Hazel rushed over to the room she was currently renting and packed all her things. The old landlord who lived downstairs narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“You still have two weeks’ worth of rent left,” she said. “You know that, right? I’m not returning a single coin back until I can find a new tenant.”

“I don’t need it!” Hazel shouted, dashing up the stairs.

In her large travel bag, she packed a treasure box containing all the seeds she’d painstakingly collected over the years, her precious bulbs, dried herbs, and various cooking ingredients. She also threw in a few of her favorite kitchen utensils, some milk, jam, butter, and smoked meat—any extra food she could bring. Then she ran back down the stairs.

Goodbye, two-gold-a-month room!

When she arrived at the station for shared carriages, a coachman just so happened to be holding up a sign that read To Avalon.

“Carriage to the capital!” he shouted. “We have room for one more passenger!”

Considering herself lucky, Hazel climbed aboard, and the carriage immediately took off. She gazed out the window, her fingers tightly clasped over her bag.

From then on, it was a long and impossibly boring ride. The carriage raced on at full speed, but to Hazel, the horses felt as slow as oxen. Several times, she fought the urge to jump off the carriage and run over on foot. One day passed, then two days... And at last, on the third day, she saw the ash-gray imperial fortress wall in the distance.

She was finally at the capital of the Vrahtania Empire, Avalon, precisely on the day her grandfather had told her to be there. But suddenly, the carriage froze in place and refused to budge.

Hazel poked her head out the window. The roads leading in and out of the capital were completely jammed with carriages and ox carts. The passengers began to murmur among themselves.

“What’s the whole ruckus?”

“I mean, the roads are usually congested around here, but it seems especially bad today.”

“It’s because of the war memorial festival. It ended a week ago, but everyone’s heading back home only now,” the coachman explained.

But we’re almost there! Unable to wait any longer, Hazel fretfully leapt to her feet. “I’m going to walk from here.”

“Where are you headed to? Mind the road is much longer than it looks,” the coachman warned.

“It’s fine.”

Hazel picked up her bag and jumped out of the carriage. Everyone gaped when they saw the young lady in a brimmed hat, dressed in a blouse and a long skirt, dragging an enormous bag along as she quickly passed them by. Her stamina had been at rock bottom back when she was a bank teller, but right now she had plenty of energy to spare. Hazel walked and walked until she finally reached the fortress gates.

She paused to take in her surroundings. A wide, neatly paved road was stretched out endlessly before her. People were strolling about in small groups, weaving in and out of the clean and quaint shops. The atmosphere was vibrant yet orderly.

One old man, who was taking a walk with his granddaughter on his back, held up his liquor bottle when he saw Hazel and cheerfully shouted, “To the Great Knight!”

Hazel stared blankly back at him. “Excuse... me?”

“It’s a toast to His Majesty the Emperor. Welcome to the capital, young lady. It would have been nice if you’d arrived in time for the festival. Two years ago, His Majesty, the empire’s one and only Great Knight, completely eliminated all the barbarians that were violating our borders—”

“Oh, you don’t have to explain all that to me,” Hazel interrupted. “How could I not know? I was tested on all this when they were hiring at Rochelle Municipal Bank. That’s how I was able to work as a full-time employee for twelve gold a month.”

“Ah, so you’re from Rochelle?”

“Yes, sir,” Hazel said, looking around again.

“I only visited the capital once when I was a little girl. Things have really changed since then! Wasn’t there a filthy little stream over here, with dugouts lined up back to back?”

“That’s right!” the old man exclaimed, looking impressed. “Good memory! Those were all wiped out two years ago.”

“My goodness! But I thought the vagrants here were known for being violent. There must have been quite the commotion.”

The old man merely smiled instead of answering. And that’s when Hazel realized her mistake. “Oh, silly me. It must have been His Majesty who reconstructed the whole city. Who would dare defy him?”

“Indeed. The vagrants all packed up and left even before the announcements were out. They even demolished their own houses to make the land easier to clear. They even pushed all their trash into one corner before leaving. Sir Sigvald came over just in case, but there was nothing for him to do.”

“Sir Sigvald?”

“The commander of the Holy Thunder Guard. From the House of Sachsenspiegel—”

“Oh, you mean the elf family?”

“No, no. That would be bear. The Berserker clan, of superhuman strength.”

“I see.” Hazel gave up on playing along and decided to be honest. “I don’t actually know that much. We had a newspaper delivered to the bank each day, but I barely had enough time to read the farming section during lunchtime. I only need to know enough politics to make conversation with the next-door farmer, don’t you think?”

Then she jumped in alarm.

“You’re the first person I met in the capital, sir. I’d love to talk more, but I must hurry and get going. My dream of eleven years is waiting for me, you see.”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “While we’re on the topic, where is Monmirth Street? If I just know that, I think I can follow this map.”

“It’s just two streets down this way.”

“Thank you!” Hazel hastily walked toward Monmirth Street as the old man stared after her in surprise.

