A Romantic Knight!
"Mmh..."
Brilliant sunlight pricked at my eyes.
I rubbed my heavy lids this way and that until sleep finally let go, and I realized morning had come.
Stretching my arms out long sent a clean, refreshing feeling flooding through me. My body felt far lighter than before.
Maybe that expensive bed hadn't been a waste after all.
"My lips... they're all swollen..."
I brushed a fingertip lightly across them and felt a faint sting.
The memory of Athena ravaging me without restraint came rushing back, and shame washed over me all over again.
Even if we're both women... wasn't that a little much...?
She had been determined to erase every single mark Lily and Dania had left on me. What she gave me hadn't been some light show of affection — it had been the sticky, lingering kind of kiss lovers share.
And not just last night. From now on, every single night...
No. Absolutely not.
Athena might only have been trying to wipe away the traces, but I didn't think I could endure it. For someone who had once been a man, the sensation of her tongue exploring the inside of my mouth was dizzying enough to blank my mind pure white.
I had been able to accept Lily and Dania's affection as family closeness and take it in stride. Athena was an entirely different problem.
If I ran into her later, I would have to talk to her about it. With that resolve, I pulled myself out of bed.
Climbing down from the enormous mattress and looking around, I found the room far more disordered than when I had first arrived.
The tattered clothes I had been wearing lay scattered across the floor, and the bed was so thoroughly rumpled that its original neatness was nowhere to be found.
...I should clean first.
Leaving it like this would only make trouble for the maids, so I got up at once and began putting the room in order.
I may not look it, but I know how to clean.
Five years of living alone. I had mastered every ordinary household chore; tidying a single room was nothing.
I folded the blankets into sharp, military corners and set them neatly at the foot of the bed. The clothes strewn about were folded prettily and placed on the table.
Once I learned where the laundry was done, I would take them there to wash.
I cleaned every other messy corner with the same care. I drew all the curtains so sunlight could fill the room, then opened the windows to let in fresh air. Even the furniture that sat slightly askew I shifted little by little until the balance was perfect.
Before long—
Mm. Perfect.
Unlike before, the room now stood in clean, satisfying symmetry. Looking at the tidy scene filled me with a quiet pride that slowly spread through my chest.
Knock-knock—
"My lady. May I come in?"
While I was still basking in self-congratulation, a maid's voice came from outside.
I answered in a triumphant tone, telling her to enter.
She's going to be amazed when she sees the room, right?
I opened the door expecting her reaction, and two maids stepped inside.
"Did you sleep well, my lady?"
"We heard sounds from inside, so we came to check."
They spoke, then paused as their eyes took in the room.
"But... the room looks a little different?"
They had noticed the change at once.
I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and told them,
"Ahem... ahem... When I woke up this morning everything was such a mess, so I cleaned a little."
Well? Behold the razor-sharp corners of Korean military style!
I looked at the maids with a touch of expectation mixed in.
They were staring around the room with rather flat expressions.
Uh...?
"D-does it... look strange...?"
When I asked in a small voice, they glanced at each other for a moment before answering.
"No, it isn't that. It's just that the mansion has overall regulations for how things should be arranged, and this doesn't quite match them."
"I-is that so...?"
"You don't need to do anything at all, my lady! From now on we'll take care of all of this for you."
"That's right. Just make yourself comfortable. Hoho."
When the reaction I had hoped for failed to appear, my spirits sank a little.
Well. If there were established rules, following them was the proper thing to do.
A faint disappointment lingered, but I shook it off quickly enough.
"What would you like to do about breakfast, my lady?"
One of them asked about the meal.
Do I really not have to eat with Athena?
I sincerely hoped not.
If I had to share every meal with her, the day would surely come when I choked on something in spectacular fashion.
"Could I eat now?"
"Of course! Shall we bring it to you, or would you prefer to go to the dining hall?"
Afraid I might run into Athena if I went to the dining hall, I simply asked them to bring it. And that day I experienced a whole new world: eating a meal in bed.
It was like opening a window on a cool day and pulling the covers up — an unexplainable, luxurious satisfaction settled deep into my body.
Eating in the most comfortable place in the world.
Once you made a habit of it, there was no escaping the addiction.
If I could have breakfast like this every morning, wouldn't that be heaven itself?
After that blissful breakfast ended, I fell into a serious dilemma.
What do I do now...?
There was nothing to do.
I had entered this place as Athena's slave. Unless she summoned me herself, I had absolutely no tasks waiting for me.
I even tried offering to help the maids with their work, but they firmly refused.
"We'll handle our own duties!"
"Please just rest comfortably, my lady."
So there I was again, lying on the bed doing nothing at all.
I wasn't tired, so I simply stared blankly up at the ceiling with my eyes wide open.
In the old days I would have sprawled in bed all day reading novels on my phone. That was no longer an option.
After thrashing around on the mattress for a long while, I finally couldn't stand the boredom and bolted out of the room.
And the person I found while wandering the mansion was—
"You're bored, you say?"
"Yeah..."
Alina.
After chatting about this and that, we had grown fairly close. Alina had asked me to speak casually with her, and I had accepted. I asked her to do the same with me, but she insisted that as a maid she simply couldn't.
I'm a slave, though.
If we were ranking by status alone, wasn't I the lower one?
Anyway, Alina was currently the only person in the mansion I could talk to comfortably.
"Hmm... how about visiting the study?"
The study, huh...
Not a bad idea.
Reading novels had been my main pastime in my free hours, so it might even be perfect.
But would there actually be novels here?
In a place the size of a grand library, maybe. This, however, was Athena's mansion. I doubted there would be books meant purely for entertainment.
