Instead of answering, Axion looked directly at her.
When she saw his face staring at her intently, Elia was secretly impressed.
‘How handsome he is, even though he has become so pale and emaciated!’
His cheeks were sunken and his skin was rough, but his handsomeness remained intact.
Rather, there was a strange beauty of exhaustion about him, which he did not usually show.
What am I thinking?
This guy definitely came to make trouble with me again.
She asked, nervously and in a hostile voice:
“What’s the matter, didn’t I ask you?
If you came to make trouble again...”
“No.”
Axion answered in a voice as decisive as a sword.
His blue eyes looking at her were shining with more intensity than ever.
“I have a request of you.”
Axion added, looking at her and Yusar:
“You said you could provide anything you wanted, right?”
Upon hearing those words, Elijah's eyes widened.
Axion, who had always resented their work, was now asking them.
While she was puzzled, Yusar quickly answered with a bright smile:
“Yes, we can provide anything.
If the customer pays the right price...”
“I will pay any price you ask, whatever it is, so definitely bring her to me.”
Illya's eyes narrowed as she looked at Axion.
It was very suspicious that Axion, who had considered her a thorn in his side here, would suddenly make such a request.
Moreover, Axion belonged to a noble military family in the imperial army, and unlike the affluent young gentlemen, he was accustomed to a disciplined and frugal military life.
It was also strange for him to say that he would pay any amount.
'This young man isn't exactly the type to plan schemes, but…'
It is safer not to take on suspicious matters at all.
Elijah looked down at him and replied coldly:
“No need, I don’t know what it is, but I will refuse your request.”
Upon hearing those words, Axion's face completely froze.
“Now the morning training is about to start.
Yusar, let’s go.”
While Ilya was carrying her empty food plate and heading towards the dish return area with Yusar, Axion approached her with long strides.
“Stop right there.”
How stubborn!
When she turned, his blue eyes stared at her intently.
She saw that he clenched both hands tightly.
This young man, does he intend to hit her?
But his fist did not rise.
"Please, please.
I'll do anything you want."
Axion pleaded with her in a desperate voice.
His blue eyes were shining with mad eagerness.
But his facial expression was trembling dangerously.
This was the same look she had seen him on when Axion came to her door a short while ago.
Seeing that sight, Elijah's heart trembled strangely.
I wonder, what is it that he desires so great that Axion, so proud, should act thus?
She tried to explain it beforehand in a cold voice.
“What is it?
If it is something that cannot be entered, or is beyond our capabilities, then we cannot bring it to you.”
With this, even if we couldn't provide it, he wouldn't be able to blame us.
Axion's face brightened and he opened his mouth.
“A pair of spherical black quartz.
If possible, get one the size of your pinky nail.
Please.”
Hearing those words, Ilya felt a little relieved.
How massive was the thing you expected him to ask for, but it's just a pair of black quartz?
If the black quartz was the size of her pinky fingernail, she could have obtained it by request from her home province of Baron, without needing the help of Claude's trade.
Of course, due to the monsters destroying the crystal mines, they were no longer as plentiful as they used to be, but small sizes like this still existed.
“That's it?”
When I asked him to be sure, Axion nodded.
"Yes."
“…Okay, I get it.”
After Ilia accepted the request, Axion left the place.
After a while, Yousar smiled wryly.
“This is fun.”
"What?"
I asked Elijah, and he replied:
“For that young man with such high pride to beg us for just a pair of black quartz the size of a fingernail.”
His violet eyes sparkled sharply.
"There's something.
Maybe it's his fatal weakness.
What could it be?"
Instead of answering, Illya fell into quiet thought.
In her mind, she remembered Axion's desperate voice that had come into her room not long ago.
"I'm going to be the best here.
No...
I have to be the best.
It has to be that way."
Perhaps this request is related to Axion's strange obsession.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have begged her like this, when she was the one he was always hostile to.
And that obsession, Yusar said, may be Axion's fatal weakness.
From the point of view of Yusar, who wants to bring down Axion by any means, this information will be very useful.
Yousar asked in a sharp voice:
“Didn't that young man talk about something the day he came into your room?”
Elia was about to open her mouth, but she hesitated.
She remembered those desperate blue eyes that looked at her so desperately, and that were strangely sad and passionate, and like the eyes of a blind boy who had been her first love.
“……We didn’t talk about anything special.
Let’s go to the training ground quickly.”
Illya headed towards the training ground, evading an answer.
•
Axion returned to his room, and after changing his clothes and putting on his training uniform, he heaved a sigh of relief.
Fortunately.
He knew that Erhan usually hated him very much.
But he didn't care.
Because he too hated him.
Axion did not particularly dislike Erhan as a person himself.
Whenever Erhan saw himself superior, he felt jealous and self-loathing.
He hated to always see himself as the runner-up in front of him.
Maybe he hated the idea that he might not be able to become the best soldier, which was his promise to her.
In fact, he didn't even care if Erhan acted like a merchant, or ate special meals and trained.
No, it was even better.
Because he thought that was what made him the best soldier; To silently endure the poor rations, and focus only on training, showing a true soldier's attitude.
Of course, when he finished his training with his willpower and stubbornness, he felt like he was going to collapse from hunger.
Each time this happened, he would remember his promise to her, hug his attachment doll, Baby, tight, and go to sleep.
When he remembered her voice telling him to definitely become the best soldier and protect her, the pain in his hungry stomach eased a little as well.
But one day, he felt something strange.
Baby's eyes disappeared.
It was two eyes made of a pair of tiny black quartz.
He knew that because he had always hugged her while sleeping for more than ten years, her eyes had recently been twitching dangerously.
Axion got out of bed and desperately looked for Bibi's eyes.
But they were not visible at all.
It was obvious that the palace servants, who were cleaning the rooms while they were training, had thrown away the black quartz that was wandering around on the floor.
He searched in the trash, but it was in vain.
Why wasn't he more careful!
Regret was of no use.
When Pepe saw that his eyes were completely empty, he remembered himself in his childhood when he lost his sight due to a training curse cast by his father.
He wanted to fix this doll by any means, as it was the one given to him by his first love.
After being separated from the girl he met on the riverbank as a child, he eventually loses his way and returns to the Ruppelt family.
As he promised her, he endured all of his father's grueling training, determined to become the best soldier in the empire.
And try to search for it in any way.
But it was impossible to find that girl whose name and face were unknown.
Sometimes, when he had time, he would go to the bridge on the riverbank where he had met her.
Thinking she might come here like him.
He thought as he felt his lips with his fingertips, where she had once kissed them.
These thoughts also occurred to him: Was his meeting with her real, or was everything just an illusion or a dream of his own making?
But there was Baby, the doll she gave him.
That doll was something she left him, and thus, was the only evidence of her true existence.
Therefore, Baby was more valuable than anything else.
Some time ago, he no longer looked for her.
Because this doll was with him.
So, it was like having her by his side.
Accordingly, when the very precious doll was damaged, he wanted to repair it in any way.
Because he felt like his first love was breaking.
To fix this doll, for her sake, he could sacrifice his pride no matter the cost.
Even if the other party was Erhan, that young man.
Axion thought thus, and hugged the eyeless doll tenderly.
He remembered her embrace that he held in his childhood.
If only he could meet her again...
Even though he decided not to look for her anymore, he missed her so much today in particular.
'Let's train as hard as possible today.
Let's defeat Erhan today too.'
He gathered his strength, and after putting down the doll he was hugging, he headed toward the training ground.