Every Morning, My Mirror Saves the World - Chapter 46

Chapter 46

The greatest mage of the Sunan Empire, the noble Prince Juvina, was seated in the tearoom.

It was now afternoon tea, the hour beloved by nobles. The small tearoom on the second floor had a broad semicircular balcony, and the floor-to-ceiling windows faced the white rose garden below, his favorite place in the estate. A breeze stirred the gauze curtains, carrying in the eternal fragrance of roses mingled with the tender laughter of young girls at play. Such bright, lively weather was precisely what His Highness, noble yet fond of sharing pleasure with the people, loved best.

His long, fair fingers gently lifted a gilded bone china cup. White steam curled upward, brushing his curled lashes. His azure eyes narrowed slightly in enjoyment as Juvina took a delicate sip of the precious black tea from the Suolanlu Empire. In that instant, his peerless face was enough to break any young maiden’s heart.

“This is April, when even the polar wastes bloom with green…” A smile touched Juvina’s lips as he murmured softly, lowering his head to take another sip of tea.

All of a sudden, a pale, thin hand with prominent knuckles shot up from below the balcony, slipped through the railing, and grabbed his ankle. Along with the movement, a fuzzy black head slowly emerged from underneath. “Hey…”

The tea in Juvina’s mouth sprayed across the floor in a very un-princely shower.

Ruiyin, now covered in top-grade black tea, said, “…I just wanted you to help pull me up.”

Half an hour later, under His Highness’s almost pathological insistence, afternoon tea had been moved from the exquisite little balcony to the indoors.

“I thought you would humbly accept my advice and change your clothes,” Ruiyin said, lifting her head to look at the exquisitely embroidered gold pattern on the collar of his white silk shirt.

“My taste has never required the understanding of the common world.” Juvina set down his teacup and gracefully dabbed the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief. “You are truly a rare guest. I apologize for my previous assumption. I actually misunderstood and thought that after leaving the Dark Elves’ territory, you would never want to speak with me again.”

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding.” Ruiyin waved a hand. “You really don’t need to numb yourself like that. I truly don’t particularly want to speak with you.”

Juvina said, “…Then what brings you here?”

Ruiyin speared the cake on her plate with a fork and stuffed the whole piece into her mouth. With her cheeks puffed out, she asked indistinctly, “Has Lars come to see you?”

“You are remarkably well-informed. He was here just half an hour ago, and happily accepted the position of Deputy Commander of the Alliance Army.” Juvina smiled and patted the magical contract on the table that Lars had signed away his freedom with.

Ruiyin stared at that magical contract and let out a long breath. She rubbed her forehead, then voluntarily began cutting Juvina’s cake with her dagger. As she ate, she said unclearly, “Still, Juvina, are you sure you want Lars to serve as deputy commander? He looks more reliable than Galahad, but letting a child command an army feels a little…”

“A child?” Juvina laughed. “My lady, your knight is already twenty years old. He has long been able to shoulder every responsibility of a man. Moreover, whether in combat ability or potential, he is the finest warrior I have ever seen. Why do you distrust him so much?”

“It’s not that I distrust him,” Ruiyin muttered. “I just feel that he… doesn’t quite match the image of a knight in certain ways…”

Juvina fell silent for a moment. His long fingers lightly stroked the side of his teacup. Only after a long while did he speak. “My lady, do you know the legend of the Sword of Shadow?”

Ruiyin shook her head.

“In the war two hundred years ago, the great Paladin, War God Xisaluo, once used the Sword of Shadow to repel the allied forces of the Undead and the Orcs, sweeping across the four continents. That was the most glorious moment of his life. War God Xisaluo’s Sword of Shadow and his knight order were almost the faith of all humanity. Light, justice, glory, invincibility… In the full two hundred years since he left, no human has ever reached that height again.”

“But such a radiant War God Xisaluo ultimately vanished without a trace. The Sword of Shadow, the knight order, endless power and wealth… Everything he had possessed in his life seemed to collapse overnight. No one knows where he went. Rumor has it that at the very end, the God of War used his own life to kill Dark God Seres, who had attempted to destroy the world, and left his divine artifact and knight order somewhere on the continent. Then, someday in the future, when the continent falls into the flames of war, the Sword of Shadow will appear again, choose the God of War’s successor, and awaken the knight order to save this world.”

Ruiyin sounded powerless. “Based on that empty story? Juvina, you once obtained the Sword of Shadow too, didn’t you? So maybe you’re the one who can save the world?”

“It is not an empty story, my lady.” Juvina wagged a finger mysteriously. “Naturally, I have my own sources of information. More importantly… the Sword of Shadow chooses its master on its own.”

“It is a divine artifact capable of cutting through dreams and reality. In the Dark Elves’ temple, I found a nightmare sealed away by ancient magic, and I hid the Sword of Shadow there. And so the Sword of Shadow came alive within that powerful nightmare. Even Orc King Kandaru had no choice but to obey its commands. That nightmare was its world. I do not know what that knight experienced inside it, but only someone who passed the Sword of Shadow’s trial and gained its acknowledgment could possibly come out alive.”

