This Is Why She's Obsessed #2
Helena wore light armor. Not a dress.
She was, after all, the one who would succeed Is Krauser as legion commander, and even now she stood among the kingdom’s greatest knights. She trained every day, so light armor made far more sense than a gown.
At nine she had revealed her gift with the sword and been called a genius. By fourteen she had become a local legend—the kind people whispered would one day achieve greatness with a blade. That meteoric rise had never once slowed, not even to this day.
And yet that same genius was standing in front of me now, twisting her body like a bashful little girl. She looked thoroughly embarrassed.
“Here, allow me to help you change. Your clothes—”
“N-no! I mean… now that I think about it, I’d rather put them on myself. It’ll be more comfortable.”
Helena blocked my path toward the wardrobe and practically shouted the words. This was a girl so composed that even her swordplay was praised for its composure—and yet none of that composure was in evidence now. All the resolve she had steeled herself with moments earlier had vanished without a trace.
The way she had started dropping formal speech whenever we were alone was just one more of those changes.
Still… was she this flustered because she saw me as a man? If so, her tastes were thoroughly twisted. Not that I thought that was necessarily a bad thing.
In the modern world I had left behind, I was long since dead and reduced to ash. And if there was love involved, did the rest really matter? Whether a sixty-five-year-old married a twenty-five-year-old or a thirty-five-year-old dated a sixteen-year-old, the age gap itself wasn’t all that different. People would argue that both parties being adults made the first case different, but this world ran on different laws and different ethics.
It was a cliché, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do. And when a sane person lives among madmen, the sane one becomes the madman. Ethics shift with the age and the situation. Some people would never understand it; others would shrug and move on. I had already reached my own conclusion.
Ah, well. These things happen.
“Then shall I at least bring your clothes over? Would that be all right?”
“Zion… you’re going to pick out my clothes?”
“Yes. Leaving everything entirely to you hardly seems like the proper work of an attendant. Or is even that too much?”
I looked at the stammering Helena and let the corners of my eyes droop as if I were the one put out—exactly like a dog with its tail between its legs. At that, my mature-yet-immature master seemed to steel herself once more. Resolve flickered back into her eyes.
“No. It’s not a problem. Please.”
“Very well.”
Zion is picking out the clothes I’m going to wear…!
I did my best to ignore the excited little murmur she was making under her breath, turned my back, and threw open the wardrobe doors. The piece was carved from fine wood and finished with magical craftsmanship; for all its age it still looked solid and proud. Even the grain and design were flawless. The Altram estate had a few pieces with history, but nothing quite on this level.
“Here you are.”
I returned with the garments draped over my arms like a walking clothes rack. Helena swallowed hard, throat working, far too tense for something as simple as receiving a few pieces of clothing.
“Mm. Thanks.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable, I can close my eyes.”
If I had been just another servant, she probably would not have cared. Even knowing I was an Altram, from Helena’s perspective the difference should not have been that great—a low-ranking viscount’s house versus a ducal house at the absolute pinnacle. Helena, however, seemed more than happy to take me up on the offer.
“Ah—right. Please.”
Since she had asked, I quietly closed my eyes and stood still. The soft rasp of fabric against skin filled my ears, and as the clothes vanished one by one from my arms I felt a strange, hollow lightness. Maybe it was just the weight disappearing.
“…Done. You can open your eyes.”
It had barely been a moment. Helena was apparently quite used to dressing herself. I had heard that some nobles could not even put on their own clothes; she was the opposite.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Helena in full light armor. Black leather trousers that clung to her legs and emphasized every line, boots, a shirt that looked ready to burst at the seams, and a jacket over it—perfect. Far more practical for moving than any dress.
“You managed well enough on your own. Still…”
A few things were slightly crooked, so I stepped in to fix them—rolled sleeves, the angle of the jacket. The most important part, the collar, was simply out of reach. Being short was a genuine problem sometimes.
Nothing for it. A little rude, but I would have to ask.
“Lady Helena. Forgive me, but could you lean down for a moment?”
“Huh…? Sure.”
She tilted her head at the sudden request, but she did as I asked. That brought the collar within reach—and also put me face-to-face with the impressive swell of her chest. The proximity was… intense.
We had grown reasonably close over the past few years, but if someone asked whether we were close enough to cross that particular line, I would have had trouble answering. One accidental brush of a hand against those breasts and I might very well be looking at execution. Human hearts were fickle things.
Feeling as if I were performing an emergency escape, I carefully—very carefully—adjusted her collar.
“Hngh!”
My fingertip grazed the pale, slender nape of her neck as I straightened the fabric. Helena’s face flushed and she let out a shaky breath. Whether it was the heightened senses of a knight or something else entirely, I could not say. All I learned was that she was sensitive.
