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“You seem to be destroying the armor and the sword.”
“It’s part of the maintenance, so there’s nothing for you to concern yourself with,” Kane replied bluntly.
“Not everyone was allowed to enter this place.” (Lise)
“And I don’t know much about weapons, but I saw you damaging the left side of the armor.”(Lise)
Lise said one after another.
“At this rate, he’ll be seriously injured by Erhan, who can’t control his strength.”(Lise)
She walked calmly and stood in front of him.
“Moreover, I’m not very good with swords, but I use surgical knives quite a bit.”(Lise)
On the dark night, her green eyes glowed leisurely.
“This is definitely blunt.”(Lise)
“······.”
“May I ask why you want to injure Commander Joaquin? It’s too obvious.”(Lise)
“Shut up and keep your pipe down.”
Kane smiled and gave strength to the hammer he was holding. He made some simulations inside his and thought of a much easier solution to smooth things over.
After all, because of this sudden turn of events, killing a little girl like this was nothing to him.
In the middle of the night, after breaking her neck in this remote arsenal, he could bury her anywhere.
“Tell me who’s behind you.”
However, Lise was somehow not scared at all and smiled.
“I’m giving you a chance since I still have a bit of respect for life. A chance to speak in a soft, free atmosphere before being agonizingly tortured.”
“Cheeky little girl, you can’t even lift a sword, how do you expect to come out of here alive.”
He strode up to Lise.
He was not confident in confronting Joaquin, but with a small little girl like her, he could finish the job in an instant.
She sighed heavily.
“You never know. I might be able to save you.”
However, when he picked up the hammer and rushed at Lise, he didn’t even have time to scream before a gag was tightly packed in his mouth.
“Oh
. But of course, it’s not me who’ll decide if you live or die, it’s him, Master Erhan.”
Looking at Erhan’s black obsidian eyes while kicking his calf and making him kneel down, Kane unwittingly gave up his will to survive.
A terrifying killing intent was rising from Erhan’s whole body. And Joaquin, who was standing behind Erhan was grinding his teeth with an expression of disbelief.
“So if you had been kind to me in the first place, I could have asked for leniency.”
Lise said cheerfully.
“It’s true that I can’t hold a sword because of my size, but I do know how to use it as a weapon.”
⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰
Erhan was quite opposed to me going on my own. He said that it wouldn’t even be possible to hold a conversation with such a suspicious person.
In addition, he strongly opposed my plan, saying that it’d be extremely dangerous if they failed to get the timing right, insisting that he couldn’t afford to risk me getting hurt.
But still, I pushed for my plan. I excuse that if Erhan and Joaquin raided together, there was no chance for me to get hurt at all.
Therefore, it was important that I, who seemed to be the weakest, tried to reveal his intentions alone. Kane, whom I have observed, was not the type of person who had lots of words or thoughts.
I presume that he would just directly try to get rid of me because of his personality. And that’s how he admitted to his ‘intention to hurt Commander Joaquin,’ something I led in the conversation beforehand.
Erhan followed my advice to gag him first so that he could not bite his tongue. Now it was up to the Knights to find out the rest.
It would be nice if Baron Ishid’s name came out, or if we could make other plans through Aaron.
Unlike Kane and Esther, Aaron was quite a top-ranking agent and was more likely to come in direct contact with the Baron.
It was also the reason why I wanted to keep Aaron with me until the end. Now I felt proud by just catching Kane.
“Miss Lise.”
Joaquin heard all the explanations from Erhan and sighed in front of me with a puzzled expression.
“How did you know Kane was suspicious?”
“It’s because he’s frequenting the lab and the greenhouse these days.”
I answered in a plausible way. Of course, that also wasn’t a lie.
“It’s not a place for a knight to come, but I’ve seen him there a few times, so I thought it was somewhat suspicious. As Joaquin knows, there are constant doubts that there were more spies inside the Castle.”
“Right.”
There were already three people he questioned.
“Since Miss Lise was the one to catch him, I’m ashamed to not have fulfilled my long-standing duty to protect the Duke.”
“There’s no helping it.”
