Taming the Duke's Daughter (1)
In the Asteria Empire—the stage upon which Lilium Crown unfolds—there exist three ducal houses.
House Harben, the Empire's premier lineage of knights, hailed as the Golden Spear of the Imperial Family—a factory mass-producing devoted, mentally-wounded, obsessive knight waifus.
House Ballenstein, the Silver Shield of the Dawn, which has stepped back one pace from the front lines guarding the Imperial Family yet still stands shoulder to shoulder with Harben—a gathering of absolute lunatics who bite first and ask questions later.
And House Arkright, the Heart of the Empire, which shuns all outside activity yet has never once seen its standing shaken—famously 'cut from the game for budget reasons.'
Today, I was headed to the territory of one of them—House Ballenstein—to shake them down for every last coin.
They might look down on me, but they would never make the mistake of underestimating my silver tongue.
Because I am the ghost of Lilium Crown, a man so obsessed with this game that I died from a five-stroke marathon.
And the only things I don't know about this game are whatever the sequel throws out after I'm dead.
'I'll make you game NPCs feel in your bones why you should fear a veteran. Kukku…'
As I steeled my resolve with a gallant expression, Carla, seated across from me, glared at me with deep displeasure.
"Hey, Evan."
"What, Carla?"
"…"
"What's with that face? We agreed we'd drop the honorifics."
When I spread both arms wide and leaned in for a hug, Carla flinched and nodded her head furiously instead.
"I-it's just… it's hard to get used to dropping honorifics with a commoner, I suppose…"
"Want me to help you get used to it?"
"N-no! I'm used to it! Worry not."
"Good."
"Right… I was planning to die anyway. What use is dignity to me now?"
"Smart thinking."
When I patted her on the shoulder, Carla let out a hollow laugh, as if the whole thing were absurd.
"Well, since it's come to this… be honest with me."
"About what?"
"What is your real objective…?!"
"Oh for the love of—here we go again."
When I covered my ears, Carla seized my wrist in outrage.
"No matter how I think about it, all I can conclude is that you're after my body or my family's influence!"
"Wha…"
Seriously, then what exactly am I supposed to see in you, huh?!
…I swallowed that retort and gave a gentle shake of my head.
"If you were after your family's title… you'd be a bit late, no? You've already been excommunicated."
"B-but I am still Carla Ballenstein!"
"And if my goal were your body, there'd be no reason to risk my life for it."
"…"
"…A bit of lust for a woman you've known one day? I could toss a few coins at a brothel and be done with it, well within my means."
At my dismissive hand-wave, Carla became a bee-stung mute and hung her head low.
"Then why on earth would you… someone as worthless as me…"
Her self-loathing annoyed me for no good reason.
Worthless? Please.
You're the daughter of one of only three ducal houses in the Empire, madam, and a most precious benefactor who'll be dutifully ferrying experience points to the princess party for chapters to come.
"You're worth something, Carla."
"What…?"
"Like I said yesterday—you're a person of worth just as you are…"
"I've… never heard anyone say that to me before."
Figures.
Noble households tend to have a few screws loose, generally speaking.
And yours is a ducal house—the biggest loose-screw collection of them all.
'Do I go with the "Ghost of the First Family Head" gambit, or do I spill the high-grade intel on the "Demon Realm Invasion"? Ah, screw it—the demon realm stuff feels wasted right now.'
The demon realm invasion arc is a plot thread I need to save for at least five chapters from now.
If I spill it early and the Demon King happens to move his invasion up, we might end up with a catastrophe where I'm screwed AND the protagonist's party is screwed.
'Okay, ghost gambit it is.'
"Ha… you really ought to be grateful."
"For what?"
As I turned my gaze to the window with an imperious air, Carla followed my line of sight with a bewildered look.
"To our ancestors… for letting a man like me meet you. You should thank them, from the bottom of your heart."
"You mean the ancestor who made me into a lesbian and then hooked me up with a mouthy backwater fisherman's son… that one?"
Carla Ballenstein gave a wry smile and let out a ground-collapsing sigh.
"Haa… I must be insane, truly insane. They say when you're about to die, even a rotten towline looks golden…"
"Who knows? Maybe it really is a golden towline."
"Set that aside for now… if I'm ever humiliated like that again, I don't care about anyone else—you, I will behead without fail before taking my own life. Remember that."
"Ooh~ then I'll just have to live long and hard while running away. Operation success~."
"…"
The corner of Carla's brow twitched slightly.
The woman stared at me with unreadable eyes, then—perhaps harboring some frustrated resentment—kept jabbing my shin with the tip of her boot.
"Insufferable."
"What now?"
"…I'll stake my reputation on this: just getting through the front gate will be an ordeal."
"What's to worry about with me here?"
"And who exactly are you?"
