Previously
Henrietta wakes up in the infirmary after completing twenty laps and collapsing from exhaustion. She meets Amelia, a civilian doctor who treats her for malnutrition, a diagnosis that infuriates Henrietta when she realizes her ex-husband froze her accounts without providing for her.
“So they went to find Count Salt, but he was so overcome with grief that an interview was impossible. Instead, they ran an interview with her aunt. ‘My niece isn’t that kind of girl. She is so demure and gentle…’ Well, looks like her aunt doesn’t know her niece very well.”
“I should draft a new regulation to court-martial anyone who wastes the Division Commander’s time on nonsense.”
Wondering if there would be anything useful, the Duke, who had been listening closely, growled.
Startled, Billy waved his hands in denial.
“Nonsense? Not at all! I came to ask for your permission. May I send an anonymous tip to this magazine about Trainee Matyas?”
“A tip?”
“It’s not just the Lonton Family's Soup Bowl; every magazine published this week is covering the whereabouts of Trainee Matyas.”
“No.”
“Why…”
Giving his firm refusal, the Division Commander pushed his chair back and stood up. Billy quietly waited for what would follow.
“Would you like it if someone went around blabbing about you? When you had a fight with your father and ran away from home—”
“Ah, why bring that up now?!”
He shouldn’t have waited.
“Your father came to me and probed for hours, but I said nothing. Because I believed you had to resolve your own problems yourself. That is the basis of any relationship, and basic courtesy.”
“I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!”
“Such basic courtesy must be observed equally, whether toward a captain or a trainee. Even if you back then hadn’t been a promising apprentice knight, but merely a trainee in the Krakow forces, I still wouldn’t have told your father that you hid inside the wardrobe in the servants’ quarters—”
“Aaargh!”
Even with his ears covered, the Division Commander’s venomous words pierced straight through like awls, prompting Billy to beat a hasty retreat with a shriek.
The moment he left, Kalinin stopped mid-sentence and wore a wry smile. Then, picking up his coat, he stood before the mirror. Buttoning it all the way up to his throat until he was clad perfectly in the Division Commander’s uniform, Kalinin checked the time.
He had plenty of time to secure a pretext.
***
Henrietta felt she finally understood why people took vacations at luxurious inns. Aside from eating and sleeping, she didn't have to do a single thing, nor did she need to think.
After a long, lazy nap, it was time to eat again. The dinner menu was also all meat. Henrietta elegantly lifted her fork, as if dining in a restaurant reserved exclusively for nobility.
The meat was so tender that the fork sank right in at the slightest touch. It was just as the expectant Henrietta was about to wield her knife.
“Trainee Matyas. May I come in?”
“Division Commander?”
At the Division Commander’s voice following a knock, Henrietta dropped her fork with a clatter.
“Yes. Please enter!”
Though bewildered by the sudden appearance of the Division Commander, Henrietta snapped a salute to greet him.
Her expression, however, was not great. Naturally, no soldier welcomes the sight of a superior. Especially right before sinking a fork into meat. In that respect, Henrietta Matyas had thoroughly embodied the attitude of a soldier who had run twenty laps around the parade ground.
“W-What is the matter, sir?”
Henrietta attempted to lower her saluting hand, but she couldn’t because Kalinin caught her by the wrist. Yet the way he held her wrist was peculiar. Using his thumb and forefinger, he held it as if picking up an object he loathed to touch.
She easily could have pulled her hand down from such a hold, but that only made her hover in an even more awkward stance. She couldn't very well brush off the Division Commander’s hand.
“About twelve centimeters, is it…”
“Pardon?”
Grimacing terribly, the Division Commander muttered something incomprehensible. Then, this time, he caught Henrietta by the chin and turned her head this way and that.
Baffled, Henrietta could only blink. She couldn’t fathom the reason, but somehow she felt like livestock awaiting a quality grade from a rancher.
“Trainee Matyas.”
Letting go of her chin, Kalinin spoke solemnly.
“Sir!”
“Did you not inform your family of your enlistment?”
