Chapter 138

Chapter 136 – Proposal

The gaze was so blatantly fixed on me that I instinctively looked around.

If someone were to see me right now, they couldn’t possibly miss that Kaiquilia was watching me.

Fortunately, however, everyone except me had already knelt on one knee, bowing their heads toward the throne. It seemed no one had noticed our exchange.

Kaiquilia’s golden eyes curved gracefully like a crescent moon. As always, they were eyes that sent chills down the spine of anyone who looked at them.

Those eyes were filled with affection and interest directed at me. I forcefully shifted my gaze away and approached Erica, kneeling on one knee and bowing my head toward the throne.

“Raise your head.”

Before I could even bow for a second, the order to raise my head came down. I lifted my head. It was a very deliberate command meant to stop me from bowing my head to her.

From a woman with a fierce interest in one man, Kaiquilia returned as the sharp and oppressive Empress of the Aiternum Empire, resting her chin in her hand and speaking in an indifferent tone.

“Do you understand why I called you?”

“I…I’m not sure! I’m sorry! Your Majesty!”

The formal question that is typically thrown when standing before Kaiquilia echoed from the knight commander of the Golden Dusk Knights.

“We do not know either. I apologize, Your Majesty.”

Aurora also calmly replied. It was a formal question and a formal apology. Nobody present expected a correct answer to that question.

The one who posed the question seemed to recognize that, wearing an expression that suggested it. With her elbow resting on the armrest of the throne, Kaiquilia looked at Aurora with an indifferent face.

Aurora’s body trembled slightly under that gaze.

“You have been acting rather cute lately, haven’t you, Aurora?”

“……”

Aurora couldn’t answer and instead bowed her head low.

“When did I tell you to look away?”

Immediately, a chilling warning came back. Her bowed head jerked back up to its original position.

“Speak of what you were doing with that mouth of yours.”

“…I was trying to reinstate the Silver Dawn Knights.”

“You seem to know well. I shall commend you.”

Aurora’s body visibly trembled, enough for those behind her—four knight commanders, along with the former members of the Silver Dawn Knights at the back of the Golden Dusk Knights—to notice.

A silence followed. With Kaiquilia not speaking, who could dare to say anything? Nobody there was foolish enough to make such a silly move.

“……”

As the silence in the Central Hall stretched on, Aurora’s trembling gradually intensified.

Silence was far from a word with a positive connotation, especially in a situation like this where the Empress was pressing for answers.

“Delta.”

Kaiquilia, who had been silent for a while, finally spoke. I quickly responded.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“What do you think?”

“…Excuse me?”

“Do you think I should restore the position of the Silver Dawn Knights?”

In that moment, I wondered why she was asking me. It was perplexing. Kaiquilia was not the type to ask for others’ opinions when making decisions.

After a moment of confusion, I steeled my heart. Whatever the reason for this, it was an opportunity to revive the Silver Dawn Knights. I could think about why Kaiquilia was doing this later.

“Yes.”

The bodies of the knight commanders shook slightly. They looked tense. Their fate would be decided based on how the Empress responded.

Kaiquilia continued to look at me while resting her chin on her hand, then she turned her gaze to Aurora and smiled slightly.

“You shall be relieved of your burden, so thank Delta. Aurora.”

“……”

Upon hearing those words, Aurora’s shoulders gently relaxed. It seemed the tension she had been feeling had melted away. She had likely been anxious about possibly upsetting the Empress until just moments ago.

“I will accept your opinion. I shall reinstate the Silver Dawn Knights.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty!”

The knight commanders bowed their heads with trembling voices. Kaiquilia paid little attention to their thanks, waving her left hand dismissively.

The women in white sleeveless tops and black dolphin shorts, who had been kneeling at the very back of the Golden Dusk Knights, all stood up and approached me.

They aligned themselves on both sides of me and, surrounding me, knelt on one knee towards the throne. Their heads bowed deeply. Now they could again be called the Silver Dawn Knights.

“The Empress’s words are not yet finished.”

The atmosphere, which had begun to become slightly chaotic, immediately settled down. Her golden pupils shifted back to me. A sudden sense of foreboding crossed my mind.

“Delta.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

It seemed that foreboding never failed me. The name Kaiquilia called out was once again directed at me. What was she planning now?

But the words that followed were far beyond my expectations.

“I shall grant you half of the Golden Dusk Knights. From now on, you will be the commander of a newly formed knight order, not just a newbie knight of the Silver Dawn Knights.”

“Your Majesty! What do you mean!”

