What Does This Have to Do with Favorability?
What does this have to do with favorability?
Clack!
The shovel struck something hard.
Thinking it was a rock, I checked—and something glittered in the soil.
“Oh.”
It looked like the corner of a chest, finished in metal.
“Lord Daywin, have you found something? I still don’t know what we’re looking for, but…!”
Blash seemed even more delighted by my reaction and came running over.
“Kaine! Over here! Dig this spot out and let’s finish this!”
“Yes, Commander.”
The two Holy Knights pressed in beside me and dug with frantic energy.
I, too, wrung the last strength from a body already exhausted from emptying my mana and then shoveling on top of it.
Clunk—
Deep in the hole we uncovered a treasure chest.
This world was a game, so by game standards it looked like a bronze-tier reward chest.
Something was inside, sure, but it didn’t look especially impressive.
That kind of chest.
Better not get my hopes up.
Creeeak—
With that thought, I carefully lifted the lid.
At the same time the two Holy Knights leaned in over my shoulder to peer inside.
“…….”
After checking the contents, we simply looked at one another in silence.
“There’s nothing in it.”
The long silence was broken first by the Silver Knight, Kaine, restoring a sense of reality.
“Yeah. Nothing.”
Blash agreed right after.
Then both of them tossed their shovels aside.
The light that had formed the shovels melted away like mist.
The two Holy Knights wore expressions that said they couldn’t believe I had cleared snow and dug dirt just to pull out this useless box.
I had been a junior once myself, however briefly, so I was privately pleased to have scored a petty bit of revenge on my two senior commanders.
But the chest was empty.
That was how it looked to the two of them.
To me, however—
1,000 Coins obtained!
Held Coins: 5,200
A message window appeared.
When I casually checked the map as well, the chest icon had been erased.
And now that I looked properly, I noticed the chest icons weren’t all the same.
Scattered here and there were icons drawn with more care than the one that had just vanished.
Those were probably better rewards.
From now on, picking only the flashy chests might be a viable strategy.
Anyway, the system window.
The reward for a treasure chest found on Julian’s estate was a thousand coins.
That was the content.
A thousand coins was no longer a particularly large sum to me, but better than nothing.
Just enough compensation for the shoveling, more or less.
I did need coins right now.
The Favorability Scouter’s fifth stage.
The final upgrade.
Raising it to its ultimate specifications cost ten thousand.
Best to keep setting some aside little by little.
When I checked the upgrade tree, though, the fifth stage—the terminal specs—wasn’t what I had expected.
Unlocks ‘2× Speed, AUTO, Pause’ functions.
— All three functions can operate even outside of dialogue windows.
Cost: 10,000 Coins
Speed, Auto, Pause.
Essential features if this were an otome game.
A bishoujo dating sim was, at its core, a game where you picked choices beneath a dialogue box under 2D images, wasn’t it?
Functions that let you speed through that dialogue, run it automatically, or pause it.
For an otome game whose script volume dwarfed other genres, they were indispensable.
But these three functions would work even outside of dialogue windows.
Did that mean I could speed up or freeze not just conversations, but everything?
I wouldn’t know how important it was until I got it, but—
What does this have to do with favorability…?
It’s just a magic eye.
I was still only halfway to ten thousand coins, but now that I knew the chests marked on the map also dropped coins, if I kept moving like this I would gather them eventually.
“Will you tell us now?”
Blash asked while I was thinking.
“How you did it.”
“I just gathered them all in one place and set them off. That’s all.”
“I understand that much, but… are you saying explosives powerful enough to obliterate an entire castle existed? And if they did, why are you unharmed, Lord Daywin?”
Blash poured out the questions he had been holding back all at once, but I had nothing else to offer him.
“It wasn’t explosives. I simply used Release Magic.”
“Release Magic?”
“Yes. You two should know it.”
“If you mean Release Magic, surely not the basic technique of Holy Knights? Simply discharging holy power….”
“Yes. That.”
“That shouldn’t be capable of this level of destructive force.”
“If you pour every last drop of holy power into it, it is possible. As you can see.”
“No—I meant I didn’t know there was anyone who could do that. Just how much holy power do you even….”
Blash shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it.
“I thought the magic was good because its usage is simple and straightforward.”
“Yes. Studying is best done with prep and review, and if there’s no bread you just eat meat, isn’t that right?”
Even the Silver Knight, who had been listening quietly until now, chimed in.
“It’s not easy for me either. Thanks to that, my holy power is almost completely drained. It’ll take quite some time to recover.”
“An ordinary Holy Knight couldn’t even attempt something like this, recovery aside.”
The Silver Knight cast her gaze toward a lonely fragment of castle wall that still hung there, only a corner remaining, as if to prove it had once existed.
“Ah. I am Deputy Commander Kaineation. I do my utmost to assist the Commander.”
The Silver Knight introduced herself belatedly.
Come to think of it, I had been so absorbed in the chest that we hadn’t even exchanged names.
I already knew the name, but the Silver Knight’s full name was as strange as Akikira’s.
I didn’t even know if it was her real name.
In my previous life the Silver Knight and I….
We hadn’t been on particularly good terms.
If anything, we had been on bad terms.
Clasp—
I took the massive right hand she offered and gave it a light squeeze.
Raking through my memories, this seemed to be the first time the Silver Knight had ever freely held out her hand to me.
Of course she had no memory of it, but treating the me of my previous life and the me of now as completely different people still felt awkward—and a little sad.
It wasn’t only the Silver Knight; every figure from the Order was like that.
