1. The Man Known as Corydalis

My name is Corydalis Cashmeriana Pulcherrima, the third son of the Pulcherrima family. My middle name doesn’t get used too often, so feel free to forget it immediately.

Thanks to the two very distinguished brothers who came before me—a reliable eldest son and an intellectual in the middle—I had a pretty relaxed upbringing. Unless things went catastrophically wrong, there was no chance I’d ever end up inheriting the marquisate.

I was better at studying than your average kid, but I’d always preferred doing physical exercise and swinging a sword around. When I told my dad I wanted to be a knight when I grew up, he gave me the go-ahead immediately.

“Have at it, son. I think you’re well suited to the job.”

“There are a variety of roles within the chivalric order,” my oldest brother explained. “Some squads call for brains over brawn.”

“I imagine you’d fare well with either, Cory. A more cerebral position will give you a leg up on climbing the ranks, however,” my middle brother said, his glasses glinting in the light.

My siblings sure know their stuff.

With getting into the knights’ training academy as my new goal, I devoted myself to studying and practicing my swordsmanship until I reached the age of admission.

* * *

When I was fifteen, I was admitted to the academy.

I would be living in a dormitory for the two years from my enrollment to my graduation. Being the son of a marquis didn’t win me any special treatment there. That said, the dorms were divided into two buildings, colloquially known as the Noble Wing and the Commoner Wing.

Whether you lived in the Noble Wing or the Commoner Wing, everyone started out in what we called the Grunt Chamber (in other words, a collection of those on the bottom rung). After that, you would get assigned to a room with marginally nicer amenities and decor depending on your grades. Nobody ever got their own private room, though.

The Grunt Chamber had several sets of bunks, and the only space that was really yours was your bed. Personal belongings had to be kept to a minimum.

I’d never lived like this before, so I was just as excited as I was nervous. Though the dorm room was charged with all the nerves and apprehension of the first day of school, I was thinking positive thoughts as I went to work arranging my space.

Right as I’d finished setting up my living area just how I wanted it, the whole room suddenly went dead quiet. I poked my head out from my bunk to see what was up, only to be greeted by a pair of long, slender legs. Who’s that?

I lifted my gaze up and up, eventually landing on one hell of a handsome face.

Whoa! That’s Cercis of the Fisalis family!

I’d seen him around at plenty of parties before, so I recognized him immediately. No clue if he knows who I am, though.

“Do you have the top bunk?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Corydalis. Nice to meet ya.”

“I know who you are.”

“Well, well.”

Looks like the answer is yes.

That terse conversation was my introduction to Cercis. I could tell that the rest of our peers were listening in on it carefully. They all knew who Cercis was already—which came as no surprise—but now that they were seeing him up close and in person, his beauty and grandeur were so overwhelming that all they could do was stare.

Thinking back, the two of us have been inseparable ever since that fateful moment.

We successfully made it out of the Grunt Chamber after our first exam, and with each subsequent test, we moved on to a higher-ranked room. But somehow we always ended up in the same one.

On top of that, we were perpetual rivals in both our studies and physical training. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mean in a fraught sort of way. It was more like a neck and neck race where we’d keep swapping the lead back and forth.

“Damn! Looks like you came out on top in training, Cercis.”

“And? You’re number one on our written exams. Can’t call myself top dog until I’ve claimed both spots.”

“Ooh, big talk!”

And so on. Together we held a total monopoly over first and second place. Nothing beats having a little competition!

As competent as he was in his studies and training, being the pampered rich boy that he was, Cercis was totally useless when it came to chores.

The younger students in the dorm had to take turns preparing meals as part of our hands-on training. The first time we had meal duty, Cercis told me had zero experience with housework, so I put him in charge of the easiest task of all: making the soup. Literally all he had to do was take everything the rest of us had chopped and put it into the pot.

“Go ahead and toss in those ingredients over there.”

“Got it.”

It seemed like he understood what to do, so I left him to it while the rest of us went to work on the entrée and side dishes.

Fortunately, I got just a taaad bit concerned and glanced over to see how he was doing. And wouldn’t you know it? For reasons that escaped me, the dope was about to dump a bunch of fruit into the soup.

“Whoa there! What the heck are you doing?!”

“Cercis, no! You can’t put that in!”

“Don’t jump the gun! That’s for the dessert!”

If you toss in the sweet fruit (pretty ripe too) we set out for the dessert, we’re gonna have one nasty soup on our hands!

When the other members of our team scrambled to stop him, he responded with a blank look on his face, “Huh? But you told me to toss in the ingredients over there.”

God, I am so done with this guy!

“I meant the ingredients FOR THE SOUP!”

“These were sitting right next to those. I did think it was strange for fruit to go in a soup, I’ll admit.”

“Okay, that’s it, Cercis! We’re putting you on dish duty!”

From then on, Cercis was appointed Chief of Silverware.

He got plenty of attention just from his looks, but his grades netted him even more. The world of knights is a meritocracy, where people’s abilities matter more than their lineage. So as you might expect, we often came across peers or older students who didn’t think too fondly of us, and we were called out back on more than one occasion.

