The Cool Sword Demon Is Jealous
The original’s cold, cool, one-armed sword demon Karin was pinching my side and fuming because she hated me talking to another woman.
If things kept going like this, the atmosphere at Veronica’s birthday party was going to freeze solid.
“Haa… When big brother takes a dump, it’s always the little brother’s job to clean it up.”
I grumbled as I loosened the necktie of my too-tight formal banquet suit a fraction.
Then I gave a light tap on the shoulder of Karin, who stood stiffly beside me, eyes fixed on the guests with a rigid expression.
“Let’s earn our keep. We’ve got two freeloaders here—can’t let the Grand Duke’s residence lose face, right?”
“……Understood. We can’t ruin the young lady’s birthday.”
We exchanged a glance, then threw ourselves into the middle of the banquet hall to soothe the boredom and discontent of the guests in earnest.
“All right, everyone! Your attention, please!”
I vaulted up onto the central table of the reception room, a large goblet in one hand.
My rough, unrefined looks and gravelly voice instantly drew every nobleman’s gaze.
“His Grace is still recovering from the fatigue of the Northern Wall and is resting for a short while! In his place, I, Bale—who rolled around that Wall with him for a full year—will give you the raw, unfiltered stories from the front!”
I grinned with shameless charm and launched into exaggerated war tales of life on the Wall.
“So there I was, right? The Outlanders were climbing the walls, and me being crow-eyed, I couldn’t read the damn orders! So I just started stabbing every gut that came into sight with my spear! Thought I’d missed and killed the wrong guy… turns out it was one of His Grace’s own scouts! Hahahaha! Nearly made the war drag on longer because of me.”
My self-deprecating gag—laughing heartily while tearing down my own illiteracy and stupidity—cracked the stiff noblemen. They clutched their bellies and roared with laughter.
“Hahaha! If you hadn’t saved His Grace’s life, we’d all be in deep trouble!”
“Come on, tell us the proper technique for gutting them with a spear!”
Men crowded around me, a noisy drinking circle forming in an instant, and the banquet hall’s atmosphere flared hot.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the hall—
“Oh my, Sir Karin, was it? How can your posture be so gallant and magnificent?”
“I hear you won the swordsmanship tournament of Libertry County? I wish you’d teach our family’s useless knights a thing or two. Hohoho.”
Young ladies and noblewomen flocked around Karin like a cloud, drawn to her neatly uniformed figure.
Her trademark taciturn, cool charisma, combined with the unexpectedly gentle answers she gave, had the socialite wives completely smitten with the handsome female knight gimmick.
“You flatter me, my ladies. I am merely a sword that serves the young lady.”
When Karin offered a faint smile and bowed politely, the women erupted in delighted squeals.
And so, thanks to the tireless efforts of us two freeloaders, the first-floor banquet hall grew lively and grand enough that the Grand Duke’s absence was barely felt.
At the same moment, inside Veronica’s cozy bedroom on the fifth floor—
“Once upon a time, a brave knight who passed the magic castle…”
Grand Duke Gareth sat at the bedside, a thick fairy-tale book open in his hands, reading to his daughter in a somewhat clumsy yet infinitely tender voice.
“……”
Beside him, Lady Rebecca sat quietly.
Though the feelings between husband and wife remained frozen solid, for this moment alone she forced a peaceful smile and stayed by her daughter’s side.
“Daddy, does that knight have lots of scars like Uncle Bale?”
Veronica’s eyes sparkled as she asked. Gareth chuckled and lightly pinched the tip of her nose.
“No, that knight is very handsome and dashing—just like Daddy.”
“Lucky princess.”
At Veronica’s grumble, Gareth and Rebecca both burst into soft laughter together.
The precarious fifth floor of the Grand Ducal house.
And the two commoner knights sweating and performing downstairs, desperately trying to hold the crisis at bay.
Perhaps this was the last ordinary, warm night the Arteta Grand Ducal family would ever be granted, and it was growing deeper still.
On the eve of Lady Veronica’s birthday, the welcome banquet at the Grand Duke’s residence was drawing to a successful close.
Despite the disaster of the Grand Duke’s absence, Bale and Karin’s all-out fighting spirit had completely washed away the discontent of the northern vassals and noble guests.
