A Female Knight Has Her Cliches
Female knights come with a few clichés.
Knock. Knock.
"May I enter, Your Imperial Majesty? It is Ahrens, Captain of the Imperial Guard."
"..."
No answer came from the Empress's Bedroom. After a brief pause, Ahrens knocked again, quiet and precise.
"Captain of the Imperial Guard, Ahrens, Your Majesty."
"A moment—w-wait!"
The door flew open.
"...!"
For a split second, Ahrens had the overwhelming urge to pinch her nose shut. Such insolence before the Empress was unthinkable, of course, so she endured it with superhuman restraint. To Ahrens, at least, the stench pouring from that room was every bit as foul as a front line crawling with enemy corpses—just in an entirely different way. Sweat. The sour, lingering reek of a man and a woman's fluids, left to sit where they had been spilled. The air itself was thick with the musk of flesh and the evidence of coupling, the room never properly aired.
"Your Majesty."
"Yes, Ahrens. W-what is it?"
"Forgive my impertinence, but may I ask what Your Majesty has been doing?"
Christina never had the chance to answer. Ahrens had already seen it through the gap beyond the door: Martin, sitting brazenly on the Empress's bed with his shirt stripped off, gulping down water. His back was a lattice of nail marks. His shoulders and arms were covered in kiss marks and bite marks.
Martin was famous for wearing, even in the height of summer, a white robe that covered his neck and both arms whenever he appeared in official settings.
"Hah."
Now she understood why. He could hardly go around preaching charity and relief with marks like those on display.
"Pardon the intrusion, Your Majesty. Forgive my discourtesy."
With that, Ahrens stepped past her without a moment's hesitation and entered the private chambers. One step. Then another. With every footfall, disgust and nausea rose in her throat. At last she came to a halt before Martin, who had turned at the clank of her armor.
"Your Highness the State Preceptor. For what reason have you come here?"
"Hmm? Haha... Captain. If you plant yourself in front of me and talk like that, even I might get a little frightened."
"Answer the question."
"Ah..."
Martin finished the rest of his water. His eyes had that look of someone thoroughly fed up, and he shook his head the way a teenage boy does when his mother is scolding him. Every last one of those little gestures grated on Ahrens.
"The common people are suffering greatly under Your Highness's excesses. How long do you intend to remain steeped in luxury and carnal appetite?"
"Captain, you forget yourself!"
Christina's clothes were in such disarray that the sight of her was deeply embarrassing, and yet she still raised her voice at Ahrens with all the dignity she could muster. What enraged her more than the uninvited intrusion into her private chambers was the fact that Ahrens had raised her voice at Martin.
Ahrens turned and regarded Christina steadily. Without insolence. With proper courtesy, her gaze lowered.
"Even His Highness the State Preceptor has no right to come and go from Your Majesty's private chambers as if they were his own home."
She pressed on.
"Your Majesty, I formally request that you reprimand the State Preceptor for this matter and impose disciplinary action."
"Captain!"
"Even if the Late Emperor personally granted him the Privilege of Non-Arrest, that does not place him beyond every crime, Your Majesty."
"You dare call that an argument? The Late Emperor himself declared with his own lips that no crime of the State Preceptor would ever be questioned!"
"That was before His Highness began committing rape, extravagance, and adultery. He has brought grave disgrace upon the Late Emperor's honor. Only by punishing him can this nation be set right."
Martin listened to the entire exchange in silence, a faint smile touching his lips—so slight they would never see it.
Things are getting interesting.
Martin already knew that nothing here posed any threat to him. Which was why, to him, the present situation felt less like danger than entertainment.
"That's enough, Your Imperial Majesty."
"Ma... Martin oppa."
"It's not oppa, is it? Your Majesty."
"Ah—no. Lord Martin..."
"Tsk."
"...State Preceptor."
Ahrens's brow furrowed at the way he handled the Empress like a child. Martin paid her no mind. He rose quietly, finished dressing, and walked slowly toward her.
"Well. I suppose I was a bit careless this time."
"Careless, you say..."
"I'll accept whatever punishment you see fit. The Captain seems thoroughly fed up with me, so I'll take my leave for now."
"Ah—St-State Preceptor...!"
And then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he omitted even the proper protocol for leaving the Empress's chambers and strolled out at his leisure. Ahrens's eyes narrowed as she stared after him until he was gone. But Christina's glare at Ahrens was far more vicious than that.
"Captain. We shall grant your petition and hold the State Preceptor to account."
"I am deeply honored, Your Majesty."
