WYDM 23

“Your contributions were the greatest. Eh? Haha. Since healing your wounds is urgent, everyone stay at the knight order quarters and receive treatment. The imperial physicians will personally attend to your wounds as a special measure.”

“We are grateful for Your Majesty’s grace.”

Even after receiving the Emperor’s high praise and assurances about what would follow, the Third Knight Order’s expressions weren’t particularly bright.

The Emperor watched until the very end as they supported each other and left the conference hall. Only then did the expressions of the nobles who’d been watching his proud face begin to darken gradually.

“Your Majesty… what kind of reward do you plan to bestow upon them?”

One of the dukes asked him.

They’d called it an insane plan, but it had ultimately succeeded.

In the aftermath, Duke Croft, the commander of the Third Knight Order, was currently missing, but thanks to that operation, the First and Second Knight Orders had stepped forward to clean up the enemy forces who’d lost their leaders and those capable of replacing them, sending them all back to their own country—a triumphant achievement.

The war’s end was something everyone, whether knights or nobles, had desperately hoped for. It was something that deserved celebration. And rewards as well.

But the Emperor immediately noticed. This duke’s question wasn’t suggesting they give generous rewards to those men.

Two seconds. That’s how long it took for his gaze to leave the door the knights had exited through and reach the duke. Not just the duke, but the others swallowed nervously as they followed his gaze.

“Shouldn’t those who’ve accomplished great deeds receive appropriate and fitting rewards? Moreover, I hear that operation had the fewest casualties and deaths. Wouldn’t this count as executing the finest operation?”

The Emperor, of course, had no intention of being easily led by their conversation.

He made various unavoidable choices to avoid their pressure…like with Ethan, for example.

But that was to gain the power to lead confidently with his own opinions before them, to become an emperor who could stand proudly like this.

Ethan, who’d become a sacrifice to his plan, had accomplished this much. There was no reason not to reward him.

“W-well, that’s true, but… it was far too reckless an operation to begin with. If they’d targeted the enemy’s leaders, we could have lost all our skilled fighters as well. Would it have ended there? The entire Third Knight Order hiding there could have been endangered by the enemy forces rising up.”

The duke, seemingly convincing himself with his own answer, spoke clearly with flashing eyes.

The Crown Prince watched him full of vigor and let out a quiet exhale.

Actually, his worry had been the Emperor’s worry. The Emperor fundamentally favored the knight orders, and strictly speaking, the Third Knight Order was composed of those he cherished most.

“That’s precisely why only the Third Knight Order could execute that operation. Isn’t that right?”

When the Emperor’s voice, which had been full of force, suddenly changed, both the duke and the nobles who’d been supporting him nearby froze.

His voice, mixed with regret and relief, contained many complex emotions.

“That place has many who are there because they’re too good rather than because their skills are poor. They must have meticulously compared the individual capabilities of the enemy’s leaders and our leaders. That bastard… he’s not someone who’d throw knights into danger without such certainty.”

A strange light appeared in the Emperor’s eyes when he said ‘that bastard,’ but when he called him ‘that guy,’ the light rapidly faded away.

“But right now he’s… missing.”

It wasn’t that he’d never anticipated such an ending. But he could say with certainty that he’d never once wished for this situation.

He’d believed. That he would unite and lead well those skilled but unruly individuals there.

‘After accomplishing it so brilliantly… where are you and what are you doing?’

The Emperor turned his gaze to look at the main gate.

The previous Duke Croft had been the same. When the Emperor heard news that someone who’d boasted he’d never die anywhere had not only been defeated but lost his life, he’d felt the ground crumbling beneath his feet.

The reason he’d come to cherish the knight orders was precisely Duke Croft…

That’s why, even while believing in the current Duke Croft, Ethan, it was difficult to control his heart pounding fearfully now.

“I will decide the appropriate rewards. I hope you don’t harbor such impure thoughts as begrudging those who risked their lives on the front lines in your stead.”

“B-but…”

He’d already made up his mind. At his firm words, several nobles urgently opened their mouths, but none could properly continue their next words.

Without even looking back at them, the Emperor turned around and left the conference hall.

* * *

It seemed like many things would change once that knight occupying the former Count and Countess’s room for four days now regained consciousness, but the county remained quiet today as well, with just a hint of tension.

Sana had just brought two servings of food to that room with Romina and come back down to the kitchen together.

Beyond the kitchen, in the dining room, no one had used it since Lady Sehera had briefly eaten there yesterday.

“I wish the lady would come down to eat. It’s not like she has to eat together with him.”

