Prologue
The Count of Travel, a wealthy and prestigious family in the Hayshal Empire.
The second son, who had left home, returned after six years with a young daughter.
The front of the grand mansion, which resembled a palace, was crowded with people waiting to welcome the father and daughter, but there was no festive atmosphere at all.
Amidst the cold and oppressive air, the frightened cries of a young child echoed loudly in the air.
It was my crying voice.
‘I’m scared…!’
The golden eyes of the head of the Travel family, who was blessed with wealth, were watching me.
He looked like a beast standing on a towering cliff.
It was a force too overwhelming for a seven-year-old to endure.
At first, I cried out in fear because of that—.
– Berry, you must be wary of your relatives. The Travel family is a den of beasts, all vying for the position of heir to the head of the family.
The reason I was afraid now wasn’t because of my grandfather.
– Miss Berry! There’s news that Young Master Reytan has… died in battle…
Strange scenes were pouring into my mind like a torrential downpour.
– Dad, you said a Grand Master wouldn’t die in such a small battle. There must be someone who caused your death, right? …I’ll uncover the truth.
Seven years old, ten years old, sixteen years old, ….
They were all me, but these were memories I didn’t know.
My head was pounding. I was confident that I wouldn’t cry when I was in pain, but this time was different. This was the first time I felt such fear and dread.
The cold light in the golden eyes watching me swirled around.
“You’re someone without guts. You won’t be able to handle big tasks.”
Having finished his assessment of me, my grandfather turned around without hesitation and entered the mansion. My dad tightened his grip on my hand.
The relatives left on the wide front steps watched me cry hysterically and laughed mockingly.
“How pathetic. Is that really someone from Travel’s? That noisy thing is like a frog.”
“A frog? Then it’ll only last until autumn. It’ll crawl into a hole by winter.”
“You can tell it was raised without a mother. Reytan, that pathetic person couldn’t have raised the child properly alone. Was there even a nanny? Crying like that without even knowing shame….”
“Sister, be understanding. The child lived thinking she was a commoner.”
“Eek. Harty. Did you hear what Father said? A commoner.”
They exuded a disdainful atmosphere, but the caution in their eyes couldn’t be completely concealed.
To them, we were new competitors. Everyone here with the name of Travel was a candidate to succeed the head of the family.
And.
‘It’s here.’
My uncles, aunts, cousins, and their spouses. Among them—.
‘The person who killed my dad…!’
Their hazy silhouettes seemed to be telling me, Run away, Berry Quartz. If you don’t, they’ll devour you.
As the memories continued to resurface, one particularly vivid scene came to mind.
My grandfather’s study, the open safe, and there I stood at twenty-four years old.
– …I found it, a letter sent by the accomplice to the culprit.
– You shouldn’t read other people’s letters carelessly, Berry Quartz.
‘Who is it?!’
The larger me jolted in surprise. It was as if I had become that older version of myself.
At that moment, the flood of memories came to a halt. The twenty-four-year-old me had been stabbed to death by an unknown man’s sword.
Although I didn’t feel any pain, just witnessing my death made it hard to breathe.
My dad urgently grabbed me as I gasped for breath.
“Berry!”
As I blinked, tears fell rapidly. The sharp features of one person came into focus in my now clear vision.
Piercing blue eyes. They were my dad’s eyes, filled with anxiety and worry.
The reality that my dad was alive, and that I was seven years old, sank in. With that realization, all my tension melted away.
With trembling hands, I clung to my dad’s arm.
“D-Dad.”
“Berry, it’s okay. Take a deep breath. You can follow your dad, right?”
It was my first day at the Travel Count’s mansion.
“I’m sorry…”
“Berry…?!”
As the youngest granddaughter of the Count of Travel, I made a disastrous first impression in front of my grandfather and relatives and fainted.
1. What on earth are these memories?
The god Aubawth spoke.
He said that four holy swords would save the human world.
In reality, these holy swords found their masters among those who had reached a certain level of swordsmanship and had been active for 3,000 years.
And the four Grand Masters.
The masters of the holy swords, the pinnacle of sword masters, the revered knights of the holy god…
“Holy?”
The butler of the Travel Count family, Cerberus, muttered as he looked at the wanted poster in his hand.
The poster featured a handsome man with sharp features and a bounty of 10 billion Kona.
It was Reytan Quartz Travel, a former Grand Master and the second son of the Count of Travel.
The wanted poster had been distributed throughout the region a month ago by the wealthy Count Travel, who was searching for his estranged second son.
True to his status as a former Grand Master, Reytan had been in hiding for six years, but no one could withstand the temptation of money.
Eventually, witnesses who claimed to have seen him began to emerge one by one, and Reytan was forced to return home. That was just yesterday.
‘Can the terms ‘young master’ and ‘holy’ coexist?’
It didn’t seem like a fitting description for someone who could intimidate others with just a glance.
The butler carefully folded the wanted poster and tucked it into his coat before looking up.
Above the black front door, a statue of an eagle, the symbol of the Travel family, was staring down at him.
Unlike the statues of other outbuildings adorned with jewels in their eyes, this one had cold gray eyes.
‘Even the outbuilding resembles its owner.’
It was the outbuilding given to the child with the lowest rank in the line of succession, commonly referred to as the ‘Stone House.’
The butler was here on orders from the eldest son to scout the place.
“Cerberus, as you know, my father doesn’t spend money on unnecessary things.”
10 billion Kona. It was an amount large enough to buy three mansions in the capital.
Why would the Count of Travel spend such a large sum to find Reytan?
