That night.

A small banquet was held in the dining hall attached to the training room.

There were no fancy lights, no decorations, and no beautiful ladies—just a loud and rowdy drinking party, yet the knights were having an unusually joyful, exhilarating evening.

The table was loaded with fine wine and whole roasted pork in generous portions.

“Hahaha! Right then, the Commander raised the barbell one more time!”

“Damn, that was thrilling.”

“But wasn’t that blacksmith really impressive too?”

“I heard he’s got dwarf blood in him.”

“No wonder his strength was off the charts. How old do you think he is? If he’s half-dwarf, he probably ages slower than us.”

“I heard he’s eighty this year?”

“What? Then maybe it wasn’t a real win, huh?”

“What the hell does that mean? A win is a win!”

The knights were all talking at once, reliving the day’s events.

Some were still in awe of Dolan’s incredible strength.

They’d thought of him as just a common blacksmith, but he had gone toe-to-toe with the commander.

Now many were saying they wanted to challenge Dolan next time.

But the person most frequently mentioned that evening was Estella.

“Looks like the lady really made up her mind this time, huh?”

“Yeah, I never imagined she had that in her.”

“She looked like she’d lost quite a bit of weight too.”

“She works out every day. This morning, she ran ten laps around the training ground without stopping.”

“A tremendous improvement. She’s different now.”

Estella, the long-dismissed eldest daughter of the marquisate, always compared unfavorably to Katrin.

The unloved recluse.

The vain, foolish woman who ignored the territory’s hardships and obsessed over luxury goods.

But tonight, it seemed that image might finally be in the past.

“Anyway, I see her in a new light now.”

“Me too!”

“Did you see her lifting the dumbbell one-handed earlier? That thing would’ve been heavy for a man.”

“She even showed me how to lift it properly. When I did it her way, I could really feel it pulling the muscle right here.”

Once someone broke the ice, everyone began sharing the tips Estella had personally taught them on how to use the workout equipment.

“But where did the lady learn all this stuff?”

“I asked Dolan—he said she designed all of the machines herself.”

“She was always this smart?”

“You didn’t know?

They used to say she was a prodigy when she was little.

She only changed after she suddenly started gaining weight.”

“Really? Well, either way, I’m glad she’s going back to who she used to be.”

The knights’ cheerful conversation continued well into the night.

The Marquis, aware of how exhausted his men were from the frequent monster attacks, had provided them with extra wine and meat.

The dining hall erupted once again with joyous cheers.

From that night on, the knights’ attitude toward Estella changed dramatically.

Many still supported Katrin, and not all looked kindly upon Estella yet, but none dared mock her openly anymore.

With controlled meals, daily intake of Miraclelium, and consistent exercise, Estella rapidly began recovering her former physique.

She still had some roundness to her, but no longer looked sluggish or unhealthy.

Estella allowed the knights to use the training room freely.

The number of knights who used the gym before and after sword training steadily increased.

Even those who were skeptical at first changed their minds after hearing good things from fellow knights.

But as the gym’s popularity grew, getting access to the equipment became almost impossible.

Especially when Estella herself was present—the room was packed to the point where not even a toe could fit.

Part of it was that she was visibly regaining her beauty, but more importantly, learning directly from Estella was far more effective than training alone.

Today, Estella was using a modified rowing machine, adapted to the current era.

She strapped her feet into place, grabbed the handle, and pulled with full force, leaning her body backward.

Weights attached to a small pulley system lifted with each motion, with the number of weights determining the resistance.

At first, the knights had been puzzled by the strange, wheeled contraption.

But as they watched Estella working out, drenched in sweat, they couldn’t help but admire her.

“That’s definitely a full-body workout.”

“And the adjustable weights make it ideal for strength training.”

“Unbelievable that she made this herself.”

Compliments buzzed around her, but Estella, focused on her training, didn’t hear any of them.

She was too thrilled by the daily fat burn and the feeling of her body firming up.

Her dress room barely had anything that fit anymore.

Time passed.

After sitting at the machine for a while, Estella stood up, wiping sweat from her neck with the towel she had slung around it.

The workout outfit Claire had made was so comfortable that dresses now felt almost unwearable.

As soon as Estella stood, several knights who had been waiting nearby approached cautiously.

“I’m done. Anyone who wants to use it now, go ahead. Oh, and I asked Dolan to make one more of each machine. They should arrive sometime next week.”

“Woooooo!”

“Thank you, my lady!”

They had been feeling the lack of machines lately, so the news was perfect.

Estella smiled broadly, satisfied as she watched the knights rejoice like they’d received a huge gift.

Ria, who had been waiting nearby, handed her a water pouch filled with chilled Miraclelium.

Estella unscrewed the lid and drank it straight from the opening.

It wasn’t the behavior of a proper noble lady, but no one looked down on her for it.

In fact, more and more knights were starting to admire this version of Estella.

Poooo! Poooo! Poooooooo!

The training room, filled with laughter and cheers just moments before, froze under the sudden sound of horns in the distance.

A monster sighting.

Poooo! Poooooo! Poooo!

The sharp, irregular horn blasts cut through the cheerful atmosphere.

The knights, dripping with sweat, all snapped to attention like startled meerkats.

“What’s happening?”

“It’s a monster. Looks like it appeared in the nearby forest.”

One of the knights, reading the signal, replied tensely to Estella and immediately ran outside.

In under five minutes, every knight in the training room was armed and assembled in the drill yard.

It was a moment that showed how well-trained they were.

A monster?

Heat waves, torrential rains, snowstorms, earthquakes, fine dust…

Estella had received countless emergency alerts in her old life—but this was her first real monster alarm.

Her heart pounded.

It wasn’t fear, but a different kind of tension that clenched in her chest.

Never in her life had she imagined she'd be receiving a real-time alert about monsters.

And yet, she wasn’t too panicked—probably thanks to the coexisting memories of Estella Cardeine.

After a moment of thought, Estella quickly cleaned up and ran out to the drill yard.

Outside, the horn master kept blowing the alert in various lengths and volumes, signaling chaos.

A monster this close was serious.

But seeing the knights already lined up in perfect formation calmed her nerves a little.

The Marquis stood watching them with a grim expression.

“Every time we win, lives are saved. I will not let monsters take my family! Don’t let a single one escape. Exterminate them to the last!”

Lucius’s voice rang through the training ground, echoing across the lines of over a hundred knights as the Marquis observed.

“Looks like the monsters showed up nearby,” Estella murmured with concern, watching the cloud of dust kicked up by knights galloping out at full speed.

“Just outside the walls. In the forest, I think.”

“How do you know that?”

All they had heard were irregular horn blasts.

Estella was amazed that Ria had understood the signal.

“I’ve heard it so often, I started learning what they meant,” Ria said casually, as if it were nothing.

“What? You figured out the horn signals?”

That was practically the same as understanding Morse code—except Ria had never even received formal education and couldn’t read or write.

Chapter 12

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