Crimson Karma (Jinhongui Karma) - Chapter 10

Raw provider: Tsalispark

Translator: Rhyme

Editor: Nush

When Kasia returned to the barracks of the 8th Unit, Krone was waiting for her with both their dinners ready.

“You don’t need to do this much…..”

“What are you saying? If I hadn’t hurried then there wouldn’t be anything left to eat. Hungry, right? Eat quickly.”

They were active and healthy youngsters after all. The whole day would obviously make them hungry, so there was no way to have leftover food.

“Thanks, Krone.”

Having received a thanks from Kasia, Krone gave a shy smile and grabbed the empty seat beside her. He then started to gobble-up his share of bread.

The soup had a few bits and pieces of meat in it.

“Why is there meat in our soup?”

“We got some provision from the rear today. Our neighbourhood hunts are very scarce. It’s been ages since I last saw meat. I am so glad today.”

After wiping off the soup bowl, she happily savored the soft texture of meat in her mouth.

‘The taste of meat here is not different from my previous life. But if I want to built up my body, I will be needing more protein intake…ʼ

Kasia was trying hard to temper her weak body as she compared it to her previous strong figure. Generally knights had their training slots allotted, but Kasia, even besides the training time, pushed her body really hard. But the problem was with the food, the nutrients it provided were insufficient to build her muscles and her body.

By the day, inside the brusque room, a bowl of watery veggie soup with a small piece of beef jerky was served. Since she was a knight, at least this much of ration was distributed to them. But as for the administrative soldiers, the man-handle soldiers (low level soldiers who do physical labour) or the medical soldiers, even a small jerky was not provided to them. Because they were of the lowest level i.e., commoners, for them even getting some soup was difficult. [The knights have higher rank than the soldiers and nurses so the food distribution is different]

“By chance was there a famine? If not, was our food always like this?”

Hearing Kasia’s question, Krone raised his head.

“How can we fight with this much food? It must be because of our supply route being cut off. But don’t worry. The supply route will be reinstated soon and by then you will be able to eat your fill. Eat this too.”

Krone thought Kasia was asking such a question because she was hungry so he took out his share of bread and gave it to her.

“… No, it’s not that the quantity is not enough.”

Kasia felt that Krone’s worrying was a little burdensome.

In her previous life, after she lost her mother, there wasn’t anyone who cared about her eating habits or gave up their own share for her. For this big guy even if he had a hearty meal it was for sure that his stomach would growl all night. Still, Krone readily gave up his share for Kasia.

‘What the hell is going inside his mind…’

In the end Kasia could only resolutely refuse. Krone took back the bread and ate with eyes full of concern for her.

‘Burdensome, it is burdensome… but I don’t hate it. Hmm… it feels good. Let’s protects Lunaen and Krone.’

In her ‘people needed to be protected’ list, Krone was added.

Meanwhile Mikhail, who had tested Kasia returned to Unit 8 and ran hurriedly towards Tasel’s tent. He entered and saw  Tasel and Zeke dining. Mikhail asked the attendant to bring his food and looked towards Tasel with an excited face.

“Guess who I met, when I went to the rear mountain for fresh air?”

Tasel and Zeke gave a ‘What is with this guy this time’ look, but it was very hard to ignore Mikhail who was expecting a heaven breaking response. Tasel finally admitted to those twinkling eyes and responded “Who the hell did you meet?” .

“I met the infamous Dame Kasia! But, this woman is not ordinary at all”

Hearing Kasia’s name from Mikhail’s mouth, just as he wanted, the expressions of Tasel and Zeke changed from casual to  acute.

“Explain properly. What do really you want to say?”

Tasel ordered with a deep voice.

“Isn’t it impossible for a female-knight to be better than a male-knight? If one is not an aristocrat, no, even if it’s an aristocrat, if a woman is to join Knighthood it ultimately means that she is abandoned by the family. Since they don’t want to be a knight it can be said that they won’t work hard. Isn’t it common to catch a suitable guy and marry before entering into mid 20s?”

“What is it that you want to say?”

“Zeke, be good and listen to what this big-bro is saying. Anyway, where was I?”

Tasel answered with a deep sigh, “About the commoner female knights.”

“Ah, that’s right. In all my life I have never seen anyone doing additional training or honing their martial arts and battle skills on their own. Have you? Have you, our Prince, seen any?”

Mikhail turned towards Zeke and Tasel, looking at them alternatively.

Just like Mikhail said, there were many female knights in Callistonia, but if one were to ask if they were a proper military force, then it would be a different matter.

It was mainly because when it came to war, knights were obliged to participate in it. Females were mainly accepted to knighthood just to increase the strength of the troops. And most of them left knighthood as soon as they got married when they came of age.

In other words men who were strong longed to become brave Knights. Though it was natural to hold ambitions for a knight, according to the social divisions, women were associated with the virtues of gentleness and modesty. So what they considered as their ambition or long-cherished wish was to be a delicate beauty wearing beautiful dresses and ornaments. Because of it the job as a female-knight was not considered to be attractive.

Since it wasn’t something that was hard to understand, it was common in the military to assign females to administrative departments or supply departments. Therefore being a ‘knight’ and a ‘female knight’ was completely different. The training they received from the Order Of Chivalry was also different.

“It’s for sure that such cases are the  rarest of the rarest.”

Tasel answered after much consideration about Mikhail’s question.

“Isn’t it? But when I went to the mountain without letting others notice since I am so famous, I saw Dame Kasia training there. Not to mention, bare hand push ups. The main point is that she trained till her clothes were completely soaked in sweat. What was more amazing, when I kept myself hidden, she found me right away even though she was short of breath.”

