She Is a Daughter Raised As the Son of a Duke

Jed watched May’s fleeing figure.

While May was dealing with Clovin during the mealtime earlier, Jed exchanged glances with Diego.

They also had the goal of stealing her beads, just like Clovin.

In the situation where Velta, Galley, and Clovin had all failed, it wasn’t easy to put their hands on her pouch.

So, unbeknownst to May, she had given Jed an order after the meal. From 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., for one hour, she wanted him to distract her with something other than beads.

During that hour, he would dispose of all of her beads.

“I wonder if May can really concentrate on something other than her bead pouch.”

“You can do it because you’re you. May follows you well. Earlier, I didn’t say you were cool for no reason.”

“…I’ll try to stall for as long as possible.”

Although it was still far from the promised time of 9 p.m., Jed let May go as she was.

He couldn’t detain her when she made an excuse about worrying about the bead pouch.

“It’s troublesome.”

Pretending to gradually fall for someone they didn’t even like was both annoying and creepy.

But if he didn’t do this, May would eventually give up on herself. She believed that he would never fall for her.

Of course, May’s thoughts were correct. He didn’t like her, and it would remain the same in the future.

However, he had already discovered May’s existence, and he realized that there was no woman with a higher position and honor than her. Marrying someone other than her didn’t have any particular appeal.

Fortunately, May had fallen for him. Could he just stand by and watch?

Once she completes her disguise as a man, he will propose to her.

To marry her and become a more perfect person.

Meanwhile, Diego took advantage of May’s absence to enter her tent to dispose of all her beads.

Inside the tent, there were two pouches, a summer sleeping bag, and a makeshift lamp. The yellow light from the lamp softly illuminated the interior of the tent.

‘She’s probably with Jed by now.’

Diego casually picked up one of the pouches. Since both were heavy to carry at once, he planned to dispose of them one by one.

As Diego was about to leave the tent while holding one of the pouches, he quickly turned back upon seeing May approaching from this direction.

‘What…? Did I see it wrong?’

It wasn’t even 8:15 yet. Why is she here?

‘Did I see it wrong?’

Diego put down the pouch and slightly opened the entrance of the tent.

Oh my! Isn’t May right in front of me? She looked extremely embarrassed, as if she had received a confession from someone she liked.

“Oh no!”

To avoid being caught, Diego widened the gap between the back floor and the tent and slipped out through it.

As a result, the tent shook noticeably, but May, who was feeling embarrassed, didn’t notice.

‘Darn it…’

The back of the tent happened to be a steep cliff-like wall, and the space between the cliff and the tent was too narrow to squeeze through comfortably.

To make matters worse, it was blocked by large rocks on both sides, so in order to escape, he had to pass through the tent again.

In the meantime, Diego felt more annoyed that his dignity was crumbling rather than the inconvenience of the narrow space.

‘The prince of the empire lying on the ground… How disgraceful.’

He wished May would go outside the tent or at least go to sleep.

While lifting the tent slightly to check May’s condition, he heard her muttering.

“I should loosen it a bit when sleeping… It’s stuffy.”

What does he mean by loosening it? When he glanced, he saw the back of May.

May, who had taken off his oatmeal-colored half-sleeve shirt, touched the white bandage wrapped around his chest.

‘Bandage? Why is there a bandage?’

Did he have scars on his body?

Perhaps that’s why he felt disgusted when they were together in the bathroom last time.

‘No, that’s not important right now. When does he sleep?’

Lying on the ground covered in rocks was painful.

Carefully peeking into the tent several times, May finally put his clothes back on and got into the sleeping bag, falling asleep.

While May was asleep, Diego entered the tent and safely escaped outside.

‘What a hassle…’

While walking and brushing off his clothes, he ran into Jed, who was nearby.

“Why are you here?”

“Since you weren’t in the tent, I came here just in case… But what were you doing inside? “

Jed clearly saw Diego coming out of May’s tent. It was much later than the time when he went in to steal the pouch. He felt uncomfortable that Diego came out of May’s tent at such a late hour.

“You… I told you to stall until 9 p.m.”

“You said you were worried about the pouch, so I had no choice. But why are you coming out of the tent now? And empty-handed, to make matters worse.”

“Oh, right. I should have taken the pouch when I came out.”

