Previously
Billy leads Henrietta to an empty six-person female barracks, which she mistakenly believes is a private luxury suite despite its poor construction. Unbeknownst to her, the soldiers of the Krakow Division are in a panic because they used the empty lockers to hide illegal snacks like 'Mongsil Jelly.'
Contrary to the soldiers' hopes, Henrietta—a noblewoman, yes, but also poor and starving—had entirely lost her mind at the sight of cheap store-bought junk food.
“What is all this? Jelly…? Wow! Bears, cats, puppies, dolphins! Everything’s here! Whoa! Ruljo Candy! Good grief, there’s even mint chocolate flavor!”
Frantically, she swung open the next locker.
“There’s this much chocolate bread?”
In the locker beside that were more jellies and candies, and in the next, popping marshmallows that burst into sweetness as you rolled them in your mouth…!
Henrietta felt as if she had wandered straight into a child's sweetest daydream.
“Wow…! What on earth is….”
What on earth was this really?
Confronted by this sudden bounty of food, Henrietta crouched down before it, turning it over in her mind with grave seriousness.
They had told her she would be using the barracks alone, so it couldn't belong to any other recruit.
Yet none of the food looked spoiled, meaning it couldn't have been left behind by someone who used the room long ago.
‘Then who put these here, and why?’
Dumbfounded as she was, the moment her stomach saw food, its rumbles grew downright deafening.
All she had eaten the entire day were two plates of cookies.
She needed a justifiable reason to devour these lovely bits of contraband.
“Ah! I get it!”
With eyes sparkling, Henrietta smacked her fist into her open palm.
“It’s welcome food!”
Could this be… camaraderie?
The military was truly such a warm, generous place.
With a pleased smile, Henrietta picked up a chocolate pastry.
Yet when it came down to it, she hesitated, unable even to tear open the wrapper. Her ex-husband’s voice seemed to whisper right in her ear.
‘Henrietta, you need to lose more weight. That dress only looks lovely when the bones show.’
A shudder crawled up her legs like an insect skittering over her skin. Henrietta gave her head a deliberate, sharp shake, then boldly ripped open the wrapper.
‘Henrietta. Are you trying to turn into a pig? Put that bread down this instant.’
Once heard, the voice refused to shake free easily. Spitefully, she sank her teeth into the bread and forced herself to focus on pleasant thoughts. The motes of dust fluttering through the air offered a convenient excuse.
‘I should start by cleaning up.’
And….
‘I need tea.’
Sweet though the bread was, cheap production made it rather dry.
A teapot to brew warm tea, a tea table, and a rug.
Other things she needed kept popping into her head.
Her ex-husband's voice was beginning to fade.
Savoring the sweetness coating her tongue, Henrietta let out a satisfied smile.
She liked having so many things she needed.
Her stay at the inn hadn't been furnished with everything either, but it had never stirred a desire for more.
Perhaps because this felt like a place of her own, she could see what was lacking and found herself wanting to fill the gaps.
Furnishing a room with her own hands promised to be rather fun.
When Henrietta lived with Count Salt, every single curtain had been tailored strictly to his taste.
The Count had refused to hand over financial control to a penniless bride, and whenever she needed anything, she was forced to beg for permission and take an allowance.
Loathing the indignity of begging for coin, Henrietta had simply made do with whatever was already in the manor.
As a result, every corner of the house had been decorated purely to his liking.
Nor had it stopped at interior decor.
From what Henrietta wore and styled to the shoes on her feet, the Count had dressed her up to his taste like a living doll.
Insisting that a poor girl who had sponged off her uncle’s family had no aesthetic taste to trust, he had forced her to bow to his own superior judgment.
Henrietta found the Count’s gaudy, suffocating tastes utterly ridiculous, but she swallowed it down simply to avoid fights.
No, she had been gritting her teeth and enduring it.
All while trusting that an opportunity to escape that house would come one day.
Of course, even Henrietta hadn't imagined that opportunity would arrive quite so abruptly.