“Hahaha! Sir Bale! You must visit my territory sometime! I want to hear more about how you cut down those Outlanders at the Wall!”
“Sir Karin, our family’s knight-commander post is vacant—have you ever considered a serious career change? Haha!”
The guests rose with satisfied smiles, heading off to their guest rooms.
Just as the warm wrap-up seemed complete—
“Oh my, Count. Leaving already? Shall I escort you to your room? If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to tell me.”
Helena, who had spent the entire night stewing in a corner like a decorative screen, suddenly slipped forward the moment the guests began to leave, brazenly acting as if she were the lady of the house.
It was a transparent ploy to advertise that she—the one who enjoyed the Grand Duke’s favor—would be the new power in this mansion.
But the northern nobles were nothing like the slippery snakes of the capital.
They treated Helena’s coquettish voice like the buzz of a mosquito and thoroughly ignored her as if she were invisible.
“Butler, what is tomorrow’s schedule?”
“Yes, my lord. Starting at noon tomorrow…”
Helena withdrew her outstretched hand in mortification and bit her lip hard.
Right then, the maids were bustling about clearing the banquet tables.
A young maid, arms piled high with dirty plates and sauce-smeared dishes left by the guests, stumbled as she passed Helena.
“Ah!”
In that heart-stopping instant when the tower of plates threatened to crash down—
Tak—!
Helena’s body reacted faster than her mind.
She reflexively bent at the waist and caught the collapsing stack of plates with practiced, rock-steady skill.
“Whew…”
Disaster averted—no shattered crockery—but the real problem came next.
Because she had caught the plates bare-handed, her pale thumb was now smeared thick with greasy meat seasoning and sauce.
And then—
Srrrk.
Helena’s thumb rose toward her red lips as if it were the most natural, obvious thing in the world.
Chup.
“……?!”
The moment the sauce touched the tip of her tongue, Helena snapped back to her senses.
Her pupils shook.
Don’t tell me… the maid habit…
The old habit from her years as a maid in Duke Gawain’s household, doing every dirty job imaginable.
The unconscious tic of secretly snatching kitchen scraps or sucking sauce off her fingers had just erupted in the middle of a banquet hall packed with nobles.
Helena jerked her finger from her mouth in panic and hastily wiped the sauce on her skirt.
Even that gesture was thoroughly un-noble.
“……”
“……”
Every northern vassal and noblewoman who had been about to leave the hall now had their eyes locked on Helena.
“……Did you just see that?”
“Good heavens. Licking sauce off her own fingers…”
“Did they drag in some street rat? Even the maids don’t do anything so vulgar.”
Unlike the capital, the nobles of the Northern Grand Duchy had sworn absolute loyalty to Grand Duchess Rebecca and Grand Duke Gareth.
And today they had gathered for the birthday of Veronica, the girl they would protect even if it meant plucking out their own eyes.
There was no way they would look kindly on this woman of unknown origin who had suddenly rolled in during the Grand Duke’s absence and poisoned the atmosphere of the residence.
Bale and Karin were commoners too.
But Bale was the clear hero who had saved the Grand Duke’s life, and Karin was the undisputed champion of the Libertry swordsmanship tournament recognized by the entire empire—plus she had the solid legitimacy of being hired by Lady Rebecca herself.
Helena, by contrast, was nothing more than a maid of Duke Gawain whom the Grand Duke had brought from the capital, her origins murky and her title hollow.
In the eyes of the northern nobles she was nothing but a filthy, arrogant foreign body eyeing the seat of the lady of the house.
“Capital manners truly are vulgar beyond belief.”
“How on earth did His Grace fall for a vixen like that…”
The nobles made no effort to lower their voices.
They deliberately glanced sideways and poured out merciless criticism so Helena could hear every word.
“……Kh.”
Helena’s cheeks burned scarlet with shame.
She clutched her trembling hands and hung her head, wishing she could crawl into a mouse hole.
Her pathetic plan to act as mistress and flaunt the Grand Duke’s favor had been shattered by a single maid’s habit.
But the nobles’ lynching did not end in the banquet hall.
After the party broke up, open public shaming of Helena began all over the mansion.