The knight in golden armor shouted in shock, raising her head. She looked so dumbfounded that she seemed frozen in that position, unable to move.

It was understandable. The Silver Dawn Knights, which they had just torn apart, were being reunited, and on top of that, the Golden Dusk Knights were about to be severed.

“……”

I stared up at Kaiquilia, dumbfounded. She was offering me what? Half of the Golden Dusk Knights?

‘……Is this the effect of the story being twisted?’

At this point, wishing for the original story or events to proceed as they had would be foolish. But things like this were certainly not in the cards. If a player were to become the commander of another order, maybe, but this was different.

And what was I supposed to do sitting in that position?

In the case of early bosses, they might be manageable, but if they were mid-game bosses, regular knights would get swept away if they charged in together.

No matter how much I was reinforced by the Darkest Light Mod, the stat increase for bosses was several times, if not dozens of times, greater than that of regular mobs. The fundamental stat difference between field mobs and bosses could not be solved.

While they could relatively easily take down enemies that were ordinary like themselves, it would be far simpler to just take the knight commanders with me.

‘Not much is going to change.’

Like always, I would solve the truly dangerous ones with assistance, while I just handled the rest for leveling up. Even if I became a knight commander, nothing would ultimately change.

“Are you raising your voice against my decree?”

Kaiquilia said, spitting out a chilling voice as she glared. Realizing the atmosphere was serious, the knight in golden armor hurriedly bowed her head.

“Ah, no! Your Majesty! How could I dare to!”

Having confirmed that the knight commander was lying flat on the ground, Kaiquilia’s expression returned to normal. However, her voice was much colder than before.

“You must have heard the rumors that are currently circulating in the Imperial Palace. Speak, at once.”

At her fierce voice, the knight froze for a moment before stammering an answer.

“They say that during the dragon’s attack, there was someone who repelled the dragon… the rumor says that the one who repelled the dragon was… me, a newbie knight…”

“A knight commander. Do you truly still not understand?”

“…I mean, the rumor is that it’s a knight commander, Your Majesty.”

As soon as he tried to refer to me as a newbie knight, he desperately corrected himself, showing he had no intention of retracting the decision. My vision swayed slightly.

“Indeed. That knight faced the dragon alone and made it retreat.”

Her long, delicate fingers tapped lightly on the armrest of the throne. A thought arose, a feeling that I might know what was coming next.

“That rumor is the truth. I witnessed it with my own eyes.”

All eyes filled with disbelief were turned towards me.

The rumors that had spread throughout the palace couldn’t be ignored, and when the Empress herself confirmed their truth, it was a natural reaction.

‘No, wait, did she actually see it clearly?’

Didn’t I pass out from the roar and then regain consciousness? I had no idea when Kaiquilia had been awake, so it was hard for me to outright distrust her words.

‘Where do I start explaining?’

That guy read my memory, misunderstood it, and took off, but did Kaiquilia see it as me facing down the dragon and repelling it? The thought of how to clear up the misunderstanding was overwhelming. In truth, whether I could even resolve it was in question.

“Ha, Your Majesty—”

That knight seemed significantly shocked, stuttering as he tried to argue back somehow.

“You did the same thing. What is wrong with that? Do you wish to be torn apart, leaving not even half?”

“…No, Your Majesty.”

Of course, that was an utterly senseless thing to say. The golden helm lowered deeply. While the situation was no different from being struck by lightning out of a clear sky, I felt no pity.

As Kaiquilia said moments ago, he had received the full weight of his actions in return.

In fact, considering that half of the members were still intact, it could be argued that their situation was better than the Silver Dawn Knights. Besides, they hadn’t been chased off to the corners of the Empire alongside some malicious lord.

“Come closer, Delta.”

Kaiquilia called me without caring at all about the utterly defeated knight commander from the Golden Dusk Knights.

I walked obediently right up to her. Heeding the lesson from last time, this time I knelt slightly closer from the start. The corners of Kaiquilia’s mouth lifted slightly.

“I have a proposal for you.”

A proposal? It sounded ominous. It could easily be a command disguised as a proposal. If anyone could do that, it would surely be Kaiquilia.

“What is it, Your Majesty?”

But I couldn’t let my feelings show, so I looked up to meet her gaze. Kaiquilia leaned forward. Through the opening of her uniform, her upper chest and cleavage were laid bare.

Her thumb and forefinger pinched my chin. My face tilted slightly upwards, and she moved closer as if to kiss me. I could feel her sweet breath on my lips.

“I will give you the position of my direct knight. Do you not wish to lead your own knight order and become mine?”