Commendation
Commendation
The place where I arrived, thoroughly teased by Esmue, was a mansion so splendid it made me wonder if such a place even existed in the capital. Built specifically for honored guests, the mansion was located extremely close to the royal palace, and it came with a sprawling garden, as if to say it couldn't give a single shit about the obscenely expensive price of land in the capital.
Even the stables weren't the usual open-sided shed. Instead, an entire building connected directly to the mansion via a covered passage, a mind-boggling layout designed to prevent any chance of an outside attack even while moving between the stables and the mansion. To put it bluntly, a livestock shed that held nothing but a carriage and horses was bigger than my house and built from better stone—that alone was a serious shock.
But what was even more astonishing was that despite the enormous mansion and grounds, the constant stream of servants bustling around as if it were the most natural thing in the world made the place feel not even remotely empty.
Then again, even a typical noble brings along twenty-odd household attendants when invited to a party and traveling, so what could you expect from an imperial princess? I thought about it in my head, but witnessing the scale firsthand still hit differently.
"Well then... shall we now properly discuss the reward the Empire will bestow upon you, and the reason I have gone out of my way to summon you like this?"
In a solemn atmosphere so intense it felt uncomfortable despite the clear goodwill, once we arrived at her private office, Esmue lightly clapped her hands. The elderly head butler who had naturally followed behind us handed me a single sheet of paper as I sat on the sofa.
"What's this?"
"It is a memo briefly summarizing the meeting regarding the reward package. There is no need to show you stiff, formal documents. Still, the entire outline is written here."
I wondered what the hell this was and took a look. It was like a set of meeting minutes, neatly organized in Esmue's own handwriting. At first I wondered why she'd go out of her way to show me this, but fortunately, while I read the memo, Esmue dismissed the old butler with a light gesture and quietly added her own explanation.
"I am the Empire. That is a fact that cannot be denied. Since you saved me, is that not effectively the same as saving the Empire itself?"
Opening with words so grandiose they seemed absurdly bold for her small frame and cute face, Esmue lifted the teacup the old butler had prepared before he left and continued.
"You protected the Empire's future, so a reward commensurate with that must follow. However, if the gratitude and reward given to you were to hinder your long-cherished goal, it would be putting the cart before the horse. Thus, we held many a meeting to place the most useful reward into your hands."
The very first proposal was a title. It was an exceptionally unconventional offer, almost without precedent, yet apparently not a single person objected. Since I was a commoner in Itisel, it seems some even argued that this was the perfect chance to bring a talented person like me into the Empire.
"But status inevitably carries commensurate responsibility. It was clear it would become a shackle for you, so I refused."
So the note "Nobility - becomes a pain in the ass" scribbled on the paper probably meant that. The various reward proposals that followed mostly followed the same pattern. Granting a territory, inducting me into a knight order—normally you'd call these extraordinary privileges, but without exception they were rewards heavily laden with the intent to tie me down.
"That is the lens through which the Empire views you. I thought it best to give you advance warning of this fact, so I took care to write it all down."
She was right. In the end, the main content of these so-called meeting minutes was not so much about the reward itself, but more about the fierce maneuvering over how the Empire could claim and keep the person named me. Some notes even went so far as to say that certain people had already concluded that Esmue viewed me favorably, and there were signs they were attempting separate contact to curry favor in her eyes.
Though there were also notes saying they'd have other people block every last one of them.
"Many interpreted your sudden actions in Itisel to suit their own convenience, which caused me a fair amount of trouble. I think it's fine that my subjects take pride in their nation, but if that pride leads them to make poor judgments and get themselves killed, that's a problem, you see."
Apparently, more people than I'd thought saw my presence in Itisel—supposedly throwing a tantrum because I had 'grievances'—as an opportunity for the Empire. If it hadn't been for my connection to Esmue, quite a few imperials would have undoubtedly ended up in mourning attire.
I could understand it. The very fact that they were accounting for someone who'd bite back at nobles or anyone else who touched what was his meant they were being unbelievably cautious, careful, and frankly insane.
"Still, as I cannot unjustly dismiss the reasonable input of my subjects, in the end the conclusion reached was that I would personally bestow the final decided reward, thereby clearly conveying the symbolism and the Empire's intentions."
The letters, written just slightly larger than the other memos, even had a circle drawn around them for easy viewing, so I had no trouble recognizing that was the reward Esmue had spoken of.
"Armor?"
"You need a proper set of armor sooner or later anyway, do you not? Your weapon already seemed more than sufficient, so I turned my attention this way. Its performance scales with the money spent, which lets me make my favor obvious; it also has symbolic value and might keep you from meeting some sudden, gruesome end."
Though as for the helmet alone, it fell far short of the one I'd shown her, so it had become meaningless.
Muttering that, Esmue rang a bell on the table. As if waiting for the signal, the door opened and two attendants appeared, carrying a cloth-covered stand. They could have just loaded it onto a cart and rolled it, but perhaps she thought the sound of wheels rolling was undignified. The two lifted the stand by sheer strength, set it down quietly beside the sofa where Esmue sat, and promptly exited the room.
