Yusar replied while looking at her.
“True, it may be a hollow status, but this golden shell is extremely powerful.
No one in the empire can ignore it.”
His purple eyes were smiling as usual as he looked at her.
But Elijah could sense the deep inferiority lurking within him.
'I understand his behavior, but...'
What can be said, shaped by the severe deprivation he has suffered since childhood?
But will Yusar really find happiness if he becomes the Duke's son-in-law in this way?
Then, Yusar stared at Elijah silently.
"Elijah, I know what you're thinking.
Maybe I look pathetic in some ways."
“Not so.
But...”
When she stuttered to complete her words, Yusar asked her.
“Do you know what I thought about right before I died?
In the last field training.”
“What was it?”
A bitter smile appeared on Yusar's lips.
“My miserable past life flashed before my eyes, and I thought: Is this the end?”
“So then.”
“But the really important thing is what came next.”
Elijah's eyes widened, and he continued talking.
“After all the hard work I had put in to get rid of this miserable life, for it to end like this?
I thought I was going to die, swallowed up by anger and despair.
But the feelings that came over me at that moment were completely different.”
“What were those feelings?”
Yusar replied while looking at her calmly.
“It was a pity.”
He continued, saying:
“I felt sorry and pity for my whole life, for my whole self, who could only live this way.”
His purple eyes were twitching.
“And you saved me.
You told me I had done well enough so far.”=”
Ilya remembered talking to Yusar after that training that day.
She also remembered his appearance as he hugged her tightly, in contrast to his usual light attitude.
'That's why Yusar acted like that then.'
Yusar smiled gently.
“I was saved with that one word of yours.
At the same time, I was determined.”
Now, he said to her in a firm voice:
“Not to make my life, or myself, pitiful anymore.
To achieve this, let me achieve my goal of becoming the Duke’s son-in-law properly.”
His purple eyes were no longer twitching.
Elia stared at him in amazement, and Yusar continued.
“I am determined not to achieve my goal armed with hatred and using various tricks as before.
Not to take revenge on the world that ignored me, but because I want to gain self-recognition.”
“Yousar...”
“And I will gain the merit of being worthy of someone choosing me, and I will say to myself: You really did that well.”
Yusar's look was very serious.
“Even if it is an empty status, it is okay.
For others, it may be just a shell, but for my life, it will be the most important core.”
After he finished speaking, Yusar smiled.
It was a nice smile as usual, but it looked somehow sad.
Elia sank into thought silently.
'It wasn't just a reckless desire to take revenge on the world.'
Perhaps Yusar wanted the maximum recognition from himself, not from those around him.
She didn't know he was so serious and honest about this goal.
But a feeling of anxiety came over Elijah.
Whatever this was his own goal, the moment Yusar chose to become the Duke's son-in-law, there were things he would undoubtedly have to sacrifice.
“But are you sure that's really enough?”
When I asked him, Yusar nodded and said.
“Of course, I know that choice will entail losing something.
For example…….”
His purple eyes sparkled with misery.
“Love, for example.”
Elia was confused by the unexpected word that came out of Yusar's mouth.
From the mouth of that cold calculator, such a word comes out?
"Yusar, what's wrong with you?
I didn't know you had a romantic side."
Ilya smiled faintly, but Yusar, instead of responding, stared at her silently.
In order to become the Grand Duke's son-in-law, he inevitably had to marry Lavinia, like it or not.
Whether love is a prerequisite or not.
Yusar was able to make up such things easily.
He was also confident that he could fulfill the role of assistant that Lavinia desired better than anyone else.
But the moment he teams up with Lavinia, he won't be able to aspire to Elijah anymore.
A sarcastic smile appeared on Yusar's lips.
'What a pathetic thought.'
From the beginning, Illya was not an entity that could be possessed by mere desire.
He knew very well that she had no feelings for him at all.
To Elijah, he was just a compatible colleague, nothing more and nothing less.
If she had shown the slightest admiration, he would not have been unaware of it.
It's ironic, really, that he loved Elia more specifically because she was like that.
He thought this current relationship was good, so he wanted to always be by her side.
When he was with her, the idea of becoming the Grand Duke's son-in-law would sometimes fade away.
But the moment he realized this, he was sometimes afraid of losing himself.
Yusar stared at Ilya silently.
'It's okay.'
'It's a love that won't come true anyway.'
But a corner of his heart felt a hidden tingle.
“Yusar, what are you thinking?
Your looks are exaggerated.”
“I don't think about anything.”
Yousar answered evasively, then responded in a cheerful voice.
"Anyway, thank you for your information about Lavinia's ideal type.
Maybe we could become rivals, right?"
Elia couldn't believe his words.
'Rivals no nonsense.'
'Anyway, I'm not a man, so I can't get married.'
“Then I will go.”
Elia sighed and returned to her dorm.
Yusar watched Illya's back as she walked away for a while, then sighed and headed to his dormitory.
•
"Huff, huff!
I've finished preparing the training!"
Elia was sweating profusely and reported to Keisha in a breathless voice.
The training ground had huge machines like trebuchets and cannons, lined up in rows.
Keisha had said that today's training was training for castle sieges, so all the huge machines had been pulled out and put in place.
Even before training began, she and everyone in the unit were in a state of extreme exhaustion.
Keisha glanced at the training equipment and tools she had carefully prepared and arranged, then said:
“Today, there is no need for all this.
The schedule has changed.”
Hearing those words, Illya felt pent-up anger inside her.
'Ah, then he should have told me beforehand!'
Lack of advance announcement, whether it be about outdoor training or otherwise, has been Kesha's trademark.
Although she wanted to rush out immediately, she screamed loudly.
“I'll put it back in!”
“Just a moment.”
As she quickly moved toward the equipment, Keisha stopped her.
"There's no need to do it now.
What we're going to do today is more urgent."
What could be so important?
Since Keisha said it was urgent, she felt vaguely anxious.
“Go in neat rows out of the palace!
There are carriages waiting for you.”
Outside the palace?
‘Is it possible that this is external training?!’
Elia thought like this for a moment, but quickly shook her head.
If it had been an external training, they would have been asked to prepare their military equipment.
The rest of the unit also looked confused.
“What are you dragging your feet about?
Do you want to walk like a duck?”
“Nooooo!!!”
They quickly went out in neat rows out of the palace.
There, as Keisha said, there were five carts.
Theo, the military doctor, was standing with a first aid box.
“All ten men in one carriage!
Get in quickly!”
They boarded the carriages in perfect order.
Once all the unit members were on board, the vehicles began moving.
“Where the hell are we going?”
“I don’t know… Look at the military doctor’s first aid box.
Isn’t this monster training again?”
Everyone mumbled with worried faces.
Horrific memories of foreign training seemed to surface.
But Elia had a strange feeling what was going to happen.
'The unit's members were taken outside since early morning without military equipment...'
Her face twisted.
In the military, this status usually only means one thing.
“Oh, this is something I don't like at all...!”
Perhaps something more difficult than the harsh external training would have been revealed.
"El, what's wrong?
Do you know where we're going now?"
Lennox asked Elia with a worried face, and she nodded silently.