Chapter 13
Chapter 13
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: Scoundrelry Knows No Gender Distinction (3)
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"I want you."
The air around us froze solid. Arwen Kirguyen's expression froze as well.
"What?!"
"Y-Your Highness!"
"You...!"
The Royal Knights gasped in shock, while my uncle let out a breath laced with anger.
Everyone stared at me, their faces a gallery of different emotions.
Disappointment, contempt, fury.
All of them negative, topped off by the hatred and disgust Arwen Kirguyen added to the mix.
"Your Highness. I hate to say this, but..."
"If you hate it, then don't."
Kals Yulihi stepped forward, only to step back again.
"I didn't want to interfere, but I can't just stand by..."
"Then don't interfere."
My uncle ended up in the same boat.
I ignored the bewildered gazes of the Royal Knights and my uncle's angry glare.
My focus was solely on Arwen Kirguyen.
"Is that truly what Your Highness desires?"
She finally spoke. Her voice was cold, like frost settling in.
Of course you'd say that. Shallow, base, utterly worthless trash. Her eyes and expression screamed it.
Time to end the joke.
"Arwen Kirguyen."
I wiped the smile from my face and called her name seriously.
She glared at me with the same icy look. It felt like I'd never see any other expression on her face in a lifetime. It seemed that way.
But it wasn't.
"Become my knight."
The face sculpted from ice crumbled all too easily.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said. What I want is your oath."
Confusion flickered across her beautiful features.
Her puzzled gaze lingered on me before shifting to the Royal Knights.
It was a silent question: why would he need loyalty from a mere probationary knight like me when he has knights who've reached the Triple Chain realm?
"They're not truly my knights."
The Royal Knights' devotion was just a fleeting thing born of royal command. They'd come by the king's order, so they could leave just as easily at his word. No surprise there.
No, it wasn't just them.
Everything I enjoyed right now wasn't really mine. All the luxuries a wastrel might claim as his own would vanish with a single word from the king.
That's not what I wanted. Not those illusions.
"What I want is a knight who belongs to me alone."
"A word from Your Highness, and knights with two or three chains would swear their loyalty."
She couldn't understand it, nor did she want to. All that remained on her face was fundamental disgust at the idea of being tied to me.
"Right. You're correct. You're nothing special. Just a probationary knight who can't even beat a single wastrel."
She bit her lip in humiliated rage.
"Those words sound to me like Your Highness wants a cold-hearted whore."
Her words were extreme, bordering on radical.
"If that's truly Your Highness's intent, all you'll get is a coldly cooling corpse."
Her expression brimmed with resolve, even readiness for death.
"What I want isn't a cold-hearted whore or the corpse of a suicidal knight."
But that resolve held no value to me.
"What I want is the potential and future of the knight named Arwen Kirguyen."
What held value to me was,
□ Arwen Kirguyen [Female, 19 years old], [Probationary Knight]
□ Aptitudes:Swordsmanship - A, Archery - B, Martial Arts - B, Mana Sensitivity - B
□ Traits:Sword Prodigy, Competitive, Peerless Beauty, Strong Outside Weak Inside, Pure-hearted
that A-rank aptitude boldly displayed in her status window.
With the right mentor, she had the potential to surpass even the master realm. That was her A-rank aptitude.
In other words, she was practically guaranteed to become a Sword Master.
I wasn't the type to let a prize catch like that slip away.
"You'll keep growing from now on. You'll get stronger. Stronger than those Royal Knights over there, maybe even stronger than my uncle."
Her expression hardened at my words.
At a glance, she looked uncomfortable comparing a probationary knight to accomplished ones. But I saw it—the flimsy emotion she tried to hide but couldn't quite suppress.
"I'm not the kind of talent Your Highness expects."
She downplayed herself. Her voice had softened noticeably. The sharp resolve of her earlier death vow had vanished.
Watching her, I thought,
Gotcha.
Knights desperate for recognition—especially a naive nineteen-year-old probationary one—were child's play for me to hook.
My centuries of experience wielding the sword weren't wasted. Her inner thoughts were plain as day.
She must have struggled as a woman in that world. Swinging her sword day and night for recognition, only to be denied it.
Knights had always been an excessively macho bunch.
In a group where strength was everything and women were meant to be protected and cherished, gaining recognition as a woman knight must have been brutally hard.
I'd seen countless women dismissed and denied just for being women. Even one who claimed me as her lord had lived that life.
She was probably treated like the flower of the knight order.
And Arwen Kirguyen was beautiful to boot. No matter her potential or her near-certain entry as a full member, people's gazes wouldn't change.
Her outstanding looks overshadowed her talent.
I struck there, offering praise to a deer parched for it. And since I'd seen it through my ability, my praise rang even truer.
"Arwen Kirguyen."
I hid my ulterior motives and feigned solemnity.
"I want the future Sword Master, Arwen Kirguyen."
I could see her expression waver. Proof I'd hit the mark.
Still, the cautious woman hesitated.
"A knight's word is heavier than a thousand gold. Have I misjudged you?"
But her own words trapped her, and she couldn't hold out forever.
"Your Highness."
