The Noble Knight (3)
Something that should never have been possible had come to pass.
No—something that must not happen had occurred.
"…Why?"
Elena, collapsed on the cold floor, slowly lifted her head.
Before her stood the lord she had once served, looking down at her.
Is that all you can do?
A familiar voice replayed in her mind.
She knew it was something from the past. Not merely an old memory, either—an event that had been erased by her regression through time. And yet the recollection remained buried deep in her chest, still tormenting her.
I have to prove myself.
Elena's eyes wavered as she looked at him. She no longer had the strength to rise. It had been an attack launched with every last scrap of power she possessed. She hadn't meant to wound him—only to shatter the sparring grounds and force his surrender.
But he had displayed some unknown power and, for all to see, casually nullified her strike.
Thump—
She could feel the flames of her ability, which had been racing wildly as if to burst from her heart, slowly dying out. She had released everything. It would not return for some time.
Feeling her sun-red hair bleach white, Elena opened her mouth.
"Just how……"
Even speaking was difficult—a rebound from forcing out all her strength. But Sirius, looking down at her with eyes cold enough to sting, answered simply, as if he already knew what she meant to say.
"I simply swung my sword."
"……That's a lie."
Even as the denial left her lips, Elena felt a sense of wrongness. In all the long years she had spent with him, had she ever once seen him tell a lie?
Sirius asked her,
"You can't believe it?"
"…My sword wasn't something you should have been able to stop."
She had poured years of accumulated heat into her blade. That immense power was not even something she herself could properly wield. So how had Sirius—called the stain of the Everharts—managed to block it? She already knew his combat ability was pathetic.
"How on earth did you……"
Instead of answering, Sirius asked her a question of his own.
"Do you refuse to admit defeat?"
"……!"
His inorganic words became a dagger that pierced her chest, already gone cold.
"…No."
She had no choice but to lower her head. Defeat was defeat. She was not so ugly a person as to refuse to acknowledge the result.
"I… admit my… defeat."
She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists until they nearly crushed. The cold words she knew would soon come from him terrified her so much. That was why she had denied it—why she had insisted this could not happen, that it was impossible.
But she had lost, and the moment she had wanted to avoid found her as if by fate.
"……"
What cruel words would he use to toy with her this time? Elena closed her eyes and waited for the harsh words to leave his lips.
But contrary to all her expectations, what Sirius spoke was not contempt or insult directed at her—but a single warm phrase.
"Well done. Good work."
"……!"
Hearing those words, Elena's eyes flew wide and she lifted her head.
What did I just hear?
Good work?
…Was I acknowledged?
Why? He had never recognized her in the past, no matter how hard she had worked—so why now?
Elena looked at Sirius with eyes full of questions. She would get no answer. He had already turned his back and was walking away.
"…Why?"
In her fading consciousness, Elena wondered. She no longer cared about Sirius's incomprehensible strength. What astonished her far more was that he had acknowledged her—that he had affirmed her efforts.
…Maybe I really was lacking.
Elena recalled the past. Even when she had honed her skills with a diligence she could proudly call greater than anyone else's, all that had returned to her was cold contempt. Back then she had simply believed it was because of her origins—that as the daughter of a rural baronial house, she had failed to please a great noble.
But the side of him she had just witnessed shook that belief. A suspicion began to take root—that it hadn't been about her birth at all, that her skill had simply been insufficient.
"……"
Spent of all strength, Elena hung her head. In the darkening of her consciousness, she thought,
Maybe this life……
Elena was no genius. She was merely an ordinary talent who had returned to the past with a lifetime of hard-earned skill and was pretending to be a prodigy. But if the fruits of that effort had been acknowledged now—then perhaps her discarded past had not been so worthless after all.
…Couldn't things be different?
He had acknowledged her. That alone made her feel as if a lifetime of effort had been rewarded.
…Should I try once more?
She wanted to confirm it. She wanted to stand at his side once more and find out for certain—whether her efforts could truly be recognized.
Sirius……
Murmuring the name of the man who had once been her lord, Elena's consciousness faded to black.
A place thick with the smell of medicine.
The Academy's infirmary.
There, I quietly looked down at Elena, asleep in the bed.
