As Long As You Are Happy

on her face as she just touched it.
She noticed that she had traces of burn marks as well. 

“Let me first wipe the blood off you and change your bandages.
To be honest with you, I initially came here to change them anyway.”

“Bandages… ?”

Rhett scanned her body again. 

It was then she noticed something new on her body.
Like the bandages wrapped around her limbs and numerous white patches stuck to any part of her skin not wrapped in cloth. 

“Fortunately, your wound doesn’t look deep.
Not deep enough for stitches.”

She found it interesting how her entire body was covered in bandages.
As she was lost in her thoughts, the blue-haired stranger examined her palm. 

“All done.”

Huh? Rhett looked at her hand.
After the salve had been carefully applied on her wound, the bandage had been tightly wrapped around her hand. 

…Were they a doctor? 

Rhett tilted her head to the side.
There were doctors in the slums too.
Though he was a quack who would steal old drugs and sell them several times over. 

“Excuse me, miss.
Pardon me as I’ll need to change the dressing on your back as well.”

“My… back?”

This person was going to do it themself? 

Not only were her limbs covered in bandages but so was her abdomen.
That meant she had to take off her top. 

Rhett shifted to the edge of the sofa and ran.

“Why are you running away? Ah!”

The stranger pointed at themself with their thumb.

“I’m a woman.”

“…..?”

“If you don’t believe me, should I take off my top?”

“No!”

At the thought of her taking off her tunic at any given moment now, Rhett immediately shook her head with all her might. 

“Well, you might not have known since my hair is so short.”

“Ah.”

She smoothed her short blue hair before smiling coolly. 

“I’m a knight, you see.
I often fought on battlefields but my hair kept getting caught in things so I just cut it off! Wouldn’t it be better to have my hair sliced off than my neck?”

Rhett found herself nodding subconsciously at the terrifying words the stranger was suddenly uttering. 

“I tried to trim the edges but maybe it was because I had sliced it haphazardly with my blade? I couldn’t fix it at all.
That’s why I just shaved it off!”

A lot of hair had grown out since then! The knight smiled cheerfully before raising her thumb again. 

“Wearing my helmet is more comfortable now since I don’t have any hair but when I stand under the sun, it feels like my head is being cooked.”

“I-I see.”

Rhett felt exhausted for a different reason than before.
Blinking, Rhett nodded eagerly.
The knight looked at Rhett before bursting into laughter. 

“Haha, miss, you look like a bunny!”

Miss.

She had been calling her that for a while now.
Feeling as though she should leave now, Rhett asked the knight who had applied salve to her wound and changed her bandages. 

“Excuse me, I don’t why I’m here but… may I ask why you’re calling me that?”

“Hm?”

“Well, uhm, I’m not someone who deserves to be called a ‘miss’ by someone as outstanding as you, miss knight.”

“I was just about to explain that to you but his grace will be arriving soon.”

His grace.
The words lingered in her mind as Rhett rolled them around her tongue. 

“I think it’d be better if you heard it from him yourself.”

“Yes.”

Rhett nodded as she listened to the knight.
Staring at Rhett, the knight added something else. 

“Do you perhaps remember anything? I cannot be certain but his grace has a way of lingering on people’s minds.
Why, he was the one who carried you all the way here.”

The man who carried her? Was he, maybe, the man who took her out of the crate?

“That black hair…”

“That’s right! His grace is a man with black hair.
And red eyes! Do you remember?”

Rhett quickly shook her head.
She could not recall what colour his eyes were from memory. 

All she could remember was his black hair and the way she desperately clung onto him. 

Still, finding out that her memories matched that of reality, she felt more relaxed. 

However, the walls she had put up due to the unfamiliarity of the place she was in had yet to be torn down. 

She still had some unanswered questions.

Why was she here and why did the knight keep calling her ‘miss’?

‘I am suddenly curious why he promised to protect me.’

And she did not know whether she could believe him. 

‘I don’t think he’s a bad man but…’

It was just not something she could completely believe.
Even in the slums, there were also evil faces that wore the masks of a Samaritan. 

Anyone who placed their faith in those people would lose all their possessions and find themselves starving on the streets while there were also some who would disappear from the face of the earth without a word. 

“All done!”

After she moved and changed clothes as the knight told her to, Rhett realised that she had unknowingly become quite clean. 

Rhett fidgeted with the clothes she had never worn before–clothes made of such soft fabric. 

Everything felt unfamiliar. 

“Well then, what would you like to do, miss? You may go visit his grace now.
Or if you’re tired, you may rest for a while longer.”

Rhett shook her head.

“I’d like to go visit him now.”

“Alright! Shall we go then, miss?”

Rhett followed the knight idly to the door before mustering the courage to speak. 

“Uhm, by the way.
Miss knight.
If you could call me something other than ‘miss’…”

The knight who had been holding the door open nodded as though she thought that it was a good idea. 

“Shall we introduce ourselves to each other? It’s not like we will only be seeing each other for a day or two! We’ll need to know each other’s names.”

As she spoke, the knight reached out her hand.

“I am Delphia.
Delphia Baraten.
The oldest of Viscount Baraten’s children.”

Name.
That word made Rhett choke on her words. 

Her name was Rhett. 

Because she was thought to be a rat.