A Knight's Conscience
Helena had no choice but to trail after her in pathetic defeat, soaked through with humiliation.
Cute... no, seriously, she's ridiculously cute.
I couldn't stop the corner of my mouth from twitching and barely managed to keep my cheeks from shooting up into a full grin.
But then—
The moment I witnessed Karin's pure, unfiltered jealousy, a memory I'd shoved into the darkest corner of my mind came screaming back, so awful and dizzying it made my blood run cold.
『Bale, I am asking you to embrace my wife.』
...Ah, fuck.
Right.
Grand Duke Gareth, that insane soft-hearted bastard of a sworn brother.
In the name of "suspecting" his younger brother Gawain, he'd ordered me—straight-up, no joke—to sleep with Grand Duchess Rebecca and put a son in her. A full-on, balls-to-the-wall crazy command that would get a man castrated in any sane world.
And while he was busy "persuading" Lady Rebecca, he'd even ordered me to go convince Karin of the whole scheme.
...Me. Talking to the woman who just twisted my side raw because she couldn't stand the sight of me offering Helena a single word of comfort.
So I'm supposed to say, "Hey, I might have to get horizontal with the Grand Duchess you serve sometime soon..."?
Just imagining it made the back of my neck go ice-cold.
The second those words left my mouth, Karin wouldn't pinch my side—she'd draw her real sword and take my head clean off.
No, forget the Grand Duke. She'd carve through everyone and paint the entire Arteta Grand Duke's Residence crimson.
No. Absolutely not. That conversation waits until after the birthday party... ha, fucking hell, of all the orders to get stuck with...
I desperately cleared my throat to change the subject.
"Ahem! Ah, I understand. If Sir Karin dislikes it that much, I wouldn't dare go wagging my tail at another woman."
I casually hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her close, whispering mischievously.
"But. You think you're the only one who gets jealous? I'm ridiculously jealous too."
"...What?"
Karin, half-nestled against my chest, blinked up at me with wide eyes.
"Every time you dote on Lady Veronica and fuss over her, it burns me up inside. You leave me covered in bruises from that wooden sword every single day, yet with the young lady you're all soft and gentle."
At my shameless sulking, Karin's eyes widened a fraction more.
And her cheeks—already flushed—flared even hotter, blooming like ripe peaches.
"Y-you... you're jealous... of me...?"
"Of course."
Karin bit her lip hard and dropped her head.
But I saw it clearly—the corners of her mouth kept twitching upward no matter how hard she fought them.
"...S-stupid nonsense."
She mumbled in a voice smaller than a mosquito's buzz.
"I've lived my whole life as a knight... treated like a man... and now you're jealous over someone like me..."
She gave me a light shove and coughed repeatedly, yet her expression looked like she'd just been handed the entire world.
For Karin, who had spent her life suppressing every feminine part of herself, the fact that someone saw her fully as a woman—and got jealous over her—must have hit harder and sweeter than any love confession.
"...Still. I'll go dig into that fox-faced woman's true intentions myself."
Looking thoroughly pleased, Karin slapped the hilt of her sword at her waist with confident flair.
"I'll approach her saying I felt sympathy watching a fellow commoner get trampled by nobles. She'll drop her guard and open her mouth for sure. I'll drag every last secret out of her from the bottom up."
"Then I'll stay right here and watch Sir Karin's brilliant performance."
Karin shot me a quick wink, turned on her heel, and strode confidently toward the isolated, shame-trembling Helena.
Watching her retreating back, I let out a long sigh of relief.
Whew... jealousy successfully soothed for now.
But in one corner of my mind, Grand Duke Gareth's order still sat like a ticking time bomb, heavy and relentless.
Even if Veronica's birthday party ended without disaster, the real problem was waiting right after.
Please... just let today pass peacefully. Just this one day.
I clasped my hands in silent, desperate prayer while staring at Karin's gallant departing figure.
Unfortunately, earnest prayers apparently don't reach the gods.
Slaaap—!!
The second my prayer ended, a vicious crack exploded from the corner of the corridor.
"...?!"
My heart plummeted. I whipped my head around on pure reflex.
"Y-you lowborn trash, how dare you...!"
In the corner of the hallway, Helena stood alone, breathing hard through venomous eyes.
Her right hand still hung in the air, trembling violently. In front of her stood Karin, head turned slightly to the side, silent and unmoving.
That fucking bitch!
A vivid, swollen red handprint was rising on Karin's pale left cheek.