“You must have made a rustling sound,” Zeke said.

“I swear with the honour of our father, I hid my presence very well. The thing is, that woman is anything but normal. I even tried testing her again to make it clear.”

Mikhail explained with great detail about how he attacked her from the rear after they climbed down and how she counterattacked it in a chic way.

“I told this to Dame Kasia too, that I had never heard of any female-knight with such skills before the Mist forest incident. And to say it’s cause is the mana exposure is quite dubious. Because she was training there! Which implies that she did it on her own accord. If all the female knights are to work hard as her, then it means that they can increase their skills for sure. Anyway,I suddenly felt a crisis of not wanting her to participate in more military training.”

Tasel gave his ears to Mikhail as he elegantly drank his soup. Contemplating on what he heard he felt like meeting her once again.

Mikhail seemed to think like ‘she improved her combat capabilities only because of continuous physical training’, but it was hard to say that one could improve their martial skills to such a level in a short period only with physical training.

Of course, it was possible to improve their already existing skills, but the skills of Kasia mentioned by Mikhail quite exceeded that.

The Kasia who was bedridden with her whole body bandaged and face covered with bloodstains came to his mind. Tasel never met her after she recovered. All of a sudden he felt pathetic for not confirming with his own eyes, even after having such suspicions about her.

‘It would be better to meet her in person than just hearing. Though I wonder if I am being too edgy…’

Meanwhile, Kasia was planning to hear more about the original owner of her body from Krone till the bedtime roll call.

Though she held onto the memories of her previous life where she lived for almost 40 years, and since that life was too insensitive and abnormal, Krone’s stories about their childhood days felt very novel to her.

“In each territory of Nobles assigned with their own Fief, there’s an Order of Chivalry. As the Order of Chivalry was according to region, and since our hometown Aruelo is a small region the Order of Chivalry is also considerably large. As all of them are from the same province and hence they live harmoniously. The cadets call each other, ‘brother’, ‘sister’, ‘younger sister’ and ‘younger brother’ just like how one lives in a family. Anyway, among us, we have always treated each other as kin. Even the senior knights considered it cute. Though it doesn’t mean that there weren’t any noble knights that harassed us for our low birth, but after coming here and seeing, that much can only be considered as a bitter medicine. Haa… talking about it makes me nostalgic. Brings back memories of the Order of Chivalry of Aruelo.”

Krone’s eyes reflected a whirl of emotions.

“How many joined the imperial army from there?”

“Fifteen people.”

“Since you are the only one who remembers me, it must mean that the rest of the fifteen people had died, right?”

Towards Kasia’s question Krone just nodded his head without any strength.

“Including both of us, ten people accepted knighthood and the rest five became followers. But after the riot of rebels, within ten months all of them died. So just imagine how I felt when I was informed of your death. Really… I felt as if I had no one, all alone in this world.”

Again, his eyes dimmed.

In her previous life, there was a time like that too. After being recruited to Camp X there were a total of 150 children including her. But in the end only 17 out of 150 could finish the training in Camp X. Among those seventeen, one was Kasia and three others from the same group as her.

But after each of them was sent to different networks, they disappeared one by one. She didn’t feel, even for once, any sort of grief for their departure or disappearance. Maybe because her life was on line, the most important thing for her was to succeed in the missions she took part in. She never cared about how others lived.

Hearing Krone’s words, she felt uncomfortable to face her own deficiencies one by one, but it was still a novel experience for her. If there was something missing in her, then that was the only reason she could survive for all those years in her previous life. If a person was as emotional as Krone then it would eventually become their weakness.

‘It seems I already have weaknesses naming Lunaen and Krone. It’s better to not have more…’

Krone continued to reminisce though at some point his eyes teared up, but he tried to maintain a bright aura for Kasia who was deep in her thoughts.

“And also you were the flower of Aruelo’s Order of Chivalry. Even among the noble knights there were quite a few who had a crush on you. Maybe because of your fair complexion which doesn’t really resemble a country girl.”

“It seems that I wasn’t diligent in my training. If I were diligent and trained under the scorching sun, then there wouldn’t have been any way to maintain a fair complexion. “

Even if she lost all her memories, Krone felt pity for Kasia who talked as if she was talking about a stranger when it was her own self. The Kasia he knew was someone with less words but strived with the best of her ability for everything.

Though it was rare to see her laugh loudly, compared to the current Kasia she was a lot brighter. She was like the ordinary girls who cherished her fair skin, regardless of her cheap dresses and lack of cosmetics.

A crumbled heart which heard the child whom he considered as his lovely sister died and then the relief and excitement to know about the survival of the sister he thought had died.

The Kasia who barely avoided the hands of the Reaper and completely lost her memories, became chilly and strived for strength, that is, she acted like a complete stranger. Before he used to be able to figure out all her thoughts even from her hand gestures, but now what she thought inside her little head, he knew nothing of it.

“In any case, now there is only us left, who remember each other… so let’s strive to survive.”

Kasia showed a clear and fresh smile to Krone. In that short moment, Krone could see the shadow of the Kasia he always knew.

“Yes, we should survive and return alive.”

Krone answered with a cheeky smile.

“Sorry to interrupt Dame Kasia, His Highness Prince has asked for your presence.”

The attendant of the Captain of Unit 8 came towards Kasia and Krone to pass the message.

Krone felt anxious hearing that a higher official was asking for Kasia. But Kasia with her usual indifference stood up quickly and dusted her back. She wished Krone good night and asked him to sleep first and left with the attendant. When Kasia reached the tent of the 8th unit, the Captain was waiting for her outside. He took her and walked towards the tent of the Commander-In-Chief.