If You Can't Handle It, You're Weak!
The kind of face that made it impossible to tell whether she was a man or a woman. Understandable enough.
People like that turned up from time to time. Feminine men. Masculine women. Perfectly possible.
Looks were something you couldn’t help. Sometimes even genetics failed to explain them.
Physique and bone structure, though, were another matter. Men and women were clearly different.
Unless there was something wrong with the sex hormones, it always showed.
And the person standing opposite him was none other than Kyle of the John Nassen family—someone thoroughly versed in the human body.
While directing her movements from the side, he realized that the person in front of him was not a male member at all, but a female one.
…What the hell. No matter how I look at it, this is a woman?
Nell was clearly known at the Academy as a male student.
Which meant she had been concealing her gender from the moment she enrolled.
There had been a case before of a student who entered under a false identity; the result had been immediate expulsion.
So what would become of Nell, who had enrolled while hiding her sex?
The moment that thought landed, Kyle decided to play dumb for the time being.
But the more he turned it over in his mind, the stronger the feeling grew that this simply would not do.
In the end, after much deliberation, he chose an opportune moment to let her know he already knew the truth.
“Hey, Nell. You know I know you’re not a man, right? That you’re a woman?”
“Wh-what…?”
“Of course I noticed. Did you really think I wouldn’t know the difference between a male skeleton and a female one?”
He kept his tone as matter-of-fact as possible, in case Nell became too flustered.
Of course, even if Kyle stayed nonchalant, Nell herself could hardly manage the same.
“Th-then… you’ve known this whole time since earlier…?”
“Honestly, Nell, it would have been better if you’d told me yourself. It’s not like we’re only going to see each other once and never again—we’re going to keep seeing each other. If you thought you could keep something like that hidden, well… that’s a little sad.”
The instant Kyle finished speaking, Nell frantically scanned their surroundings.
Whoosh!— Whoosh!—
She whipped her head around so hard it actually cut the air with a sound.
Watching her, Kyle thought to himself, At this rate she’s going to pull a muscle in her neck.
Fortunately, no one was coming or going nearby. Kyle had deliberately chosen a quiet spot.
“…Kyle.”
Having confirmed there was no one around, Nell spoke.
“Please.”
Thud—.
Without the slightest warning, she dropped to her knees.
“I beg you. Please keep the fact that I enrolled while concealing my gender a secret…”
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of going around blabbing about it. So do me a favor and stop kneeling, okay? And if you absolutely have to kneel, don’t do it that hard. You’re going to wreck your knees.”
Even in that moment, Kyle was fretting over Nell’s knee joints.
The conversation that followed was the natural next topic for a situation like this.
What circumstances had led her to enroll in the Academy while concealing her gender.
“…So you’re saying you weren’t originally a commoner, but from a noble family?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“And even if it was small-scale, you even ran a proper trading company.”
At his reconfirmation, Nell quietly nodded.
The girl he had thought was a commoner was actually of noble birth.
The problem was that her family had completely gone bankrupt when she was young and had been utterly dissolved.
Enough time had passed that almost no one remembered her house anymore.
“My family had been running a trading company for a long time. But my grandfather invested in one particular venture, suffered a massive failure, and that ended up dealing a severe blow to the company as well.”
Aigoo. Grandfather had made a huge mistake.
Investment really wasn’t something just anyone should do. People called it the shortest path to ruining your family and yourself.
Kyle clicked his tongue inwardly and quietly focused on Nell’s story.
“The problem wasn’t the trading company itself. As I said, we were nobles in name only—half merchants, really—and the company wasn’t that large either. All we did was take a modest profit as a mid-tier trading firm. But when the hole in our finances from Grandfather’s failed investment caused us to default on a deal with a certain party…”
“And that just happened to be one of the trading companies under the Bayen Grand Ducal House.”
One of the three grand ducal houses existing in the Empire, a family whose wealth accumulation was unmatched by any other—the Bayen Grand Ducal House.
Inflicting damage on one of their trading companies had been an unbearably painful blunder.
Nell’s family had collapsed in an instant trying to compensate the Bayen Grand Ducal House for the damages.
Even if they somehow paid off the full compensation amount, they had already lost the most important thing: their credit.
There were absolutely no madmen in this world who would do business with a place that had no credit.
And so Nell’s family had completely fallen before she even turned ten.
“I abandoned the dream of rebuilding the trading company and restoring the family. No matter how much money you have, who would entrust business to a trading company that has lost its credit?”
