Plop, plop!
A fish broke out the surface of the river to take a peek of Seojin and the children playing a game in the plaza that he had invented only minutes prior.
"Super!" shouted a boy named Iori, clenching his fists.
The rules were simple: catch a flake, shout 'super!', and drop it into a coco cup, a crude bowl carved from a coconut shell.
Having already abandoned formal titles, the children were now calling Seojin as 'Seb' which was the pseudonym Iria had told him to use.
"Hey, Seb! Did you see that? I looked cool, right? Do you think Lady Iria will accept my feelings once I'm a knight?"
Iori tugged Seojin's sleeve.
Mutya leapt as high as she could and smacked the back of Iori's head.
"Fool! What nonsense are you spouting in front of lady Iria's beloved?"
"That hurts! Why'd you have to hit me, you barbaric girl?!"
"Huh?! Say it again and I'll bash your face in!"
"Barbaric— bonk!— stop! Get away from me, you barbaric witch!"
Seojin chuckled. Being able to watch those two whose now playing tag reminded him of a childhood he had never experienced.
Eventually, Iori tripped, and Mutya pounced, leaving him with fresh lumps on his forehead.
"They get along well for two people who claim to hate each other, don't—"
"Super!"
"Super!"
A shout of the collective voices of the other children interrupted him as they raced to fill their bowls.
This gave Seojin time to think. He had been secretly observing the village since their arrival, and he noticed that something's off.
Aside from a few foreign merchants haggling over the village's already low prices, the 'working class' villagers were basically nonexistent. There wasn't a single one between the ages of eighteen and fifty.
It was a village of the very young and the very old!
Beside them, the potato farmer from earlier now sat on a bench, peeling the skins of potatoes with a knife while watching the children play.
Ahead, an old woman watched from a window inside her house; another stood behind them, leaning on a cane with an expression that suggested she wanted to play, but her knees had long since retired.
The saying "children don't lie" seemed useful in this kind of situation.
"Aight. You guys, that's enough. Gather 'round and let's decide the winner—"
"Super!"
"..."
No one paid attention to him.
He bit his lips as a vein bulged in his temple, thinkin 'I said that's enough, you little…' but he only cleared his throat and tried again with a gentler tone.
"Time's up, you little brats! The game is over. Let's measure everyone's bowls."
…Or, perhaps not a gentler tone.
Still, the children crowded him and shoved their coconut shells into his… face.
While they argued over who had the most snow, Seojin quietly scooped a handful of fresh powder from a drift behind him and stuffed it into his own bowl, topping it off perfectly.
He waited for them to notice his victory with a smug grin, but instead, he heard a soft, hitching sound.
Snff, snff!
The children immediately went silent. Sophie, a timid girl standing right beside Seojin, was trembling, her eyes welling with tears.
"Sophie? What's wrong?" Mutya asked.
Sophie pointed a shaky finger at Seojin's bowl.
"Seb… he's a cheater. I saw him... he put the snow sneakily in his bowl…"
They all stared at Seojin who had cheated against twelve (12) year olds with such disapproving looks, matching the lack of formalities in their words.
Well, sixteen (16) is the legal age in this world, the driving point of their lives as they could now apply to be a knight in training, a place to display their learnings.
Though among these children, Mutya seemed to be the only matured one.
"Mister Seb, you may be lady Iria's man, but you sure are pathetic. How could you make a child cry?"
Mutya sighed.
The rest then burst into laughter, declaring Sophie the winner by unanimous vote.
Sophie stopped crying, though she still looked terrified of Seojin. Truthfully, it wasn't him cheating the game that scared her, it was the "devilish!" expression of pure greed Seojin had made while scooping the snow.
"So, what's the prize, mister cheater?" Mutya asked, crossing her arms. "Games need prizes, ya know?"
Seojin looked at their expectant faces and sighed dramatically.
"Fine. The winner gets a Truth. I will answer one question, absolutely honestly with absolutely no lies, so think carefully."
Thing is, he was supposed to benefit from this prize.
If Sophie had not noticed him, he could've asked where their parents were, with of course a complete clueless expression.
It was a simple prize, but it was also the best way to avoid arousing suspicion from both the children and elderly watching them, since asking them out of the blue, even out of curiosity, would not look good.
But the kids blurted out questions instantly, ignoring his words saying he should answer only one question.
"Mmm…" Mutya circled him, unapproving. "Are you really lady Iria's man like Grandma said? I doubt that lady Iria has this low qualifications, right mister?"
"Hey hey, Seb, can I be lady Iria's man instead?"
"What's lady Iria's favorite food?"
"Did you both k-k-k… k-kiss her already?"
He waved their questions off.
"Like I said, only the winner gets to ask. Sophie, it's your turn."
Sophie fidgeted her fingers, looking at her feet, clearly hesitant to ask. But when she finally did, her voice came out in a tiny and high-pitched monotone.
"I… uh… are you lord that my big brother and father serves? They talk about you all the time during dinner, laughing about the man peeking out the window with brown hair, blue eyes, and skinny body. They said the lord was handsome, but they wanted to rip his face. They said the lord is just wasting his blood and hoped that he'd die already. He said the lord is undeserving of someone as beautiful as a maid They—"
She continued for a full five minutes, reciting a terrifyingly detailed list of how her father and big brother's death threats, or he put it that way.
The other children backed away, including Mutya.
They didn't doubt Sophie, she had never lied before. It reinforced what the village elders had told them in their stories about the lord: a handsome coward, leading the village to their demise.
After all, if a Hart was sent to such lands with a small village as their territory, this place specifically called [Ascendance Lands], if the young lord failed to ascend and get exiled or executed, the village will suffer as they will no longer be protected by the [Hart] name.
Seojin froze.
He had already run a hundred simulations in his head on how to respond in such situations, but to no use as those simulated responses only made him more suspicious, confirming him being a young lord.
The part about the lord being 'handsome' was a perfect match after all!
In the end, he forced a chuckle.
"Me, a lord? Ahaha, no way! Someone with beauty like Iria cannot possibly be a maid, right? Besides, I just arrived here this morning."
The children sighed and nodded their heads, of course including Sophie.
Truly, they cannot imagine their lady Iria serving someone like the person before them as a maid, thinking Seojin only was lucky to end up with Iria.
He looked around. Fortunately, no elders were now watching them play around.
"This village sure is peaceful. But hey, who does the heavy lifting around here? I haven't seen anyone my age like Sophie's brother, and even someone like her father."
"Big brother is training with the knights like father!" Sophie exclaimed, excited. "Mother is…"
"Our mothers went to the main dukedom to attend a festival and test their [Zi] aptitudes. Cool, right?! I'm sure they'd come back and now be able to cast magic like lady Iria!"
"But what about you, mister Seb?" Sophie added. "Aren't you also going to train with the knights like big brother if you're already sixteen?"
Seojin nodded, finally getting the answer he wanted.
"I—"
"My Seb is already a knight, you know?" Iria appeared, pushing a wooden-wheeled cart alongside an old woman. "Isn't he cool?"
Mwa!
She suddenly kissed Seojin's cheeks.
The children screamed and covered their eyes, though Iori peeked through his fingers and blushing, wishing it was him and not Seojin.