“I have no family, sir.”
“…”
Kalinin stared down at Henrietta in silence. His expression, however, spoke volumes.
What kind of unfilial impiety was this now?
Maintaining that look and gaze, Kalinin held out a magazine toward her.
‘Lonton Family's Soup Bowl’
True to the lurid colors on the cover, the magazine’s name was equally trashy.
“Ah. Thank you, sir. I’ll enjoy reading it.”
Henrietta politely offered her thanks, even as she thought it was rather flimsy for a sick-visit gift from the Division Commander.
“It is not a gift.”
Practically snatching the magazine back, the Division Commander flipped a page and thrust it forward again.
Seeing her own name emblazoned across the headline, Henrietta eagerly took the magazine and began reading.
Henrietta read through the magazine with keen interest.
“What on earth… Pfft!”
She burst into laughter, even pointing her finger at certain passages she found simply impossible to stomach.
“‘The Greatest Villainess of All Time’… honestly, I find this nickname much too tacky. These magazines always come up with titles like this. The so-and-so of whatever. Compared to that, ‘The Bastard Child Born of Violence’ is actually a bit better. But it feels unfair. Deep down, I actually wanted to hit him more.”
“Whatever that magazine calls you, you are currently a malnourished trainee of the Krakow forces. And you have an aunt as family.”
“I was disowned upon the divorce. We are no longer family.”
“…”
‘It just gets worse and worse,’ the Duke thought.
“A divorce may damage one’s reputation, but would that truly cause them to disown their niece?”
“To my uncle by marriage, my only value lay in marriage. Before that, I was just a scapegoat, nothing more. Once the marriage went south, I was discarded like useless trash.”
The Duke had a nephew of his own. Yet he had never once regarded his nephew in such a manner. Thus, he offered a short, definitive appraisal of Henrietta’s family ties.
“A broken family.”
It was an accurate assessment only someone of a duke's stature could afford to make. Had it been a mere count, it would have been grounds for a duel.
Even so, Henrietta bristled and retorted against the Duke.
“It’s not broken; it’s dissolved into pure liquid.”
“…What does that mean?”
“I mean there’s no shape left to speak of.”
Kalinin let out a choked snort at the creative metaphor. Soon, however, his expression turned stern again.
“Under imperial family law, severance of ties is no simple matter. It is certainly impossible through a one-sided verbal notice. Your aunt remains your family for now, so regardless of your feelings, you must at least inform her of your enlistment.”
“…Must I really?”
“When a soldier who failed to inform their family dies in battle, their relatives often come causing an uproar upon receiving the sudden death notice. Ever since, giving notice of enlistment has become an obligation in the Krakow forces.”
“I don’t think anything like that would happen, though…”
“Furthermore, a soldier without family is cremated upon death.”
As if only now grasping the gravity of the situation, Henrietta’s face hardened.
By custom, the proper method of burial in the Empire was interment in the earth. Among imperial citizens, there was a belief that one could only reach the Eternal Land if given a proper burial.
“Phew…”
Even so, Henrietta could not readily give an answer.
Kalinin fell into thought, tapping his chin with a long index finger.
Does she truly have no family? Her father was said to be missing and presumed dead, but what about her mother…?
“Trainee, what about your mother?”
“My mother left home when I was three or four.”
“…Why?”
“If a husband never earned a dime, spent money like water, and never set foot in the house day in and day out, I’d have walked out too.”
Her reply was indifferent. The Duke was now afraid to say anything more.
“Trainee Matyas.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have heard enough of your circumstances, but there are no exceptions. Notify anyone who could be sent your death notice about your enlistment. That is an order.”
It was an order hard to swallow, but the Division Commander’s following words silenced Henrietta completely.
“We have no need for a soldier who disobeys orders.”
That night, a special late-night snack was served to the Krakow forces.
The menu was soy milk broth.
Kalinin considered it his own brand of consideration for Henrietta, who had lived a rather harsh life, while Henrietta believed the Division Commander was deliberately tormenting her.