Chapter 150

Chapter 148 – Promise

“Good to see you again, Knight Commander Delta.”

Lana politely bowed towards me, who was dumbfounded by her unexpected appearance. As always, it was a very charismatic gesture.

Except for the fact that she had leaves stuck all over her body.

For now, Lana’s calm demeanor meant that nothing bad had happened at the mansion. I completely erased my anxiety from my mind.

But that made things more confusing. What on earth happened that the knights supposed to guard the main gate were nowhere to be seen, the door was wide open, and Lana appeared from the bushes?

“Did the Lord ask you to do this?”

“Do you think I would do something like that?”

A fierce denial came back. It seemed that Aurora hadn’t instructed her to pull such a crazy stunt. My questions grew more intense.

“It seems you’ve returned earlier than expected, Master.”

Lana spoke nonchalantly, unfazed by our reactions.

“I had a bit of an incident. It just turned out this way.”

Since the person in question was looking so calm, despite her response, Aurora couldn’t help but reply in a voice that betrayed her uneasy feelings.

The girl, who had been trembling in fear, had somehow returned as the lord of the city.

“How’s the mansion? Nothing happened, right?”

“Yes. We are fine. What happened to you, Master?”

“Well….”

Aurora, who had been twitching her lips, suddenly stopped talking. She maintained silence for quite some time before relaxing the grip of her arm around my neck.

“Delta. Let me down for a moment.”

“Are you sure you can walk?”

“Yes. I should be fine now. Thanks for worrying about me.”

I knelt down to make it easier for Aurora to get off and relaxed the grip of my hand that had been supporting her thigh. The softness of her thigh faded away. A chilly breeze rushed into my palm.

Tap, tap, the sound of her high heels hitting the marble echoed as Aurora, who had stumbled momentarily, soon regained her balance. Delicate fingers dusted off various parts of her button-up shirt.

With each little movement, her plump backside peeked out from under the hem of her shirt. Since she wasn’t wearing any panties, the split down the middle was visible, along with her tightly closed crack.

Looking rather suggestive as she fixed her outfit, Aurora approached Lana and whispered something in her ear.

Lana nodded repeatedly as she listened to her master.

“…Is that so? Understood.”

Once the explanation seemed to be over, the lips that had been close to her ear pulled away. Lana stared at me intently with her pitch-black eyes, while Aurora kept casting glances at me.

I had no idea what explanation could elicit such reactions.

“Knight Commander Delta.”

Lana, hands clasped in front of her abdomen, bowed deeply.

“First, I want to thank you for protecting my master.”

“It was something I had to do anyway.”

“There are countless examples in the Empire’s hundreds of years of history where failure to do the obvious led to catastrophic outcomes. Especially if, as you said, it was an urgent situation. We will reward you for saving my master’s life later.”

Though I wondered if my actions warranted such gratitude, there was no reason to refuse a reward. I nodded obediently.

“What will you do now, Commander? Are you going straight back to the castle?”

Lana asked in quick succession.

“Of course. It’s not completely resolved yet. I have many questions to ask that woman.”

“I understand you came to find Delta.”

“Right. But I actually don’t know why I was called here. I want to ask her directly.”

Even if Nix’s appearance had changed to that of the typical gloomy, busty girl character due to the modification mode, to know why she came all the way here to see me, I had to ask her directly.

It felt pretty bad to leave Aurora behind, but I couldn’t just leave Nix unattended in the castle. She was like a ticking time bomb, capable of doing anything.

“Please wait a moment, Delta.”

As I tried to convey my intention to excuse myself to Aurora and turn around, Lana stopped me.

“Are you planning to continue what you couldn’t do today later?”

I thought briefly about what that meant. It most likely referred to the outing with Aurora that had gone awry. Naturally, I had to continue that. I nodded.

“Of course. It’s definitely in my plans.”

“Yes. Understood, Delta. I’m sure my master is eagerly awaiting that day.”

Seemingly satisfied with my response, Aurora and Lana let me go without further ado, and I left the mansion, escorted by them.

Soon after leaving the mansion, Delta couldn’t see the faces of Aurora and Lana.

He missed the expression on Lana’s face, which was satisfyingly expressionless, and Aurora’s face, which was reddening as she realized what the ‘unaccomplished task’ meant.

“Congratulations, Master. You’ve received an assurance that you will continue what you couldn’t do today. That must make you very happy.”

“…Should I be happy about this? It feels like I’m deceiving Delta.”

“You’re only hiding the truth, so you’re not deceiving him. You know the difference, don’t you?”

Aurora let out a slight sigh. Of course, I knew the difference. But I never imagined there would come a time to use it like this.

“And, women have very powerful weapons.”

“Powerful weapons? What do you mean?”

“If you confess that you made the lie because you like Delta, he will surely forgive you. There are hardly any men who would mistreat a woman who likes them.”

Lana didn’t know whether this was true or not, since she probably heard it from somewhere.

But the vast majority of people couldn’t distinguish between acting boldly when they didn’t know anything and acting confidently when they were aware.

Especially in cases like Aurora, where she had practically no knowledge of male-female relations, it worked even better if she couldn’t discern the truth.

“Wait. But what you just said to Delta was not me, it was you, right?”

Upon hearing that, Lana didn’t even change her expression, and covered her slightly parted lips with her hand as if surprised.

