**Chapter 55: Yuri Cattleya is on the Run**
“W-wait, my lady! Aaaahhh!”
“Haah, haah! Please stop! This is really, really bad!”
“Who would stop just because you tell them to!? If I’m being chased, of course I’ll run away!”
It was during the entrance examination for the Royal Academy. Just after the commoner’s exam had concluded, a girl was sprinting through the streets of the Royal Capital, with several out-of-breath knights hot on her heels.
“T-the captain of the knights… Marquis Cattleya has ordered you to return! Please, stop!”
“Try and make me stop! Is that what you call being a knight!?”
Dodging the pursuit of multiple knights, the girl darting through the city was none other than Yuri Cattleya, who had formed 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 contemplating inviting the boy she had just befriended to dinner, she found herself nearly captured by the knights lying in wait. Thanks to her exceptional physical abilities, she was evading their pursuit, running through the streets.
“I have already been disowned by House Catreia! Though I am allowed to keep my surname out of my father’s pity, I am no longer a marquis’s daughter! Therefore, I have no obligation to heed 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’re disowned! You will never return to my house!” Although she hadn’t lost the name Cattleya, which belonged to her deceased mother, she no longer felt like a member of the marquis’s family.
“No, that’s just a figure of speech! The captain of the knights regrets saying that 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 grace of a cat.
“Yuri-sama! My lady!”
As the knights shouted, Yuri’s expression was one of sheer exhilaration.
Yuri was the youngest of five siblings. All four of her older siblings were brothers, making her the only daughter of House Catreia. She bore a striking resemblance to her late mother, the Marchioness Cattleya, and had been doted upon by her father and brothers throughout her life. Rarely allowed to leave the estate, whenever she was permitted to go out, at least five of her father’s subordinates accompanied her as guards.
She had asked her father to let her learn swordsmanship, watching her brothers train in the garden, but instead, she was handed a padded stick and made to practice with it as if it were a child’s game. As a result, she had taken to secretly working out in her room, developing an unexpectedly impressive athleticism.
Yuri had endured such treatment until she turned fifteen, but this year, something happened that pushed her over the edge. She had assumed she would be allowed to enroll in the Royal Academy, but her father vehemently opposed the idea.
“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—and her four brothers who supported him. She believed that enrolling in the academy would allow her to escape the confines of her cage-like home and embark on a journey into a new world. She envisioned making friends, experiencing various things, and discovering 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 entrance exam as a commoner and chose to apply 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 twilight sky. When she had first arrived that morning, she had been so captivated by the sights of the Royal Capital that she nearly fell, but she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Looking down at the city bathed in the orange glow of sunset, a radiant smile spread across her face.
“Now, I will make a hundred friends! I’ll visit many places and see countless things!”
The world stretched endlessly before her. After being confined to the estate for so long, she was determined to expand her narrow view of the world.
“And I will find… a wonderful husband!”
Yuri shouted 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 late mother had left her. One of the reasons Yuri aimed to enroll in the Royal Academy was to follow her mother’s wishes and seek her ideal partner.
“It’s my first day in the Royal Capital… and 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 for her below.