I smiled, implying it wasn’t a big deal.
“I’m smarter than everyone else. The knights didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I don’t know how I could express my gratitude
.”
“Well,” I answered with a smile.
“Please express it well from now on.”
He grinned for a moment, then picked up his sword from the arsenal and stuck it in front of me.
“Wh-why are you doing this?”
Then, kneeling in front of me while holding the sword with both hands, he looked up at me with his brown eyes and said,
“Knight Joaquin Liam Kensington owes his life to Lise Estelle from today onwards.”
I looked at Erhan in embarrassment but he only stood still with his arms folded. His knee must be a bit bad since he was already an old man, but his posture was upright.
“I swear to God to do my best as I live without forgetting what happened today.”
I wondered if this was the knight’s oath that I only heard in words. I wondered if I needed to receive Joaquin’s oath, so I just nodded, saying,
“Uh, yes
. I’ll look forward to your kind cooperation then.”
It wasn’t until later that I learned that Joaquin presented his Knight Oath to only one other person, the former Duke of Cerceus.
And in order to keep that oath, even in his old age, he kept by the side of the Duchess and Erhan.
If I had known it was such a great thing, I wouldn’t have received it right away with a light nod.
The next morning, I woke up late because of what had happened all night. And because it was the day of the ceremony, the castle was quite busy. Looking out the window, gorgeous wagons were already arriving one after another.
‘Erhan will finally inherit the Duchy
.’
Of course, I still have work left to do as Baron Ishid will not give up just yet, but I still feel overwhelmed.
Apart from that, I hadn’t the slightest intention of taking part in the ceremony.
Basically, it was natural that I, as a commoner, had no place for where the vassals and relatives attended, and it was not like I had a job to do like the maids and servants.
For me, it was just one of the ordinary days when the castle received many guests.
Still, I wanted to see how splendid the decorations were, so I went out for a walk in the garden and ran into a group of knights who were patrolling.
“Miss Lise!”
“Hello!”
They were the knights who escorted me when I went out to the Free City.
However, unlike when they were somewhat businesslike like last time, I was a bit embarrassed because the expressions they used when looking at me were a bit brighter.
“Uh
 Yes.”
I greeted awkwardly.
“Hello. Good morning.”
“Where are you going?”
“The flowers that were decorated in the garden for the ceremony today are so pretty that I came out for a walk to see them.”
I was about to say goodbye and pass by them, but I didn’t think that they’d step in front of me.
“I heard what happened yesterday.”
“What?”
“This morning, Commander Joaquin told us everything.”
“What?”
“Thanks to Miss Lise, we uncovered the spy hidden within the knights, and we are now interrogating their purpose behind targeting the Duke’s Castle. If it wasn’t for you, Commander Joaquin would have been in trouble
.”
“And I heard that you also received the knight’s oath.”
It wasn’t really something to hide, so I nodded proudly.
“Yes, that’s right.”
Although their flickering eyes were burdensome.
“I received it well.”
At my answer, the knights exclaimed and nodded among themselves, smiling brightly.
“If you’re the one who Commander swore an oath, you deserve our loyalty.”
“Everyone envies us escorting you to the free city.”
“I already recognized her when she caught the Gypsy scammer, but she’s really great.”
“Uh
 Yes, thank you. Well then.”
I was so embarrassed by the excessive praise that I ended up coming back without even taking a walk in the garden. It was because each passing knight tried to say a word to me.
Although there may be factions of their own, everyone must have considerably respected Commander Joaquin on their own.
And since everyone was showing gratitude to me with their eyes twinkling, I came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t carelessly wander around today.
Heading to the lab, I saw Baron Ishid and Wederick from far away. They attended the ceremony as the only relatives of the Duke, and they had soft smiles on their faces.
Faces that show how happy they are that their relative is being awarded his title.
‘Snake-like fiends.’
I gritted my teeth thinking of Kane running at me.
Even though I knew Kane had already been caught, seeing their gentle faces, it was now clear that Kane would not spill Baron Ishid’s name either.
Seeing them, I felt angry again, so I decided to find a place to vent my anger.