I don’t know how many rounds of dodgeball we played.
Excited, Solea eventually rolled up her sleeves, grabbed the ball, and charged at the opposing team.
“Ahhh!”
“Ah, my Lady, please don’t throw it so hard!”
“It’s just a ball smaller than a calf’s thigh. Are you really going to complain about getting hit by that?”
“It still hurts when it hits, though.”
Even though they said that, Solea thought they would go easy on her since she was a noble lady. But the knights didn’t hold back at all.
Because of her small frame, she initially hid among the larger knights to dodge the ball, but as the number of players in the line decreased, Solea was quickly eliminated.
“Ah! Hitting the head is a foul! This doesn’t count.”
“Wow, so hitting the head doesn’t count? Then how are we supposed to take you out?”
“Take me out? Wow. Did you hear that, brother? Look at how that knight is talking.”
“…You only call me ‘brother’ at times like this.”
After being hit in the head, her neatly tied red hair became completely disheveled.
This time, they didn’t count it as a foul, so Solea grumbled as she moved to the defense line.
After retying her hair, Solea bent slightly forward and clapped her hands.
“Pass it! Let’s go with the triangle strategy!”
“My Lady, anyone would think you really love sports.”
I did enjoy them back in school.
If I had been able to finish all three years of high school, I would have liked them even more.
What I regretted most while living and working in the back room of a restaurant was not being able to attend school anymore.
At least I had friends back then. But when loan sharks barged into the restaurant on the day my friends visited, I quit the restaurant the next day and cut off contact with my friends.
Pushing aside the brief regret, Solea quickly shook her head.
“After this, let’s play ‘The Rose of Sharon Has Bloomed.’”
“What’s that?”
Catching a ball that flew from the right side of the defense line, Solea threw it with all her might and answered with a bright smile.
“It’s a game! I read about it in a book. I’ll teach you later!”
They played dodgeball until sweat beaded on their foreheads, and Solea even taught everyone how to play ‘The Rose of Sharon Has Bloomed.’
Because Gray kept asking what a rose of Sharon was, they had to rename the game to ‘The Daisy Has Bloomed.’
“The daisy has bloomed!”
“Ah!”
“My Lady! Isn’t this really a foul?”
Derrone and Uggie, who were standing on one foot, wobbled and fell over.
“This is up to the tagger’s discretion!”
“Please, let’s redo it!”
“Nope, nope. No redos.”
“Ah! Just hurry up and keep going! My legs are cramping!”
Gray was frozen in a running stance, his legs spread wide apart, and it didn’t look like he could hold out much longer.
It was clear that he was straining the inner muscles of his thighs to endure.
Derrone and Uggie, seemingly in a playful mood, deliberately started talking to Solea.
“My Lady, I think we need to formally bring this up as an agenda item for discussion.”
“Shall we?”
“Oh, please! Solea!”
The knights began to chuckle.
The only one in a hurry was Gray.
“Soleaaa!”
“Brother, hold on. Rules are important in things like this. So, how many syllables should we allow?”
“‘The daisy has bloomed’ seems a bit much.”
“I wasn’t that bad!”
“Ahhh!”
In the end, Gray, who was the last one standing, couldn’t hold out and fell over.
Taking that as her cue, Solea dashed forward energetically.
If I tag someone, I won’t be the tagger anymore!
Since she was slow at running and bad at keeping her balance, she had already been the tagger for four rounds, so Solea was determined to escape this time.
“Gotcha…! Huh, what?”
After colliding hard with someone, Solea looked up.
It was Heyman.
“Heyman?”
Solea, her face flushed from playing and beads of sweat forming on her forehead, looked up at Heyman with a puzzled expression.
“What brings you here?”
“…Yesterday, you looked like you were on the verge of death. Was that just a mood swing?”
Why is he picking a fight?
Frowning, Solea placed her hands on her hips.
“I’m exercising.”
“So, you don’t need my feet anymore?”
“Yeah. I don’t need them anymore.”
“…You don’t need them?”
Heyman’s clear pink eyes wavered for a moment.
“You’ve been searching for days. Perfect, flawless, beautiful… feet.”
“I don’t need them anymore. I’m just going to focus on exercising.”
Heyman, though it was unclear why he was upset, scanned the knights and Gray with an irritated look.
“Is this exercise? To me, it just looks like playing around.”
“Heyman, why are you talking like that?”
Gray intervened, but Heyman only stared at him coldly with icy eyes.
Sensing the tense atmosphere between the siblings, the knights began to cautiously observe the situation.
As if trying to wrap up the game, they brushed back their sweat-soaked, disheveled hair, adjusted their clothes, and lined up neatly on one side of the garden.
Sighing deeply, Solea spoke to Heyman.
“…Hey, Heyman. You’re the tagger now.”
“What?”
Solea grabbed Heyman’s arm and dragged him to stand in front of the tagger’s tree.
“You got caught by me. Stand facing the tree and say, ‘The daisy has bloomed!’ in three beats. You can’t turn around until the sentence is finished.”
“I’ve never heard of this game before. And I didn’t come here to play games like this.”
“Just do it. If you really didn’t want to, you wouldn’t have followed me this far.”
Despite his protests, Heyman had followed her lead, and now he was acting reluctantly.
Heyman pressed his lips together and turned to face the tree.
“…Do I start now?”
“No, wait until I tell you to start.”
“What happens when I say the phrase?”
“Someone will hit you. Then you turn around and catch anyone running away.”
Solea’s voice grew distant, as if she had moved quite far away.
“…They’ll hit me?”
“Start!”
As soon as Heyman asked, Solea shouted for him to start, leaving him no choice but to recite the strange phrase.