"……"
She slept soundly, looking peaceful—a faint smile, as if she were having a pleasant dream. I had expected her to be seething after losing to me, but it seemed my worry had been excessive.
"…Elena."
I reached out and brushed her hair, now bleached pure white. When she had first stepped onto the sparring grounds it had been red, but exhausting her ability completely had dyed it white. More precisely, the color had drained from it.
I withdrew my hand and prepared to leave.
"I'll leave her in your care."
"Y-yes! Understood!"
Leaving the doctor trembling at the name Everhart behind me, I opened the infirmary door.
The Academy's broad corridor was empty. Most of the students were currently watching the ongoing entrance exams—which was also how I had been able to come see Elena's face.
I walked slowly down the corridor, lost in thought.
Elena was the protagonist of the author Megumi's work, I Won't Be Abandoned in This Life.
As the title suggested, she was a regressor who had seized a second chance. In her first life she had gone unacknowledged and been discarded by her lord; returning to the past, she corrected her wrong choices and came to serve a far more outstanding, magnificent master. In the process, her former lord became obsessed with her and clung to her desperately. That was the kind of novel it was.
The classic "ditch the clunker for a Benz" type of story. Among Megumi's works, it was one of the more popular.
Of course, for a no-name author's representative work, how high could the view count really be? I had been the only person to leave a comment on the final afterword, so it wouldn't have been strange to call myself the sole reader.
Anyway, as one could guess from the plot, the person who had been her lord was Sirius Everhart—the name of the extra whose body I had possessed.
At this point, even calling him an extra felt wrong. Even across works that shared a world, he appeared with some weight in three separate titles; that made him closer to a supporting character than a pure extra.
Well—extra or supporting cast, now that I had possessed him, none of that mattered anymore. I had no intention of behaving like an extra.
The afterword.
After every story had ended, Elena was abandoned by her new lord and by her family.
…Was I still nothing more than a worthless existence?
Sold off to an underground fighting ring after being cast out by her family, with countless spectators crying out for her death—I remembered the last words she had spoken.
Ah… I just wanted to be loved.
I had no intention of letting her meet the same ending as in the original.
There's plenty of time.
The path to saving her from ruin was simple. If she became my knight, she could avoid the bad ending.
I calmly walked on, thinking of what I needed to prepare for that purpose.
First, return to the mansion and meet with Shadow……
"So this is where you were."
Then a voice called out to me. I turned my head to see who it was.
"I've been looking for you for quite some time."
There stood a beautiful figure with hair that shone like gold and golden eyes that sparkled like stars, gazing at me. Those features were the symbols that marked the master of this empire, and so my head bowed of its own accord. The disciplined etiquette ingrained in Sirius's body revealed itself fully.
"Your Highness the Imperial Princess."
"Where have you been?"
"……"
I gave no answer to her question. As if finding my silence interesting, the princess smiled.
"Silence before me. Amusing."
"What is it you need, Your Highness?"
This was the hour when the other applicants' entrance exams were being held. In an age when watching fights was the greatest entertainment, seeking me out while leaving such an interesting event behind meant she wanted something.
And thankfully, the princess did not beat around the bush; she cut straight to the point.
"I won't waste words. You—become my subordinate."
Her golden eyes sparkled. It was the same look as a child picking up a banknote found on the roadside.
"Is there something you desire? Follow me, and I shall prepare anything."
Saying this made me sound a bit narcissistic, but I was a noble. Most of what I wanted could be obtained by simply telling a servant or butler. But the woman before me couldn't be unaware of that. So the "something you desire" she spoke of meant things I could not immediately obtain—things that did not belong to that "most."
"Why me?"
At my question, the princess laughed as if entertained.
"Whether you're being modest or testing me… the martial prowess you displayed in the duel. Anyone who sees something like that naturally wants to possess it."
The princess took a step forward. She slowly approached me and extended her hand.
"Follow me. Fight for me here at the Academy."
She licked her red lips and smiled.
"Well? Is it not an excessive honor?"
Her hand was placed before my eyes. If I took that hand and kissed the back of it, it would mean I agreed to follow her.
But I had not the slightest intention of serving her.
"I must decline."
I rejected her proposal without hesitation.
"Very well, I'll leave it to— eh?"
I could see the princess staring at me with a blank, dumbfounded face.