Chapter 55: Yuri Cattleya is on the Run
“P-Please wait, my lady!”
“Hah, hah! Please stop! This is really, really bad!”
“Who would stop just because you told them to!? If I’m being chased, of course I’ll run away!”
It was during the entrance exam for the Royal Academy. Just after the Commoner Slot exam had concluded, a girl was sprinting through the streets of the Royal Capital, with several knights panting heavily in pursuit behind her.
“T-The Knight Commander… Marquis Cattleya has ordered you to come with us! Please, stop!”
“Try to stop me! Is that what a knight would do!?”
Ducking and weaving through the multiple knights chasing her, the girl darting through the city was none other than Yuri Cattleya, who had just forged a bond with Rest during the entrance exam.
After finishing her interview for the entrance exam, Yuri had stepped out of the examination venue. Just as she was thinking of inviting the boy she had just befriended to dinner, she found herself nearly captured by the waiting knights. Thanks to her exceptional physical abilities, she was managing to evade their pursuit.
“I have already been disowned by the Cattleya Marquis family! Though I am allowed to keep my surname out of my father’s pity, I am no longer a marquis daughter! Therefore, I have no obligation to respond to the summons of Marquis Cattleya!”
A month prior, Yuri had quarreled with her father, the Marquis Cattleya, and had stormed out of the house. During that confrontation, he had shouted, “If you leave, you are disowned! You will never be allowed to return to my home!” While she had not lost her name, which was the same as her deceased mother’s, she no longer felt any connection to the Marquis family.
“N-No, that was just a figure of speech! The Knight Commander regrets saying it in the heat of the moment—”
“I am free now! I am bound by nothing!”
“Please, just listen to me!”
Ignoring the knight’s desperate pleas, Yuri leaped from rooftop to rooftop, moving with the agility of a cat.
“Yuri-sama! My lady!”
As the knights shouted after her, Yuri’s expression was one of pure joy.
Yuri was the youngest of five siblings. All four of her older siblings were brothers, making her the only girl in the Cattleya Marquis family. She bore a striking resemblance to her deceased mother, which had led her father and brothers to dote on her excessively. Rarely allowed to leave the family estate, whenever she was permitted to go out, at least five of her father’s subordinates accompanied her as guards.
Watching her brothers train in swordsmanship in the garden, she had begged her father to let her learn as well. Instead, she was handed a padded stick and allowed only to practice mock swordplay. As a result, she had resorted to secretly training her body in her room, inadvertently developing remarkable athleticism.
Having endured such treatment until the age of fifteen, Yuri finally reached her breaking point this year. She had always believed she would be allowed to enroll in the Royal Academy, but her father had vehemently opposed it.
“If Yuri enrolls in the academy, I’m sure a swarm of suitors will come flocking to her! If you want to study, hire a tutor; you will not leave the estate!”
For the first time in her life, Yuri felt intense anger towards her father. The same went for her four brothers, who supported him. She had envisioned escaping the confines of their estate, like a bird from a cage, and embarking on a journey into a new world. She believed she would make friends, gain various experiences, and discover the vastness of the world.
Yet, she was unable to attend the academy she had longed for. While she respected her father, it was something she could not forgive.
As a result, Yuri had a fierce argument with her father and fled the estate. She obtained a Recommendation Letter from her mother’s family to take the exam as a commoner and applied to the Magic Department, where her father’s influence was weaker.
“I am free… This is my world!”
Standing atop the Clock Tower in the Royal Capital, Yuri spread her arms wide towards the evening sky. When she had first ascended in the morning, she had been captivated by the view of the Royal Capital and nearly fallen, but she would not make the same mistake again. Looking down at the city bathed in the orange glow of sunset, she wore a beaming smile.
“Now, I will make a hundred friends! I will go to many places and see so much!”
The world stretched endlessly before her. Having been confined to the estate for so long, she was determined to expand her once-narrowed horizons.
“And I will find… a wonderful husband!”
Yuri shouted triumphantly towards the setting sun.
“Find a respectable man whom you can admire, and have a beautiful romance.”
“Have children with him and build a happy family.”
Those were the last words her deceased mother had left behind. One of the reasons Yuri aimed to enroll in the Royal Academy was to follow her mother’s wishes and seek her ideal partner.
“On my first day in the Royal Capital… I’ve already made a friend and found a wonderful man! I’ll keep this momentum going!”
As she declared this to the sunset, she paid no mind to the knights searching frantically below her.