“Then I can’t help it. If I say I like Delta and acted that way… Just kidding.”

Lana stepped back neatly after checking Aurora’s expression, who knew she was just joking, and didn’t press further.

Instead of questioning her maid, who had become more brazen and even shameless over time, she turned her attention back to the shrinking figure of Delta.

“…He’s really gone, right?”

“Yes. Master. Are you regretting that Delta left like this?”

“If I’m not, it would be a lie. Until the incident occurred, the mood was quite good. But…”

Aurora scanned Lana from top to bottom. Though they had shaken off the dirt, stains were still lingering on Lana’s maid outfit. There were still faint brown and green marks in some areas.

“What happened? The knights are gone, the door is open. And why did you pop out of the bushes?”

“It was for my master.”

Aurora, taken aback by the seemingly absurd response, crossed her arms, ready to hear more.

“If you successfully accomplished your initial goal and returned to the mansion with Delta, you would have felt uncomfortable glancing at us while heading to the room. On the other hand, if you came back alone without achieving your goal, you would need some time to clear your mind.”

“So you thought it would be better for no one to be around, regardless of the situation?”

“Yes. Of course, we haven’t neglected the mansion’s defenses. The knights are watching the garden through the curtains of the windows.”

“Alright. Accepting everything else, why were you in the bushes, Lana?”

“Is it an order that I must answer?”

Realizing that it wasn’t exactly an order, Aurora considered backing off, but changed her mind upon seeing Lana’s attitude. She sensed something was off.

“Yes, it’s an order.”

“Would you prefer a plausible answer or the truth?”

“The truth.”

Another similar exchange followed.

I quickly caught on that this was Lana’s subtle plea not to ask any more questions, but I completely ignored it. It’s the fault of the one who instigated the curiosity.

“…Just in case something unpleasant happened, there needed to be someone to monitor, and I volunteered for that role.”

It was a roundabout way of saying she was openly watching her master’s relationship.

As expected, with that master, came that maid.

“What about Nix?”

“As ordered, I placed her in the Commander’s room, with surveillance in place.”

I hurried back to the castle as fast as I could.

It seemed that those who had fled had calmed down and returned home, as only the knights, who had taken off their helmets, were restlessly wandering with anxious expressions.

They looked uneasy about the witch being inside the castle, fiddling with the grips of their weapons, and upon seeing me return to the castle, their faces brightened, and they bowed their heads.

“How many went in for surveillance?”

“Five. We were originally going to send more, but the space was limited, so that would have been more of a hindrance.”

“Did they show any signs of discomfort even though they were on surveillance?”

“I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for sure, but they said they would follow without complaint since it was a command from the Commander. Except for some uncomfortable smiles, they were quite well-behaved until they actually entered the room.”

Laksia’s forehead creased slightly. It seemed recalling it brought her unpleasant feelings.

It sounded like they were observing that creepy laughter, which indeed felt strange. Maybe the modifiers had changed the settings of a gloomy character to laugh like that.

“Got it. And when I get to the room—”

But then I hesitated. I didn’t know just how much Nix knew, so I had to keep the conversation between just the two of us. There was a chance, however slight, she might know I had possessed this body.

But it was also true that I felt slightly anxious about meeting Nix without any guards.

“Commander? What’s wrong?”

Laxtia, noticing my sudden silence, called out to me with a worried expression.

“It’s nothing. I was just going to say to wait outside once I go in.”

“…Will you be okay?”

“I’m not sure. That’s why I was just hesitating. But even if it’s not okay, I’ll have to do it. This could be a story that could get out and cause real trouble.”

“Understood. Please be careful.”

Laxtia bowed respectfully to me.

Considering that our first meeting involved me beating her with a broken sword, my first impression of her was somewhat sour. But now, as the second-in-command, she was showing her capabilities without reservation.

It seemed she didn’t resent suddenly becoming part of my ranks either. Probably, it was because the Knight Commander of the Golden Dusk Knights was such a twisted character, making me look relatively angelic.

“Kruah. Open up. The Commander has arrived.”

Laxtia knocked at the door. As soon as it opened, the scene inside the room caught my eye.

There weren’t any more spacious than the rooms of the other knights, so with five heavily armed knights inside, the space was almost cramped.

At this rate, it looked like even wielding a weapon properly would be difficult.

“Ah, you’re here? Hehe.”

And then, the surveillance target, Nix, was sprawled on my bed, curled up with the blanket and clutching the pillow, looking like a pupa.

“……?”

I stopped in my tracks, and Laxtia frowned and spoke up.

“Why is that girl acting like that?”

“As soon as we entered the room, she jumped onto the Commander’s bed without giving us a chance to stop her. We tried to pull her out, but her stubbornness was such that we thought if we pressed harder, the blanket would tear… I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. If she wants to act like that, what can we do? We should just leave her be.”

I reassured the knights. If I let this go, Laxtia would not let them off easily.

“Laxtia. Take the kids and step outside.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Laxtia took the knights away with her. The sound of the door closing click echoed behind them.

With just the two of us left in the room, Nix looked up at me, her signature creepy smile plastered on her face as she buried her face halfway into the pillow because of her small stature, making her look quite stubby.

“You know, do you?”

Nix grinned.

“I’m currently naked?”