"However..."
Christina looked her straight in the eye, her gaze blazing.
"That you set foot in Our private chambers without permission. We shall not forget it."
"...I shall bear it in mind."
Christina was genuinely furious. Was it because her rare, sweet time alone with Martin had been interrupted? Or because an uninvited guest had forced her into the unpleasant position of having to punish her Martin oppa? Either way, Ahrens's standing in Christina's heart had, without a doubt, hit rock bottom.
And Ahrens could feel that current just as clearly. She knew she had earned the Empress's lasting dislike.
It can't be helped. I cannot let that shameless man run wild any longer. If no one else will set this right, then I will.
There was no one left in the empire who could raise a banner against him. That was not to say one might be quietly assassinated without a soul knowing. But the reality was this: no one who made an enemy of the State Preceptor should expect to keep both their rank and a peaceful night's sleep in this country.
Ahrens left the room with flawless protocol, as if to draw a contrast with Martin.
"I wonder how this will play out."
Things had been quiet and peaceful the whole time Ahrens was away at the border. I hadn't expected her to come at me this hard the moment she got back.
"Pff—"
It was a little hard not to laugh. I covered my mouth so no one nearby would notice and snickered quietly, just enough that the sound wouldn't carry.
"Kh—ah, that's funny."
Surely she didn't actually think she could sink me by saying that to Christina. What was she playing at? Then again, maybe there was no scheme at all. Ahrens might have been a brilliant, thorough commander on the battlefield, but she was no schemer. She did not have the political instincts to survive the palace's knife-fights.
Which left only one conclusion.
She just charged in headfirst? Because I pissed her off?
Whatever the reason, I couldn't help but find it amusing. Having someone this openly hostile toward me was, honestly, pretty entertaining. Whether she knew she couldn't escape the same crime of barging into the Empress's bedroom herself... well, that I couldn't say.
Ahrens had petitioned that I be "reprimanded."
A reprimand is not a disciplinary sentence. The characters mean "to scold" and "to rebuke." It simply means a verbal warning—a lecture about one's mistakes. The only reason that word even came up was because my rank was so absurdly high.
Ordinarily, if an unauthorized person came and went from the Empress's bedroom as they pleased? There would be nothing to discuss. It would be death. And not just any death. Given that Christina was a woman on the throne, a man as the perpetrator would make the crime even heavier. It would be treated as both trespass and defilement—a challenge to imperial authority itself. The sentence would likely be beheading, or perhaps being torn apart by horses.
"Ah, power is wonderful. Just wonderful."
I could commit a crime that would have anyone else carved into six pieces and still receive nothing worse than a talking-to.
That said, even if it didn't particularly concern me, the story that the Captain of the Imperial Guard had publicly rebuked the State Preceptor before the Empress and demanded he be punished was not the kind of thing people would simply shrug off. Given Christina's temperament, Ahrens had already been thoroughly marked. Life at court was about to get very difficult for her. I was starting to look forward to seeing how she'd play this.
I'd been thrown out, sure, but I didn't particularly feel like going back to my own rooms just yet, so I was taking a walk to clear my head. I passed the fountain in the plaza and was following the corridor past the training grounds when—
"...Hm?"
Every servant in the palace was lined up in neat ranks at the 2nd Training Ground. Thanks to my influence, the Imperial Palace employed only female servants, which meant the training grounds inside the palace hardly ever saw use. For some reason, the maids were wearing an older version of their uniforms—almost no skin showing, with very long skirts and sleeves.
Looking closer, I spotted a woman standing on the platform. Ahrens de Lucia. She was the one who had assembled the servants.
"Ah... some kind of ideological lecture, is it?"
Ahrens was barking something or other at the maids, and the cowed women simply stood there with their hands clasped behind their backs, sweating as they listened. She was probably using this as a way to vent her hostility toward me, and her disgust at the maid uniforms.
Being this openly despised by someone was not, admittedly, a pleasant feeling. But I wasn't particularly offended, nor was I anxious.
Why?
The "female knight" character type comes with a few clichés. Clichés that stand out all the more in the kind of adult game I'd been reincarnated into.
One. The proud female knight suffers a crushing defeat at someone's hands, and her pride is broken.
Two. She resists—and then her purity is taken, and she falls.
The more uptight and prickly the knight had been before, the more delicious the sense of transgression and vulgarity when she finally fell. That was simply how these things worked.
"Hard to tell what her figure looks like under all that armor... but her face is definitely top-tier."
A faint signal stirred somewhere below, as if something down there had taken an interest.