On the opposite side from where the dining room was located, there was a separate dining area prepared for the servants to eat. Romina, who’d brought the food she’d made there, set down a side plate and fork in front of Sana, who was sitting with her lips puffed out.

“Right. Since he’s ill, the food he eats is different too. I wish she’d come down to eat while he’s sleeping and then go back up.”

Even though Sana seemed to be complaining, Romina felt the same this time. While thinking it would be better if both the lady and that patient ate something together rather than alone… she couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling in one corner of her heart.

“Oh, that too, but… why won’t she let anyone enter that room? She said no one should come in except when bringing meals and taking out dishes…”

Sana grumbled while eagerly eating the food Romina had prepared. She seemed dissatisfied with that decision as well.

Romina also found that part strange.

So after dinner ended yesterday and she’d brought out the dishes, she’d stood in front of that door the entire time.

While imagining the most embarrassing and shameful things an older woman could imagine. So she hadn’t told Sana, but not a single voice had come from inside the room.

Come to think of it… nothing about this wasn’t strange.

“Could the knight be a dangerous person? So she’s trying to keep us from being exposed…?”

“But she told us to continue preparing for the party…”

Clunk.

Just as the two were racking their brains and letting their imaginations run wild, they suddenly heard the sound of a door opening from the direction of the exit.

“Rabo!”

Sana, who’d been craning her neck to look that way after her words were cut off by the door sound, called out a name.

The person entering quietly was working as a carpenter at this estate and was also the first person Sehera had asked for help when she’d discovered Ethan that day.

“I… came to eat…”

And he was someone extremely shy around people. Despite being a tall man with lean muscles without an ounce of dullness, he walked around with shaggy hair covering his eyes and hunched shoulders, giving quite a peculiar first impression.

“Rabo! Come quickly! Wow, eating with Rabo, how exciting!”

But for Sana, who had nothing to fear and nothing to be self-conscious about, such things weren’t particularly unusual.

Romina put down her fork and brought a side plate and fork for Rabo as well. Then she ladled out three bowls of the heated soup and set them at each person’s place.

“Now that I think about it… it was you that day, right, Rabo? The one who carried the knight who’d collapsed in the back garden and brought him up.”

Romina asked this while setting down the last soup bowl in front of herself.

Those who’d first seen that man were Sehera, Rabo, and Himoph. Just in case, she threw out the question since he’d appeared.

While Romina muttered “Oh my, look at me” and got up again to fetch spoons for all three, Rabo chewed his lips and prepared to answer the question she’d thrown out.

“Th-that…”

When his prepared words finally left his mouth after she’d asked the question, the two gave up and turned their eyes from the food they’d been about to focus on back to him.

“Um… he was wearing the knight uniform of the Croft Empire. He came through a hole hidden by trees in the back wall that I didn’t even know existed… crawling more than walking, and collapsed in the middle of the lawn. The lady discovered him first. She ran to me and told me to take that knight to ‘her parents’ room.’”

Rabo, who’d given his answer while constantly fidgeting with the fork in his hand, slightly raised his eyes to sneak a glance at the two women paying attention to him from both sides.

“Could he be someone important?”

“Someone important… but he went to war as a knight?”

“Or… maybe if she recognized someone important immediately, at a glance, it’s possible…”

Sana’s speculation sounded absurdly fantastical like a storybook, but thinking carefully, it was quite realistic.

The problem was…Romina, who knew roughly what kind of duchess Sehera had been at the ducal estate, fell into even deeper contemplation than Sana.

Our lady knows someone important enough to attend to like that…? If she recognized him immediately even in such a frantic moment, could it be Duke Croft, her ex-husband…!

Romina carefully observed Sana, who was excitedly muttering this and that in front of her, and Rabo, who was glancing around nervously before starting to eat.

Sehera already had a narrow social circle, which was worrying, but if she was caring for someone this much whether she liked it or not, that narrowed things down considerably.

“Wouldn’t… a knight be important enough?”

Rabo seemed to be working his jaw hard, then after thoroughly chewing and swallowing the food in his mouth, he opened it.

It was just hard for him to open up at first—he didn’t seem like someone who disliked conversation itself.

At the question Rabo threw out, Sana, who was already getting full and poking at the vegetables on her side plate with her fork, made an “ah” face and stabbed a cabbage. Poke!

“What if the knight wasn’t just any knight? Or… there were enemy soldiers chasing him!”

“…What?”

Romina looked at her with a bewildered face, but Sana herself was confident in her words. She looked at Romina with sparkling eyes and continued developing her thoughts.

“Since he’s badly injured, news about this person can’t leak out. So to keep everyone from being exposed to danger, only the lady knows his face exactly!!”