Chapter 13 - Scoundrelry Makes No Distinction Between Men and Women (3)

"I want you."

The air around us froze. Arwen Kirgayen's expression froze as well.

"Hah!"

"Y-Your Highness!"

"You little..."

The Royal Knights sucked in sharp breaths, and my uncle exhaled with anger in his breath.

They all looked at me with different faces.

Disappointment, contempt, rage.

The emotions in them were all negative, and Arwen Kirgayen's added hatred and disgust joined them.

"Your Highness. I am loath to say this, but..."

"If you're loath to, don't."

Karl Ulrich took one step forward, then stepped back again.

"I was not going to interfere, but I cannot help but interfer..."

"Then simply don't interfere."

My uncle ended up in the same state.

I ignored the bewildered gazes of the Royal Knights and my uncle's furious stare alike.

Because the only thing I cared about was Arwen Kirgayen.

"Is that truly what Your Highness desires?"

She opened her mouth. Her voice was cold, as though frost had settled over it.

Of course a bastard like you would. You shallow, base, untouchable piece of trash. Her eyes and expression were saying just that.

It seemed I should end the joke here.

"Arwen Kirgayen."

I wiped all trace of laughter from my face and called her name.

She glared at me with the same expression as before. It seemed impossible that I would ever find another look on her face, not even if I lived a lifetime. It seemed that way.

But I was wrong.

"Become my knight."

The face carved from ice crumbled far too easily.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I said. What I want is your oath."

Bewilderment appeared on her beautiful face.

Why on earth? Her questioning gaze lingered on me, then turned toward the Royal Knights.

It was a silent question asking why, with knights who had each reached the level of Triple Chain here, I would need the loyalty of some mere apprentice knight like her.

"They are not truly my knights."

The devotion of the Royal Knights was merely something fleeting, created by the King's command. They had come by royal order, so if a royal order came down, it would not be strange in the slightest if they left me at any time.

No, it was not only them.

None of the luxuries I enjoyed now were truly mine. Everything the scoundrel might have thought belonged to him was, in truth, something that could vanish with a single word from the King.

What I wanted was not such illusory things.

"I want a knight bound to me, a knight who belongs only to me."

"At a word from Your Highness, knights with two or three rings would swear loyalty to you."

She did not understand, nor did she have any intention of understanding. Only the fundamental revulsion of not wanting to be involved with me remained on her face.

"Yes. You're right. Certainly, you are nothing. You're only an apprentice knight who could not even defeat one scoundrel."

She bit her lip in humiliation.

"To me, Your Highness, that sounds as though what you want is a whore with a sword."

Her words were not merely harsh, but even extreme.

"If that is truly Your Highness's intention, then the only thing you will obtain is a cold corpse."

Her expression, prepared even for death, was quite resolute.

"What I want is neither a whore with a sword nor the corpse of a knight who killed herself."

But to me, that resolve held no value at all.

"What I want is the potential and future of the knight named Arwen Kirgayen."

What had value to me was,

========================================================================================================================================================================================================

□ Arwen Kirgayen [Female, 19], [apprentice knight]

□ Aptitudes. [Swordsmanship-A], [Archery-B], [Combat-B], [Mana Sensitivity-B]

□ Traits. [Gifted with the Sword], [Competitive], [Peerless Beauty], [Tough Outside, Soft Inside], [Pure-Hearted]

========================================================================================================================================================================================================

only the A-rank aptitude boldly stamped in her status window.

The potential to reach for the realm of Master if she met the right teacher—that was the A-rank aptitude she possessed.

In other words, it meant she was material for an almost guaranteed Sword Master.

There was no way I would let such a big catch slip away when it was right in front of me.

"You will continue to grow from here on. And you will become strong. Stronger than the Royal Knights over there, and perhaps even stronger than my uncle."

At my words, her expression stiffened.

At a glance, she looked uncomfortable with the comparison between a mere apprentice knight and knights who had reached their realm. But I saw it. That paltry emotion she tried so hard to hide, yet ultimately failed to conceal.

