Jack was the possessor of a simple and weak-willed mind. In order to tame him,  something like Yuri’s infinite benevolence and love was required to melt him away.

“Yona.”

“Yes, milady.”

“Contact the Duke, please.”

Or to trample with his immense strength. I smiled. Finally, there came a time where reading the novel reaped benefits.

“Tell him to introduce to me the Empire’s greatest swordsmanship teacher.”

Melissa Podebrat might just become the Empire’s best swordsman.

***

“It’s unusual.”

I tilted my head and swung my sword. I could feel the blade that shone silver cut through the air silently and precisely. It had been a month since I’d grabbed the hilt of the sword.

However, with a little exaggeration, my swordsmanship was similar to one 10 years of experience.

My magic was the floor, appearance was lower-middle, even my intellect and dancing skills were lower-middle tier. Melissa, the definition of normal, unexpectedly had the talent of a genius in swordsmanship. In this world, it was very rare for an aristocratic lady to grab the sword, so it was a talent that might have gone unknown if it hadn’t been for the past incident.

If that really happened, I would have been disappointed.

“It feels great to be a genius.”

It was a talent that shone that brightly and even more.

Of course, my skills right now were thanks to the professional guidance of my teacher, who had once been the part of the Royal Guard at one point in time, but there was also that ‘reason.’

“Milady, I apologize for interrupting you when you’re practicing your sword.”

I put down my sword, wiped off my sweat, and turned to the maid who hurriedly ran over to me.

“What is it?”

“That…… there’s a letter from the ‘Ponton’ Household.”

I could feel my hand unconsciously contract tightly.

All werewolves had the same last name. They were in the few minorities, and they didn’t care enough to have multiple last names. They were rather enclosed and lived apart from humans, but there was just the minimum communication that the humans had learned that ‘Ponton = werewolf.’

“Let me take a look.”

I extended a hand and the maid gave me an odd look that questioned if I was really going to read it, but she still handed the letter over.

“Thank you. You can go back.”

As I spoke slightly, the corners of the maid’s mouth lifted slightly as she retreated.

The letter was rough parchment that was rolled up like a scroll. However, the dark red fur charm that hung onto the scroll proved it was an official letter from the Ponton Household. It also proved that the sender was the one that had red fur.

‘He actually sent a formal notice of his visitation.’

There was a reason behind why it took an entire month for the notice to reach me. It isn’t possible to send a formal notice from the Ponton Household’s Estate as it’s more accurately located inside of a forest. And not to mention that it’s also located far from the Empire’s Capital, which is where I live. So it only makes sense that it took a lot of time.

‘Now that I think about it, for Jack to crawl over to a place from so far away … he’d never done so before he met Yuri. He’s supposed to meet her just as summer reaches its end, but it’s still spring. Hmm, was this something that hadn’t been mentioned in the novel?

As I read the letter in question, my reading was abruptly stopped by a word that I hadn’t expected at all.

“……Huh?”

It was a miracle that I hadn’t dropped the letter.

The letter, filled with rough writing, started with numerous apologies regarding Jack’s previous rudeness. It provided notification of his planned visit on the first day of summer along with a final sentence that looked as though it had been written while he barely suppressed his strength.

「Where is Nine?」

Nine.

The face of the man, one of which I had both forgotten and tried my hardest to forget, surfaced.

***

“Your Grace.”

I started a conversation with the Duke, who sat in his study after returning from his visit to the countryside that’d lasted only a couple of days.