“Forgive the trouble. The collar was crooked and I meant only to straighten it, but my hands wouldn’t reach, so…”
I bowed deeply to apologize for the discourtesy. Even if it had been for her sake, the result had been me giving her an order. This was the least I could do for absolution.
Thankfully, Helena did not seem to mind. She simply wrapped her arms around my shoulders and spoke in a soft voice.
“It’s fine. You did it all for me. If anything, I want to thank you—so stand up already.”
“Yes. Thank you for your forgiveness. And I apologize again for the liberty.”
“Oh, honestly. It wasn’t a liberty. Zion, who did you even take after to end up this stiff? And you’re only eight.”
The second I straightened, Helena started fretting in that cute, sulky way of hers. A luxurious worry if ever there was one—being upset that a child did not act enough like a child. Most people would have been thrilled if a troublemaking kid grew up a little faster.
“Was I really that stiff?”
“You were. Stiffer than Andy. You used to act more like a kid. It was so much cuter.”
She sighed long and soft, remembering the past. Before Chess’s training, I had played the part of a normal child and clung to her quite a bit. Looking back, she had clearly loved every second of it. For someone with a glass heart, she was surprisingly fond of being clung to.
Or maybe, for Helena, clinging and relying were two different things.
“I’d love to go back to doing that without a second thought, but now that I’m your attendant, I can’t exactly act that way. At the Altram estate maybe, but if I got too familiar here, the others wouldn’t look kindly on it.”
“Haaah—‘the others,’ huh.”
I had not named anyone in particular, yet Helena’s expression said a very specific face had just floated through her mind. She looked convinced.
“You’re right. What you’re saying makes perfect sense. You’ve always been a clever child.”
“Lady Helena, I’ve told you before—being clever and being precocious are different things. Clever is what people call someone like you. Me? If anything, I’m just precocious.”
“Honestly, you’re a little old man in a child’s body. And I’m not that clever.”
Helena jabbed a fingertip against my forehead, clearly displeased with my counterargument. A faint sulk sat on her face; she really did hate the stiffness. Fair enough—surrounded by nothing but rigid formality every day, anyone would feel smothered. But claiming she was not clever was pure deception.
“Then would you like to be the one who clings to me instead, Lady Helena?”
I asked her how she felt about reversing the roles. Her face went scarlet and she started bouncing in place like a rabbit. The idea of being the one to cling seemed to delight her beyond measure—her reaction was nothing short of violent.
“Damn it.”
The eldest son of the ducal house and Helena’s younger brother, Cain Krauser, clicked his tongue in a quiet corner and stared hard across the broad training yard. Soldiers and knights were clustered in small groups, drilling.
The Krauser Dukedom was guarded by its own troops, and the Central Knights who protected the royal palace rotated units out here as well. Nobles with personal domains could not remain at the capital forever, so it was customary to send knights for joint training. The results spoke for themselves.
“Again! One hundred more horizontal cuts!”
At the center of it all stood his sister—that detestable woman—Helena Krauser. A woman who had been born with talent she had no right to possess, a woman who had even defeated the captain of the Central Knights sworn to protect the king.
Cain himself was a Krauser, and like every Krauser he was well-versed in the sword and in combat. Yet he had always lagged behind Helena. No one felt the truth of the saying “talent cannot match greater talent” more keenly than he did.
But Cain was arrogant. Because he was arrogant, he told himself Helena was merely a lucky woman and tried to diminish her worth. If not for that talent, he—the man—would have been the obvious choice for the next duke. He had thought that more than once or twice.
That damned, hateful bitch.
A seductive little slut who could reel in any man she wanted, living off nothing but raw talent.
That was Cain’s judgment of Helena, and the hatred only grew with every passing day. He worked hard himself, but his results always came slower than hers. And now an Altram had attached himself to her side, fanning that hatred even hotter.
The Altrams were living blank checks—they served only a sitting duke or the clear heir to the title. Which meant Helena’s path to the dukedom had grown even more certain. At this point it was all but decided.
“A woman who should have been nothing more than a tool for a political marriage…!”
Cain muttered under his breath and ground his teeth until they squeaked. To him Helena was nothing but an eyesore—someone he could never bring himself to call family. And because his hunger for the title still burned, because he still dreamed of becoming duke, the rage only burned hotter.
“I can’t take any more of this.”
If things continued, Helena would become duke without fail. Once that happened, acting against her would grow far more difficult—and even if he somehow managed it, the chaos would be incomparably greater. So he would cut the bud before it bloomed.
Cain’s eyes were dark and damp with hatred and jealousy as he made his decision.