"Sir Karin!!"
My body moved before my brain. Fists clenched, I stormed toward them.
She dared slap my person?
As I closed the distance with rough strides, the already frayed Helena snapped at me in a shrill voice.
"Are you looking down on me?! A hired knight of common blood, daring to pity me! You think you can comfort me?!"
The northern nobles had ignored her completely, treating her like furniture. Her pride was already shredded to ribbons.
She had come up from the capital dead certain she would become the Grand Duke's beloved mistress. Reality had given her nothing but cheap contempt and open mockery.
Like a cornered rat, Helena was pure poison now. To her, Karin's approach looked like nothing but unbearable ridicule.
"Who the hell do you think you are to pity me! Do you even know who I am?!"
Helena shrieked and raised her hand again—
When Karin quietly, firmly lifted one hand toward me.
Don't come.
Her eyes said it clearly.
Even with her cheek swelling red, not a single spark of anger or fluster existed in Karin's gaze.
"..."
Faced with that look, I had no choice but to stop.
Karin jerked her chin toward the staircase leading to the fifth floor.
She would handle this place herself. I was to withdraw.
...Haah, this is driving me insane.
Worry clawed at me, but I decided to respect her decision.
Once Karin declared she would resolve it herself, barging in would only undermine her way of doing things.
I shot Helena one last warning glare, then forced my feet to turn and climbed the stairs toward the fifth floor.
Only after I had completely vanished from sight did the corridor corner hold just the two of them—Helena panting roughly, and Karin standing firm.
"..."
Karin brushed the vivid red mark on her cheek once with the back of her hand.
Then she faced the snarling, wary Helena and spoke in a voice that was perfectly polite, perfectly calm, without a single crack.
"If you have finished speaking, may I deliver my business?"
"What...?"
Helena faltered.
Any ordinary knight would have exploded in rage, drawn steel, or hurled curses the moment the slap landed. The female knight before her showed not even a ripple of emotion.
It felt as though she considered Helena less than dust—not even worth anger—and that only made Helena's insides boil harder.
Karin ignored the rage completely and delivered the facts in a dry tone.
"It is His Grace the Grand Duke's order. His Grace has commanded that your room be moved from the fifth floor to a guest chamber on the third. I came only to deliver that news and guide you."
"...What did you say?"
Helena's eyes flew wide.
The fifth floor—the sacred floor reserved solely for the Grand Duke's bloodline—and she was being demoted to a common guest room on the third?
"Lies...! His Grace would never do that to me! You bitch, you came here just to mock me, didn't you?!"
Helena screamed, rejecting reality.
"You came to ridicule me! As if these damned northern bastards ignoring me wasn't enough, now even a commoner knight is trying to steal my place?!"
Karin listened to the tantrum in silence, then let out a small snort.
"I do not understand your standard for mockery and ridicule."
She crossed her arms and looked straight down at Helena.
"I am a commoner, not a noble. I neither know nor care for the capital's roundabout speech or the art of scraping at a person's insides with words. What I said is His Grace's order. Nothing more."
"..."
"Move your belongings from the fifth floor to the third. That is the entirety of my business."
Karin's words were so blunt and cold that Helena's lips trembled.
Realizing that no amount of thrashing would reach this knight, Helena drew her one and only trump card—the most powerful weapon she possessed.
"I... I am different from lowborn trash like you!"
She wrapped both hands around her lower belly and lifted her chin in arrogant pride.
"There may be His Grace's seed inside me! You would throw out a woman who might be carrying the heir of the Grand Ducal house to the third floor? The moment I tell His Grace this, he will summon me straight back to the fifth!"
An ordinary servant or knight would have wilted and retreated before a woman who might carry the Grand Duke's blood.
But—
"And?"
Karin's reply was utterly flat and serene.
"...What?"
"And so what? Whether you carry His Grace's seed or not—what does that have to do with me?"
"You... y-you bitch, how dare you...!"
"The only order I received is to guide Helena to the third floor. What is inside your belly is for a physician to judge, not a matter for a knight to concern herself with."
With that principled answer, Karin shattered Helena's sole weapon in a single stroke.
Faced with a knight so stubbornly upright that even the Grand Duke's seed bounced off her iron wall, Helena was left completely speechless.
"However."
Karin stepped one pace closer and lowered her voice slightly.
"I came because I am worried about you."
"...What?"
Helena had just slapped her for offering pity, yet Karin calmly spoke the word "worried."
