Princess Shu - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – Prologue: How Should I Live?

Valia was the daughter of the knight.

Her father was average in ability, and was neither exceptional nor inferior. He earned his living by the sword, but then perished in the war. The palace paid a monthly pension to the only surviving member of his family—his daughter, Valia. She did not have any other family, which might have turned out as a good thing, since there were no other greedy relatives to squabble over the money.

‘But…’

Valia’s thoughts turned to her past. When she was thirteen, all the money that she saved disappeared. As it turned out, the culprit was a maid that had been in her employ for a long time.

The maid, who was much older than Valia, was not kind to the young noble girl. Since Valia was young and had no one else to take care of her, the maid looked down on her with contempt.

But to the young Valia, the maid was the provider of warm stew and fragrant bread. The young girl was dependent on the maid. Yes. Valia even regarded the maid as her mother.

‘But the end result was disastrous.’

When Valia was asleep, the maid stole away in secret, leaving behind only a few meager loaves of baked bread as the smallest gesture of consideration.

‘She probably didn’t want me searching for her while I was eating the bread.’

Valia thought that the maid had gone out for a while; nothing unusual, the maid often did that. However, Valia’s worry and doubt grew when the maid didn’t return after a few days. That day, Valia sat on her old bed and wept. Nothing left a wound as deep and as lasting as being abandoned.

It wasn’t until later that Valia discovered how terribly meticulous the maid was. The maid had stolen the entire monthly pension in a lump sum.

Had it not been for Carl, Valia’s father’s late mentor, Valia might have fallen ill from severe malnutrition.

After Valia ate all the bread the maid had baked, she roughly made a dough from flour and milk from memory. She managed to stay alive by eating the dough, which she burned on the outside but had the taste and texture of undercooked flour on the inside. When the milk went bad, she made dough by mixing just water with a lump of flour.

Carl tutted and took the dough away, then baked it again in the oven. At that time, Valia scarfed down five rolls of bread nonstop, thinking she may never eat bread as delicious as this again.

[First I have a wrong disciple, now this old man has to look over the kid too.]

On the anniversary of Valia’s father’s death, she heard Carl mutter those words to himself.

In any case, it was Carl who ended up raising Valia. As a mercenary, he would come home once a season, rest for a month, then leave to work again. He had a gruff demeanor, but he always made sure that Valia’s living expenses were paid.

Valia wondered if Carl volunteered as a foreign war mercenary because of her. While she was usually healthy, she was ill as if she had a fatal disease.

War mercenaries were paid well since life benefits were included. Then, one day, Carl was so severely wounded that death nearly took him. He had taken a poison arrow to his right arm, and the deadly poison caused necrosis to his flesh.

A mercenary’s arm was his life. It would cost a great sum to treat Carl’s arm without cutting it off, but all the money he had earned had gone to Valia’s care.

The only one he had was Valia.

And thus, Valia began looking for a job. Fortunately, she was a noblewoman, and there were many opportunities for a young, unmarried aristocrat.

Just in time, the Ghel Empire, which dominated the continent, was recruiting a large number of women to work as palace girls ahead of the then-Emperor’s death. Although there were numerous nobles in the Ghel Empire, it seemed that they could not fill all the desired positions. Entrance as a palace girl would be akin to life imprisonment, and when one went in, one could not go out.

No matter how poor Valia’s circumstances were, she was still a noblewoman. Not any young lady could just volunteer for the position. Only after scraping together the earlings in the nation did the Ghel Empire get the numbers it wanted.

‘The money covered the cost of Carl’s treatment.’

It might have been a consolation fee for Valia to live in the Imperial Palace for the rest of her life, but she was paid a hefty sum of money. It was a salary befitting a great empire.

In the end, Valia was able to save Carl’s life. The cost was great, but it wasn’t a waste. Her life was in debt to his.

‘Do I have to live like that again?’ Valia wondered to herself, but then shook her head. She didn’t want to. In order to maintain the extravagant living standards of the Imperial Palace, the servants were worked to the bone, and Valia was not exempt—More so since she was a woman from a small kingdom with no connection to the Empire, and she was at the mercy of her master’s displeasure.

‘…Every day was like walking on thin ice.’

She vowed not to enter the Imperial Palace even if she had to sell herself as a war mercenary.

Suddenly, the door opened with a bang, interrupting Valia from her reverie of the past.