"I am not the sort of talent Your Highness expects."

She lowered herself. Her voice had softened noticeably. The sharp, blade-like resolve to die had vanished as well.

Watching her, I thought.

You're hooked.

Knights were a breed desperate to be recognized, and among them, luring in one nineteen-year-old apprentice knight who knew nothing of the world was far too easy for me.

The hundreds of years I had lived by the sword had not been for nothing. I could see right through her.

She must have struggled every which way in a woman's body. She must have swung her sword day and night to be recognized. And even after all that, she must not have been recognized.

After all, knights had been an excessively macho group since long ago.

In the midst of macho men who believed strength was everything, and that women were things to be protected and cherished, it must have been damnably difficult for a woman to be recognized as a knight in her own right.

I had seen countless people ignored and denied recognition simply because they were women. A certain woman who had once claimed to be my master had also lived such a life.

No doubt she had been treated as the flower of the knights.

On top of that, Arwen Kirgayen was beautiful. No matter how remarkable the potential she possessed was, and even if it was all but certain that she would be admitted as a full member—something said to be difficult—people's gazes would not have changed.

Her exceptional looks had ended up obscuring her talent.

I dug into that point, and willingly bestowed praise upon a deer thirsty for praise. It was all the more sincere because I had seen it through my authority.

"Arwen Kirgayen."

I hid my true thoughts and feigned solemnity.

"I want the future Sword Master, Arwen Kirgayen."

I saw her expression waver. It was proof that I had hit the mark.

Even so, cautious as she was, she agonized over it.

"A knight's single word is worth a thousand weights of gold. Did I judge you wrongly?"

But since she had already said the words herself, she could not hold out to the end.

"Your Highness."

Only after she had talked until her lips were dry did Arwen Kirgayen finally open her mouth.

"Please promise me just one thing. If you do, I will do as Your Highness wishes."

She asked me to promise that I would treat her not as a woman, but as a knight. Of course, it was not a difficult request.

Arwen Kirgayen was certainly a rare beauty, but her true value lay in her potential, not her appearance.

"Good. I promise."

No sooner had my words ended than she knelt on one knee.

"I, Arwen, eldest daughter of House Kirgayen, swear loyalty to His Highness Prince Adrian Leonberk, and dedicate my sword and the rest of my life to Your Highness."

In return for her calm words of oath, I gave her a small gift.

"In the name of Adrian Leonberk, rightful heir of Leonberk, I make you a knight, so be brave, courteous, and loyal."

Under a prince's authority, Arwen Kirgayen became not an apprentice knight, but a full-fledged knight.

"Ha. Would you look at this slapdash business."

My uncle, who had been watching silently until now, let out a hollow laugh.

It seemed he found it absurd that I had handled everything from the oath of loyalty to the knighting in one stroke, in the blink of an eye.

"It is a prince's authority. Let me use it to my heart's content at times like this, at least."

"Who said anything?"

My uncle shook his head.

* * *

Arwen Kirgayen decided to return to the Iron Lion Knights.

She said that although she had been knighted, she was not yet fully qualified as a knight, so she would hone her sword there, become a true knight, and return. She said it would not take very long.

She asked for my understanding.

"I will look forward to it gladly."

"Then until the day we meet again, I pray you remain in good health."

The utmost respect she showed was enough to leave me bewildered.

Whether she had been coerced or forced into it, her mindset of faithfully following the oath once she had sworn it was not very different from the old-fashioned rigidity of the knights I had seen before I fell asleep.

"Your Highness."

On the way back after sending Arwen Kirgayen off, Karl Ulrich carefully called to me.

"What?"

"What you said earlier."

"Earlier? What did I... Ah, that?"

I had said, pointing at the Royal Knights, that they did not fully belong to me.

"Did that upset you?"

It certainly would have been upsetting. If the answer to months of effort spent by my side was merely that they were not my people, it would not be strange to feel that way.

"But that is the truth, isn't it? If a royal order came down right now telling you to go somewhere else, would you go or not?"