In the corridor leading to the third-floor guest rooms, baronesses pulled their skirts aside and sneered.
“My, I can still smell the sauce. Would you mind stepping out of the way?”
Even when she went for a night stroll in the garden, the knights sitting on a bench let their mockery carry.
“What’s the point of dressing up pretty on the outside? The fact that she’s a rootless former maid shows in every single gesture.”
Even when she went to the library for a book, the young ladies chatting with the librarian stabbed her in the back with their ridicule.
“Something so far beneath Her Grace the Grand Duchess dares to traipse around the fifth floor? Honestly, His Grace…”
Mockery and contempt poured in from every direction.
By now the Grand Duke should have stepped in to shield her, yet Gareth had locked himself in Veronica’s fifth-floor bedroom, determined to remain the perfect father for his daughter’s birthday, reading fairy tales and nothing else.
Helena had not a single ally inside this vast Grand Duke’s residence.
“……Serves her right.”
From a far corner of the corridor, Karin clicked her tongue as she looked down at Helena, who was trembling with suppressed rage.
“Even a commoner like me found that spectacle embarrassing. She put on such lofty airs, trying to play the mistress… She was an annoying boil, but the picture isn’t pretty. At this rate she might just fill herself with venom and do something stupid.”
Karin folded her arms and sent a cold look toward Helena.
I stepped up beside her and whispered low.
“We can’t let her do something stupid. But that situation… if we use it right, it could be a huge opportunity for us.”
“Opportunity?”
I glanced around, then pressed my lips right to Karin’s ear and dropped my voice even lower.
“That woman Helena—she’s definitely the one Duke Gawain sent to target this Grand Duke’s residence.”
“……What?!”
Karin’s eyes flew wide.
When she started to raise her voice in shock, I quickly put a finger to my lips to stop her.
“Why would His Grace put such a dangerous woman on the fifth floor… No, set that aside. Then we should drag her in right now and force her to confess her backers!”
“His Grace has started to suspect her too… but he doesn’t have certainty yet…”
I jerked my chin toward Helena, isolated and shaking with humiliation.
“This is the moment to dig in. When someone has nowhere to lean and is completely cornered, they’ll grab even a devil’s hand if it’s offered.”
Karin’s eyes sharpened as she grasped my meaning.
“……You mean turn her into a double agent. Recruit the enemy’s spy as our own informant?”
“If we go to her now, stir up her sympathy, pretend to share the sorrow of fellow commoners, and soothe her gently… she might spill everything about Gawain’s side. If we reel her in properly, we can get our hands on Gawain’s leash.”
I grinned and rolled up my shirt sleeves.
“Originally His Grace said he’d move Helena down to a third-floor guest room and I was going to ask Sir Karin to keep an eye on her, but with things like this, I’ll have to handle it myself.”
“You?”
“Of course. To dig into the heart of a woman stuck in a lonely, miserable spot like that, a man’s comfort works way better, don’t you think? I may not look it, but I’ve got a bit of talent for sweet-talking women…”
Pinch.
“……Ow?!”
Just as I turned confidently toward Helena, a sharp pain stabbed into my side.
Karin had twisted a vicious pinch of flesh between two fingers.
“What the hell was that for?!”
“……I’ll go.”
Still pinching my side, Karin looked up at me with a sulky pout.
“I’ll go soothe her and shake her down. There’s no need for you to step in, Bale.”
“Why not? A woman’s heart is harder for another woman to open, you know? If I go, build a little favorability, whisper some sweet things…”
“That’s exactly why you can’t!!”
Karin pinched even harder and snapped.
Her face had flushed a deep, sulky red.
“I… I don’t like it. The thought of you going over to another woman, being all gentle, talking, whispering sweet things… Just imagining it makes me so irritated I want to cut something.”
“……Huh?”
I forgot the pain in my side and stared blankly at Karin.
That proudly lifted chin.
Those eyes blazing with jealousy.
And that honest confession she tossed out without hiding a thing.
Whoa… is Karin jealous right now?
My heart started hammering like crazy.
The original’s cold, cool, one-armed sword demon Karin—
was pinching my side and fuming because she hated me talking to another woman.
Cute… No, seriously, insanely cute.
I barely managed to keep the corners of my mouth from flying up to my ears.