What was it again?
The daisy?
“…The daisy has bloomed—ow!”
He said it too slowly.
Solea, running at her fastest speed in her life, smacked the back of Heyman’s head.
When he turned around with a dumbfounded expression, his eyes wide, he saw Solea’s retreating figure, scampering away like a squirrel (albeit a slow one).
The knights, too, were staring at Heyman with wide eyes, and even Gray’s jaw had dropped, as if he hadn’t expected Solea to hit him on the head.
While Heyman stood there in a daze, Solea reached the opposite side, panting heavily.
“Hah, huff, you didn’t catch me, so, huff, you’re still the tagger. Huff, water, please. Ugh.”
A faint smile spread across Heyman’s face as he held the back of his head where he had been hit.
“…Ah. So that’s how it’s done. Got it.”
An extraordinary magical energy spread across the garden.
The game resumed.
After finishing a round of ‘The Daisy Has Bloomed,’ everyone was utterly exhausted.
Heyman had used magic to expand the garden, making it impossible for the tagger to catch anyone no matter how much they ran.
Eventually, a tired Solea threw a ball and hit Heyman’s back, and Heyman used his magic to pull Solea toward him and catch her.
“Magic is cheating! Magic is cheating!”
“You should’ve said that from the start.”
Now the tagger again, Solea used her dodgeball expertise from Korea to catch anyone who moved even slightly.
The problem arose afterward. Heyman objected to Solea linking pinky fingers with the people she caught.
“…Why are you making unnecessary physical contact?”
Unable to bear it, Gray stepped in.
“It’s just a game, Heyman.”
“Are you telling me to stand by and watch the lady of the Bergo family link pinkies with knights?”
“…Well, it’s just a game, but…”
The knight, Olive, who had been standing under the tree with Solea, awkwardly tried to pull his hand away.
“Just do it already!”
Overwhelmed by Solea’s commanding tone, he failed to escape.
“No, no. Linking fingers is a bit much. Hold onto something else.”
“Would you only be satisfied if I grabbed this knight by the scruff of his neck?”
It was meant to be a sarcastic remark, but Olive immediately offered his neck.
“My Lady, please just grab me by the scruff.”
“…There’s never been a case in the history of ‘The Rose of Sharon Has Bloomed’ where someone grabbed another by the scruff.”
“I’m really fine with it. Please, grab me by the scruff.”
From then on, the knights caught by Solea, the tagger, began grabbing each other by the scruff.
After a few more rounds, the sun began to set.
Heyman, having overexerted his magical energy, fell asleep as soon as he returned to his room. Gray, who had escorted Solea to her room, shuffled back to his own, likely exhausted from trying to mediate between the two.
Solea, too, received the maids’ assistance for the first time as she bathed, then crawled into bed and fell asleep as if she had passed out.
As for the knights, there was no need to even mention their state. After running around the magically expanded garden as if it were a training ground, they collapsed in their quarters in various positions, completely drained.
That evening, when Duke Diego returned from his duties at the imperial palace, he tilted his head at the unusually quiet atmosphere in the mansion.
“Where are the children?”
The head maid, Marcilla, chuckled softly.
“You’ll be quite surprised when you hear this, Your Grace.”
“Hmm?”
After hearing the full account of the day’s events from Marcilla, Duke Diego headed to the backyard.
They had apparently played all day, and the backyard was a mess. The grass was trampled, the ground was dug up, and it was in complete disarray.
On top of that, the ball they had been playing with was left rolling around on the ground.
Because it was dark with the sun having set, the butler, who had followed the Duke with a lamp, quickly picked up the ball with his free hand.
“My apologies, Your Grace. I’ll clean this up right away.”
Duke Diego smiled gently, took the ball from the butler, and rolled it back to the center of the backyard.
“Leave it as it is. The children might want to play again tomorrow.”
The Duke, unable to suppress his smile, returned to the mansion.
Sitting at his desk, piled high with documents, Duke Diego worked for a while before looking up and speaking to his aide, Ratel.
“Do you think I could take tomorrow off?”
“No, you cannot.”
“…I heard the children played a new game today.”
“All three of them?”
“All three.”
“Even Lady Solea? And that prickly Master Heyman joined in? And Master Gray, who never skips training, was part of it too? … All three of them?”
Duke Diego confirmed in a firm voice.
“Yes, all three.”
“Wow.”
Ratel couldn’t help but exclaim in amazement. Duke Diego glanced at him and subtly asked again.
“Couldn’t I take just one day off? Just, one day.”
“No, you cannot.”
“I see.”
“Indeed.”
“Do you not need a vacation?”
“No.”
“Hmm?”
“I do not need one.”
“…I see.”
“Indeed.”
Duke Diego’s dignified features crumpled slightly.
“Call the physician in advance. Solea, at least, will likely suffer from muscle pain.”
“Yes, I’ll inform the head butler before I leave for the day.”
Duke Diego, reviewing his documents, gave an order in a distinctly irritated tone.
“Now. Do it now. Immediately!”
“Yes, understood.”
Though it didn’t seem to faze the aide at all.
A few days later, upon hearing that Solea had been diligently exercising, Duke Diego emptied out the guest parlor on the first floor.
Though it wasn’t the main parlor, it was still a spacious room befitting its name.
Early in the morning, before heading to work, Duke Diego proudly showed the parlor to Solea with a smile.
“When it rains, you can exercise here.”
Solea’s eyes sparkled as she replied.
“Thank you! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to build lots of muscle.”
Clenching her fists with determination, Solea had no idea.
She didn’t know that the soft carpet Duke Diego had laid down to prevent her from getting hurt cost as much as a year’s living expenses for an average noble family.
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