"I commissioned it from a rather renowned artisan."
Rising from her seat, Esmue pulled away the cloth, and there lay a suit of dark blue armor.
Unlike the symmetrically crafted standard armor, the armor she had prepared was asymmetrical. The first thing that caught my eye was the right pauldron, noticeably larger than the left. Looking closer, it wasn't just the shoulder—the entire armor on the right arm, starting from the elbow guard, was thicker overall than the left. The cuirass didn't extend down to cover the abdomen but instead was shaped to cover only the ribs. Below that were articulated metal plates that looked like they'd let you bend at the waist to touch the ground, and dense chainmail.
Because of this, there was no fauld protecting the buttocks or the pelvic area. Instead, thigh guards designed similarly to my gauntlet sat positioned slightly higher than usual. From their shape, they looked like they'd be fixed by wrapping leather straps around the thigh, much like how you'd strap a gas mask case to your leg in the military. The knee guards and greaves were also extremely plain in form, with no excessive ornamentation, a design dictated purely by efficiency.
Honestly, the helmet was also quite striking, but since it was already meaningless, my eyes didn't really go to it. After looking over the armor once like that, I finally asked Esmue, who was watching me with eyes full of expectation.
"Was this made to match my swordsmanship?"
"As expected, you are quick on the uptake. To say it was perfectly tailor-made would be a stretch, but it is indeed based on the form you showed at the academy."
I wondered what use swordsmanship-tailored armor was when I didn't even use some particularly exceptional school of swordsmanship, but even the slight asymmetry of the armor was tied to habits ingrained in my body.
Because I'm fixated on protecting my heart, I usually lead with my right side. My lower body changes constantly with my footwork, but when it comes to my upper body, that habit is almost fixed. I'd barely sparred at all during my time in the Empire, so it was astonishing that they'd picked up on it so precisely and incorporated it.
Maybe because I hadn't bothered to hide that emotion, Esmue smiled with satisfaction as she reached out to remove my cape and said,
"Now, it is time to achieve the objective for which I called you here today. Try it on."
"Ah? Uh..."
Thinking she meant she'd adjust the armor's fitting, I obediently let her hands guide me as I removed my cape and coat and prepared to put the armor on. But then, contrary to my expectation that she'd naturally call for servants to speed things along—even though it looked like I could easily don it alone—Esmue began struggling and fussing as she stripped the pieces from the stand.
"...Esmue? Should you not call someone...?"
"Th-this was the objective."
"...To adjust the armor's fitting?"
"To be precise, I wanted... to be the one to put this armor on you for the first time!"
What the hell was she on about, I thought, but I helped her start by removing the cuirass and putting it on. Esmue then moved her small hands to assist me while continuing to speak.
"Both Ragnis and Asilie can fight on the same battlefield as you whenever they wish, but I cannot. In the end, this means that from the moment your investiture ends and you head for that distant front line, an indefinite, interminable waiting will begin. Every time I read stories of women who send off their knight lovers and do nothing but offer prayers every day, I always thought them utterly pathetic. Yet here I find myself placed in a situation little different from theirs."
Normally, stories about women like that would only appear in third-rate chivalric romance novels, so the fact that Esmue had read such things felt oddly novel. But of course, I couldn't dwell on that emotion for long. Because the words she spoke were nothing but sincere.
"And so, if nothing else, I wanted to be the one to prepare at least the armor that will protect you. So I searched for it myself, prepared it, and secretly asked my most trusted lady-in-waiting to teach me how to assist with donning armor."
Apart from struggling with the weight, Esmue was indeed far more adept at helping me put it on than I'd expected. Whether it was because she was a genius and learned quickly, or because she had practiced endlessly for this, I couldn't ask.
Soon, once I had fully donned the armor and turned to face her, I could confirm a hint of rather bitter emotion resting on her youthful face.
"From today onward, I will not be able to properly see your face until the day of the ceremony. The day of the event itself goes without saying. Ultimately, today was the only day I could personally dress you in armor like this. That is why I summoned you, purely out of my own selfish desire."
A flicker of regret and wistfulness appeared on Esmue's face as she looked at me. As if she were worrying that by gifting me this armor, she herself had pushed my back, and that it might place me in mortal danger. But she swiftly packed away those emotions and said,
"Promise me. That once you find your sworn enemy and achieve your goal, you will come back to the Empire as soon as humanly possible."
Breaking through the brief silence that had clogged my throat out of guilt, I reflexively tilted my head at Esmue's abrupt request and asked back,
"That's not hard. Why?"
"Just as I helped you put on your armor today, when that time comes, I shall help you take it off."
Seeing Esmue smiling confidently as she patted the cuirass, like she was trying to cheer me up, I responded with a light-hearted joke.
"Then I'll have to show up still covered in blood, without even washing properly."
"Worry not. I have no intention of merely removing your armor."
She answered with a mischievous smile, grinning brightly, and I laughed along with her.
...?
Wait, what did she just say?
I suddenly found it awfully hard to laugh.