Chapter 118
–In the heart of the Dinrat Kingdom, the royal capital of Elkuxia .
Ahead of the bustling castle town to the east, a royal castle stands surrounded by waterways .
In one of the rooms of the castle, the knights who are members of Princess Charlotte’s Elite Guards team were gathered .
Among them, of course, was the figure of Gaston, dressed in knightly armor .
Gaston occasionally frighteningly strokes the surface of his armor and freaking out while his shoulders shaking .
He was already beginning to regret coming to a place that he was terribly out of place since his first day in the Royal Capital .
But Princess Charlotte had no way of knowing what was on his mind .
She didn’t have a life that didn’t require much attention from others, and she was naturally not very caring by nature .
She had a royal disposition to the core .
Princess Charlotte was the youngest of the siblings, and her parents, King Dinrat, quickly discarded the idea that she wouldn’t become a king, so people didn’t care about her education, she was free at best, or raised rather irresponsibly at worst .
That’s why she was strong and her vision was a bit narrow .
But even from the point of view of Princess Charlotte, Gaston, who was mixed in with the knights who had their backs straight and their faces tightened up, looking around restlessly, was somehow out of place .
Gaston is not an ugly man either, but there were many people in the Elite Guards who came from noble families, highlighting Gaston’s poorly raised face and gestures . It also contributed to the sense of foreignness she held .
I just had an impression of “he’s kind of out of place, isn’t he?” but I didn’t really feel anything more than that .
The end result was that I convinced myself that commoners are just like this .
“Well, I know it’s a little late with all the complications…… but with this, you are to be my official Elite Guards Captain, starting today . ”
“Ah, yes……”
It was a mess, and although it was lightly done, it was quite a last-minute struggle .
She made a handout to the Adventurer Support Center in the royal capital and forced Gaston’s promotion .
The Elite Guards Captain held by Prince Alphonse, the first child, was the A-class adventurer Brian Bond, the mad warrior .
In contrast, Gaston was a semi-A-class .
Princess Charlotte’s pride didn’t allow her to install an adventurer who was lower ranked than the other siblings as the captain .
With a little more time, he could have moved up in rank smoothly, but at all costs, she wanted to make Elite Guards unveiling in the arena .
Princess Charlotte made a fuss about her name and succeeded in pushing Gaston from a semi-A-class adventurer to a legendary-class adventurer .
There were only three Legendary Class Adventurers in the past, and their names would be engraved on a monument at every Adventurer’s Support Center .
In the near future, Gaston’s name would be inscribed on a monument in every Adventurer’s Support Center .
When the city of Lomarn hears this report, they will erect a statue of Gaston as an honorary adventurer from his hometown .
“You’re glad, aren’t you?”
When Princess Charlotte told him that with a smug look on her face, Gaston almost fainted .
If Lancelot didn’t prop him, he would’ve topple over on the spot .
The scale of this was too different from the previous years, when he was pampered in the city, no matter how much he had been pampered .
A fictional character named Gaston Gernand was walking around all by himself .
“I’m busy and so it took a while for me to say this, but I’m asking you to be my Elite Guards representative at the unveiling of the royal knights tomorrow before the combat tournament . ”
“What?”
Gaston couldn’t help but respond like he was before .
Princess Charlotte glares at Gaston in a bad mood .
Lancelot coughed to rebuke Gaston, but he didn’t seem to notice it . Formerly, he couldn’t afford it .
“Th-, the unveiling, you say…… what do you want me to do?”
Gaston turns his face like a frightened puppy to the former Elite Guards Captain Lancelot .
“Captain-dono, as the knight of the fourth child princess Charlotte-sama, you will fight in single combat against the knight of the first child Prince Alphonse-sama . ”
Lancelot replied in a mechanical nonchalance .
“What? wha, whawha, wha……”
“As long as it’s with the Captain-dono’s power, defeating Alphonse-sama’s knight, it would be like twisting a baby’s hand . ”
Lancelot mentioned such a thing easily .
Gaston thought about losing his temper and grabbing Lancelot, but he knew there was no way he could win, so he somehow held his ground .
A group of suspicious people had attacked Princess Charlotte’s carriage near the Royal Capital, but Lancelot had once cut down three of them by himself and taken one of them prisoner .
After all, they were just bandits and their clients were separate, other than that, they couldn’t get any more .
But at this point, a fear grew in Gaston that if he defied Lancelot or was caught falsifying his own merits, he would be instantly cut down like those guys .
“I think I know what I’m doing, too . I know that Papa doesn’t expect me to be the king, and I have no intention of becoming one . But you mustn’t make brother Alphonse the king . He’s just too good at playing the cat in front of Papa, but he’s a really bad guy . If you make him the king, this country will end . ”
“…………”
“So you’ll overpower brother’s knight in front of Papa tomorrow . The best thing you can do is to make the opponent knight unable to recover . I don’t care if he’s a bit reprehensible, just destroy him relentlessly . As long as the mad warrior, Brian, that Marquis Cauglia gave up to Brother Alphonse, can’t move, that guy’s path to becoming king will become distant in one go . ”
Slowly, the story gets bigger and bigger .
