The Young Lady With the Most Powerful Specs Was Just Too Cute, so I Started Teasing Her—But Then She Tried to Trap Me With a Chain, so I Kept Running Away With All My Might - Chapter 0

Prologue

I couldn’t help but grin at the beautiful girl who was chasing me with a blank look on her face, gripping pitch-black chains in her hands.

“Lady Oldie, what’s the matter? Is that all you’ve got? This is why Duke’s daughters are so fragile. I can hardly stand to watch.”

She glared at me. Her eyes were fixed straight on me and me alone.

A pleasant chill ran down my spine from the bloodlust she was sending my way.

Pleasure raced through my whole body. I couldn’t help it.

“Shut up! I’m definitely going to catch you!”

“Well, if you can actually catch me, I’ll grant you any wish you want, Lady Oldie.”

“First, close that smart mouth of yours, Nil! And I’ve told you so many times to call me Ludie!”

Pitch-black chains flew through the air to grab me, crushing massive rocks and thick trees in their path. That was her power—a force that could catch and destroy anything.

But I lightly dodged them and kept running.

This was the usual daily routine for Lady Oldie and me. It all started with a game of tag I began just to save her.

♢

It’s been a year since I started serving the House of Ryurius as a trainee knight.

Man, it’s worth celebrating.

This is a Duke’s house, one of the top prestigious families in the whole kingdom!

Coming from a family of country knights, when I first saw the gate, the only thing I could say was, “It’s huge…”

The training grounds are big, the garden is pointlessly massive, the hallways are so long you’d definitely get scolded for running in them, and the food is fancy and delicious.

Being called a “trainee knight” sounds pretty cool, too.

My dad always gets mad at me for being too positive, but considering how hard it is to become a trainee knight, I must be really lucky.

I get to swing a real sword, wear shiny armor, and work for a Duke who gathers the kingdom’s elite knights.

It’s like a dream!

In reality, it’s just cleaning and training from morning on, and then getting worked to the bone by my seniors. It’s the same thing over and over. Still, I like this place quite a bit.

“Nil! Your feet stopped moving!”

“They haven’t stopped! I was just taking a second to think!”

“What do you need to think about during training!”

“How to run away!”

“I like your honesty! But you’re too slow!”

A wooden sword came whistling toward me, so I twisted my body by reflex.

The blow brushed past the tip of my nose, making me let out a whistle.

“That was dangerous! You’re actually trying, Senior!”

“If I don’t, you’ll just keep getting away! And hey, stop dodging!”

“It’ll hurt if I don’t! Oh, did you just praise me?”

“I didn’t praise you!”

The other seniors watching from the edge of the training ground started laughing.

Man, this is fun.

I’m not actually that strong. But I am great at running away.

I hate getting hurt, so I focused entirely on dodging the seniors’ swords. Before I knew it, after a year, the only thing I got really good at was my footwork.

I wonder if only the Captain can catch me? Actually, I’m pretty confident I could get away from him, too.

Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out how to land a counterattack right after I dodge.

Anyway, swinging a sword while making a scene like this isn’t bad.

When I first started, I was always shrinking away in fear, but now I can talk back to my seniors like this.

After being chased around for a while, we finally got a break. I rested my wooden sword on my shoulder and let out a long breath.

The spring breeze felt great. The sky was blue, the grass was green—it was a good day.

…It would be even better if the atmosphere in this mansion was a bit brighter, though.

“Senior.”

“What is it?”

I casually called out to the senior knight who was wiping off his sweat.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“Isn’t this place a little too quiet?”

The senior’s hand stopped moving. Just from that, I knew I’d stepped on a landmine. But I already asked, so there was no going back.

“I mean, it’s a fancy noble house, so maybe being too loud would be weird. But it’s like… even when everyone is smiling, it feels like they’re holding back a little.”

“…You really pay attention to stuff like that, don’t you?”

“I’m not just fast on my feet, you know.”

“Don’t say that about yourself.”

The senior gave a dry laugh and lowered his voice a bit.

“The Madam passed away a year and a half ago.”

“…Oh.”

A dumb-sounding voice slipped out of my mouth.

The senior looked toward the mansion at the edge of the training ground and continued.

“They say it was an illness. It was a huge deal inside the house, but the news didn’t really get out much. It happened before you got here. It’s no wonder you didn’t know.”

“I see…”

“That’s when it happened. The atmosphere of this house changed.”

The wind blew. The spring breeze that felt so good a moment ago suddenly felt a little chilly.

“It must have been hard on the Duke, too, but the one who changed the most was the young lady.”

“The young lady…”

The only daughter of this house, Lady Oldie Rock Ryurius.

I’ve seen her a few times from a distance.

She’s around the same age as me. But she’s so beautiful that she feels like someone from another world—it feels almost rude to even say we’re close in age.

Her black hair is lovely, her skin is pale, and her face is as perfectly shaped as a doll’s.

On top of that, she apparently has so much magical talent that people talk about it all over the royal capital.

The Duke’s daughter who controls pitch-black chains.

Just hearing that name makes noble kids her age shake in their boots. Well, I was the type who thought, “Chains are so cool,” before I felt any fear.

“Since the Madam died, she’s been staying in her room more and more. Before that, people called her a child prodigy or a miracle girl.”

The senior said in a low voice.

“I heard she isn’t even eating much. If you talk to her, she’ll answer. If you ask her to do something, she’ll listen. But she never says she wants to do anything herself.”

“…”

“Maids, tutors, and noble girls she’s known for a long time have all come to visit. But it didn’t seem to work. No matter what anyone says, it just ends with ‘Yes’ or ‘I understand’. It’s like…”

“…Like a doll?”

“Yeah.”

Those words really stuck in my chest.

A beautiful, fragile doll that doesn’t move on its own.

I really didn’t like the sound of that.

Ever since I started serving the Duke, I’ve really liked this mansion.

The seniors are scary, but they look after me, the servants are kind, and even though the Duke is strict, he isn’t unfair.

It felt wrong that the young lady at the center of a place like this was just… stopped in time.

“Well, it’s not something we can do anything about.”

The senior shrugged.

“If we stick our noses where they don’t belong, we’ll just make things worse.”

“I guess you’re right.”

I said that, but something was still nagging at me.

We can’t do anything. That’s definitely true.

She’s a Duke’s daughter, and I’m just a trainee knight.

The gap in our social standing is so big it’s stupid to even think about it.

So normally, we would never even have anything to do with each other.

…Well, “normally.”

“Nil Metasura.”

In the evening, while I was pouring water over my head after training, the Head Butler called my name.

“Yes!”

“The Duke is calling for you.”

“Me?”

I turned around without thinking. The seniors around me all looked over at the same time.

“Did you finally mess up?”

“Maybe he found out you ate three pieces of bread from the dining hall yesterday?”

“That was a legitimate resupply!!”

“I hope you can say that in front of the Duke.”

“Senior! Please don’t talk about me like I’m some glutton!”

Laughter broke out. I hurried to wipe my hair and fix my uniform.

Wait, seriously, what is this about? Is there anything I’d get in trouble for… maybe… well, if I think really hard, there are a few small things.

But it shouldn’t be enough for the Duke himself to call for me; I hope.