Published: August 10, 2026
They all fell silent for a while, and the journey continued in nothing but peace and quiet.
Before long, it seemed the soil beneath the wheels had changed, and the violent shaking they had been bracing against eased a little. The carriage began to run smoothly.
Then Lord Cyrus's eyes lit up as if he had thought of some sort of prank. He opened the carriage window and called out to Lord Ruifeng on the coachman's seat.
"Ruifeng, I'm bored."
"...Then do you want to take over driving? If you're not used to it, you'll get thrown off."
"No, I'll pass on that. More importantly, entertain me with some amusing little story."
"A little story?"
"Ah, a song would do too. An heroic ballad praising the glory of Cyrus Granado."
After being so casually dismissed by Lord Cyrus and treated like a bard, Lord Ruifeng let out an easy-to-understand, displeased "hmph."
He opened his mouth wide as if to say something back, then stopped midway. After that, he gave a snort of laughter and said in his usual carefree tone,
"Then how about this story? The tale of young Cyrus's student days and all the messes he got himself into."
"Huh? Lord Cyrus's?"
"W-Wait, what did you say?!"
Lord Cyrus hurriedly sat up, but I stayed right where I was.
To be honest, I was a little interested too.
Sensing my curiosity, Lord Ruifeng grinned.
"Well now, even the famed Duke Granado was, at twelve years old, just an ordinary boy for his age—innocent and stupid. First, on the very first day of class, after the entrance ceremony, came the self-introductions. It seems young Lord Cyrus wanted to hide the fact that he was the legitimate son of the Granado Family, so he used a pointless fake name, but—"
"Hey, stop that! What are you trying to talk about?!"
Lord Cyrus thrust his arm through the window leading to the coachman's seat and grabbed Lord Ruifeng's cloak.
Even as he was pulled from behind and shaken about, Lord Ruifeng kept smiling broadly.
"To be perfectly clear, every noble in this country knows all about the Granado Family's troubles, and with this face there's no way to hide it, so a fake name was completely useless. So everyone just stared at him like, 'What is this guy talking about?' and—"
"W-Wait, wait, wait!"
Lord Cyrus struggled to silence Lord Ruifeng, but the window wasn't large enough for him to climb through. All he could do was grab the cloak and shake him, while Lord Cyrus panicked and Lord Ruifeng refused to shut up.
Ahhh, the carriage is shaking!
No matter how sturdy a war chariot built for rough roads may be, if the person holding the reins is being jostled around that much, the horses would be thrown off too. The whole carriage had begun swaying so violently it was hard to stay seated.
"B-Both of you, if you're going to argue, please sit down...! Wahhhhh!"
I protested in a faint voice, but the two of them, now thoroughly worked up, showed no sign of stopping their horseplay.
"On top of that, the fake name he used was a masterpiece! He used the name of a demigod hero from ancient mythology! Like, does he think he's a hero or what? Everyone was desperately trying not to laugh—"
"That wasn't because I thought of myself as a hero, I just said the first name that came to mind!"
"Yep, yep, Lord Cyrus the liarrrr~ He did the same thing at the academy's costume party toooo~ Everyone knows that toooo~"
"Y-You, on the other hand! I heard that on your first date with Anastasia, you agonized over what to wear for ages and then showed up in some ridiculous outfit!"
"W-Wait, who did you hear that from?!"
"From Norman via Anastasia."
"That damn father-in-law— no, more importantly, Lord Cyrus, isn't it cheating to bring up a recent story? We were talking about your teenage dark past right now, weren't we?"
"Teenage? In that case, there are way too many 'mischief' stories I could tell that are too embarrassing to even say out loud. Right, Marie, make sure you take notes on what I'm about to say. Since he told you my story, I'll send Anastasia a letter about Ruifeng."
"Wait, Lord Cyrus, I'm really sorry, I said I was sorry—"