After I'd talked her lips dry, Arwen Kirguyen finally spoke.
"Promise me one thing. Do that, and I'll follow Your Highness's will."
She asked me to treat her not as a woman, but as a knight. An easy promise, of course.
Arwen Kirguyen was a rare beauty, but her true value lay in her potential, not her looks.
"Fine. I promise."
No sooner had I finished than she dropped to one knee.
"Arwen, eldest daughter of the Kirguyen family, swears her loyalty to Prince Idrian Leonberger. I offer my sword and the remainder of my life to Your Highness."
In return for her solemn oath, I gave a small gift.
"By the blood of Leonberger, in the name of Idrian Leonberger, I dub thee knight. Be brave, courteous, and loyal."
By the prince's authority, Arwen Kirguyen went from probationary knight to full knight.
"Hah. Never seen such a slapdash affair."
My uncle, who'd watched silently till now, let out a hollow chuckle.
I'd gone from loyalty oath to knighting in the blink of an eye—like roasting beans in lightning—and it must have struck him as absurd.
"Prince's authority. Might as well use it freely while we can."
"Who said otherwise?"
My uncle shook his head.
Arwen Kirguyen decided to return to the Iron Lion Knight Order.
Though knighted, she hadn't fully earned the qualifications yet, so she'd hone her sword there and return a true knight. It wouldn't take long, she said.
She asked my permission.
"I'll look forward to it gladly."
"Then until we meet again, may Your Highness remain well."
Her utmost respect felt almost disorienting.
Whether coerced or strong-armed, once she'd sworn, she'd honor it faithfully. Her mindset matched the stubborn knights I'd glimpsed before sleep.
"Your Highness."
On the way back after sending Arwen Kirguyen off, Kals Yulihi called to me cautiously.
"What?"
"About what you said earlier."
"Earlier? What did I... oh, that?"
I'd pointed at the Royal Knights and said they weren't truly mine.
"Did that hurt your feelings?"
It was understandable if it did. After months by my side, hearing they weren't "real" people to me would sting.
"But it's the truth, isn't it? If the king orders you elsewhere tomorrow, you'll go, right? You won't?"
No matter how hurt, facts didn't change.
The Royal Knights guarded me because it was their mission, not out of personal attachment.
Proof: Kals couldn't respond.
"Tch."
Knights were stubbornly inept, then and now. Arwen Kirguyen's departing figure overlapped with Kals Yulihi's in my mind.
"If you want, swear loyalty later, Kals."
I didn't think Kals would actually swear to me. The Royal Knight Order's loyalty was to the palace's master alone. I was just a tenant in a corner of it.
"Would you accept it?"
We'd grown close enough for that. The knight who seemed incapable of jokes, even if the world ended, was cracking one now.
"No."
He asked why at my playful reply.
"No fun raising someone already grown."
Kals laughed, taking it as a joke. It was dead serious.
Countless men had set their hearts on the beautiful, haughty lady knight. They'd challenged to pluck the flower called Arwen Kirguyen, but each time, it was their hearts that broke, not the flower.
She was a flower on a cliff, a rose with thorns.
Yet that Arwen Kirguyen had sworn loyalty. To a lustful wastrel who'd mocked and insulted her.
People didn't believe it. Knowing her nobility, they dismissed it as rumor.
But it was true. Even a lady knight friendly with her confirmed it personally.
To nearby nobles and knights who'd eyed her, it was unbelievable.
They cursed the lustful wastrel. The poor girl had fallen for the vile tricks of that monster. The 1st Prince must have some nefarious plot, they spat.
"They made a bet. Loser grants winner's wish."
And it was true. He'd forced the oath via the bet.
"A bet-forced oath? Cancel it now!"
"Even as a probationary, she's Iron Lion Knight Order. We can't tarnish the order's honor!"
The hotheads stirred the order's captain. People believed he'd rescue her from the demon's clutches.
"I don't want that."
But the person involved refused. The captain asked if she was blackmailed or had secret circumstances, but she stood firm.
"I've sworn to be his sword, and so I shall live."
Her resolute answer forced the captain to back down.
Around then, some who'd cursed the wastrel prince turned coat.
She's already given her belly, body and soul—they spread filthy rumors.
She'd sworn loyalty and fealty, yet people gossiped as if she'd become the 1st Prince's mistress.
She heard the rumors about herself.
"Even after all that effort, to them I'm still just a woman."
She felt deep disillusionment toward those who saw only the woman Arwen Kirguyen, not the knight.
The more she did, the harder she trained. Swinging her sword cleared her mind of everything.
"Damn it, am I some axis of evil?!"
The rumor mill's target felt deeply wronged.
She had boundless potential; that's why he'd kept her close. Being treated like a rapist brute who'd forced a helpless woman naturally pissed him off.
"I'm the villain of the world, huh."
His indignant shouts couldn't cross the palace walls. He was still confined.
Over a month remained to fulfill the six-month term. He had to stay put until then.
But that day came sooner than expected.
"Confinement's over?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
The king's herald confirmed it, adding,
"You're also summoned to the upcoming royal banquet hosted by the palace."