“So the two remaining paths were magic or the sword. Of those, magic was out since you had no talent for it. But your physical abilities were decent enough, so you decided to become a knight and somehow raise the family again that way.”
Kyle let out a sigh without realizing it.
The intention was good. The will was firm. But she was only imagining the rosy parts.
First of all, even if she became a knight, could she really restore the family? Uncertain.
It wasn’t as if the Empire was currently in the middle of a war and desperately needed knights.
Knights were a dime a dozen—there was no guarantee that becoming one would lead to anything.
And even if she did become a knight and raise the family, there was still a problem.
How long did she think that would last on her strength alone? Forget ten years—she’d be lucky if it lasted one.
She might be able to reclaim the noble status that had originally been theirs, but anything beyond that was a stretch.
In the worst case, the entire family might end up latching onto Nell like parasites.
More than anything, the important question is whether she can even become a knight in the first place. That’s the real issue.
Having heard the whole story, Kyle let out a small sigh.
They said everyone had a story, but this one was pretty pitiable.
“Concealing that I was a woman was for that reason too. Male knights have a few more places they can go than female knights. Fortunately, a friend of my father’s works at the Ministry of Education, so I begged him desperately…”
“Did it not occur to you that it could become an even bigger problem if you were found out later? Your father’s friend could end up in a much more awkward position too, you know? Nell?”
At Kyle’s words, Nell bit her lip and lowered her head.
Whether she hadn’t thought that far, or whether she’d known and pushed ahead anyway…
Emotionally he understood, but rationally it was a frustrating picture.
It was all going to come out eventually—why on earth would she do something this reckless?
Well, this was a romance fantasy after all. A bit of a stretch in the setup, but not completely nonsensical.
Maybe they put this in so she could get entangled with some other male character later.
“I know it’s my fault. I also know this will clearly become a noose around my own neck later.”
Thud!—
Ah, again. She’s kneeling again. What, are those knees made of rubber?
And if you’re going to kneel, do it a little more gently. If you wreck your knees, you won’t be able to do anything.
“I’ll take responsibility. I’ll come clean about everything later myself. So please, Kyle—please don’t tell this story to anyone. I’ll repay today’s debt no matter what it takes, later. So…”
“You do realize you owe me a debt. How do you plan to repay it? Asking me to pretend I don’t know even though I do—this is something that could become a problem for me too.”
“That’s… right now I have nothing. But…”
Not knowing what to do, Nell eventually offered what she considered her best answer.
“M-me… somehow…”
“Huh?”
“I mean… for this debt, even if I have to offer myself…”
Offer herself. Kyle wasn’t so stupid that he needed to ask what that meant.
And his willingness to listen nicely ended right there.
“What the hell are you saying, you crazy woman?!”
Whack!—
For nonsense, a good smack was the best medicine.
“Eek…”
“You’re planning to become a knight and you go spouting garbage like that without any regard for your own body? You’ve completely lost your mind.”
“B-but I don’t have any way to earn money anymore either… Even what I gave this time was barely…”
“I’m not even demanding the debt right this second, so why are you so worked up?”
“That’s… because the family fell apart that way…”
Wow. She just played the family card. With the family brought up, Kyle had no choice but to shut his mouth.
Well, he’d heard that both the trading company and the family had collapsed because of damages and debt.
So of course she would react pathologically to anything involving debt.
“I’ll sum it up for you, Nell. In the current situation, there’s only one thing you need to do.”
“I’m listening carefully.”
“Become a knight with absolutely overwhelming grades. Draw everyone’s attention to yourself. And through that, receive some form of investment and somehow raise the family again.”
“I-investment isn’t something you do carelessly! Investment is…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll help make you—the investment target—a huge success.”
“Can you… really do that?”
“If you follow what I tell you properly, I’ll guarantee the results.”
If he guided her overall physique himself, she might not reach John Nassen levels, but a lower-compatible version was possible.
And for swordsmanship, there was Ian—a guaranteed winning lottery ticket—so that shouldn’t be a worry.
Worry… whether he really didn’t need to worry… he wasn’t entirely sure, but anyway.
“So Nell, don’t think about anything else—just focus on training hard. Even that alone is going to be overwhelming right now. I’m already worried about whether you’ll even be able to keep up.”
“I can keep up! I’ll do everything you tell me to!”
“Really?”
At Kyle’s repeated question, Nell was about to shout “Yes!” again.
But then she remembered the insane intensity of the workout she’d just been through…
“I… I’ll do my absolute best.”
Nell had just learned the lesson that you shouldn’t make promises and put your name on things lightly.