Still, it had to be better than sitting around doing nothing.
I was about to ask her to show me the way when—
"Ah! Or, since the knights happen to be sparring right now, how about going to watch them?"
Her second suggestion sent every thought of the study flying far away.
Knights.
A profession no fantasy novel could ever do without.
Swordsmen who followed a noble code of chivalry and risked their lives fighting for the master they served.
If you spoke of romance, you could not leave them out. Their very existence was romance.
...I want to see them.
A fire that had once burned in the chest of a man flared to life again.
Knights sparring with one another.
"Yeah. Let's go there."
How was I supposed to resist that?
Following Alina, I arrived at the training grounds.
Clang—
The bright, ringing crash of steel striking steel poured into my ears.
I turned toward the sound and saw burly, heavily muscled men swinging swords at one another.
When I drew a little closer, the hot heat rolling off them reached all the way to my skin.
Their movements were as solid as mountains, and the sword strokes that split the air looked strong enough to cleave a boulder clean in two.
"So cool..."
I murmured, staring blankly at the knights. Beside me, Alina nodded in agreement.
"The knights are always so dashing, aren't they?"
If I married one of those men it would be wonderful. I could stare at their muscles all day and never get bored.
I ignored whatever Alina was mumbling beside me and kept my eyes fixed on them.
Every one of them is Expert rank.
In the world of The Indomitable Hero, swordsmen were divided into five classifications:
Beginner, User, Expert, Master, and Grand Master.
Each stage was further split into upper, middle, and lower, but broadly speaking those five covered everything.
From Sword User onward, even if the technique was still rough, a fighter could already weave mana into their attacks. From Expert, they handled mana with real skill.
Master was a realm only the chosen could reach — a stage even a brilliant genius could attain only through bone-grinding effort.
And Grand Master...
In the entire Empire there was only one.
The Sword Saint, Carlos.
A man who had surpassed human limits and touched the absolute peak of the sword. Grand Master was a title that existed for him alone.
Late in the novel there had been hints that the protagonist might one day reach Grand Master, but for now it was still far out of reach.
Even Athena remained at upper Master. That alone showed how lofty the Grand Master realm truly was.
So why, if the Sword Saint existed, was Athena called the strongest human in the Empire?
In pure swordsmanship Carlos was stronger, but Athena was both an outstanding swordswoman and a formidable mage.
She had reached the 8th Circle — the realm of a great archmage.
Even a gifted mage who devoted every waking moment until death to study and training, and who was blessed with luck besides, might only reach the 7th Circle. Anything beyond that belonged to true geniuses.
Yet she had attained the 8th Circle at a young age — a being even geniuses feared.
That person was Athena.
Anyway.
I had wandered off topic. What mattered right now was that every single knight out there stood at Expert or higher.
Looking closely at their sword strokes, I could see considerable mana condensed around the blades. Swung like that, they could probably split solid rock without effort.
And it wasn't only offense. They wrapped mana around their bodies as well, giving them defenses ordinary blows could not even scratch.
My heart suddenly began to pound hard.
For the first time since transmigrating, I felt the same thrill I used to get when I lost myself in a fantasy novel.
After seeing nothing but low-level criminals and monster fodder in Drax, finally laying eyes on real powerhouses filled my chest with excitement.
Of course I had faced Athena before, but she was in a category of her own.
There was a saying: falling from a ten-story building is scarier than falling from a thousand-story one. Realms that completely exceed your imagination simply fail to register in the same visceral way.
But now—
Witnessing knights clash with one another let me truly feel that I had stepped into the world of the novel I loved, The Indomitable Hero.
I want to fight.
The desire to test my strength against them slowly spread through my mind.
I had been through countless fights, yet not one of them had been a proper match. I wanted a real contest of offense and defense — not just one-sided stomping.
I had a unique ability. I wouldn't fall behind them.
I had transmigrated into a fantasy novel with an outstanding power. Feeling this way was only natural, wasn't it?
It felt as though all the fighting spirit Athena had been suppressing in me had finally erupted and caught fire at once.
...Should I ask them for a spar?
If I begged earnestly enough, I didn't think they would refuse. If I revealed I was a unique ability user, they might even cling to me begging for a match themselves.
And since it was only a spar, there wouldn't be any serious injuries. The knights would hold back, and I could control my strength perfectly well. No problem at all.
"All right."
I calmed the fire in my chest as best I could, filled myself with anticipation, and walked toward them.
But what waited for me ahead was neither a duel nor a contest.
It was a tragedy.
"......Huh?"
What was this?
What was this horrific scene unfolding before my eyes?
Like watching a movie on fast-forward, countless people were racing back and forth in frantic motion.
"Hey!!! Dillon!!! Damn it! Where's the healer?!"
His shout yanked me out of my daze.
My pupils began to shake violently. My hands trembled as if an earthquake were rolling through them. My feet refused to move; all I could do was stare at the sight before me.
My mind seemed unwilling to accept the situation — no thoughts came at all.
"Cough..."
"Stay with me!! The doctor will be here soon. Just hold on a little longer!"
I forced my shaking legs forward and approached him, but—
"Get the hell away!! You monster of a woman... do you think you'll walk away from this unscathed?!"
"I... I didn't... I..."
"Please, just hang on a little longer, Dillon. Think of the wife waiting for you."
Right in front of me lay a man with a hole punched clean through his chest, coughing up blood.
In his fading eyes, the only thing that remained was pure terror directed at me.
"I-it has to be a dream..."
It was a dream.
I had simply had a bad dream.
It had to be.