Chapter Three Hundred and Thirteen: Beauty in Knight’s Attire
At first glance, one might have taken her for a slender, fine-featured young man. But she was too slender for a boy, too composed, with an air of maturity about her. Karen had no acquaintance matching that description, so it was strange to feel such a sense of familiarity with someone she should never have met.
Looking closer, she realized it was Ottilie.
Ottilie strode toward her with wide, brisk steps—the walk of a man, quick and purposeful.
She stopped in front of Karen, her smile deepening further. Her bearing, her every movement, was that of a male noble. Her lips, naturally colored, were somehow all the more alluring for it, and Karen felt her pulse quicken as she instinctively braced herself.
Her dark, slightly wavy hair was bound back in a single tie, and she stood with composed dignity—the very picture of a beauty in men’s clothing.
“S-So gorgeous…”
“Maybe I should dance next too!?”
“How can someone that attractive be a woman—I can’t believe it! I refuse to believe it!”
Karen caught Petra’s lament at the edge of her hearing.
The music for commoners had ended, and the next piece—something suited for nobles—was about to begin.
“Brother Julius, you’re dancing the lady’s part next!”
“Ugh—Thor, haven’t you gotten stronger since I last saw you!?”
“Couldn’t ascend the step for a while, but conquering the thirtieth floor of the dungeon finally did it!”
Julius, who had been trying to make his way back to Karen, was captured by Thor once more and dragged off. While Karen was distracted by the remarkable sight of Julius apparently being made to dance the lady’s part, Ottilie took Karen’s hand.
And pressed her lips to Karen’s fingers.
“Lady Karen, would you honor me with a dance?”
At close range, the striking beauty in men’s attire fixed her gaze on Karen, and Karen went scarlet—and by the time she had gathered her wits, she was already being escorted by Ottilie.
Ottilie took the man’s position as a matter of course and led. The dance had already begun. Before Karen could collect herself and voice the question on her mind, Ottilie spoke first:
“I placed third at the recent hunting festival.”
“What!? Did you really!?”
She had heard that Julius had won, but, on further reflection, she had never learned who had taken second and third.
“As my reward, I asked the Earl of Ehlertt to knight me.”
Karen blinked at her as they danced.
“Does that mean… you joined the knights’ order?”
“No. It’s just that only those who hold a title have the authority to confer knighthood upon a noble. So I asked the Earl of Ehlertt to be the one to knight me. However, if you had already become a titled lord, I would have preferred to ask you, Lady Karen.”
“But why—”
“You’re wondering why I am so fixed on you, right?”
Karen gave a small nod. There were many other things she was curious about as well. Ottilie’s parents were nobles with titles of their own—and yet she had gone to Helfried rather than to them for this.
But the thing she was most curious about was precisely why Ottilie was so intent on Karen.
“I have been going back and forth on it, but I shall come clean… might I have a moment of your time once the dance is over?”
“Of course.”
Karen answered and cast a glance toward Julius. At this distance, he would surely be able to hear, she thought as she looked over—and met the eyes of Julius, who was being expertly led by Thor into picture-perfect poses. Despite wearing a completely empty expression, he continued dancing flawlessly, and the sight brought a huge smile to Karen’s face.
“Same-sex dancing may well become the fashion in Ehlertt after tonight.”
Ottilie was watching the same scene and laughed quietly as she said it. Karen nodded in complete agreement.
“It does look like fun.”
The easy, cheerful time of dancing passed in no time at all. When the dance ended, Karen slipped out of the great hall with Ottilie.
“This way, Lady Karen. I also received permission from the Earl of Ehlertt to come and go from the manor as part of my reward.”
Ottilie led the way with the ease of someone who knew the grounds well. The Ehlertt Earldom’s manor in the royal capital was large, but the one in Ehlertt’s territorial capital was larger still by a considerable degree. On top of that, Karen had spent most of the previous year shut away in her room painting, so she still hadn’t gotten a full grasp of the estate’s layout.
