Troublemaker of the Training Ground (1)

Harnie was at it again today, scheming her escape from the Theresia Marquisate, her pen scratching busily across the page.

"Lady Harnie, a letter has arrived."

At the maid's announcement, Harnie paused her pen for a moment, let out a quiet sigh, and answered.

"Mina, I told you to just throw all the letters away. None of them are ever any use."

"Pardon? But, my lady—"

"They're all from nobles who come running at nothing but my looks, aren't they?"

Lately it had only grown worse. Word had spread that she now had a fiancé, but nobody seemed willing to believe it, and the Marquis hadn't lifted a finger to stop the rumor from circulating either.

And so, like a disturbed beehive, the men only grew more eager to keep the woman hailed as the most beautiful in the empire at their side, and the letters flooding in doubled and doubled again.

Harnie's expression was already thoroughly sick of it all.

"Uh... I do know that, my lady, but..."

Mina glanced back and forth between Harnie and the letter, at a loss, before speaking up again.

"I don't think this one can simply be thrown away...?"

"Is there such a thing? Every letter I've received since founding my merchant guild comes under the guild master's name."

"That's the thing, my lady... The crest engraved on it... I really don't think it should be discarded..."

"Mina, you'd never say that lightly... What's going on?"

When Harnie, who hadn't even spared the letter a glance as she kept writing, asked again, Mina finally bared her heart.

"Have you never received a letter in your own name, my lady? Something like... an arranged meeting, perhaps?"

Harnie tilted her head, puzzled.

Mina was a maid of the Marquisate whom Harnie had brought in through her merchant guild—one of her own people, not the Marquisate's.

There had to be a reason Mina was emphasizing this letter so insistently.

"Is there anywhere I'd get mail like that?"

Harnie scratched near her lips, thinking hard, racking her memory for anywhere an important letter might arrive. Then, suddenly, it clicked.

"Mi-Mina... whose crest is that, exactly?"

Only then did Mina swallow hard and show her the crest emblazoned plainly on the letter.

"Oh my—"

With that single strangled gasp, Harnie dropped her pen.

Printed boldly across the letter was the crest of the most powerful house in the empire—the Ducal House of Bagrand.

"Haah... And I almost threw this away. What is wrong with me lately?"

"It was an important letter, then?"

"Yes. And it seems it came here by my own mistake, no less."

"You really do have to ask twice with you, my lady."

Setting down her earlier anxiety, Mina handed over the letter along with a letter knife. Harnie broke the seal and read its contents, clutching her chest—she had very nearly made a catastrophic mistake.

"By the way... for the Ducal House of Bagrand to send you a letter, my lady..."

"Yes. It's a contract. With the young lord of Bagrand."

"Will you be all right? He is a man, after all."

To her maid's worried question, Harnie nodded ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with complete confidence.

"There's nothing to worry about. That man only wants to make a deal with me."

"A deal?"

"Yes. He's in a situation much like mine—unacknowledged by his own family, that sort of thing. No, actually, his might be even worse. I may be an illegitimate child, but at least I can lean on my house's name if I have to..."

"Ah..."

Mina let out a sympathetic sigh. It was common knowledge by now that Karsein Bagrand was a child the duke's family had simply picked up off the street.

"That's probably why young Lord Karsein's goal is the same as mine. And he won't harbor any of that... hidden ambition, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the way other men do."

"So he really was the perfect match for you, my lady."

"Exactly."

A picked-up stray he might be, but he was still of the Ducal House of Bagrand. The very name that had cast its shadow across the entire empire was enough to make most men think twice.

"You should spend time with your fiancé as soon as possible, my lady. There's a party coming up that would be perfect for it!"

"I should... but after seeing today's letter, I think I'll have to wait a little longer."

"Pardon?"

"Apparently I'm to stay at the ducal house for a while."

Harnie showed Mina the letter's contents.

"That man has an incredibly sharp mind. He isn't the type to waste time on trifles like this."

"Is that so?"

"The problem is... there's apparently quite a lot he wants to teach me. Haha..."

A clever man, but there's a lot he needs to teach me? Wondering what on earth that was supposed to mean, Mina tilted her head in confusion.

Ugh... how am I supposed to explain this one.

Harnie herself was fretting over how on earth she was going to explain this arrangement—precisely because of Karsein's frighteningly clever head.

That evening.

I made my way to the Annex, half convinced there was no way Claire could have actually gone through with nailing it shut. No matter what had happened between us, surely this went too far.

The Bagrand ducal house oversaw so many businesses that counting them on ten fingers didn't come close to covering it. Closing off a guest annex so no trade partners could be received? Impossible.

...Except the impossible had happened. That crazy lunatic Claire had actually boarded the Annex shut.

Just in case, I had dropped by the Annex anyway and returned hollowed out, only to run into Shayden.

"I had gone to your room to administer treatment, but it appears you had visited the Annex in the meantime."

Shayden had more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠or less guessed where I'd been.

"Whatever happened, that doesn't justify it. Why nail up an innocent building?"

"The ducal house has plenty of other buildings besides the Annex, after all. Besides, even if guests don't lodge there, it's no great loss. Everyone seems so wary of offending the Ducal House of Bagrand."

According to him, most visitors stayed at the inn near the ducal residence. The ducal house carried that much weight—if told not to lodge at the Annex and to stay there instead, people simply paid for a night there.

Goddamn it.

So that's why Claire said what she did.

I didn't need to ponder why she could get away with it. Thanks to that lunatic, I'd spent the walk back to my room racking my brain for alternatives before I could sleep.

"Hmm. I'd say the wound needs a few more applications of the medicine before it fully heals."

