Chapter 2: A Change That Came Without Warning
They say that changes in life always come without warning and violently.
Even so, it would be a bit too much for a change of this magnitude to occur overnight.
It was today that I was dragged here, told to “live together starting today,” as if I had no right to refuse the request to “pretend” to be his husband.
This was accompanied by a subtle threat that if I didn't follow, the collected evidence of the crime would be handed over to the police.
Any resistance or escape attempts were completely crushed by Lord Noel's iron-like, gentle smile. Perhaps the last act of consideration was allowing me to leave a single letter to my family saying I had somewhere to visit…
“You may use this room starting today.”
Inside, the female knight assigned as Aiden’s guide continued in a businesslike tone, her silver armor clattering.
I heard her name was Lord Stella. Was she Lord Noel’s closest confidant? The only person, along with Lord Noel, who knew about the sham marriage Aiden was forced into.
“I will assign an orderly, so please convey your needs to them, and we will prepare them promptly.”
“……Yes.”
“He will be entering the Imperial Palace before long. Please ensure everything is prepared well.”
Although the sentences echoing in his dazed mind were a jumbled mess, he was still somehow able to grasp at least one question to ask.
“……The Imperial Palace?”
“Sir Noel is a national hero symbolizing the Imperial military. His Imperial Majesty is always on high alert regarding that marriage proposal, so meeting him once is unavoidable.”
“Is that something you absolutely—”
Seeing Sir Stella’s expression, Aiden fell silent.
Come to think of it, if she had intended to let him refuse so easily, she wouldn’t have dragged him all the way here in the first place without asking for his opinion.
Instead, he decided to voice a slightly different question.
“Is it really okay to entrust such a momentous task to me?”
The question, from the very beginning, even carried the doubt of whether it was acceptable to entrust this insane scam of a fake marriage to a mere man.
“It is a decision made by Lord Noel. There is no way it could be anything wrong.”
“…….”
“Lord Noel has never once made a wrong decision.”
At words that conveyed a level of trust bordering on blind faith, Aiden fell silent.
Rather, it seemed as though she were reprimanding him for questioning Lord Noel’s judgment.
Her subsequent reaction was also natural.
Is she crazy?
He sensed the qualities of a madman.
The kind of person who, if Lord Noel said the sun rose in the west, would get angry at the sun rising in the east the next morning, asking why it wasn't rising in the west.
“Then, I hope you rest well.”
As Lord Stella closed the door and left with those words, Aiden let out a quiet sigh.
Everything had been sudden, but he needed to sort out the situation first.
Sitting in the chair and staring into the void, a window that always appeared in response to his thoughts opened right before his eyes.
[Skill Info]
◈ Weaver of Fate
Only you know the truth of this world. Earn new rewards by building bonds with key figures in the main story!
【Noel Astria Seamus】
Bond: Level 1
Can copy 1 skill.
This was ridiculous.
Leaving aside that grandiose name like Weaver of Fate or whatever.
Sir Noel and Bond Level 1?
What kind of bond were they talking about between a human who had kidnapped him and asked him to pretend to be her husband and a hostage dragged here against his will?
Even if he wanted to make Stockholm syndrome bloom, they hadn't had even the slightest interaction for that to happen.
They'd only exchanged a few words.
At least, there was something positive to be found beneath that bizarre wording.
Skill copying means…
This must mean he could perfectly mimic one of Sir Noel's abilities.
Considering Sir Noel's stature in this world, the mere fact that such a thing existed right now would be quite a help.
Because—
[Quest Info]
▶ Failure to complete the events listed in this section will result in massive penalties!
◈ Fake Marriage
You have been chosen as Lord Noel's spouse. Maintain your contract with your partner until the end!
Additional information will be updated as events related to the Main Story approach!
Aiden glared at those words with narrowed eyes.
Just seeing the mention of a fake marriage made his stomach churn, but the bigger problem was what lay beneath it.
What was the Main Story?
A glorious battle against forces of evil threatening the world.
A cauldron of schemes and conspiracies among all kinds of warlords swirling on a continent brimming with the crisis of war.
Great stories of great people.
That meant…
If I get entangled, I'll die.
The problem was, whether he liked it or not, he was already entangled in it.
What should he do?
To be precise, how could he drop everything and escape, even now?
As Aiden pondered this, the sound of a door bursting open suddenly struck his ears.
Sir Stella had said earlier that she would assign an orderly, so it must be that one.
Aiden immediately straightened his posture and composed his expression.
In any case, as long as he was dragged here, he had to pretend to be Sir Noel's spouse.
“It is a pleasure to meet you. I am—”
Bang!
Before the greeting could even be finished, the man who had kicked open the door and entered spoke coldly.
“I am Gale Osron, Sir Noel's longtime friend and the heir to the Marquisate of Osron. Draw your sword.”