But no matter how upsetting it was, the truth did not change.

The Royal Knights guarded my side only because it was the mission given to them, not because they had any special feelings toward me.

As proof of that, Karl could not answer my words.

"Tsk."

It seemed knights being old-fashioned and clumsy was just part of their nature, both then and now. The image of Arwen Kirgayen, who had left, overlapped with Karl Ulrich before my eyes.

"If you feel like it, Karl, you can swear an oath later too."

I did not truly think Karl would swear an oath of loyalty to me. After all, the only one the Royal Knights were loyal to was the master of the royal palace. And I was nothing more than a tenant renting a corner of the royal palace.

"If I do, will you accept me?"

It seemed we had grown fairly close over the meantime. Seeing a Royal Knight who seemed as though he would never utter a single joke even if the world collapsed make a joke like this.

"No."

At my playful words, Karl asked why.

"Because there would be no joy in raising you."

Karl laughed. It seemed he thought my words were a joke. I was truly serious, though.

* * *

There were countless men who had set their hearts on the beautiful and proud female knight. Countless men had challenged her in order to pluck the flower called Arwen Kirgayen, but each time, what was broken was not the flower, but the men's hearts.

In that way, she was a flower blooming atop a cliff, a rose covered in thorns.

And yet, Arwen Kirgayen had sworn an oath of loyalty. To a lecherous scoundrel who had harassed and insulted her, no less.

People did not believe it. Because they knew her lofty pride, they dismissed it as a false rumor.

But the rumor was true. A certain female knight who was fairly close to Arwen Kirgayen even personally confirmed whether the rumor was true.

For the nobles and knights in the vicinity who had been eyeing her since before, it was news they absolutely did not want to believe.

They cursed the lecherous scoundrel. They said poor Arwen had fallen for the filthy scheme that degenerate had pulled. They cursed the First Prince, saying there must surely have been some trickery involved.

"I heard they made a wager. The loser would grant the winner's wish."

And apparently, that was true. They said he had used the wager as an excuse to force the oath on her.

"An oath forced through a wager? The oath must be nullified at once!"

"Though she was an apprentice knight, she was still a member of the Iron Lion Knights. We cannot allow the order's honor to be sullied!"

The more radical ones moved the commander of the Iron Lion Knights. People had no doubt that the commander would save the scoundrel who had fallen into the clutches of that wicked man.

"I do not wish for that."

But apparently, the person in question did not want that. The commander asked if perhaps he had some weakness of hers in his grasp, or if there were circumstances she could not speak of, but she did not budge.

"I have already sworn to become his sword, and I will live that way."

At her firm answer, even the commander had no choice but to step back in the end.

It was around then that some of the people who had only cursed the Scoundrel Prince at first suddenly changed.

They said the two had already slept together, that she had already given him both body and heart, and filthy rumors began to spread.

What Arwen Kirgayen had done was an oath of loyalty and a vow between lord and retainer, but people talked as if she had become the First Prince's mistress.

She, too, heard the rumors about herself.

"No matter how hard I tried, I was still only a woman to them."

She felt deep revulsion toward the people who saw only Arwen Kirgayen as a woman, not the knight Arwen Kirgayen.

The more that happened, the more she devoted herself to training. When she swung her sword, nothing else came to mind.

"Damn it, am I some axis of evil or what!"

And the person at the center of the rumors felt extremely wronged.

He had tried to keep her by his side because he had seen boundless potential in her, so it was not strange that anger boiled up in him when he was being treated like a scumbag who had forcibly taken a powerless woman.

"Fine, I'm just the worst bastard in the world who deserves to die."

No matter how wronged he felt and how much he shouted, his voice could not cross the walls of the Prince's Palace. He was still under probation, after all.

There was still over a month left before the full half-year period was completed. Until that deadline was filled, he had to stay quietly stuck inside the Prince's Palace.

But that day came sooner than expected.

"My probation is over?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

The King's messenger answered that it was so, then added one more sentence.

"There was also a message that you are to attend the upcoming banquet hosted by the Royal Family."