CHAPTER 27: 24: BEAUTY.

It took a while for Selene to finally reach the room, which in the meantime, Edward exchanged awkward pleasantries with the lord and lady of Verdigris.

"The weather is quite nice today, don’t you think so?"

"Y-yeah... looks like a pleasant day for an outing, your grace."

....

"You look splendid today, may I inquire about who was in charge of your outfit? I heard the Myrvale hired a new beautician" The lady asked.

"Thank you, your grace... it was uhh... my lady in waiting."

....

Safe to say, it was not very enjoyable. At least for Edward.

In fact, it was almost painful. Noble talk was draining his very soul away!

By the time the door had swung open, Edward was almost praying for himself to be vaporised on the spot.

Anyhow, after the door had opened, the lady and duke had stopped bombarding him with small talk. And after a small moment of anticipation where nothing happened, a lady walked in through the entrance,

Edward blinked a couple of times.

huh...

This was...

She was...

The girl was just so pretty.

Like, really... really... pretty.

The world came to halt for a moment. Literally.

Time froze for Edward as he witnessed the beauty in front of him.

The sunlight pouring in from the window danced around the room, perfecting congregating towards her who was right in the entrance. Her skin glowed radiantly under the bright sunlight, emitting a mystical energy, like that of a rising moon. And her midnight blue hair, smooth as silk, flowed lightly in the air as she stepped in.

Her dark blue eyes, framed by thick lashes the same colour as her hair, studied the room in one fell swoop with a confident intelligence. And as she walked, her steps rang lightly along the wall, grounding everything around her into reality.

Edward didn’t know why, but he found himself unable to peel his eyes off of her.

She had this aura, this mystical feeling that surrounded her, like she was too precious to belong in this world. And to top it all off, like a perfect cherry on top, the velvet black gown she was wearing sat snug against her figure. Making her almost impossible to ignore in the world of colours.

He took it all in, overwhelmed by the beauty.

She looked more like a goddess than a human.

And then time snapped back to its normal pace.

She gave Edward a small courteous bow and a subtle smile that could have stopped wars, then went and sat beside her parents.

It was only when the duke spoke that Edward fully snapped out of his trance.

"I’m sure you have guessed already, but this is our eldest daughter, Selene Verdigris."

Edward blinked.

Then he gave her a small, awkward smile and bowed his head. Feeling a little antsy under her gaze.

Then the duke turned to Selene.

"You know why we called you here, right?"

She nodded. And then spoke, her smooth, elegant voice clear. More like a blessing to his ears than a regular human voice.

"Yes father, I will do my best to clear any confusion regarding the situation."

The duke nodded, and told her to begin.

Then she immediately started describing what had happened, and how she had ended up with the Myrvale crest.

It had all started a few weeks ago, according to her, when Selene heard that there was an artifact out there that could peer very deep into mana cores, deeper than any mage ever could. Which was somehow important, because of a condition she was suffering from. She sounded like she wasn’t ready to openly talk about it, and Edward didn’t have any reason to inquire further either.

So instead, he just nodded along as Selene continued speaking.

She went on to describe how she had ended up where she was found.

After a small while of pondering, Selene, who didn’t want to burden anyone else with her troubles had decided to embark on a solo journey to the forest near the border to find the artifact.

She had left at midnight, casting a stealth spell on herself to avoid any prying eyes, and had secured a place on a wagon that was travelling to the border town they had found Edward in.

And this... was where thing got a little weird.

The Myrvale crest, Selene said that her memory surrounding it was a little hazy too.

She said that she remembered talking to a girl... or at least what she thought was a girl, and then helping her out with something.

She was already struggling to find details by now.

What the task was, Selene wasn’t entirely sure, but she clearly remembered the girl being extremely happy when problem was solved. And as a return gift, she had apparently given her this unassuming crest, which she had put it in her bag of withholding without thinking much of it.

After that she had went to retrieve the artifact, where she had faced a beast protecting it and had ended up fainting after defeating immediately after finding it.

Her story had ended there, just like that.

Tension hung in the air along with silence.

Edward looked Selene, not entirely convinced.

She’s definitely hiding things.

It was only obvious. To Edward, Selene’s story sounded hastily put together, and it felt there were gaps in it, gaps that were way too big to be left unaddressed.

He contemplated on pressing her for details, while also mustering up the courage to do so.

Edward was sure that her parents would have also noticed how patchy the whole story was. Maybe they had questions of their own.

Unfortunately, no one looked like they wanted to speak.

A long moment passed.

Then another.

And then finally the duke exhaled.

"This is giving me a headache..."

He gave Edward a tired smile.

"This situation is turning out to be worse than we initially thought."

He looked out of the window.

"Maybe we should continue this tomorrow, our guests need their rests."