“………”
What on earth was he saying?
No matter how he looked at it, that wasn't something an orderly would say, and the guy who had actually entered the room didn't look like an orderly at all.
Well-equipped with a sword and armor, he looked like someone who had come prepared for battle.
And not just any battle; he was emitting streams of killing intent with no intention of hiding it from his opponent.
Aiden barely managed to hold back his trembling cheeks and continued speaking.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand what you mean—”
“I heard you are Lord Noel’s fiancée. I’d like to see your skills.”
“……Why?”
No, really. Why?
Were there only people like this gathered around Lord Noel?
“I have never once heard anything about you from Lord Noel. All I heard was that the engagement was decided suddenly today.”
“……”
Gale Osron said this as he drew his longsword with a swooshing sound.
“I cannot be certain what kind of person my friend is willing to accept as a spouse without testing him myself. And by clashing swords, one can discern a person's true nature. Come at me.”
“……”
Aiden could realize one thing for sure: there were truly a lot of crazy people around Lord Noel.
At the sight of a knight actually drawing his sword and striding toward him, Aiden’s gaze urgently turned toward the system window.
If he stayed still like this, he might actually get stabbed.
He had to come up with a plan!
[System Message]
▶ Using the skill copy ability of 'Skill: Weaver of Fate'.
▶ Analyzing the skill list of target 'Noel Astria Seamus'.
▶ Displaying the most valuable skills from the top—
He chose the very top one without even looking.
Anything would do, because he needed to get out of here right now!
[System Message]
▶ Copying 'Unique Ability: Pure White Heart'.
▶ An ability possessed only by this individual in the entire world.
▶ Target 'Noel's' interest in you may increase!
A phrase that weighed on his mind flashed through his vision, but it was clear he had no time to pay attention to it.
“I will strike first.”
“…….”
I don't know where he sold off his chivalry. Shouldn't he at least yield the first strike?
“Stand up straight and show me your skill!”
At those words, and the sight of the blade plunging down upon him, Aiden squeezed his eyes shut.
▣
“How do you look?”
At the question delivered in a soft voice, Stella barely managed to suppress a sigh threatening to burst out.
She couldn't commit such a faux pas in front of her beloved Sir Noel.
“He is terrified.”
“To what extent?”
“It is evident that he has been dragged into something he cannot handle. You could say he looks like a puppy slumped over in the rain.”
At the continuous barbarity, Sir Noel burst into uncontrollable laughter.
It must have been quite amusing, as she even briefly set down the wooden sword she had been swinging in her light attire.
“That’s only natural, Stella. If you had adapted to this situation so quickly, I would have been the one more flustered.”
“…….”
Noel Astria Seamus—or the knight known by the alias Lionheart—held an absolutely unassailable position within the military.
Although Stella herself was a figure who dominated that atmosphere, seeing that attitude, she couldn't help but have doubts.
“May I ask you something?”
“Speak.”
“Why, of all people, that man?”
Lord Noel, who had been wiping her sweat, slowly turned her red eyes toward Stella.
Though her eyes held no emotion or intention, the moment Stella met those transparent gazes, she barely managed to calm the breath that threatened to choke her.
Even though they were merely in the same space, the caliber of her presence was different.
It was as if…
This entire world was designed to revolve around that woman.
Therefore, it was inevitable that Stella’s voice would choke slightly as she spoke.
“...There were plenty of other candidates for marriage. Anyone you chose would have been better than that man—”
“Don't joke.”
However, before such questions could even arise, Noel cut Stella off in the middle of her sentence with a firm voice.
“In the current situation, it’s going to cause a stir no matter who I marry. You know that, don’t you, Stella?”
Certainly, that was true.
It had been only a year since the Alliance War, which had plunged the entire continent into a quagmire of war for decades, ended.
In such circumstances, for a national hero—who held prestige second only to the Emperor—to ally with one side of the conflict would have a very high probability of triggering a butterfly effect that shattered the peace barely being maintained.
“Then wouldn’t it be better to just cast everyone out?”
“I can overlook everything else, but it’s a bit difficult for me to face it head-on, Your Highness.”
Stella had no choice but to keep her mouth shut at this point.
No matter how much Sir Noel was a knight who had etched her name into the history of the Empire, she was ultimately a soldier in the Imperial military.
The mere thought of a direct royal family member stepping forward to push a marriage proposal was dizzying.
Especially for someone who knew the rumors surrounding the man being considered as a prince.
“I see.”
“I hate that kind of marriage, either. So, that is the substitute.”
Noel chuckled as she continued speaking to Stella, whose face had turned pale.
“A third party who suddenly popped up out of nowhere, without any political background. If we say we married because we clicked, even His Highness the Crown Prince wouldn't be able to find fault with it to the very end, would he?”
“...Even if we looked within that category, there would have been more than enough substitutes for that man named Aiden.”
