Knighting Ceremony (4)
“It suits you. How should I put it... it looks as though someone has sculpted the very image of what I think a knight of Yuris should be.”
“Thank you.”
“...Don’t stare at me quite so stiffly. I know full well that my being here must make you uncomfortable, but I still wanted to meet you at least once. I also had something to tell you.”
If he knew I’d be uncomfortable, then the best thing would have been for him not to come at all.
I sneered inwardly, but I couldn’t show even a trace of it on my face, so all I could do was smile awkwardly.
I hadn’t expected to face the Crown Prince like this, of all things.
And yet the Crown Prince before me was quite different from the one I knew.
Arrogant, determined to do everything as he pleased.
And yet warm only toward the heroine he loved... or so I had thought.
Here, sipping tea before me, he still had a certain elegance.
He carried the dignity of a prince, and his manner toward me—someone who had not even undergone the knighting ceremony yet—was blended with respect and consideration.
Still, one thing was clear: he was not the Crown Prince I knew from the original story.
Maybe things will go far better than I expected.
Compared to the Crown Prince from four years later, when the original story began, he was on an entirely different level.
If it had been that Crown Prince, then having a blade at my throat right now would not have seemed strange at all.
His attitude was almost gentle.
I even began to feel a little excited at the thought that the conversation might actually go smoothly—until the Crown Prince, who had been studying me quietly, finally spoke.
“First, let me formally congratulate you on becoming a knight. You’re probably the youngest on this continent. I’m sure you’ve heard it often enough, but I, too, hold very high expectations for you.”
“You flatter me.”
“Not at all. To cut down a Troll Lord alone, and one corrupted by darkness at that, is no easy feat. Do you know the bards are already singing songs about you? ‘Oh, great Evan, raise your sword—’”
“...This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
The bards were singing about me?
Having spent all my time inside the ducal estate, I had no way of knowing such a thing, and all I could do was flush with embarrassment.
From the start, I had never liked the idea of someone singing that sort of thing so casually in front of the person himself.
Was he trying to humiliate me?
But the Crown Prince merely stopped singing, broke into a grin, and said nothing more.
“Truthfully, I was rather surprised. I never imagined the Crown Prince himself would come in person for something as ordinary as a knight’s knighting ceremony.”
When I said that, the Crown Prince gave an exaggerated shrug and looked at me.
“If you’re an ordinary knight, then our empire’s strength has shrunk by a great deal. A country with fewer than ten knights would be no laughing matter. There’s no need for such excessive modesty. I came because I thought highly of you, and because I wanted to congratulate you.”
At that, I gave a bitter smile.
No matter how I looked at it, he clearly hadn’t come only to offer congratulations.
And hadn’t he mentioned earlier that he had something to discuss?
So I stared at him, and when he sensed my gaze, he scratched his head and spoke.
“All right. I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I said I came only to congratulate you. I was planning to get straight to the point anyway... would that be all right?”
“That’s fine. Please do as you wish, Your Highness.”
When I said that, the Crown Prince hesitated for a moment before reaching into his coat and taking out a crest.
When I saw the crest, shining brilliantly in gold, and the two swords hanging beneath the dragon’s jaws that symbolized the Imperial Family, I couldn’t help but frown and ask, “Isn’t that the emblem of the Imperial Knights?”
“You haven’t undergone your knighting ceremony yet, so you can’t officially be counted as a knight of Yuris. Have you perhaps thought about wearing this on your chest?”
“...This is dizzying. The Imperial Knights, of all things.”
Before I knew it, a laugh escaped me.
For the Crown Prince himself to come all the way here and tell me to join the Imperial Knights...
Joining the Imperial Knights was no simple matter.
Merely belonging to them was the kind of honor that could be counted as an event worthy of a lifetime, perhaps even of an entire family line.
A knight who entered their ranks was promised a lifetime of glory. His children, too, would gain a lifetime of glory simply by being able to say they had a knight of the Imperial Knights for a father.
In the empire, the Imperial Knights were nothing less than a symbol of guaranteed success.
Of course, even if they weren’t one of the Five Great Houses, there were families that maintained their count title simply because one of their ancestors had once served in the Imperial Knights.
The Imperial Knights. To offer me such a position was an astonishing thing.
A sixteen-year-old apprentice knight, not even officially knighted yet, being offered a place among the Imperial Knights.
Wasn’t the youngest age thirty? The moment I stepped inside, I would probably be making history.
“However, I’m afraid I have no choice but to decline.”
The Crown Prince’s face was colored with surprise. Had he not expected me to refuse?
But I had been expecting this from the moment our eyes met.
No matter what offer he made, I had no intention of belonging to the Imperial Family.
The reason I kept taking up my sword, the reason I insisted on the path of a knight, was only one thing.
Irene.