When Helena stared in bewilderment, Karin jerked her chin toward the far end of the corridor.
"As you know, the third-floor guest rooms are packed with northern vassals and noble guests. And every single one of them... clearly saw you in the banquet hall just now, unable to break the habit of a maid and licking your fingers."
"...!!"
Helena's face went white with shame.
"These are the same people who treated you like a transparent ghost and insulted you in the banquet hall. If you go down alone to the third-floor corridor where their rooms are crammed side by side, carrying your luggage..."
Karin's eyes sharpened.
"Surrounded on all sides by nobles who hate and despise you—do you think you will sleep peacefully? You will have to spend the night alone in a hallway thick with hostility, listening to the mockery and laughter leaking under every door, with no one to protect you."
Once word spread that the capital mistress-candidate had been discarded by the Grand Duke and kicked down to the third floor, the northern nobles would be frothing to tear her apart.
In a strange mansion with nowhere to lean, she would be encircled by enemies.
Helena's thin shoulders began to tremble faintly with fear and isolation.
She felt it too.
The moment she stepped onto the third floor, she would become nothing.
In that moment of despair, Karin casually tossed out an unexpected proposal.
"Come to my room."
"...What did you say?"
"My room is the farthest corner guest chamber on the third floor. It is separated from the noble guests' area. Until those noble guests leave the residence... stay in my room."
Helena doubted her own ears.
The knight she had just slapped was offering to hide her in her own safe room.
Nothing in this world came free.
Having survived countless schemes and betrayals, suspicion bloomed instantly in Helena's mind.
"...What are you scheming?"
Helena shrank back and glared sharply.
"Just a moment ago you were looking at me with pure contempt! Why the sudden act of caring? Are you and that scar-faced man Bale planning to lock me in a room and interrogate me?!"
The knight's inexplicable kindness felt more terrifying than anything else.
"Do not misunderstand."
At the suspicion-laced cry, Karin let out a very short sigh.
"I dislike you."
"...!"
"You made young Lady Veronica cry and brought tears to Her Grace the Grand Duchess's heart. I find you truly repulsive and disgusting. Right now I want nothing more than to draw my sword and hurl you out of this Grand Duke's Residence."
Helena flinched at the murderous sincerity and nearly stumbled backward.
"I knew it... you were mocking me after all...!"
"But."
Karin continued.
"Regardless, you are currently a member of this Grand Duke's Residence under His Grace's order. You are someone who must live under the same roof."
She gripped the sword hilt at her waist tightly.
"If, inside the mansion of the lord I serve, a vulnerable person is surrounded by enemies on every side, trembling and spending a wretched night alone—and I knowingly turn a blind eye..."
Her gaze sank heavy.
"My conscience as a knight will not allow it. I would be so unsettled I could not sleep at night."
"..."
"This is my selfishness. It is not for your sake in the slightest. It is only so that tomorrow's me can open her eyes cleanly, free of guilt. Therefore, sleep in my room tonight."
It was a knightly code so rigid and overwhelming it left no room to breathe.
Karin did not hide her loathing for a second, yet she crushed Helena beneath the weight of a knight's honor and responsibility.
"..."
Helena stared at her with her mouth hanging open.
Before this absurdly pure and upright knightly conviction—something she had never encountered in the capital's noble society—her shallow suspicions and venom crumbled into dust.
This woman truly intended to protect someone who was practically an enemy, simply so she herself could sleep in peace.
There was no justification left to refuse, and no courage either.
If she let go of this hand now, she would have to walk alone into the third-floor corridor.
"...Ugh."
In the end, Helena hung her head low.
She clenched her trembling hands into fists and bit her lip until it bled from pure humiliation.
"...Fine."
Her voice was barely audible, but she accepted.
Even in defeat, the venom did not fully vanish.
Still looking at the floor, Helena whispered to Karin in a chilling tone.
"Remember this... when the day comes that I bear His Grace's child and rise to the highest place in this mansion..."
Her shoulders shook finely with rage.
"I will never... ever let you get away with pitying me and trampling me so wretchedly tonight."
Hearing the blustering death threat, Karin did not so much as twitch an eyebrow.
Instead she let out a light snort of laughter, turned her back, and started walking.
"I'll be looking forward to it. So hurry up, pack your things, and follow me."
Without a single glance behind her, Karin strode confidently toward the third floor.
Helena had no choice but to trail after her in pathetic defeat, soaked through with humiliation.