Even so, she recognized the path they were taking.
“Are we headed to the annex where Lady Waltride stayed before…?”
“Yes—I was told it is where Her Highness the Princess used to reside.”
Past a stone-paved path, there stood an annex Karen recognized. Before they even stepped inside, Karen could hear the voices of children within.
Ottilie opened the door, and Karen followed her in. The moment they entered, all the children inside fell completely silent. They froze in place, suppressing even their breathing, watching Karen and Ottilie with wary, frightened eyes.
“These are the children you gathered, Lady Karen—those with little or no magical power. Though only a portion of them are here.”
“They’ve already arrived…”
“They should have arrived around this evening. My parents brought them—children from the Bell Viscounty and the neighboring territories.”
The tension in the room was palpable. These were children gathered without ever asking their wishes—brought here at Karen’s own whim. She believed it was better for them than where they had been. But the children had no way of knowing what their lives were about to become.
That was why Karen had to tell them.
She drew a breath, steadied herself—and just as she steeled herself to speak, one of the frozen children cried out:
“Huh!? Wait—…Big Sister!?”
“Yes, it’s me, your sister, Michael.”
The boy’s face lit up in an instant, then crumpled as if he might burst into tears. He ran to Ottilie and threw his arms around her, and sobbed aloud.
“My sister turned into a brotherrr!”
Ottilie hugged the boy as he wailed with dramatic abandon, then looked up at Karen:
“I will speak plainly. I wanted to serve at your side, Lady Karen—so that I could stay near this child.”
Ottilie’s younger brother. The fact that he was here meant that Ottilie’s parents, the Viscount and Viscountess Bell, had discarded him.
“…If I were to say this openly, my father and mother would never forgive me. To those two, who believe in magical power above all else, this child’s existence is something that should never have been.”
Karen worried that the brother in Ottilie’s arms might be listening, but he was busy whimpering, "I still love you even if you’re my brother!" and didn’t appear to be particularly bothered.
“And so I had to keep up the pretense that everything I did was for the family’s sake. I had to act as though I was trying to become one of Master Julius’s lowest-ranking wives in order to protect the family—and that I merely wanted to get close to you, Lady Karen. The first part was an act, but the second was genuine. Aside from Horst, there was no one else willing to save children like Michael.”
Ottilie said it with a bitter smile. Karen held her breath and stared at her profile.
Horst Brahm. A noble with little magical power by ordinary standards—weak, by the world’s measure—and yet someone who had curried favor with the former Earl Winfried and schemed his way to the top, becoming the head elder of the Ehlertt Council of Elders. He was currently missing and charged with high treason. To speak of owing a debt to such a man took no small amount of resolve.
Ottilie was truly intending to confess everything to Karen.
“How did Horst… help children like these?”
“When the children came of age, that man would give them work. I do not know what kind of work, but…”
One of those jobs might have been as a cook in the Ehlertt’s household, Karen suddenly thought. The man who had put poison into the panacea curry she had made, and destroyed the panacea.
“It was because Horst was there that my parents were unable to discard this child until today. They watched his every expression, afraid of drawing his ire… If I am asked whether I had a connection to Horst, I cannot say that I did not. He shielded us. He helped us.”
The man who had, in his own way, been a guardian to powerless children, was gone. Karen had cornered him, and he had vanished.
“…Even so, Lady Karen—would you please keep me by your side? Allow me to serve you as a knight. Let me protect you, and the children—and my brother.”
“I look forward to having you with us, Lady Ottilie.”
Karen answered without a moment’s hesitation, and Ottilie’s expression flooded with relief. She pulled Michael tightly into her arms, and Michael, crushed against her chest, let out a strangled "Guehhh.”
The Translator’s Note
In Chapter 260, Ottilie’s father was an earl (伯爵); now he is a viscount (子爵).
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