I had vowed to protect her, and I clung to the title of knight simply so I could keep that vow.
The Imperial Knights... well, if I entered a place like that, my treatment would certainly improve.
But then as now, I had never cared much for honor.
I had played the piano because I liked it, and I was serving as Irene’s bodyguard knight now because I wanted to.
In fact, saying it out loud made me feel oddly relieved.
Separate from my wish to maintain a good relationship with the Crown Prince, I had no desire to join the Imperial Knights.
If I were to build a good relationship with him... it would have to remain a relationship between Yuris and the Imperial Family.
Not between me and the Crown Prince.
When I carefully slid the crest I had placed on the table back toward the Crown Prince, he gave me a bitter smile.
Perhaps realizing this was an outright refusal, and that I would not accept even if he asked again, he let out a sigh before speaking.
“...I had hoped, at least a little. It seems your loyalty is even stronger than I thought. Are you certain you won’t regret this?”
“I won’t regret it. This is a choice I made of my own free will. If I’ve offended you, then I apologize—”
“No, no. There’s no way I could be offended. I was just a little surprised. Refusing a place in the Imperial Knights is probably a first in the empire’s history. I’ll have to tell the records officer to write it down properly.”
Waving his hands dismissively, the Crown Prince let out a quiet laugh and then looked at me again.
“...Without you in this recent black mage incident, the response would probably have been much slower.”
“But Sir Theorad was there, wasn’t he?”
The commander of the Imperial Knights. The empire’s only Master and its final bulwark.
If he had stepped in, he probably could have cut down a Troll in an instant.
Master was a realm that dyed the world with mana, a level utterly different from my own, which only set flames alight within the body.
But... even so, he likely would not have been able to prevent Yuris’s tragedy.
If that black mage had not been found and cut down back then, Yuris’s destruction would have been almost certain.
The Crown Prince watched me quietly for a while, then shook his head.
“Of course, Sir Theorad could have stopped it. But at least in this reality I’ve lived through, it was you who drove off the black mage. Didn’t I say it? Excessive modesty is a little much. You should be proud. You protected 378,326,832 citizens of the empire.”
“...You remember all of that?”
“I’m the Crown Prince.”
After saying that, the Crown Prince gazed regretfully at the Imperial Knights’ crest before letting out a faint smile.
Seeing that expression, so light and relieved as if to say he truly didn’t mind, somehow made my own heart feel lighter as well.
Royal blood. If the dignity I had seen in Irene at the festival before was the image of majesty, then what I saw in the Crown Prince now was embracing generosity.
It didn’t suit the Crown Prince I knew very well, but at least for now, that was how he seemed.
How on earth had a person like that become so twisted?
Maybe things really could unfold differently from the future I knew.
If the Crown Prince’s present demeanor wasn’t an act.
“...Your Highness.”
“If there’s something you want to say, feel free. To be honest, I’ve been the only one talking this entire time, haven’t I?”
“I am Yuris’s knight now, and that fact will probably never change until the day I die. I may not be able to keep fighting black mages forever.”
“Hmm... there was no need to prove that to me. I’ve already felt it keenly enough. As I keep saying, the one who refused a place in the Imperial Knights is you, the first in the empire’s history.”
“But that is the story of Sir Evan.”
I looked into the Crown Prince’s eyes.
Eyes reveal more than one might think.
What a person thinks, what they feel, even their true nature.
When I looked for those things, the Crown Prince was different from Adele. Adele’s violet eyes...
In those eyes that somehow reminded me of a requiem, what I saw was emptiness.
Emptiness—unlike the emptiness carried by the duke, this one had no visible end.
I could not tell what he was thinking or what purpose he might be hiding.
So I kept my guard up. And when the Troll smashed him to pieces, I felt a faint sense of relief.
At least while I was fighting the Troll, he wouldn’t interfere.
That unease still hadn’t vanished, and so I could only remain wary of Adele—and of all of Roman that held Adele within it.
But the Crown Prince’s eyes at least reflected feeling.
Respect toward me, regret that he hadn’t been able to bring me over, and the relief he had gained after overcoming and setting that regret aside.
There was also a fairly strong measure of irritation hidden there, though he couldn’t bring himself to show it... still, at least he remained pure.
Maybe, because of what I had accomplished, he was only hiding his true feelings from me.
But I needed to build a gentle relationship with him, at least for now.
Little by little. I hadn’t expected too much from the start.
If this choice could make him hesitate, even a little, before raising a blade against Yuris in the future...
That would be enough.
“Evan Fried, who cut down the Troll, will continue to fight black mages. Of course, I’ll need the young lady’s permission first.”
“...Hahaha!”
At the part where I said Irene would have to allow it, the Crown Prince laughed.
He laughed freely, for a long while, until at last he nodded and spoke.
“That alone is enough. The trash in the palace alone would have a hard time dealing with a black mage.”
