Chapter 3
Chapter 3
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"Is it true Lady Brisa summoned us all to the training grounds?"
"So they say."
The morning was rather noisy among the knights at the Sears Marquis Residence.
"Apparently, with the Marquess away, she claims she holds command over us."
At that, the knights snorted.
"Ha!"
Brisa Sears.
A haughty, arrogant little girl who gave off the typical air of an "insufferable noble."
There was no way any order from her mouth could be welcome.
"That...... command? Don't make me laugh. How old is that young lady now?"
"Twelve. And they say her personality is something else."
The knights all grumbled at once.
"Did you hear? Three days ago the Marquess went to her personally and asked to talk...... and she wouldn't even open the door."
"Ha, she insulted him to his face. Just because our marquess is a mercenary who grew up among commoners!"
"Would a young lady like that even see us as people? Ha, honestly."
The knight order's discontent was already overflowing.
After the funeral and before leaving for the capital, Alpheus had thrown out of the marquess's residence the butler who had been caught embezzling.
But as that butler left, he had shouted this:
"How dare you cast me out—me, who served Sears faithfully for so long—when you have commoner blood in you? Lady Brisa will not forget this!"
At that moment, the knights who had shared life and death with Alpheus realized it.
That the people who had long served at the marquess's residence did not accept them.
No, rather, they despised them.
A conversation with a maid who was at least somewhat neutral had gone as follows.
"A marquess from a mercenary background, well, it is a bit embarrassing, isn't it? Sears is a storied house, after all."
"Is that a problem? What exactly is our marquess so lacking in?"
"Hmm, for example...... the Marquess doesn't speak any foreign languages at all, does he? Lady Brisa speaks five."
"And did those foreign languages earn a single coin? Thanks to the Marquess, the urgent debts were paid off, and we got a knight order as capable as the Imperial Knights!"
"But he was raised like a commoner. Lady Brisa graduated from the Capital Academy as salutatorian. The late marchioness personally educated her from childhood."
The Sears Marquisate's finances were none too good. And yet the existing maids still put on airs, which the knights found absurd.
"The late marchioness? The one they say had that madness?"
"Watch your mouth. She was the Fifth Princess of the Kingdom of Liente."
"Princess or not, do you know how much debt she racked up with her extravagance? They say our marquess poured out all his personal funds to pay it off. Good thing she passed away two years ago—if she'd kept living, there wouldn't be a single grain of wheat left in this residence by now."
Meanwhile, Brisa had shut herself in her room for the past three days and not come out.
Therefore, the knight order was firmly convinced that the maids' disregard and contempt were, in effect, Brisa's own will.
A noble young lady who had never done a single thing on her own in her life.
A child who had drained what little wealth there was to attend the academy in the capital.
A twelve-year-old who couldn't objectively grasp the situation and only threw tantrums.
And now that very Brisa had suddenly summoned them.
After everyone had gathered at the training grounds, the vice-captain Philip stepped forward, seething.
"This is actually for the best. I'll lodge a formal protest now and break her spirit once and for all."
"But she's a marquess's daughter, Vice-Captain. Moreover, the Marquess told us absolutely not to cause trouble until he returns from the capital."
"What does a twelve-year-old know? The problem is the underlings around her! I plan to criticize them, not the young lady. Then she'll have nothing to say either."
Philip lifted his chin.
"The ones who truly don't know their place and have no manners are them, aren't they? Either way, the master of the marquisate is the Marquess! Does it make any sense for the marquisate's servants to disrespect the Marquess?"
That was when it happened.
The door opened and Brisa appeared.
Platinum-blonde hair rippling to her waist, beautiful sky-blue eyes, an upright posture that suited a dress well.
The twelve-year-old girl walked out onto the training grounds at a pace neither fast nor slow, accompanied by a maid.
"Good day, Lady Brisa. I am Vice-Captain Philip Oris."
Philip approached her and spoke in a stiff tone.
Brisa stopped walking and stared at him.
Blocking her path, he continued.
"I had been wanting to see you anyway."
Brisa's maid glared at him with eyes that said, "How dare you!"
But Philip paid no mind.
He was a mercenary and knew little of etiquette, and he had already built up tremendous resentment from watching Alpheus, the commander he revered, be utterly disrespected by the maids.
"My lady...... it seems those around you are full of people who fail to grasp the situation and cling only to useless pride."
Surely she would lose her temper and demand what he meant. Then he would logically, point by point, retort.......
"You're right."
But Brisa answered calmly.
"That's why I asked to meet with you all."
Philip was momentarily at a loss for words.
Under the gaze of his subordinates, who were holding their breath, he barely collected himself and said something else he had prepared.
"I, I had no idea it was your hobby to listen to the nonsense of people who don't know their place."
"Well...... I do it often, but it's not a hobby."
Brisa replied indifferently.
"I'm doing it right now, and it's quite exhausting. You can't call something you don't enjoy a hobby."
At that moment, the subordinates ducked their heads. They were holding back laughter.
Only Brisa's maid, standing behind her, was glaring at him with murderous eyes.
The maid's ferocious gaze was so absurd that Philip barely managed to continue.
"Does the marquess's household have no rules for rebuking the rudeness of its underlings?"
"Not exactly, but when I'm busy, I sometimes have no choice but to let it slide."
Brisa said without a change in expression.
"So I'm planning to just let it slide right now too."
In the end, Philip shut his mouth.
Brisa, having easily and elegantly shut down the argument, brushed past him and stepped onto the platform.
The girl, whose appearance closely resembled her brother's, looked down at them quietly.
Her cool gaze swept over them with an air of command none had expected. In the tense atmosphere, the knights who had been standing at ease straightened before they knew it.
What on earth had she summoned them all here to say?
In the coldly settled atmosphere, she opened her mouth expressionlessly.
"I heard you all used to be mercenaries from various parts of the Empire."
There it was!
It was about their origins from the very start.
So this was in the same vein as the maids' whispers about them being 'people of unknown roots'!
The knights stiffened and looked up at Brisa.
"Is it true that mercenaries will do anything as long as there's money?"
At that, Philip drew a sharp breath and protested.
"My lady! H-how...... your wording is far too harsh."
At that, Brisa was satisfied.
"So you're not denying it. Then I'll give an order."
Amid the knights' horrified stares, the girl held up her small fingers one by one.
"Those who have spent three or more years in the Aires, Kiberona, Sejeil, Liberel, or Antbenal regions, raise your hands."
Everyone glanced at one another.
What on earth was special about these regions?
Places where criminals hid?
Places with bandits?
Places where it was easy to wash one's identity?
Were the people who had lived in these regions being told to leave the knight order?
Nevertheless, since it was an "order," several people slowly raised their hands.
It was quite a large number. Philip was among them as well.
Brisa had them step forward.
In front of them, tense as could be, she asked with great solemnity.
"Among you, has anyone ever grown potatoes?"
Silence fell once more.
Brisa added seriously.
"The places I listed are the empire's large-scale potato-producing regions. You all spent quite a long time there, so at least one of you must have experience, right?"