For six years, he had considered Reytan as good as dead.
The Travel family selected the successor based on achievements. It was only natural that the direct descendants were on edge with the reappearance of a rival they thought had disappeared.
“Reytan no longer needs to compete for the succession. Keep an eye on Reytan and his daughter’s every move. Find out why my father called Reytan.”
The butler swallowed a sigh and opened the door to the Stone House.
At that moment, the maids emerged into the lobby, chatting away.
“Miss Berry was so adorable, wasn’t she?”
“Did you see? She furrowed her little brow so seriously and said, ‘…Are you eighteen, sister?’ Ah-. It was so hard to resist the urge to hug her tight.”
One of the maids, with an excited expression, tightly hugged the laundry in her arms. The maid walking beside her leaned in and asked affectionately.
“Isn’t it amazing? How could she remember all our names and ages? She’s much smarter than kids her age-.”
“Anne, what’s so amazing about that?”
The brown-haired maid following Anne spoke up.
“She overheard what Young Master Reytan was asking and immediately relayed it. A seven-year-old could easily do that.”
“Sherry, do you think I don’t know that?”
As a subtle tension built between Anne and Sherry, the maid holding the laundry stepped in between them.
“But you know, Miss Berry is even cuter when she’s listening to answers than when she’s asking questions. When she’s told she guessed right, she makes a sad face. Why is that?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Eek!”
The maid, who had been mimicking the young miss pout, screamed at the unexpected sound of a middle-aged man’s voice. It was the head butler of the main house, known for being notoriously difficult to communicate with.
“Head Butler? Since when have you been here?”
“I came to see Young Master Reytan and the little miss. But what did the little miss do?”
At the head butler’s question, the maids glanced back at Sherry. She was the senior maid of the Stone House.
Receiving the stares of the three, Sherry gave a sly smile.
“You’ll know when you go up.”
***
The room prepared for the youngest granddaughter of the Count of Travel.
A man sitting on the sofa instead of the room’s owner stared at the butler.
“You want to see Berry?”
His blue eyes were sharp, extending sideways like a cool breeze, but the gaze within them was as piercing as a cold winter wind.
Reytan Quartz Travel.
Even though he was merely looking indifferently, it felt like my heart was shrinking, like a mouse in front of a snake.
“Before that, I have a question.”
Reytan slightly shifted his upper body and placed his hands on his knees. The butler couldn’t help but let out a short sigh of admiration.
Honestly, if you ignored the naturally ominous aura he exuded, he was an incredibly aristocratic-looking handsome man.
His perfectly styled wheat-colored hair, polished brown shoes without a speck of dust, and a suit that was both neat and full of detailed points.
A handsome man with a body sculpted by swordsmanship and an innate sense of fashion. It was hard not to be impressed.
‘He was born into the wrong family.’
Reytan held an odd position within the Travel Count’s household.
Despite having reached the highest level in swordsmanship, he was a disaster when it came to business.
If he had been born into a family of knights, he would have shone brightly, but unfortunately, the Travel family had become great through the mineral industry and trade.
Because of this, Reytan’s achievements consistently hit rock bottom, and he always remained last in the line of succession.
‘If only he had kept the position of Grand Master, he could have lived a comfortable life at the temple. It’s no wonder people say bad things.’
Six years ago, he retired from raising a child and returned the holy sword to the temple, so now all that’s left for Reytan is the label of a ‘failed Travel.’
“Cerberus.”
“Yes, yes.”
The butler, feeling as if his thoughts had been overheard, hastily responded.
“You’re forty-three this year, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“You have a son, you work as the head butler in the main house, …what else?”
“Uh…?”
The butler was taken aback by the sudden personal questions, but seeing Reytan’s furrowed brow, he felt he should say something.
“You’ve got more gray hair.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Reytan got up and gestured with his chin for the butler to follow. There was a bed not far away. Beneath the small, raised blanket, something was squirming.
…Could it be?
When the two reached the bed, Reytan abruptly pulled back the blanket.
“Say hello. This is Detective Berryberry.”
Underneath the static-frizzed pink hair, a round head, long and thick eyelashes, and green eyes with double eyelids peered up at the butler. The adorable little girl, who didn’t resemble her dad at all, looked up at him.
She resembled something.
A poodle? A Maltese?
Ah, a young Bichon Frise.
“Cerberus?”
The sharp-eyed young detective blinked at the butler and asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you forty-three years old this year?”
The butler blinked at the familiar question. Reytan, with his arms crossed, offered a hint.
“Detective Berryberry knows everything.”
“Oh, I see.”
The butler understood the situation.
The young miss had been listening to his conversation with Young Master Reytan from under the blanket and was now repeating it.
Playing along with the child was not difficult for him.
There were other young miss and gentlemen in the Travel family besides Berry Quartz.
“The young detective has impressive insight. I’m worried she might even guess the number of my children.”
The butler smiled warmly. If he could gain the favor of this little girl, it would make his task of monitoring the Stone House much easier.
The next words were predictable. A son, and in the main house…
“Did you recently buy a large amount of stocks in that ink company that’s going to flop?”
“Baron Monte promised me it would never fail… Wait, how did you know I bought stocks?”
“How would she know? She’s just repeating something she heard somewhere.”
Reytan covered his daughter’s mouth and interrupted the conversation.
“Cerberus, you can leave now.”
Without even having time to shake off his uneasy feeling, the butler was dismissed. Watching the butler’s retreating figure, Berry made a pouting face.
‘Ack! This one is also correct.’