Trash in the palace.
The Crown Prince’s eyes flashed with anger as he said it.
That was surely his true nature: he looked down on anything he judged to be trash.
But his standards did not apply to just anyone.
He must have meant the ministers in the palace, especially the ones he disliked.
It was similar to the way he spoke of black mages.
When he talked about black mages, the thing reflected in his eyes had certainly been anger of the same kind, hadn’t it?
Watching the Crown Prince like that, I nodded.
I had made my choice once, and I would not regret it.
I only hoped that this choice would help Irene later on.
At the very least, I hoped the Crown Prince would not one day raise his sword against Yuris.
I only hoped that when the original heroine shook his heart, he would be able to regain his senses for even a moment.
#
After the Crown Prince left, Evan cast his gaze toward the back of the corridor.
The presence he had felt for some time now. At first, he had thought it was merely a passing maid, but once he sensed that all too familiar aura, it became rather difficult to keep his expression under control.
He hadn’t thought she had a hobby of eavesdropping, and yet listening while even hiding her breathing was almost laughably obvious.
“My lady.”
“......”
“I know you’re there.”
With those words, Evan caught sight of a head peeking out from the end of the corridor, and he could only smile.
As if nothing were amiss, wearing the same blank expression she always showed, Irene approached Evan.
“Your expression doesn’t look very good.”
“Does it?”
“Are you displeased that I spoke with His Highness the Crown Prince?”
Irene’s eyes narrowed.
If she was asking whether she disliked it, the answer was no.
She had already noticed long ago that the Crown Prince was interested in Evan, hadn’t she?
Of course, when Kaisel produced the crest of the Imperial Knights, she had been rather startled, but she had known he would refuse it.
No—more precisely, she had believed in it.
At some point, the word trust had turned solely toward Evan.
If she trusted anyone... it was Evan.
Somehow, he felt more reliable than even Ropena or Sir Chris.
Not merely because he was her knight, but because at some point she had realized she trusted him.
Had she ever placed this kind of trust in anyone in her life? She shook her head.
And when she met Evan’s eyes again, Irene felt a strange tickle in her chest.
He looked no different from usual, and yet why did he feel so different now?
And when she noticed his clothes, she finally realized that Evan was wearing the outfit she had prepared for him.
“It suits you.”
His body had grown firm and solid, and the lines of his figure looked even more honed than before.
She had wondered whether the silver uniform would suit him, but the way he looked now, wrapped in a black mantle, he was truly a proper knight.
He had annoyed her so much when she first met him, and yet now, just seeing him made a smile rise naturally to her lips.
It was an awkward smile, but she had practiced it once, so it didn’t look nearly as awkward as it should have.
“...Ah, do you mean the clothes?”
Evan looked down at his uniform and smiled sheepishly.
Come to think of it, he should have thanked her, but now that they were standing face-to-face, the words somehow refused to come.
Should he call it embarrassment? As he looked at Irene like that, he then noticed her own outfit and quietly parted his lips.
Her black dress was no different from usual, and yet the version that left her collarbone so boldly exposed was nothing short of daring.
Anyone would have their eyes drawn there, wouldn’t they?
For a moment he bit his lip without realizing it, then immediately forced out a faint smile and spoke.
“You look lovely as well, my lady.”
“......”
Irene’s gaze turned sharp.
She had said he looked lovely, so why was he staring at her like that?
...Don’t tell me.
For an instant, a strange thought flickered through her mind, but she forcefully pushed it away.
Surely not. It couldn’t possibly be because the words “suits you” weren’t enough.
For a moment they simply looked into each other’s eyes before Irene broke the silence first.
“I heard you said you’ll keep fighting black mages.”
“That’s right.”
“You’ve fought black mages twice so far. And both times you came back injured. Can you truly say you never came close to death in either of those battles?”
“...That is...”
To be honest, the first battle had been easy.
I hadn’t even drawn on all my strength; all that happened was that I took one attack I couldn’t avoid.
But when I fought the Troll, I bet everything I had—my magic sword, the special mana I possessed, and the awakening of my senses.
If even one of those had been missing, my broken head might have been scattered somewhere in the mountains by now.
I understood what Irene was worried about.
She did not want me to get hurt.
She was seeing someone else in me. Evan knew nothing of Irene’s past.
All he knew were the old stories he had heard here and there from Sir Chris and Ropena in this ducal estate, and the few short mentions from the novel.
Maybe... Irene’s mother.
He had never once heard anyone speak of the duchess.
As though even bringing up that subject were forbidden...
He had never once heard a word about Irene’s mother in this place.
He did not know what had happened, but perhaps her mother had died for some reason.
And that had triggered some kind of trauma in Irene.
Even so, he could not stop fighting.
If he stopped fighting black mages now, then even if he delayed it, wouldn’t he inevitably become entangled with them anyway?