"Son of a mouthy backwater fisherman."
"Pfft. Ah, damn it, I laughed…"
"We've arrived."
The moment the coachman finished speaking, I scrambled desperately out of the carriage and straightened my back with all my might.
Six solid hours in a carriage without a single break. My back let out a piercing scream every time I so much as moved.
"What's the harm in stopping to rest every once in a while, huh!?"
"Father begins an inspection of the territory this afternoon. If we'd traveled leisurely, you'd have blown past that week-long deadline you were so desperate about."
"Why are you telling me this NOW!?"
"You didn't exactly keep the plan secret to the end either. Call it revenge."
Carla stuck her tongue out teasingly, then rapped the lion's-head knocker on the gate three sharp times.
—Clank!
As if answering the summons, the great gates of the ducal residence slowly swung open, and maids and butlers lined up left and right, forming a human wall connecting the mansion to the front gate.
"How shameless of you to return, my lady."
The mansion doors opened, and a man who appeared to be the head butler stood before Carla and me, chin held high.
"And who might the gentleman beside you be?"
"My lover. His name is Evan. Son of a fisherman living on the shores of Lake Ordo."
"Lake Ordo? That haunted one?! Kahahahaha!"
—Hohohoho!
—Puhahaha!!
At Carla's introduction, the head butler doubled over laughing, and the servants surrounding him—not a single exception—covered their mouths and sneered at us.
"Hahaha…! To think you'd try to smother what we've long since verified with such a farce."
"…"
"How much did you hire him for?! Ah, judging by his rags, I'd wager not even fifty silver, let alone a single gold!"
To be fair, I didn't get paid a thing. Maybe I'll collect on this occasion.
"Here, take this and be on your way, lowborn. There, and there."
After laughing his fill, the head butler scooped a fistful of loose change from his pouch and hurled it at my face.
"Butler Cutlet! Have you lost your mind?! Regardless of anything, to treat a guest my lady brought like—"
"Ha! The mad one is you, madam."
"What did you say?"
"A criminal deserving of beheading naked before the eyes of all! Even after the lord, out of mercy, granted you the consideration of dying with your honor intact, unknown to any…!"
"…"
"By midnight tonight, the Church's execution order will fall and you will be excommunicated..! I shall hand you a blade right now, so cut your throat here and spare yourself the shame!"
"…Tch."
Carla ground her teeth, hand moving to her sword—then lowered her head deep.
I gathered up the scattered silver coins from the ground and then walked, step by deliberate step, toward the head butler.
"Ha! Go on, crawl back into whatever gutter you came from—pick up that money and make your graa…"
Then I seized his jaw, forced his mouth open, and shoved every last coin I'd picked up into it.
"Glrk!!?"
"Evan, stop!! However much of a servant he is, he bears the Ballenstein crest!"
At Carla's cry, the butlers nodded their heads vigorously.
But what good would that do against me? Blink, and you'd miss it.
I'll stake my reputation on this: within one minute, that butler will be groveling at my feet, licking my shoes if he has to, desperately trying to wash away his sins.
"Say there, Mister Butler. Shall this no-good lover of hers tell you a fun story?"
"Glrk… glrk…?"
"You know of Arcadia Imperial Academy, yes?"
The head butler nodded slowly, his expression already on the verge of tears.
"Well, a while back I was fishing at dawn, and this headless ghost came bobbing~ along toward my boat."
"Glrk…?"
"Unusual attire, mind you. Golden epaulettes, a bit worn but still shining brilliantly. Undergarments dyed crimson, and armor lacquered in blazing vermilion…"
"Hold on—you… you never told me any of this!"
"I couldn't. Even that much was at the First Family Head's request."
"Wh-what?" "Pffheh!!! Cough! Cough!"
Carla's eyes went wide with shock, while the head butler, his face turning pale blue, spat out the silver coins.
"So that's what you meant about thanking our ancestors…"
As I gave a small nod, Carla collapsed to the ground.
Amid the bewilderment written across her face, a strange glimmer of hope had begun to take root.
By now, in her eyes, I must have begun to look less like a rotten towline and more like the genuine golden article.
"You—y-y-you've lost your mind!! A nameless, lowborn commoner… dares to invoke the First Family Head of a ducal house!!?"
The head butler rushed over and grabbed me by the collar.
He gestured for the servants to throw me out, but the mansion's staff, faces fraught with terror, hesitated to lay a hand on me.
—"Gasp, I—I've heard of it! Rumor of all manner of ghosts appearing in the lake near the Academy…"
—"If he's a guest invited by the First Family Head… shouldn't we be treating him as an honored VIP…?"
The First Family Head, Matheus Ballenstein.
In my past life, when I was pushing through the mid-game story… he was the centerpiece of the most heavenly, brain-dead free-exploit questline imaginable.