At Stella's words, spoken in a still stiff voice, Noel tilted her head to the side.
“Stella, haven't you looked up his background?”
“I recall there being absolutely nothing special about him.”
A back-alley con artist.
A bottom-level criminal never entangled in a single major case.
Just how unremarkable a petty criminal must he be for there not even to be a record of him being arrested by law enforcement?
Perhaps they didn't even feel it was worth it.
“Right. That is the important part.”
As Stella entertained such thoughts, Lord Noel’s voice fell softly.
“How did he manage to avoid all those ‘special points’?”
“Huh?”
Seeing Stella’s blank reaction, Noel smiled gently and continued.
“He is strangely ordinary. It is his profession.”
Considering he made a living as a con artist—a job so convincingly ordinary that, far from being arrested, he had never even been investigated by law enforcement.
He was, quite literally, a petty criminal.
Yes, thoroughly.
So much so that it felt almost contrived.
“……I don’t quite understand what you mean.”
“Hmm—there is a reason for that. I’ll have a chance to explain soon.”
Saying this, Lord Noel raised her wooden sword once again.
“It’s just that he certainly looks like a somewhat interesting person.”
“…….”
When thinking of the man named Aiden, even this was clearly an overestimation by Stella’s standards.
However, such doubts soon slipped right down below her vocal cords.
Because she could feel the Qi circulating through Sir Noel's body as she held the wooden sword.
Qi.
The grace bestowed upon her subjects by Karba, the principal deity of the Empire and the goddess of struggle.
The foundation of the superhuman strength wielded by Imperial Knights stemmed from honing internal energy through cultivation techniques and releasing it externally.
The measure of mastery was the color of the Qi.
A famous example would be the Knight of Dawn, who first developed the forms and techniques utilizing Qi.
The first knight.
A monster said to be able to split mountains and split the sky with just a single sword.
A great man hailed as the Saint of the Sword.
A human said to be able to compress the Qi rising within his body into just two colors: silver and blue.
And, right here and now…
There was a genius who rendered even such legends a relic of a bygone era.
“—”
As Noel let out a deep breath, Qi rose up through her body like a mist.
Pure white.
Stella, too, swallowed dryly.
The Qi that Noel wielded was pure white, without a single blemish.
Purer than anyone, simpler than anyone, and more distinct than anyone.
Throughout the Empire's long history, even among the countless talented individuals who were as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore, Sir Noel was the only knight who had compressed her Qi into a single color.
“—Sir Noel. Sir Noel!”
As soon as she heard the voice of a soldier interrupting such a phenomenal sight, Stella’s face contorted fiercely.
To interrupt such a majestic scene—if it is a trivial matter, I will not forgive—
“The eldest son of the Marquis of Osron has just entered the fiancée’s quarters—!”
—It was indeed a matter urgent enough that she could not—
Stella and Noel’s faces hardened simultaneously.
Gale Osron.
Sir Noel’s old friend.
He was not a bad person.
He was not a bad person, but…
“What kind of trouble is that guy, whose brain is muscle, trying to cause again...!”
“Stella. You are being too aggressive.”
Even Lord Noel, who was trying to stop her with a wry smile, didn't seem to deny the accusation itself.
Just by watching her quickly put on her coat, it was clear she was determined to intervene herself, knowing that trouble was bound to break out.
Considering Gale's personality, he likely would have thrust his sword at Aiden without hesitation to test his mettle again, and that would be a much more serious problem than expected.
He may not be an elite knight formally ordained, but as the eldest son of a Marquis, he was a man who had received professional combat training for a long time.
He was the kind of man who would end up looking like a lion dropped among sheep if thrown among ordinary soldiers.
“If we don't hurry, something serious is going to happen.”
Moreover, Aiden's expected specs were even lower than those of an ordinary soldier.
It wouldn't be surprising at all if something truly went wrong.
Noel took a deep breath and tightened her legs.
She likely intended to leap toward where Aiden was and reach him in a single stride.
She would probably break a window to get in, but what could she do?
Time was of the essence.
That was what she was thinking.
—Crash!
“Aaaargh—!”
That was until she saw someone free-falling while screaming from the window she was trying to smash through.
His full-body armor was crumpled as if he had been struck by a giant’s fist.
“.......”
That’s it. Isn’t that Gale?
Just by looking at his fully armored form, she recognized the man.
Then, her eyes followed the sight of someone hurriedly leaning out toward the window he had broken through.
“Hey, hey! Are you okay?!”
Leaning out from the broken window was Aiden Kellermaine, perfectly fine without a single scratch.
“......?”
And wrapped around his body was a pure white aura.
Completely identical to the pure white aura Noel had been wielding just moments before.
“......Huh?”
Undoubtedly.
It was a sight that would make even Sir Noel let out a dazed voice.