Chapter 37
Chapter 37
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: The Emperor's Shadow
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The girl had watched everything.
She had observed the scene of the new knight—whom His Majesty the Emperor had ordered her to monitor closely—unilaterally toying with the other knight commander in their duel.
She had watched as this fresh recruit, who had just joined the order, defeated the knight commander serving His Majesty, acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world, utterly unfazed.
She had watched his flawless attack motions without a single wasted movement, his defensive motions that repelled every incoming strike, and his seamless chain of continuous actions flowing like water.
And the Emperor had watched it all as well.
“……Have you confirmed everything, Your Majesty?”
Atop a tree overlooking the training grounds in full view. A girl wearing a black hood over her upper body and black leather garb beneath muttered into empty air.
Blink. Her eyes flickered once, independent of her own will. The girl nodded as if to acknowledge it.
Beneath her eyelids, a pair of sharp golden eyes gleamed.
The girl bowed her head toward the empty air in courtesy, then bowed even deeper, as if someone had just issued her a command.
“Yes. Understood, Your Majesty. I shall obey Your Majesty's will.”
This time, the girl blinked of her own volition. When her eyes opened again, the golden irises were gone.
Literally, there was nothing in the places where pupils should have been. Just two pitch-black empty sockets, enough to send chills down anyone's spine.
Despite being unable to see a thing, the girl descended the tree slowly, stepping and grasping branches one by one with familiar hand and foot movements.
There were no missed grabs or slips. At a glance, she seemed even more stable than someone with two working eyes.
Before long, she landed lightly on the ground and quietly lowered her stance. She halted all movement and listened to the sounds around her.
The sound of wind whipping through the trees. The rustle of fallen leaves. The swaying of branches. Her own breathing in and out.
No sounds of other humans.
It was a relief there were no witnesses to deal with this time. With that thought, the girl secured the dagger hidden beneath her wrist—ready to draw if needed—back into her waistband.
The girl's attire was utterly bizarre. A black hood pulled all the way over her head on top, clinging black leather armor as her upper garment.
Her lower half was clad in something indistinguishable as either underwear or pants—shorter than men's boxer shorts, hugging tight enough to reveal the full outline of her hips.
Though clearly barefoot, her feet were strangely pristine.
‘No people…… still none.’
Confirming once more by sound that no one was around, the girl unclasped her necklace, held it in her hand, and activated it. An artifact bestowed upon her by His Majesty the Emperor.
Her clothing began to change. The hood and leather armor and pants, which had felt like fine, clean fabric, vanished. In their place appeared filthy, tattered rags.
With the hood gone, the hair neatly hidden within cascaded out. Glossy black locks, barely reaching her shoulders, swayed near her neck against her pale skin.
The girl was naked.
Her modest chest, collarbone line, toned abdomen, soft-looking sides, intimate feminine areas, and slender thighs were all fully exposed, yet her face showed no trace of embarrassment.
She weighed down the rags with a nearby rock, then threw herself onto the dirt floor, rolling vigorously to coat her entire body in dust. Mud and sand clung thickly.
After rolling for quite some time, she rose. The pristine girl from moments ago was gone; now there was only a filthy little girl with disheveled hair and her whole body caked in dirt.
‘Now for the clothes.’
Now a beggar in an instant, she picked up the rock-weighted rags and rolled them mercilessly on the dirt floor. When finished, they looked no different from true scraps of junk.
She wrapped them around herself. Covering her thighs, waist, chest, arms, and shoulders. The last piece she wound around her head, concealing her face and hair.
‘Perfect.’
Though she couldn't see it herself, the girl was confident inwardly that she looked indistinguishable from a street beggar.
And rightly so—her current appearance blended seamlessly with that class of people.
No one could imagine that, just moments ago, she had been clad in the finest leather, flaunting inescapable beauty while surveilling someone.
The only difference, perhaps, was that even under this dirt-caked beggar guise, her delicately pretty features couldn't be fully hidden.
The girl rummaged nearby and snapped off a branch of suitable thickness and length. She swung it through the air a few times. This would suffice as a walking stick.