—'Carla Ballenstein has lost her pride as a knight. Deliver judgment.'
Most of the late-game quests were grinding slogs that made me wonder, 'Do I really need to go this far for a three-minute stroke session?'
Whenever that feeling hit, we'd go visit Old Man Matheus.
What was the quest, you ask?
Open the map, click the Lake Ordo region. Click to travel to the mountain summit, accept the quest. Fast-travel to the Academy, talk to Carla, sit through a five-minute cutscene.
How beautiful is that.
Me, I cleared every quest in the game for the 100% completion file, but for the casual players trying to stroke one out without using a completion save, Matheus was a living god.
'Originally this is an event that powers up House Harben, but if I empower his true descendant instead, Old Man Matheus would probably be even more delighted.'
"You—you have no proof!!"
The frantic head butler tried to drag me out by the collar and hurl me beyond the gate, but with my S-rank Strength, it was he who got dragged around, his pristine uniform caked in dirt.
"Let go!"
"You're the one gripping my collar, sir…"
"LET GO, I SAID!!! Fine, fine, stop it!"
At his words, I stopped walking, set him upright, and brushed the dust off his clothes with a few firm pats.
"What on earth are you…"
"Who am I, you ask?"
—'One day, there will be those who doubt our meeting. The time will come when they deny that I, Matheus, placed the name and honor of Ballenstein upon your two shoulders! When that day comes… cry out like this, at any time!'
Old Man Matheus, I had you deliver judgment on Carla a good hundred-plus times, all thanks to me.
So borrowing your line just once, my way—you can't complain, right? Right?
"Ahem! Ballenstein, Harben… even Arkright began in the Greywood Forest!! Is the Oath of the Silver Lion merely this much!!!"
Not even ten seconds after my cry rang through the estate—
—CRASH-BANG!
A thunderous noise erupted from the mansion's second floor, as though someone were tumbling headfirst down the staircase.
"Wh-what now?"
A moment later.
—SLAM!
The shattered front door went rolling across the garden, and a bearded middle-aged man with hair sticking out in every direction sprinted at full speed to stand before me.
I wondered who it was—and it was none other than the current head of House Ballenstein, Albrecht Ballenstein.
"Hah… hah…"
"Pleasure to meet you~."
"What did the First Family Head say?! To think Lord Matheus himself would deliver the answer to our house, driven back by those Harben curs…!!"
The 'Oath of the Silver Lion' I had just recited is a cipher passed down orally only between the successive heads of House Ballenstein and the Emperor himself.
Frankly, there's no such thing as doubt-proof—but at the very least, from the instant that oath left my lips… I was confirmed as 'one connected to the First Family Head,' or at minimum 'one with some tie to the Imperial Family or the successive house heads.'
In other words, to a house head who'd been sidelined in the mainstream of Imperial politics since the early game—
Right now, I looked less like a golden towline and more like a golden towline so blinding it hurt the eyes!
"Give me the answer, quickly! Between losing my daughter and watching the house decline, the stress has been making my hair fall out in clumps lately!! It's driving me mad, truly!!"
"Haa, I'd love to give you a straight answer, but my lips keep getting heavier—my heart isn't sure this is right."
"What?! What on earth has soured your mood so!!!?"
"…The hospitality."
At my words, the household head's ragged breathing came to an abrupt halt.
Then, holding out his worn old silver rapier with both hands, he bowed his head deeply before me.
"F-Father?!!"
"Father…!?"
—The Duke bows!
When the duke bowed his head, every last servant in the courtyard bowed theirs in unison.
"Take it."
"Accept it! It is my sincerity! Pray take this gift and soften that hardened heart!"
"Er… sure. Yes."
'This is a player-exclusive item, though… am I actually allowed to have this?'
The moment I absently accepted the sword, the maids swarmed in and hoisted me up into a palanquin.
"Wh-whoaaa..!"
"Kyaaah..!?"
Carla, tangled up in it alongside me, found herself carried through the Ballenstein gardens in tandem with me, without either of us lifting a finger.
"Prepare a banquet at once, and bring out gold and jewels! Are you all deaf?! Receive the honored guest NOW!!!"
The servants and the head butler scampered after the rushing household head in a long, chaotic line.
Carla gazed at this spectacle in a daze, frozen solid with her mouth hanging open.
"This is a dream, right…?"
"Beats me. Let's ask him whether it's a dream or reality."
Grinning, I pointed a finger and summoned the head butler—who was mid-escape, blending into the crowd—right before me.
At my command, the butlers sprinted over and apprehended him, then dragged him back and made him kneel before me like a condemned criminal.
"Eep… heeek…! N-no, I merely… that is… I…"
"Mister Head Butler."
"Yes! Yes, Lord Evan!!!"
"Look forward to it."