The First Informant
Lefonya was carried in Pelens's arms as they made their way toward the training grounds. Knowing full well that asking him to put her down would accomplish nothing, she cleanly gave up on struggling.
"House Craitan's knights are all extraordinarily skilled," Pelens remarked. "Even our trainee knights are on par with regular knights from other noble houses, so prepare to have your mind blown."
She already knew that.
Once, while stealing an item on a mission for the Pope, she had been pursued by Craitan knights, and it had been pure agony shaking them off.
An escort, huh.
Lefonya suddenly recalled the boy she had encountered across the terrace the previous night. Considering he was roaming inside the Craitan estate, was he a member of the household as well?
He certainly didn't have the air of a servant.
There was no way House Craitan's eldest son could be that young, so was he a knight? If she had possessed an escort back then, she probably wouldn't have met that boy who had boldly climbed onto the lady's private terrace in the first place.
"Senior. Is there another child in the manor besides me?"
"Another child? You mean a friend your age?"
Lefonya nodded. Pelens tilted his head, combing through his memories.
"Hmm. I've spent so much time at the Academy and only just returned home, so I don't really know how the servants and their families are doing these days. Why? Do you want a friend around your age?"
"Not really."
"Fair enough. I used to go looking for peers when I was little, too. Something terrible happened in our family back then, and ever since that incident, Father never left his chambers out of grief, and my brother was too busy as the heir to spare me a single glance. I was told I was three at the time. Essentially neglected from age three onward. So by the time I was six, maybe? I think that was when I decided I didn't have a family."
Pelens smiled bitterly, as though the sting of old memories was resurfacing.
Lefonya was suddenly reminded of what he had told her when they first crossed paths. Hadn't he claimed that there was no such thing as family in this house?
If he's talking about a family tragedy, he must mean the accident that took the Duchess and the young lady.
And when that disaster struck, Pelens must have been just a little boy who desperately needed a family's warmth.
Is that what he meant back then?
Before she could dwell on it, Pelens shook off his somber demeanor and returned to his usual breezy self.
"If you want, I can bring you as many friends your age as you like."
Pelens chuckled, wearing a look that said kids will be kids. Lefonya pressed her tiny palm against his grinning cheek and gave it a firm push.
"It's nothing like that. I asked because there's someone I'm looking for."
"Looking for someone? What do they look like? Tell me. I'll find them for you."
"Um. The eyebrows slant upward like this, and he has black hair. His eyes are golden and sparkle really prettily. And his voice is nice too."
"A girl with black hair and golden eyes? Does she have long hair?"
"No. It's a boy."
Pelens, who had been strolling down the corridor with an easy smirk the entire time, froze dead in his tracks.
"A boy?"
What was with him? Was there a problem if the child happened to be a boy?
"You said his eyes sparkle prettily and his voice is nice?"
"Uh-huh. That boy's eyes sparkle, and his voice sounds really nice."
"Why are you looking for him? Did he bully you?"
His voice dropped into an ominous, quiet register. His face still wore the exact same smile, but the atmosphere radiating from him had shifted completely. The instant she admitted that a boy had dared to spy on the young lady's terrace, Pelens looked ready to hunt him down and execute him on the spot.
Better keep my mouth shut about that.
Determined to protect the nameless boy, Lefonya shook her head.
"Then why are you looking for him?"
"I just saw him from a distance once, so I was curious."
"If you only saw him from a distance, how on earth do you know his voice is—"
"Oh! It's the training grounds!"
Lefonya cut him off, swiftly changing the subject.
Just as Pelens opened his mouth to press her further, they arrived at the entrance of House Craitan's training grounds. Pelens eyed her with lingering suspicion, but chose not to interrogate her any more for the moment and played along.
Perhaps because the knight order was in the middle of drills, a blast of sweltering heat washed over them. Thunderous roars echoed across the grounds, accompanied by swirling clouds of kicked-up sand.
"Whoa."
Lefonya's eyes went wide. She had passed by the training grounds while sneaking around in search of the family heirloom, but this was her first time witnessing an active training session.
So a training ground... is only truly complete when knights fill it.
When she had visited before, the place had been completely deserted, leading her to think the ducal house was squandering a ridiculous amount of space. But that wasn't the case at all. The vast arena was teeming with drilling knights, to the point where the expansive grounds actually looked cramped.
So this is how knights of a noble house train.
It was worlds apart from the training Lefonya had endured. These were exercises designed not to murder or terrorize, but to protect others.
I haven't been assigned an assassination mission yet, so should I be thanking the Pope for that?
Lefonya looked down at her tiny palms. The Pope had favored her because she possessed the greatest skill among the children, which was why he had never ordered her to take a life. She had also wept and begged on her knees whenever such tasks were broached, and had she been caught committing murder, she would have faced immediate execution, rendering her completely useless to him.
Perhaps one day, I would have ended up caught by people like them and dragged to the execution block.
The thought left a bizarre, chilling ache in her chest. But Lefonya quickly shook her head, banishing the dark notion.
