The Duke and the Nanny (Part 2)
“W-what?”
Jerome’s face contorted, utterly baffled by my response.
“You cannot trust a duke of the empire? What on earth is your reason?”
Reasons? I had plenty.
My mind drifted back to a blood-soaked battlefield where I had first crossed paths with Jerome Crowner.
Back then, acting under guild orders to assassinate the Duke, I had slipped undetected into his command tent.
“A slip of a girl. So you’re the famed ‘Grim Reaper of the Silver Thread’?”
The mission had been compromised because the low-ranking recruit assigned to assist me made a fatal blunder, allowing Jerome Crowner to detect our presence in an instant.
“Let that one go.”
I had dropped to my knees before Jerome Crowner right then and there.
That recruit was just a kid who hadn’t even had his coming-of-age ceremony yet—a child sold off to an assassination syndicate simply because his parents had too many mouths to feed.
“I will tell you who commissioned the hit. Every last detail. Just let the boy walk away.”
An assassin was never supposed to beg a target for mercy. Nor were they ever supposed to betray a client’s identity. But I could not bear to let a boy whose hair had barely dried die such a hollow, senseless death.
I just need to buy enough time for him to slip away safely.
Clinging to that thought, I did everything I could to spin a story and usher the young recruit out. The boy had already lost his senses in terror, collapsing to the floor and wetting himself.
“You’ll tell me who hired you to take my head?”
Jerome had seemed to chew on my words for a heartbeat, and then he broke into a grin.
“What a shame. I don’t particularly care to know.”
If anything, he seemed far more amused by the fact that the shadow sent to claim his life on the battlefield was the legendary Grim Reaper of the Silver Thread.
“Tell you what, Grim Reaper. If you can defeat me, I will let both of you walk out alive. How does that sound?”
What were the odds of an assassin besting the empire’s greatest knight in an open, head-to-head clash? It was a pointless question. Whatever the odds, I had no other choice.
“And here I wondered how formidable you truly were! You hardly live up to your towering reputation!”
“The feeling is entirely mutual, Jerome Crowner.”
In the beginning, Duke Crowner overwhelmed me with sheer brute force. Yet as the minutes wore on, the tide began to turn. Or rather, to be precise, I forced the battle to tilt in my favor.
“Krrrgh!”
Drawing upon the hidden arsenal tucked beneath my garments, I unleashed a relentless barrage of surprise strikes. Caught completely off guard, Jerome was driven to his knees before me.
I should never have let my guard down then.
Or rather, I should never have placed my faith in another human being.
“As agreed, I have won, so we are taking our leave. You may rest assured there will be no further attempts on your life—”
It happened the exact moment I took the trembling recruit’s hand to escort him out of the tent.
Slash—!
Blood sprayed across the dirt, accompanied by the boy’s piercing shriek. When I whipped around, his left arm was gone.
“Where do you think you’re scurrying off to, you wretched vermin!”
Driven mad with fury, Jerome swung his greatsword in wild, manic arcs. The cramped tent was torn to shreds, reduced to wreckage in the blink of an eye.
“Reaper, where do you think you’re running! If I ever lay eyes on you again, I will tear you limb from limb! Did you truly think a filthy butcher could harm a duke of this empire and walk away alive?!”
The monstrous curses pursued my retreating back, but I ignored them. Hoisting the child onto my shoulders, I sprinted like a demon possessed. Thanks to that frantic escape, I managed to break out of the military encampment, but I failed to save his life. The catastrophic blood loss was simply far too much for his frail, young body to endure.
“A reason? Well, let me see.”
You can never trust a man whose principles shift with the whims of his temper and the convenience of his circumstances. If there was a reason I could not bring myself to trust Jerome Crowner, that was it.
“I happen to be the sort who does not place faith in someone based purely on rank and title.”
Jerome fell into a long, stunned silence upon hearing my reply. His gaze was thick with profound bewilderment.
“Now, I must take my leave. I have to attend to Their Highnesses tomorrow.”
“Wait! Hold on a moment!”
“If you ever intend to make such a proposal again, pray direct it to Prince Edwin himself, not to me.”
“Hey! Wait—!”
Once again, I brushed past Jerome’s outstretched arm and hastened my stride. An intense, burning stare bored into the back of my head, but I deliberately chose to ignore it.
It really is a shame, though.
An offer from the empire’s strongest knight to become Edwin’s master. On the surface, it sounded exceptional. Under normal circumstances, it was an opportunity worth seizing even if it meant braving the wrath of the Second Imperial Consort.
Then again, who on earth would be fool enough to accept after hearing what he said earlier?
Duke Crowner had not approached with pure intentions. To him, Edwin was nothing more than a spare tire—a convenient replacement for the First Prince. Had I not eavesdropped on his private conversation with Emperor Carvelius III?
A substitute is only ever a substitute. He has not the slightest intention of placing Edwin on the throne over his nephew.
All he wanted was a meat shield for the First Prince. His plan was to tame Edwin first, then figure out how best to use him later.
Whether installing him as a hollow puppet emperor or forging him into a blindly loyal lackey.