Even if he quit fighting them, what awaited him in the end would still be the tragedy set in stone.
Black mages, Yuris, and Irene. Evan was certain those three were intertwined.
It had been nothing more than a guess before, but as time passed, it seemed all the more certain.
“Whatever the relationship between the Imperial Family and yourself may be, that isn’t my concern. But I can’t simply allow you to keep fighting black mages.”
“I won’t get hurt.”
“You can’t promise that.”
Blue eyes shimmered.
What they reflected was unmistakably fear.
Fear of an unpredictable future, and...
Irene inwardly admitted it: whenever she looked at Evan, she found herself remembering old memories and growing anxious without meaning to.
He was strong, and if he fought black mages, he had the skill to come back having won.
And yet that did not mean she could simply stand by and watch him get hurt.
If possible, she wanted him not to be injured at all.
The best way to make that happen was, of course, for him not to fight black mages—but whenever she looked into his eyes, she felt with painful clarity that such a thing would remain nothing more than her wish.
She remembered eyes dyed red. She remembered the darkness that had hung over the mountain summit, obscuring everything before her and bewitching those who saw it.
And she remembered Evan lying collapsed in that field of snow.
Even now, just recalling those memories made her breath tighten. How, then, could she let him keep fighting?
If he returned to that state again, she was certain she would not be able to remain composed.
Irene thought that much.
“My lady.”
A calm voice echoed through the quiet corridor.
It was always a voice that reassured the heart.
Irene could not deny that she had felt comfort when she had embraced Evan as well.
“Didn’t you say you would trust me?”
“...That’s different. You can just focus on guarding me.”
“Dealing with black mages is also for your safety, my lady.”
“The Imperial Family is there. Sir Theorad is in the Imperial Palace.”
He knew it was a weak argument.
Evan knew, too, that no matter how much the commander of the Imperial Knights might be one of the Five Great Houses, he could not intervene in matters that occurred within that domain.
He knew she was anxious, but he did not know how to take that fear away right now.
So he walked.
The distance was fairly long, but Evan gradually moved forward until he stood in front of Irene.
Many thoughts passed through his mind. The option of not fighting black mages did not exist.
It might exist for Irene, but at least for him, it did not. If so, then there was only one way to reassure her.
“I won’t get hurt.”
Her breath touched his skin. From a distance so close he could feel it, Evan raised a hand.
And when that hand touched Irene’s cheek, Evan smiled and spoke.
Irene’s eyes flew wide open.
Since when? She tried to step back at the sudden presence of Evan who had approached her while her thoughts were elsewhere, but behind her was only a wall.
The touch of his hand against her face was ticklish.
The pounding of her heart sounded in her ears, and heat quickly began to spread across her face.
“The reason I keep fighting like this is all for you, my lady. I can’t give it up, and even if you told me to, I’d still fight in secret.”
“......”
She wanted to get angry.
She wanted to shout that she didn’t want that.
But the distance was too close for that.
Her mind, heated and flustered, soon went completely blank, and it became hard to think of anything at all.
Cheater.
That was what Irene thought as she looked at the bodyguard knight gazing back at her.
No matter what she said, he would probably never give up.
With a bitter smile, Irene lightly tapped Evan’s chest with her hand.
Thunk. It was no more than a harmless little punch, and Evan withdrew the hand that had been caressing her cheek.
Honestly, no other method had come to mind.
Whenever he did this to his little brother, the boy who had been so angry would quiet down in no time, so he had tried it on a whim.
Seeing her eyes softened far more than before, he let out a small laugh.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of any other way.”
“...Promise me. Don’t get hurt, and always... keep a handkerchief with you.”
“Understood.”
After saying that and stepping back, what remained between them was an awkward silence.
The warmth that still lingered on his hand, and on her cheek, made their hearts race.
Could the other hear it? At that thought they both tried to put a little more distance between them, but then Evan scratched his head and reached out again.
“...I’ll escort you. You have to go up to the stage, don’t you?”
He remembered the hand he had extended at the ball and the festival, but it somehow didn’t seem as if those had been such a blush-inducing situation as this.
Then and now, the feelings they were holding were different.
At least that was how he felt.
And yet even as he held out his hand, seeing Irene hesitate like that made Evan let out a sigh.
“My lady...”
Click.
At that voice, Irene placed her hand on top of Evan’s.
It was no different from the escort he had offered at the festival and at the ball, and yet the warmth that reached him so plainly now made it feel as though his face were burning.
Irene’s fingers fidgeted as she looked away from Evan and spoke.
“...Let’s go quickly.”
She did not want to go quickly. Hadn’t she sometimes thought the hand he had let go first at the festival was regrettable?
Why? She still did not know the reason. But in this moment, this time spent holding his hand...
Irene wanted it to last just a little longer.
#