Juvina smiled gently and said, “He is the one chosen by the Sword of Shadow. So even if he is still far from comparable to the legendary Paladin, I believe he can bring us victory.”
“But…” Ruiyin still looked painfully conflicted.

“I think you are worrying far too much. Even if you are his liege, you should occasionally listen to what the knight himself thinks. Besides, I have never heard of a lady becoming a knight’s liege,” Juvina said pointedly.

In other words: If you’re his liege, you should let him make his own decisions. If you’re his woman… hm? Then what business is it of yours?

Sure enough, she hated him most of all!

“Fine. Then I have one last question.” After hesitating for a moment, Ruiyin still asked the question she had been turning over for a long time. “That magic test from a few days ago… was that result accurate?”

“Please do not doubt the authenticity of my testing crystal, my lady.” Juvina smiled elegantly. “Just as your knight does indeed possess astonishing potential, your score was also, just like that Silver Knight’s, zero.”

“…” The fake honor student who had received a zero for the first time in her life silently declared: she hated him even more now!

“I’m leaving.” Ruiyin rose without the slightest reluctance and prepared to head out.

“Wait.”

“What do you want?” Ruiyin turned back and glanced at him with extreme indifference.

“It is like this. To celebrate the founding of the Human Anti-Orc Alliance, there will be a banquet tonight in Golden Rose Castle.” Juvina stood, a proper smile on his face. “I would like to invite you all to attend. May I trouble you to pass the invitation on to the Silver Knight Galahad for me?”

“Compared to the cold, splendid royal palace, how I love this bustling market. I see smiles blooming on everyone’s faces, like the fragrance released when sunlight shines upon wheat straw.” Galahad held a roast chicken in his left hand and a bundle of meat skewers in his right as he spoke with heartfelt sincerity. “Every breath of wind here radiates vibrant life.”

“You like markets because you once got lost in the royal palace thirteen times and couldn’t find anyone to ask for directions back,” Ruiyin supplemented in a lukewarm display of friendship. “Only in a crowded place like this can you keep changing who you ask for directions.”

Galahad clutched the ground, haggard. “Why… why did you have to follow me today? I’ve had enough of you, do you hear me? I had clearly made up my mind to stay away from you and come challenge you again after I trained myself into someone useful, so why did you have to push me back under the sea before I even succeeded? And… it’s only that you got a zero just like me. Is that really something worth being this petty about?”

One of Galahad’s secret self-destructive techniques: bringing up exactly the wrong subject.

“At least my sex isn’t ‘none.'” Stabbed right in the wound, Ruiyin stabbed back even more viciously. “I’m only here to deliver a letter. Where is Vigia?”

“Don’t mention that stupid ball to me!” Galahad’s glowing blue eyes brimmed with tears. “If not for it… how could I be this poor? I am the great Dragon Knight Galahad, yet I have barely enjoyed the treatment of riding a dragon even a handful of times! I swear, one day I will make it pay back every coin I spent on it!”

Galahad’s second secret self-destructive technique: freely slandering the party involved right in front of them.

“…You pervert!” Galahad turned around and saw Vigia’s flushed pink body standing before him. The little dragon tottered over, both claws holding all kinds of fruit. Combined with its round body, it looked like a squat little post stuck full of fruit skewers.

Vigia opened its mouth and, with an ability surpassing Doraemon’s fourth-dimensional pocket, instantly stuffed all the fruit inside. It patted its belly with one claw and shrieked in accusation, “Offering food to the great Lord Vigia is your honor as a human, and you actually want to ride on the back of an adorable lady! What a pervert!”

“…” She truly did not want to admit that these two idiots were her companions.

“Enough.” Ruiyin pressed a hand to her aching forehead. “I really only came to deliver letters. Tonight there will be a banquet at the palace. The theme is Juvina showing off his wealth and sending us to our deaths. This is Galahad’s invitation, and this is Vigia’s rejection letter.”

Ruiyin pulled two sheets of paper from inside her clothes and handed them over. Both were the same gold-sprinkled, flower-bordered paper used exclusively for love letters, scented with perfume and stamped with petals, with gorgeous cursive writing filling the page in a long, florid aria. If one stripped away all the nonsense, the meanings were respectively: “The Silver Knight Mr. Galahad is invited to attend the banquet” and “Flying Ball (crossed out) Lady Dragon Vigia is requested not to appear.”

“…Why!” Vigia held the rejection letter in trembling claws, tears plopping from its big round eyes. “Why won’t they let me go? Lord Vigia is clearly much cuter than that stupid knight! Why won’t they let Lord Vigia go…”

“Mm, probably because of this.” Ruiyin rummaged inside her clothes for a while longer and pulled out a small notice she had torn down while passing the city gate. She tapped a finger on it: Customary rule for palace banquets: gender-benders and nonhumans are not permitted entry.

She idly picked at her ear. “Juvina probably thinks you count as both, so he specially wrote you a rejection letter. I’ve delivered the message. See you tonight.”

With that, she left behind the lady dragon sobbing into Galahad’s chest. In the lighthearted mood that came after bullying the weak, she turned and cheerfully walked away.

Author’s Note:

Vigia: You only come to Lord Vigia to recover your confidence after someone bullies you QAQ! Just you wait. I will definitely get inside!