The whole city still seemed to be in a celebratory mood, even though the festival was over. The trees planted along the streets were adorned with flowers and ribbons, and the number IX—representing the emperor—glistened brilliantly off the branches.

“Hmm, the Great Knight...” Hazel mumbled to herself.

The Great Knights referred to the only three master swordsmen that existed in this entire world. One was a legendary hermit. The other was a ruler way up in the north. And the last one was none other than Emperor Ramstein the Ninth of the Vrahtania Empire.

A young man only twenty-two years of age, the emperor had set out on a war of conquest with his four closest friends and commanders of the Holy Guards, to stabilize the borders of the empire. He’d accomplished much more than just this, and as a result, he now had the wholehearted support of all his imperial subjects.

On top of that, according to the words of her ex-coworker Meredith, who’d taken a few days off last year to attend the festival…

“It’s insane! He’s honestly so handsome!”

Apparently, he even had the looks too.

Meredith had gone to great lengths to describe just how good-looking the blond emperor was. But Hazel—whose heart had raced more for shapely potatoes rather than beautiful men ever since she was eight—had been the only one to yawn while she listened with complete disinterest.

It wasn’t like the emperor’s dashing looks would reduce her taxes or anything. As Meredith regrettably moaned about how she should have at least touched the emperor’s clothing even if it meant she could have been trampled to death, Hazel wondered why she didn’t even find the Great Knight terrifying at all. Wouldn’t he be able to kill a person with just one look? No matter, potatoes were way better than men anyway.

Come to think of it, which type of potato would grow best in the capital’s climate? Her steps, which had grown sluggish at the thought of the emperor, miraculously quickened again once she began to think of farming.

Hazel charged at lightning speed, dragging her bag along. She didn’t even realize all the passersby jumping in surprise and scrambling sideways to avoid her.

She walked, and walked, and walked, and finally, she passed by a sign that said 9th Street.

“Oh?” Hazel’s eyes grew wide as she took out the land document and checked the address again, where her farm would be. The estate in which this supposedly high-ranking landlord was expanding his home was located on 1st Street.

“I’m almost there!”

She broke into an excited run.

9th Street, 8th Street, 7th Street... 3rd Street, 2nd Street... and finally, 1st Street!

Her feet skidded to a stop as Hazel looked up at the building before her. It was exactly as her grandfather had said. She was standing in front of a jaw-droppingly huge estate. And as if to testify to this high-ranking man’s power, visitors were ceaselessly going in and out of the entrance. Some of them declared something to the guards standing by the gate.

Hazel hesitated for a moment, but she soon made up her mind. I’m legally the owner of this land. She then walked in with her head held high. From now on, she had to focus. Hazel took out a detailed map from her bag.

The owner of this estate had bought up all the surrounding land and plowed it up completely, so she had to find her way according to the landmarks indicated on the map. The land that belonged to the House of Mayfield was pretty far from the entrance, situated on Lot 79.

Hazel slowly and methodically went through the landmarks.

The garden, the fountain, the long walking path, the place guarded by knights, the statue of Ramstein the First, the five-story building, the maze garden, the mysterious government office, the second fountain, the library, the training hall, another building, more guards, the pond, another government office, the flower bed...

“Is it here?” Hazel wondered out loud as she stopped in her tracks.

She was standing at the Grand Garden, designed in the shape of the Vrahtania Empire’s pegasus coat of arms. And right in the middle of the pegasus’ body, just under its outstretched wings, there was a small roped-off area with a sign that read Under Construction.

Hazel walked over to the sign and saw a fence post erected by the gardeners to set the boundaries. There was a name clearly engraved into the wood.

Mayfield.

Her heart began to pound. The moment she saw her family name, all the fear and anxiety that this might all just be a dream completely washed away.

“It’s here! It’s right here!” Hazel cried, her face flushing in excitement. Right then, she felt like this land and herself were the only two things that existed in this world. “This is my farm!”

Standing in the golden sunshine, feeling overwhelmed with emotion, Hazel looked around. She wasn’t in the middle of a forest as she’d dreamed of, but the land was still surrounded by the greenery of a lush garden. In the background were several large and small buildings, showing off classical architecture. It was too bad she wasn’t in nature, but at least the scenery was pleasing to the eyes. If there was one problem, it was the enormous palace that seemed to demand a rather excessive presence right next to her farm...

Hold on.

Hazel’s expression turned blank as she rubbed her eyes. She took in the gigantic golden dome, as well as the four imposing towers. The building newly constructed in pure white marble was clearly a palace. But why was there a palace in this estate?

Wait. Come to think of it...

She recalled everything she’d seen on her way here. The guards, the statue of the current emperor’s ancestor Ramstein the First, the government office, the library, the military training ground... She’d been too preoccupied with thoughts of her farm that she hadn’t realized how strange it all was.

How could I be so stupid? This isn’t a regular estate! Hazel thought in horror.

“This ‘high-ranking landlord’ is... the emperor?”