“Valia! How many times have I told you to come out and eat!” a voice screeched. A pair of eyes devoid of any affection bored down on her.

Why didn’t Valia have more awareness before? The girl, who lost her father, simply followed the maid who was obedient enough to give her meals.

Valia stared at the rude maid. There was something else she had to do now.

“You’re fired,” Valia declared.

At thirteen years old, Valia’s life began again, and this time she fired her maid.

***

The Knight’s Daughter

After Valia dismissed the maid, she went to a maid agency. There were many more people who could replace the maid who once abandoned her, and could bake Valia bread and cook her hot stew.

Valia signed a contract with the maid agency. The maids changed randomly every other day, and their tasks were to clean the house and serve her warm meals.

If there was anything that changed about Valia, it was that she no longer showed affection to the maids. She made sure to maintain a distant employer/employee relationship, where the only exchange was that of money and labor. It had taken her too long to realize that this was the proper way to do things.

The change in Valia naturally affected the people around her. Carl was the one who changed the most. He visited Valia in the house just like he did in the past, and when he saw that his late disciple had left behind a young daughter, he was determined to raise her. However, this time, Valia’s personality was different now.

[You don’t act like a child.]

Valia thought that those words held great meaning. Then again, it was quite surprising for a supposedly innocent child to go to a maid agency by herself and sign an employment contract. Since Valia was fairly self-sufficient, Carl became less worried, and he left for work more often and didn’t spend as much time at home. But Valia was not saddened. Even in the past, Carl tried to make her independent.

When Valia grew a little older, she stopped hiring maids because it was a waste of money.

Fortunately, housework was not too difficult for her—because of her past experience, perhaps? She did the laundry, cleaning, and baked bread herself. In the middle of the day, when the sun was warm, Valia would indulge in the small pleasure of taking a bite of bread. It was soft and made of fine flour, and although it did not contain much savory butter, it was the only dish that she did not mess up. She always ended up burning other meals.

Valia drank tea as dessert, and she was lost in thought as she sipped her drink. Her worries about the future had always been the same, but she had never been strongly motivated in the past.

She only had one question to herself now—What would she do to live?

Her first thought was living a life similar to the past.

She had entered the palace as a lifetime servant of the Imperial Family, and was later selected to serve as a female Imperial guard. However, she was never formally knighted, and lived in the ambiguous position between knight and palace servant.

‘I had my limits as a sword wielder.’

Perhaps due to her father’s influence, her grip was quite strong, but she had little talent for sword fighting. However, due to her noble lineage and her uncommon gender as a woman, she was able to become a female Imperial guard. Calling her a “knight” was one way to put it, but in truth she was more like a palace girl who could use a sword to fulfill her task. It was a decent life, but the constant feeling of walking on eggshells was not worth it.

‘Should I just become a mercenary?’ Valia thought, but soon dismissed the idea. When comparing her strength to Carl, she knew that she was no match for the work.

‘How should I live?’

It was a question that every living person thought about at least once in their lives, and there was one reason why this worry came to Valia desperately.

‘…Will it hurt again this time?’

It was when she had been nineteen years old. Valia, who was usually healthy, had been terribly ill. The memories of that time were hazy to her, and she had fallen in and out of consciousness. Surely when she reached that age again, Valia would pass out and suffer for three days and three nights.

At least if she started saving money now, she could pay back what was owed. The former maid had demanded a large severance payment, but Valia could make up the difference by saving up slowly. Then, Carl wouldn’t have to go to war. He wouldn’t be poisoned, and Valia wouldn’t have to live as a palace girl for life. As Valia cut the chains of the past, she could see a new path ahead.

‘In the end, money is the problem.’

Valia suddenly felt dejected.

‘I should have memorized the lottery numbers.’

When she had worked in the palace, she regularly bought lottery tickets issued by the Ghel Empire Imperial Family, but stopped soon after. Valia regretted her act. If only she had memorized the lottery numbers! After a moment of digging through her memory, she gave up trying to recall them.

Fortunately, other memories clearly surfaced in her mind.

For example—

“A lady given from God…”

A beautiful woman with ivory skin had appeared in the Imperial Lake. She had dark hair and dark eyes that were like twin pools reflecting the night sky. Her voice was that of another world. Later, Yeri, as the woman was named, was made the Crown Princess.