Truth be told, she could walk like any ordinary person without it, but to accomplish her task ahead, she absolutely had to appear as a common blind beggar.
‘His Majesty's final order was…… to watch that new knight from close up, no matter what, without revealing my identity.’
The Golden Knight had been bait, after all. There was no way His Majesty would truly assign such an idiot as a surveillance agent. The fool thought he had an important duty and was thrilled, but His Majesty had never even expected anything from him.
Just one thing. His Majesty had predicted that sending him to the Silver Dawn Knights would lead the man's personality to inevitably provoke the newbie—and His Majesty's insight had proven spot-on.
Thanks to that, she had observed the new knight's abilities even more clearly, fulfilling her role.
Covering even her lower face with the remaining cloth, the girl picked up a small wooden bowl in one hand and, tapping her staff deliberately, groped her way forward.
She exited the small forest inside the city, following the path she had memorized from atop the tree, slowly entering a back alley. Whispers from people spotting her reached her ears.
Of course, she paid them no mind. She had come down here precisely so they would look at her with those eyes.
‘Here.’
Stopping at the end of an alley, the girl leaned against the wall and sank to the ground, curling up. She drew her knees tight to her chest, placing the wooden bowl in front.
It was the perfect picture of a beggar pleading for coins—though naturally, that wasn't her real purpose.
‘The knight commanders pass through here regularly.’
That was the conclusion from observing the entire city over two days by borrowing "eyes." The patrolling knight commanders always followed the same route. And this very alley was part of it.
Having only recently started patrols, they would pass soon. With her head bowed, the girl felt the faint ground vibrations from each passing step.
She had chosen a spot with the fewest people. Aside from a few other beggars, hardly anyone came through here.
She had already memorized their strides and voices. All that remained was waiting.
‘……’
How long had she waited, face buried between her knees, sensing only the vibrations? At last, a familiar voice drifted from afar.
The girl perked her ears, listening intently. A cold voice and a calm one.
‘Right is Iris. Left is Erica.’
Finally identifying them, the girl quietly rose. Staff in one hand, empty wooden bowl in the other.
Standing flush against the wall, she waited for the knight commanders to approach—then, just before Iris and Erica passed the alley mouth, she darted right in front of them.
“Kyaa!”
She collided dramatically with Erica, deliberately tumbling to the ground. As she rolled, she snapped the staff and flung the wooden bowl far away.
“Huh, what was th—”
“S-Sorry! Sorry! Please forgive me! Sorry!”
Before Erica could grasp the situation, the girl flattened herself on the ground, bowing her head and trembling pitifully to appear as wretched as possible.
Seeing the girl shaking like a leaf aspen, Erica froze. Iris, who had gone to retrieve the distant bowl, froze as well.
“Um…… you don’t need to tremble like that. We’re not going to do anything to you.”
Erica said cautiously.
The girl lifted her head, face a mask of misery. Erica and Iris flinched at the sight of two gaping black voids where eyes should be.
“S-Sorry. Sorry. I-I haven’t eaten in days, so I’m so hungry……”
Erica and Iris exchanged awkward glances. A blind girl, no less. They should have noticed and avoided her first. It was clearly their fault.
“……What should we do, Iris?”
“I…… don’t really know. It’s our mistake anyway, so we should help her somehow.”
“Should we take her to the castle? She hasn’t eaten in days, so we can have the kitchens fill her up.”
“That sounds best. I’ll finish patrolling the remaining area. Erica, you take this girl back to the castle.”
“Got it, Iris. Um…… miss? Can you stand?”
Hearing she would be taken to the castle, the girl—head bowed out of their sight—curled her lips into a smile.
Both Erica and Iris, shocked by her appearance and distracted by her pitiably groveling apologies, had failed to notice one thing.
No matter how suddenly she appeared, Erica was not the type to bump into some beggar. A normal beggar, and Erica would have spotted and sidestepped her effortlessly.
The accident happened because this girl before them had approached so swiftly and stealthily that even their instincts failed to detect her.
The two hadn’t realized it.