Driven by the desire to escape quickly, I forgot about the pouch.

“If you weren’t going to steal the pouch, why did you go into the tent?”

“I was hiding because May came while I was trying to steal it. I waited until he fell asleep and then came out. And then…”

Diego debated whether to bring up the bandage story but decided against it.

“No.”

It would be strange for him to have an interest in someone else’s injuries.

Diego walked towards his own tent.

“Should I bring it? If he’s sleeping, she wouldn’t even know.”

“…Forget it.”

For some reason, he felt like he had lost the opportunity to go back inside. He shouldn’t have seen what he shouldn’t have seen.

* * *

1 a.m. Dawn. Most of the participants were fast asleep inside their tents. I woke up at the sound of rustling.

What’s that sound…

Still half-asleep, I opened and closed my eyes repeatedly for about 30 seconds before finally sitting up. Even after sitting up, I sat there in a daze, and three minutes passed in the blink of an eye.

After that, when I looked around the tent, I felt something strange. Relying on the light from the lamp, I carefully surveyed the inside of the tent for a while and finally realized that all the bead pouches were gone.

The entrance of the tent was also half-open.

Surprised, I couldn’t say anything and immediately rushed outside. I looked around, searching for the thief, but there was no one.

“Darn it, it’s ruined!”

I never even dreamed that someone would come into the tent while I was asleep and steal the pouch.

I should have held onto the pouch tightly so that no one could take it…

But there wasn’t much time left until the end of the competition to regret it.

If it’s 1 a.m. now, there are 9 hours left until the end time of 10 a.m.

To advance to the second round, I need to have more beads than what others collected in 24 hours within the 9 hours that I have.

I didn’t have time to hesitate, so I went back into the tent to retrieve the sword.

At that moment, as I reached for the sword next to my sleeping bag, I saw something sparkling on the ground—a golden button.

“This is…”

I held the golden button and went towards the makeshift lamp to examine its shape.

“This is Diego’s button…”

It was certain that the button was from the sleeve of the shirt Diego was wearing.

I tightly clenched the button. Anger filled my fist.

“Diego… took it.”

* * *

At that moment, Clovin was struggling to carry two bead pouches.

Clovin was the culprit who stole May’s bead pouch.

“If I don’t rank higher than May Flotina, I will never catch the eye of Young Lady Nazret.”

In both the first and second rounds, he needed to achieve much better results than May Flotina. If possible, it would be best to eliminate May Flotina from the first round.

Clovin stood in front of the cafeteria food waste bin. After checking if anyone was around and confirming that there was no one, he poured all the beads from the pouch into the trash bin.

He left one pouch behind.

“This will make me look like a giant.”

Clovin carried the remaining pouch and went into his tent.

* * *

I went straight to Diego’s tent and roughly shook the guyline attached to the tent. Whenever entering someone else’s tent, I had to shake the guyline.

Clank, clank, clank, clank…

As the sound of the bell rang loudly, Diego woke up with a perplexed expression.

“What…?”

His voice was groggy.

Although he didn’t give me permission to enter, I boldly went into the tent.

Diego sat up and looked at me. His expression seemed to say, “Is this person crazy?”

“What are you…? Why did you come in?”

I glanced around the tent. There were two bead pouches under Diego’s feet.

Judging from the uneven quantities of the two pouches, one of them wasn’t mine.

I clenched my fist, trembling with suppressed anger, and said,

“How could you throw away all of my beads?”

“What…? What are you suddenly talking about?”

I approached Diego and showed him the button.

“All the pouches are gone. And your button was on my tent floor. Are you going to pretend like nothing happened?”

Judging from his expression, it was indeed his button.

‘Ah… Maybe it fell off back then.’

Drenched in sweat, I shook Diego by the collar, overcome with a mixture of frustration and desperation.

“I’m telling you to give it back. Give it back!”

“Are you crazy? How dare you grab someone’s collar? Let go!”

In the midst of the struggle, I ended up falling to the side, and Diego, who was trying to release my grip, lost his balance and stumbled to the side as well.

In an unexpected turn of events, it seemed as if Diego had pounced on me.

His eyes widened in surprise, and without realizing it, I shed a small tear.

“I really worked hard to collect them…”

I wanted to become a proud knight.