No. This is my very last mission.
The Pope had sworn upon the name of God. He was a man utterly terrified of losing his divine power. When offering prayers, he went so far as to command that no one kill even a single ant in his presence; there was no way he would utter a falsehood while staking his divine power on it.
Once she finished this mission safely. Once she stole the heirloom.
I'll never have to do things like this again.
So she couldn't afford to let her thoughts wander. She had to stay focused on the mission—on the heirloom.
Having gathered her resolve, Lefonya lightly swept her gaze over the training arena.
He isn't here.
She had secretly harbored a sliver of hope that she might run into him here... Was he not a knight, but in some other line of work entirely?
Just as Lefonya tilted her head in thought, a familiar face caught her attention among the practicing knights.
"Huh? That knight is..."
Hearing her murmur, Pelens followed her line of sight and turned his head.
"Who? Sir Velic? Do you know him?"
"Uh-huh. The knight who came to catch me when I was all alone at home."
So his name is Sir Velic.
She hadn't been able to slip away after he caught her, nearly ending up dragged off to the orphanage. Of course, that was how she had caught Duke Craitan's eye and ended up adopted.
"Hey, brat. You really lived in that house all by yourself before you came here?"
"Senior doesn't need to know."
"Why, you little fluffball."
Pelens knitted his brows in feigned annoyance and strode toward Sir Velic, who was in the middle of drills.
"Sir Velic."
"Pardon? ...*Gasp.* Young Master! My Lady!"
Sir Velic, whose practice uniform was soaked in sweat from sparring, widened his eyes in utter shock upon spotting Pelens and Lefonya. At his shout, the other knights paused their drills and turned around in unison.
"We greet the Young Master! We greet the Young Lady!"
Perhaps because they were in the middle of intense training, their voices were deafening compared to the quiet courtesies of the household servants. Startled by the sheer volume, Lefonya clamped both hands over her ears.
Pelens instantly bundled Lefonya tighter into his chest, tucking her away from sight as his face twisted into a scowl.
"Will you all shut up?! You're scaring the kid!"
You're the loud one.
"W-We apologize!"
The knights hastily dropped their voices to hushed whispers. Seeing hulking, muscle-bound men who had just been violently swinging swords suddenly leaning in and whispering like schoolchildren was quite a comical sight. Their eyes naturally drifted down to the five-year-old child cradled in Pelens's arms. Feeling their gazes, Lefonya peeked her head out from his chest.
"...Do I have to say hello too?"
Her tone was so soft and fluffy, like a puffy little cloud, that the knights collectively held their breath.
House Craitan's eldest son was a calm prodigy; perhaps because of that, he had looked down on everyone around him as fools since childhood. By age five, he had already mastered letters, mathematics, and the sciences, carrying around advanced academic texts and refusing to exchange a single word with anyone who couldn't keep up with him. The second son had been slow to speak, still babbling at age five, and his reckless temper and penchant for trouble had left half the manor smashed to pieces.
Given that history, Lefonya's innocent reaction couldn't help but leave the knights utterly enchanted.
"She's... she's so cute."
"Right? Seriously adorable."
Whether Lefonya was a scammer or not was the ducal family's private business. Since the knights existed solely to serve and protect House Craitan, they had neither the authority nor the standing to judge her legitimacy. What truly mattered right now was that Pelens, the notorious wild child, had personally carried her all the way to the training grounds.
"Young Master, what brings you here today...?"
"You all know there was a fire in the kid's bedroom, right? We haven't caught the culprit yet, and we need to assign her an escort in case something like that happens again. That's why I'm here."
The Young Lady's escort.
An escort for the soft, adorable Lefonya.
Every single knight's eyes flared with burning ambition, practically screaming that they wanted the assignment.
Pelens shielded Lefonya from their intense stares and stepped closer to Sir Velic.
"Sir Velic. There's something I want to ask."
"Yes! Young Master!"
"Is it true that the kid was living alone in an empty house when you brought her in?"
"Pardon? Ah... yes! It was an abandoned, vacant house, but a report came in saying a child appeared to be living there alone, so I went to investigate."
Why was he bringing that up again? And why was this knight giving such a detailed report?
He's definitely suspicious.
Lefonya glared at Pelens, but he simply gave Sir Velic an encouraging nod to keep going.
"There were no signs of anyone else living there, and the child—ah, forgive me, the Young Lady was all by herself. I was in the middle of escorting her to the orphanage when we encountered the Duke, and after that—"
"And that's how Father ended up adopting her?"
"Yes, that is correct."
Pelens looked down intently at Lefonya in his arms.
See? No matter how much you look, you won't find a single trace of a fraud! Naturally—she had never intended to be adopted as a highborn lady in the first place, but had planned to get hired as a maid!
Lefonya grinned with quiet triumph.
"Then who was the one who filed that report?"
She remembered that very clearly as well. It had been the lady living right next door...
"The initial informant was a young boy."