In the end, all the Duke wanted was a marionette—a puppet capable of carrying out Carvelius III’s ruthless will while keeping his own blood kin safe from harm.
Unless, of course, the First Prince dies early.
Yet even if the First Prince met an untimely demise and Edwin was crowned, would that throne ever truly belong to him? An emperor stripped of real power is treated worse than a stray dog in the gutters.
“You won’t fool me twice.”
He must have been certain I would leap at the offer. A fleeting sense of spiteful satisfaction curled the corner of my mouth.
Where did I bury that poor boy again...?
The triumph dissolved almost instantly, leaving my chest tight and heavy as the lingering memory of the dead recruit cast a long shadow over my heart.
In the heart of the Gloria Knights’ grand drill grounds.
“Salute the Commander!”
At the booming order, the assembled knights snapped to attention in crisp, disciplined unison. Every head turned toward the elevated dais.
Standing atop the platform, Jerome surveyed the knights under his command with sharp, predatory eyes.
“I watched your monster subjugation performance yesterday with great interest.”
For some reason, the Duke seemed in an exceptionally foul temper today.
“It was utterly pathetic.”
At Jerome’s low, gravelly rasp, a collective shudder ran through the ranks. Their sun-bronzed faces seemed to drain of all color in an instant.
“Taking half a day just to bring down a handful of wyverns! Did you feel nothing watching the Adamant Knights dispatch demonic beasts in mere minutes?”
His voice seethed with raw venom, each word spat out through clenched teeth.
“Do you bastards still dare call yourselves imperial knights?!”
“No, Commander!”
Calling them ‘a handful of wyverns’ was frankly absurd considering there were over a dozen giant beasts measuring well over ten feet each, but it was the only answer they could give.
“Have you grown arrogant just because people flatter you as the empire’s finest?! I will beat that rotten complacency out of your heads today!”
Standing there with veins bulging on his temples, Jerome looked for all the world like an archdemon crawled straight out of the abyss.
“Starting today, training volume is doubled!”
It was a veritable bolt from the blue. Running up and down the mountain twenty times in full plate armor was practically a death march.
The knights exchanged horrified, silent glances, screaming internally. Yet not a single one dared voice a complaint to their commander. Rather, they couldn't. They knew better than anyone how ruthless the Duke could be when defied.
“What are you standing around for?! Move!”
Spurred by his thunderous bellow, the knights immediately formed ranks and broke into a heavy sprint. Just as the clattering of steel armor began to echo across the drill grounds, Jerome’s voice cut through the noise.
“Halt right there.”
He called out, stopping the figure at the very tail end of the formation.
“Prince Edwin.”
Edwin, never imagining his name would be singled out, looked back at Jerome with wide, startled eyes.
“…Me?”
“Is there another Edwin present, Your Highness?”
Jerome closed the distance toward the frozen young prince. Looking down at the diminutive boy, his rough demeanor softened, his voice taking on a gentleness that contrasted sharply with his previous rage.
“Walk with me for a moment. We have things to discuss.”
“Jerome Crowner, eh? Haven’t heard that name in ages.”
Sage grumbled under his breath as he sorted through medicinal herbs harvested with his own hands.
“You’ve got the devil’s own luck. How on earth did you manage to keep your identity hidden from a monster like him?”
“Human beings are easily blinded by what their eyes perceive. He is no exception.”
Resting my boots casually on Sage’s cluttered desk, I leaned back against the chair until it tilted.
“Besides, to anyone looking, I appear as nothing more than an ordinary young woman. It’s only natural.”
“Fair enough. I did think your disguise this time was remarkably convincing, unlike your usual slipshod jobs. But how did you shrink your height? Did you chug some alchemical concoction?”
Sage scrutinized me with squinted, inquisitive eyes.
“…Something like that.”
I had no intention of revealing the truth just yet. If he ever discovered I had died and awakened in another person’s body, he would pester me endlessly with demands for autopsies, blood samples, and arcane experiments. It would be ten times more exhausting than handling royal politics.
I let my gaze wander quietly around Sage’s cabin. Tucked away behind the annex of the Third Prince's Palace, this modest garden shed served as a private sanctum solely for Sage. Surrounded entirely by dense thickets, towering trees, and a secluded herbal patch, it was virtually invisible to prying eyes.
“So, why bring up Duke Crowner all of a sudden?”
I gave a light shrug at Sage’s query.
“I merely wondered if you knew anything about him.”
“Shouldn’t you know him better than I do? You said you crossed swords with him once.”
“I don’t. All I know is the ‘knight’ named Jerome Crowner, not the ‘man’ beneath the armor.”
Sage paused, scratching his gray beard in contemplation before parting his lips once more.
“Well now. The only thing I know for certain is that the Duke isn’t the legitimate heir of the Crowner ducal line.”
“Not the legitimate heir? What do you mean by that?”
“He’s adopted. Word has it the late Duke brought him into the house specifically to secure a successor.”
“Are you saying he’s an illegitimate child born out of wedlock?”
“Hmph, it’s a good deal more tangled than that.”
Sage swirled a gnarled finger through the empty air as if sketching an invisible family tree.
“Rumor has it he was the son the late Duke’s former wife bore from an affair with a commoner knight.”