Gaston couldn’t bear the weight of it all and almost lost his position .
As usual, Lancelot supports him from the side .
“Good thing, Gaston . I’m going to confront my father about my brother Alphonse’s glass eyes . –You’re going to save the country . ”
Princess Charlotte said with her characteristic smugness .
Gaston was ready to die on this day .
——–
In another room of the castle, Prince Alphonse, the first child, and his knight were gathered together .
Prince Alphonse is a handsome man with a well-rounded face and golden hair that is almost as white as Princess Charlotte’s .
Normally, his personality is gentle and kind, and he is very popular in the country .
But only today, his neat face was distorted .
“–I see . You guys failed in both the scouting of the ‘Collector’ and the assassination of Gaston and Charlotte, right?”
The incident of the Zolomania’s staff being taken out a few days ago .
And the hero Gaston, who gallantly solved it, Prince Alphonse had used an intelligence unit to quickly learn more about the hero, Gaston .
He dispatched an Elite Guards officer to add him to the squad as soon as possible, but Charlotte, who happened to be patrolling around the city of Lomarn, neatly beat him to it .
As far as the story goes, Gaston was a superhuman who should be described as one in ten thousand years, or even one in the world .
It was hard to believe that he was a mere Norcs, repeatedly .
Even if you bumped his Elite Guards captain, the mad warrior Brian, he would definitely lose .
Alphonse is currently the leading candidate for the next king, but he is being overtaken by the second candidate, Prince Sandras, the second child .
He couldn’t expose himself to his father, the king, by a lucky punch of his foolish sister in this place .
So he took two measures .
One of them was the assassination of Princess Charlotte on her return from patrol .
In addition to the Elite Guards, Prince Alphonse had prepared a squad dedicated to the dirty work, which could move in the shadows . But as soon as their bodies went up and their identities were known, Prince Alphonse would be found out .
So Prince Alphonse hired a team of thieves to attack the carriage of Princess Charlotte .
He hoped that he could successfully catch them off guard, but this one failed too quickly .
Given the risk, they could only hire something disposable .
The chances of winning were slim from the beginning .
Another plan was to add the world’s most powerful adventurer, the ‘Collector’, to our army .
Records say that the Collector became a legendary adventurer a hundred years ago .
He travels the world without aging at all, collecting treasures from all over .
His character is difficult to characterize, he is rumored to be brutal, arrogant, greedy, temperamental, and cruel on top of that .
However, there is no doubt about his abilities .
To the extent of Gaston, he would be easily twisted .
There was a rumor that he had been seen in the country, so Prince Alphonse had had his own knights search for him there as well .
But few clues were forthcoming, and finally the day before the tournament was approaching .
“We have no choice but to abandon this fight! It’s only a small fight in the big picture but…… damn! I would have thought that if that foolish sister was the one I were dealing with, Gaston Gernand! I never thought a man like this would come out of a small town! What do you think … is it still less hurtful to make up a reason and crush the fight itself rather than fight and lose?”
Prince Alphonse scratched his head and muttered to himself .
“Master Alphonse, leave it to me . ”
The big man in front of Prince Alphonse said in a low voice .
It was Prince Alphonse’s Elite Guards Captain, the mad warrior, Brian .
“No! At this time that we couldn’t pick up the ‘Collector’, I wouldn’t want you to get injured! I can’t send you to face a monster that can rip a demon apart with his bare hands! If you were to be rendered useless, my path to the throne would be shattered! Even if I send someone from the squad to take part in the tournament, I’ll need a temporary man from the squad to do it……”
At that moment, Prince Alphonse felt the killing intent and swallowed the words he was about to say .
The other Elite Guards put their hands on their sword sheaths and divided between Prince Alphonse and Brian .
“Cap-, Captain-dono, what do you think you’re doing!”
“Turning you’re killing intent towards Alphonse-sama!”
The Elite Guards officer said in a shaky voice .
Brian took a step back, indicating that he had no intention of fighting .
But that didn’t stop them from trembling .
“”Leave it to me, Master Alphonse . Facing a strong man . It is my only joy…… and for that reason alone I serve you . I swear on the pride of my blood, I will kill Gaston Gernand and see it done . All I should do is to make him never stand in battle again, don’t I?”
Brian says his words slowly and heavily .
A thirst for battle that leaks out of his every verse, to the point of violence .
And perhaps because of his excitement at the anticipation of it being so close, his eyes were glowing with a sinister light that Prince Alphonse had never seen before .
Brian’s cold air covered the room, causing Prince Alphonse and his Elite Guards to shiver .
Prince Alphonse realized .
He thought he had valued Brian as a terrifyingly strong knight, but the Brian the prince had seen so far had not been his true self .
Brian had long been waiting for the day when he would be able to fight a truly powerful enemy one day in the midst of it all, ripe for his role as an Elite Guards Captain as he would be with a child’s plaything .
A-class adventurer, the mad warrior, Brian Bond .
He is no Norcs .
He is a descendant of the Daldwarf, a fighting race feared as the ‘Bloody Giant’ .