The Knight Whose Talent Was Flawed
My arrival at the temple had not been meant as a gift of several years’ worth of living expenses from my mother.
But she had provided more than enough money for the journey.
I had even squeezed some of that sum out of Father and my older brother.
I worried that the money might run out during the trip—would I have to make do with just one slice of bread a day? Still, I could at least buy roasted chicken for the knights.
The only thing I had to do was complain about these worries, and Father and my brother would wipe their eyes with tears and stuff extra coins into my hands, grumbling, “Why would you go to such a remote place?”
In addition, I had a stash of pocket money saved since I was little.
From the age of ten, I had been able to manage the allowances I received from various adults on my own.
Though they weren’t real money, just rings, bolts of cloth, books, pens, and the like, I could still handle them.
And I sold those items on a regular basis to merchants who came to the city.
“You wish to meet the supervisor?”
As I sold my goods at the guild, the knight Jacques Bochel, who took my commission and dealt with the merchants on my behalf, scratched his chin and looked down at me.
“This is Hamilcar. I wouldn’t recommend meeting the supervisor of another territory.”
“Father won’t be angry at me for that.”
“Still…”
This man had taken my commission for two whole years and suddenly started treating me like a little girl.
“To climb to the Gerka temple, we have to prepare. Without preparation, we’ll die. And the mountains are too steep—have you found a guide?”
Hah, after living in this world for twelve years, I was now bantering with someone my age.
If I ever returned to my old world, I’d better get my head straight. Otherwise, I’d be stuck forever as the “genuine female university student” on some tube.
“We’ve just arrived, haven’t we?”
“Exactly. A guide, or even clothes or shoes, we have to meet the supervisor first.”
“Still, it’s impossible. There’s no one here to take responsibility. The young lady is too young.”
Good words didn’t work, so I had to use bad ones.
“Do you have any better ideas? Do you want me to beg from village to village, pleading for help or to buy something? Do you know the fair price? If you try to rip me off, you’ll pay the difference yourself?”
Talking about principles was easy when there was no downside. Real people who could stick to principles even when it hurt them were few and far between.
And the knight who took my commission and secretly sold my goods for me and Father and Mother didn’t fall into that category.
Talking about principles was simple. Complaining was simple.
But when he opened his mouth, he suddenly clenched his teeth, then grinned and leaned close to my face.
“If I let the lord down, the young lady will take responsibility, won’t she?”
His growling voice made me laugh.
“Of course.”
He probably thought he was growling like a wild beast, but to me it sounded like a defeated dog barking, so I laughed.
Jacques Bochel let out a long sigh as he left my room. I really shouldn’t have gotten tangled up with this girl.
He frowned, recalling two years ago.
Well, it was a common story. He had fallen in love and challenged himself in a jousting tournament for her sake.
Wearing her ribbon and raising her honor.
But in front of the king and many nobles, he lost the very first match.
Count Danier had tried to talk him out of entering the tournament.
After all, the winner was already decided. With the king and his heir present, winning was almost impossible.
He had thought he might win a couple of times, but the preliminary rounds were held just to warm up the knights.
And Bochel had believed himself to be a fairly skilled knight among the knights.
He was unhorsed in one blow by the king’s personal knight and became the loser.
Naturally, his “lady” looked at him with contempt, and his love ended there.
All that remained was the reality that he had to raise money to get his armor and horse back.
So he pleaded with the winning knight to cut most of the money he owed.
But the minimum amount he still had to pay remained.
And that money had been given by a ten-year-old Arian Danier.
“Armor and horse are the knight’s pride. If I save your pride, what will you give me?”
“As a Danier knight, I naturally pledge my loyalty to the young lady.”
“Don’t speak so stiffly. I’d like a story that only we two know. Of course, the money I’m giving you is our little secret too. How about it?”
Bochel, who had no choice between hot or cold water, swore he would, and Arian had really given him the money.
Naturally, Bochel started avoiding Arian as if nothing had happened.
At the time, he had thought, “What can a little girl do to me? If she shows her teeth, it’ll be the end.”
But Arian had never been a pushover.
Arian had worn the ribbon that the knight had received from his “lady” right in front of him as if to say, “See?” That ribbon was proof that Arian had bought his goods.
And if Count Danier found out that Bochel had used Arian’s money to get his armor and horse back, he would be driven out of the Danier family.
No matter how Arian claimed she had voluntarily paid the money, it wouldn’t have mattered. Count Danier would be furious that a knight had made his only daughter spend money.
So from that time on, Bochel became Arian Danier’s errand boy.
While she blackmailed him, Arian often gave him pocket money. Blackmail was the whip, pocket money the carrot.
And Bochel had been properly trained by two years of whip and carrot.
The little rebellion he had shown earlier had just been a preparation for when he got caught by his lord. In short, he had simply had a conversation worthy of a knight and a young lady.
“I said it was impossible.”
“I know. Let’s pretend I forced you.”
Realistically, Bochel quickly shrugged off any regret for two years ago and went looking for the village supervisor.
A supervisor would be nothing more than a noble in this village or another, so he could find him nearby.
And the simplest way to find out who the supervisor was and where he was.
“Oh, has he gone to the gambling house!”
Gambling.
Except for the brief period when he had fallen for a “lady,” Bochel had lived his whole life in gambling. Stealing from these country bumpkins was something he could do with one hand.
At first, the villagers had looked down on him, but gradually they began to focus on his nimble hands.
Every time he shuffled the wooden pieces he had made for gambling, the air grew tense.
Bochel took over the gambling table in the corner of the tavern and quickly grew the stakes, and suddenly the locals who had a little money started gathering.
Looking down from the second floor, Arian let out a small snort.
She turned her back on the gambling table as if she had no interest and went back to her room, and the tavern was filled with whistles and shouts because the gambling board had grown so large.
The next day, I woke up after getting plenty of rest.
Last night’s sleep and the arrogant way Bochel had said this morning, “You should be able to meet the supervisor by tomorrow. You must get up in the middle of the night, so get some sleep,” had been the reason.
Given how arrogant he looked, he must have won a lot and made a fortune.
If a child was eating a meal at the gambling house in the middle of the night, these people wouldn’t blink an eye. If children’s rights existed here, there wouldn’t have been child marriages.
But rights like that were too luxurious here.
The people eating at that very gambling house right now were all serfs. They were beings who didn’t even have the freedom to change residence. They were consumables who were sold along with the land when the lord sold it.
They simply endured day by day, and the concept of the future was vague.
Land tax, corvée labor, rent, and various other usage fees…
Their lives were a continuous series of suffocating defenses, and if they suffered any natural disaster, they would collapse.
It was a completely different level from the disasters of the twenty-first century. No insurance, no security forces. No relief, no support.
Just the end. It was a life of one-day lives.
Boring, how boring it was, and so people became sexually open and obsessed with dopamine-boosting activities like gambling.
No matter which provincial tavern, gambling was always going on in a corner.
But that gambling was all basically the same. All the same faces. Everyone knew the situation.
If it got too heated, a knife fight could break out, so they played only enough to avoid grudges until an outsider appeared.
Even an outsider who had scraped up a lot of the locals’ money.
Stealing the villagers’ money without reason was a crime, but once the money entered the outsider’s hands, it was no longer the villagers’ money.
The villagers were in ecstasy over who would get their blind money.
But Bochel was a knight with little talent, but as a gambler he was a first-class talent. He was not the kind of person these rural villagers could beat.
After he cleared out all the mobs, the boss mob soon appeared.
The supervisor.