Somehow it was more bittersweet when someone I hadn’t gotten along with looked at me kindly now than when people I had been close with failed to remember me.
Perhaps because it proved that if only a few things had gone differently in the previous life, we might have gotten along well.
“I heard you told Chris that you needed me.”
“Ah, yes.”
“But I don’t understand. Why would someone as strong as you seek me out?”
“First, I needed strong support—and luckily I was able to subdue things on my own.”
“First?”
And of course I couldn’t mention that the abilities I had gained from the otome game—Simulation and the Scouter—had made me more useful than in my previous life.
“What’s the second?”
The second was because of something Oskar had said.
The Silver Knight was a Holy Knight contracted with the Spirit of Abundance.
“I’m raising a student who has contracted with the Spirit of Abundance. I wanted to meet you and ask you to give her instruction.”
“A student?”
When the Silver Knight tilted her helmet with a rough metallic scrape, Blash relayed that I had ties to the Academy.
“I see. The same Abundance as me…. That student will have a hard time as well.”
The Silver Knight nodded and continued.
“If you need me, I can offer instruction, but my contract terms are not ordinary, so I’m not sure how much help I would be….”
“All right, that’s enough.”
Blash cut her off and stepped closer to me.
He seemed somehow displeased that the Silver Knight had gone ahead and agreed on her own.
“Before that, there is something I must tell you first. It’s about the Death God Cult. We’ve learned information during our investigation, and I would like to hear your opinion as well, Lord Daywin.”
Investigation, was it.
There had been no word since we last shared information, but it seemed they hadn’t simply been sitting idle.
“Yes, understood. And I didn’t expect even the Commander to come, but I also had something I needed to say.”
“As expected, Lord Daywin has also learned more about the Death God Cult….”
“I recently received a letter from Ester, and life in the Sisterhood doesn’t seem to be treating her well. What is going on?”
“Ah.”
“If my memory serves, you said you would take responsibility if anything happened to Ester.”
“Ah, that is… as I mentioned, recently because of the investigation….”
Blash fumbled and dodged, then finally hung his head.
“I apologize. I will see to it. You entrusted her to me, and I have no excuse.”
“If the situation continues to be a burden on you, Commander, I will take Ester back myself. We can treat raising her in the Order as if it never happened.”
“No, no!”
Blash hurriedly waved both hands.
Recently—for whatever reason—Ester had ignited a fierce will to study and had begun catching up to the Sisterhood candidates. Blash had heard the news.
She had only just started producing results; he could not abandon Ester here.
“I will take special care of her. Of Ester, and of the student you just mentioned as well. Kaine will teach her well.”
“Pardon? That student is already being tormented by the same spirit, so I had been thinking the same… Commander?”
When Blash suddenly became submissive over the matter of Ester, the Silver Knight looked back and forth between us in thorough confusion.
“Very well. Let’s continue the discussion tomorrow.”
I intended to return to Grand Duke Oskar at once, so I arranged to meet them again on that side the next day.
“Understood. But is now difficult?”
“I’m not showing it much, but I’ve reached my limit. I’d like to rest a little today. And regarding the Death God Cult, I need to organize my thoughts a bit as well.”
“I… understand. We shall see you again tomorrow.”
Blash bowed his head, and the Silver Knight followed suit.
After Daywin had left, on Julian’s estate.
Blash and the Silver Knight were discussing whether to investigate Julian’s lands further or to follow Daywin down toward Oskar’s territory.
Just then.
A gray-haired beauty of a girl came running toward them.
“You’re the Holy Knights, right?”
When she asked without preamble, Blash nodded.
Then the Silver Knight whispered to him.
“She seems to be the student mentioned earlier.”
The Silver Knight stared fixedly at the frog-shaped coin purse hanging from Veronica’s waist and added,
“The student who made Chris write that letter.”
“I see. I’ve already heard the story. So you’re his student.”
Blash nodded and approached.
“You’ve heard about me…? Then that means he….”
“Ah. He said he was going to Grand Duke Oskar’s estate to rest. It seems your paths crossed without meeting.”
“He’s alive….”
“Hm?”
“He’s alive….”
As if the two Holy Knights weren’t even there, Veronica lowered her head and broke into a bright smile.
“Yes, he’s alive. Not exactly lively, but. Veronica, was it?”
“Yes? Ah, yes.”
“He recommended you to the Deputy Commander. Asked her to educate you.”
Clang—
When Blash clapped the Silver Knight roughly on the shoulder, the metallic sound rang out widely.
“The Deputy Commander? Then this person is….”
“A Holy Knight known as the Silver Knight.”
Blash answered in Kaine’s place as if snatching the words from her, and Veronica’s face filled with surprise at the unexpected news.
“I am Deputy Commander Kaineation. I am lacking, but I look forward to working with you.”
The Silver Knight offered the same courteous greeting she had given Daywin.
“Thank… you.”
And Veronica bowed even more deeply than the Silver Knight—bending nearly double—to express her gratitude.
Bring the Silver Knight.
Daywin had clearly said so.
And the fact that the Silver Knight was here meant he had succeeded.
Everything Veronica had done after leaving the South had not been in vain.
She had been drowning in guilt for having fled alone.
But the Silver Knight was here.
He was unharmed.
“Thank you.”
Still bowing her head, Veronica spoke with all her heart.
“Ahaha! Being able to learn directly from Kaine is a fine opportunity even by my reckoning! But your thanks shouldn’t go to Kaine—they should go to the one who sponsors you….”
“Thank you for saving him… truly… thank you.”