Nor had it been part of her plan to earn a reputation as a raving villainess, leaving her dead broke and fighting for her very survival.
‘If that lunatic hadn't ordered me to do something like that, I’d probably still be trapped in that suffocating hell.’
To be honest, when she had run out of money and stared starvation in the face, she had felt a twinge of panic.
Whether it was having a room of her own or the cheerful burst of spirits brought on by the chocolate bread, she was glad she had enlisted.
‘If I fail to find the treasure… do I just keep living here?’
Having tasted more than her fill of life's bitterness, she was hardly an incurable optimist.
It was a treasure hunt that three generations before her had failed.
What made her think she would be so different?
Naturally, she would do her absolute best, but she had to keep the possibility of failure in mind.
‘I might end up staying here for quite a while.’
Saving up an enlisted soldier’s wages wouldn't be bad, but if she had to remain in the military anyway….
“I’ll just have to get promoted. At least enough to get an officer’s quarters.”
That would help with the treasure hunt as well.
Chewing on a deer-shaped jelly as if it were a venison steak, Henrietta stoked her ambition.
Rounding out her feast by finishing off the marshmallow as pretend ice cream for dessert, she noticed the barracks had grown dark.
Fortunately, there was still oil left to light the lantern.
After lighting it, Henrietta gathered up the bedding that looked unused for ages and carried it outside.
Rustle.
The moment she stepped out into the quiet darkness, something stirred beyond the fence, like a beast on the prowl.
“What's that?”
She craned her neck, but couldn't spot anything unusual.
‘Must have been a stray cat.’
Thinking nothing of it, Henrietta began vigorously beating the dust from the blanket, thwap, thwap, thwap.
Beyond the fence, the soldiers who had been staking out the barracks scattered in sheer panic at her sudden appearance.
To their ears, the sound of the blanket being thrashed sounded uncomfortably like a warning.
***
The Duke of Krakow's breakfast table was as dry and austere as his lifestyle.
Bread without jam, a single slice of fruit, and tea.
That was all.
Naturally, everything was prepared from the finest ingredients, so the bread was moist and soft, the slice of fruit was refreshing, and the tea fragrant.
Still, Billy felt his throat parched just watching the Duke chew plain bread without soup or jam on a morning when appetite was hard enough to come by.
“She refused breakfast?”
Having finished the bread on his plate down to the last crumb, Kalinin wiped his clean mouth and asked.
“To be exact, she didn't refuse to eat; she simply chose sleep instead.”
As with any army, a dawn wake-up was military law, not an optional suggestion.
Yet Henrietta hadn't stirred at the morning bugle call. Setting aside morning roll call, which she might not have known about, she had apparently refused breakfast altogether in favor of sleeping in.
“So you told her to sleep more?”
The Duke of Krakow’s tone was laced with dry sarcasm, reprimanding him.
Billy had anticipated the scolding, but remained unfazed.
“They called to wake her from the outside, but she yelled back that she was going to sleep more. How else were they supposed to wake her? Nobody can just walk into the female quarters and rip off her blankets.”
In Krakow, where there wasn't a single female soldier, what other choice was there?
Even the Duke himself couldn't have crossed that line.
“She had no proper training yesterday, so she won't even know what morning roll call is. Once she gets her uniform tomorrow, training will begin in earnest. By the way, who’s assigned as her instructor?”
It was not currently recruitment season for the Krakow Division.
Henrietta had hurried to enlist out of turn because waiting for the regular recruitment period would have meant starving to death.
In other words, having joined at an odd time, Henrietta could not be trained alongside other recruits.
“Who else? You.”
The Duke appointed Billy as the instructor in charge of Henrietta’s one-on-one training.
“Me? You mean me? Are you seriously using Billy Temperk, the adjutant to the Division Commander, as a mere recruit instructor?”
“Is there a problem?”
“Why me?”
Billy's rank and standing were hardly low enough to handle mundane recruit training.
Yet the Duke had no other choice.
None of the other instructors had ever trained a noblewoman before, and all of them were terrified of taking on Henrietta.