloken’s  eyes didn’t have much sparkle, so those shaded eyes made her feel uncomfortable. 

“I think you dropped this handkerchief, so I came to return it to you as a gentleman.”

“Thank you.”

“One thing before that.”

The man who introduced himself as Aloken said while opening the handkerchief in his hand.  “Everywhere I look on this handkerchief, it looks like the name of someone from my family. But… to blatantly blaspheme me like this.”

“…”

“Are you saying that you don’t know that I’m the successor of the family because you’re not a northerner?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“It depends on the person who accepts it.”

Aloken Jalier reacted coldly to Fanora. He said that she tried to challenge the authentic successor of the Duke and sternly said that she could pay the price for blaspheming his family.

Fanora thought for a moment but put it aside and focused on the conversation.

Because this face-to-face conversation was an important opportunity for her. 

“I will explain everything to you. I apologize if I offended you before.”

“Keep talking.”

“But I needed a chance to talk to the little Duke even if I had to do that.”

“You tried to provoke me to create this opportunity?”

“Yes. There is something I want to say.”

“You pay an expensive price for just a single conversation.”

Fanora spoke politely and softly as possible, but the reply that came back was ruthless. Aloken acted as if he would take any action at any moment. 

“Do you know what could happen to the Count’s child for blasphemy to the Duke’s success—”

“But you’re about to lose your successor’s position, right? Just like the sentence written on the handkerchief!”

At Fanora’s words that followed, Aloken shut his mouth and looked at her as if she was spouting nonsense. Seeing his attitude, Farnora said the next words without hesitation. It was finally her time to take the risk and show her worth to lure this man. 

“Lord Aloken Jalier, in fact, isn’t the current head of the family making the decision to make your younger brother as his successor? Hius will must have already been written that way, and in the end, the second son will become the new du—”

“Where did you hear such groundless stories?”

“It’s not without evidence.”

“If you carelessly spread fabricated rumors—”

“I heard what Duke Jalier himself said.”

“Are you going to be this foolish until the end? Did you ever meet my father in the first place? Are you going to say that you saw him at the fox hunt in the fall moon? It doesn’t seem like you’re old enough to pursue hunting already.”

“No. I once passed by him, who had come down to attend the spring moon council. I heard it right then!”

But it was already expected that he wouldn’t believe it. Aloken only responded like this story was absurd. 

In fact, all the stories that Fanora brought up here was all true. Some time later in the future, Duke Jalier would die from illness, and following his will, his successor position would go to his second son, not Aloken. 

Then, why did Fanora, who was from the central region, know the family members of the northern duke so well? It was simply because their succession issue developed into a famous topic in the capital.