The next morning, when Shayden came with my porridge, he examined the afflicted area and said as much.

"The other young ladies suffer terribly when the inside of their mouths breaks open like this, yet you seem entirely unbothered, my lord."

"I just need to endure it a few days. What's the big deal?"

"It can hardly be such simple pain..."

While applying the medicine, Shayden watched me—with no reaction whatsoever to the treatment—with newfound astonishment in his eyes.

There's no way it hurts at this point. Not anymore.

The thing people commonly call mouth ulcers. My cheek had gone white and raw with inflammation, and apparently they'd assumed I wouldn't be able to eat at all—but having been through far worse, it didn't hurt especially much.

Even before I transmigrated, I'd gotten mouth ulcers all the time. Partly from getting beaten like now, partly from carving sleep into scraps studying late into the night, partly from the sheer grind of working part-time jobs.

So this kind of pain was familiar enough that it barely registered.

...No, actually. Maybe it's that medicine from the modern world that did it.

That flash of agony—or pleasure(?)—the instant a cotton swab soaked in that stuff touched the sore. Maybe I'd simply adapted to that pain more than anything else.

"Then I shall see you again tomorrow, my lord."

Having finished the treatment, Shayden bowed and turned to leave. It was about time I said something to this old man.

"Don't come tomorrow."

"But the wound has not yet closed..."

"It's nearly healed anyway. And besides, starting tomorrow, I won't be here."

At the words not here, Shayden caught on immediately.

"But my lord... you cannot enter the Annex."

"Yeah. I confirmed that myself."

"Then surely you don't mean... to sleep in the streets?"

"Relax. I have no intention of sleeping in the streets."

"Then where, exactly..."

I waved Shayden off with both hands and ordered him to get going. He clearly looked beside himself with worry, convinced I really would end up sleeping rough—but unlike at the coming-of-age ceremony, this time I had my answer.

After all, my destination is the training grounds to begin with.

A reason like that was more than enough to avoid crossing paths with those women.

Dressed and ready, I moved at an hour carefully chosen so the family wouldn't catch me. Let me lay out the current situation.

I had weathered the opening crisis of Episode V and tied Emma's hands. Flora, who could interfere in the training grounds episode, would not come looking for me for three days. The rest of the family was the same—I intended to take my own measures at the training grounds, so I would be avoiding all of them.

The most troublesome one here was, of course, Emma.

Thanks to Claire, she'd been branded the culprit—but I had no proof either. Even though I'd provoked her into getting reckless, she was still the head maid of the ducal house, holding rank and power to match within its walls.

If I tried to manufacture a crime against Emma through anything further, I would be the one to suffer for it. In the game I'd attempted every which way to deal with Emma, and failed every single time.

In other words, from my position as the ducal house's picked-up stray, there was no driving out Emma, who was still only at the suspected stage.

A foe who won't fall easily. But I'm not about to waste this window of time either.

She'd been the most formidable opponent in the game as well, which meant I had to prepare thoroughly. I needed a method beyond anything tried before—a weapon to seize irrefutable proof and break her with it.

And that was exactly why I was walking into this place of my own will.

Is this the line?

The ducal residence and the training grounds. I stood on the border that divided the two. In the game, the moment you crossed this point, the map's name changed.

Step over this line, and the long-awaited Episode V—Troublemaker of the Training Ground—would begin.

"The training grounds... Whew. This'll be a rough one."

How long had it been since I defused Camilla's Dead Trigger? Less than a week, probably.

But the moment I stepped across this line, a Dead Trigger would activate immediately. And to survive, I would have to seek it out myself and lay the groundwork in advance.

I stared at the status window for a while, checked the progress panel showing the episode underway and my abysmal stats, and steadied my nerves with a deep breath.

And then, one step.

I put my foot forward.

With the notification chime, a progress window that had never appeared before sprang into view.

What a merciless setup. As if merely entering the training grounds weren't enough, I was expected to carry on conversations with the knights, too.

Having already set foot inside, there was no other way. I walked, and walked again. There was nothing for it but to face them head-on.

"Hey. Look over there."

"Good lord. Would you look at that face."

As my steps carried me toward the entrance of the training grounds, every gaze across the broad, sprawling training yard snapped straight toward me.

It was the kind of cold reception that could freeze solid every drop of sweat poured out in training.

Can't blame them, I suppose. Karsein cut a man down at the training grounds.

Even if it was only a story within a game, cutting a man down wasn't something anyone could just gloss over. And these weren't just anyone—they were knights.

Knights brimming with pride. Knights bound in service to the Ducal House of Bagrand, no less. The mere fact that one of their own had been cut down would be enough to enrage them.

And on top of that, the perpetrator was a commoner stray taken in by a duchess who'd happened to lose her mind. Merely looking at him would make their blood boil.

No—it was entirely possible the knight order itself had never accepted him at all.

As if to prove it, their affinity boxes were utterly different from those in the ducal residence.

To the left of the ordinary white box, the bar stretched a little further, striped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠over in gray.

That was no ordinary affinity box. A gray box—worse than 0%, damaged so badly that even restoring it to neutral had become harder still.

So-called negative status.

"Well, well. What brings the illustrious young lord of Bagrand to the training grounds?"

Right on cue, the provocation came. The man who sauntered up sneering didn't blink once as he flashed me a mocking smile.

But for all the grin on his face, every blade in him was bared—one wrong word and he looked ready to do something on the spot.

And in truth, that's exactly how it goes. Touch him wrong in that state, and it's an instant bad ending.

So I couldn't act the way I had in the ducal residence. But standing by silently wasn't an option either.

The choice had appeared.