Sometimes it was tough-guy seniors (who had worked their way up from the rank of commoner, naturally), and sometimes it was classmates pretty confident in their skills (who had worked their way up, etc., etc.). We were regularly outnumbered, with Cercis and I having to take on a handful of guys each.

’Course, we always managed to send them packing.

For the record, every single one of those guys we beat ended up becoming our “vassals.” They were all decently capable themselves, so that was sure to come in handy down the line.

And that’s the story of how Cercis and I became buddies.

* * *

Once we had successfully graduated from the training academy, we joined the chivalric order at long last. There, we were given our temporary assignments.

“Whaaaat? I’m stuck with you again?!”

“That’s my line!”

On the bulletin board where the assignments had been posted, both my and Cercis’s names were written under “The Special Operations Division.”

Special Ops, huh? That’s an elite squad you can’t get into unless you’ve got both the smarts and the skills for it. This’d be the “brains” my brother mentioned.

Considering the two of us had been in an eternal competition for the top grades of our school year, these results weren’t too surprising.

* * *

Now that we’d graduated, we were free men once more. I, however, opted to stay in the knights’ dormitory instead of returning home. I was an adult now, so I figured I was better off fending for myself.

Cercis didn’t have that option, so he went back to his ducal manor. Considering how self-sufficient he was (meaning, not at all), that was probably the right move. A wise decision.

After that, we started getting invited to social functions. I always went in with an attitude of, Cool, guess I’ll eat good food and kill some time, but it was different for Cercis. All the young noble ladies wouldn’t leave the damn guy alone!

“It’s good to see you, Sir Cercis!”

“Would you care to dance with me tonight?”

“Goodness, no! Come dance with me!”

You get the idea. There would always be a huge crowd of girls around him. The guy was a total chick magnet.

Cercis knew how to deal with this by then, so he’d always put on his best mask of a smile and say, “No need to fight, ladies. I’ll come ask you for a dance next, so stay faithful and wait your turn.”

“C-Certainly, milord!”

He then flashed them a dashing grin. Man, you can practically see the stars light up whenever a pretty boy smiles, huh? I learned something new.

I was decently popular with the ladies myself, but I wasn’t really looking for a girlfriend. Since I’d decided that getting my feet under me and getting used to my job was my top priority, I’d ignored all the girls who came on to me.

“Is that same woman still making advances towards you?” Cercis asked me when I saw him a few days after the aforementioned incident. I only heaved a weary sigh in response.

A young noblewoman had accosted me at the evening party the other night. She had sent me several letters since then, but I’d thrown them all out.

“Not interested. Girls like that are only after my title.”

“Fair enough.”

“And what about you, huh? You’re pretty popular with the ladies yourself.”

“It’s like you said: they’re all just lusting after my looks and status. It’s nothing but a nuisance, frankly. None of them care about who I am as a person.”

He raised a good point. His good looks alone would be enough to make him a top-class lady-killer; add a fortune, a prestigious noble title, and an elite knighthood on top of that, and there was no way he wouldn’t be a total knockout.

I knew Cercis was sick and tired of that reality too.

“That sure doesn’t seem to stop you from fooling around.”

“It’s fine. I always make sure they’re no-strings-attached arrangements.”

“That’s your biggest concern?!”

How come that’s the part where you get all resolute in your principles?

I watched as Cercis went through casual (maybe even impersonal) relationship after relationship. It looked to me like he was practically cycling through women, but he must have been making a clean break every time, since I never heard about it coming back to bite him. It was almost impressive, in a sense.

There was a time when I honestly thought, This guy’s never going to find a girl he truly loves.

And yet. Not a year later...

He actually found The One! And she’s a traveling dancing girl, to boot!

Finding out about Cercis’s new girlfriend nearly sent me into shock. From the sound of it, he was genuinely head over heels for her, and he’d go straight from work to see her almost every day. He spent so much time at her place that he rarely went back to his own mansion.

He still took his job seriously, but everything else? Not so much.

“She doesn’t care about my title or my credentials. She sees me for who I am.”

As spellbound as you sound, I’m not convinced.

To be fair, that was the sort of thing Cercis had always talked about wanting. I hoped to find a girl like that myself someday.

Still, I figured I’d share a certain idiom with that lovesick little knight of ours.

“Yeah, yeah. Love is blind.”

* * *

Much like Cercis always said, I didn’t care for girls who were drawn to my title. The reality was that way too many women only approached me because of superficial attributes like “a marquis’s son,” “rich,” “elite,” or “hot.” There was only one way that was ever going to end: they’d build up their own version of me around those traits, and then once they actually got to know me, they’d be disappointed. It wouldn’t be long before they’d start complaining about how “I thought you were better than this” and lose interest.

If a girl didn’t love me for who I was, I wasn’t about to get serious about the relationship either.

Aww, man! I’ve had enough of these pushy girls who treat me like a piece of meat. All I want is a laid-back romance with a nice, gentle girl.