Ankoku Kishi Monogatari (WN)

「Oioi, if it's you Shizufae, I think you can find a nice husband immediately, you see…」

Big sis Keyna replied while looking at Novis.

「Geez, you should be the one getting married first, big sis Keyna!! Why haven’t you gotten married yet?」

「I think… marriage isn't for me. By the way, Leylia sure is late.」

Big sis Keyna changed the topic.

I heaved a sigh.

Well, since she didn't want to continue the conversation about marriage, I guess I should respect her decision.

I mean, I also didn't feel like getting married yet. I still remember when my mother used to come to me to talk about marriage interviews all the time.

Though I couldn’t say that they were lookers even as an empty compliment, the majority of them were honest and rich men in their twenties or thirties.

I didn't say that I didn't want to marry unless they were good looking young men either. I mean, even if for example I really wanted to marry a rich and handsome young man, they were rare existences, and most of them had already married to a princess of a kingdom. As a result, that was the same as me saying that I didn't want to get married.

I mean, those rich handsome young men must've suffered an extremely bitter experience before they became rich and got married.

Honestly speaking, those men were really nice people. But, I’d ended up rejecting them.

There was a time when I thought that my perfect man might not exist but that's fine with me now.

Well I guess that’s enough talk about marriage.

While everyone was talking about the postponement of the opera, Leylia-san finally came up to us.

「Sorry I was late everyone.」

Leylia-san apologized to everyone.

「TOO LONG!! YOU TOOK TOO LONG TIME TO COME, LEYLIA-SAN!!」

I teased her.

「Sorry, Shizufae-san. Oh…」

Leylia-san looked at my head.

「Hehe, what do you think about my helmet? With this, I'm a battle maiden.」

I asked Leylia while touching my helmet.

My helmet was not adorned with wings as decoration on either side.

I’d officially become Rena-sama’s believer after receiving her divine protection and receiving the title of ‘Battle Maiden’ from her temple. This helmet was something I got during that time.

Though I was still also a believer of Faeria-sama, I don’t have any problems with becoming Rena-sama’s believer. It’s allowed since Rena-sama is Faeria-sama’s foster child after all.

Properly speaking, one would become a battle maiden after receiving the divine protection of the angel who served Rena-sama, but the temple gave me special exception by giving me that title.

Thus, I received this helmet along with the title battle maiden.

This helmet raised my ability to detect the enemy's presence and raised my courage.

By the way, not just anyone could attach the wings ornament on their helmet, only people with battle maiden titles were allowed to do that. Though there really was no punishment for anyone attaching the wings ornament on their helmet.

「Yeah, it look really good on you.」

Leylia-san replied with a smile on her face.

「Then, let's get going.」

Everyone collectively let out a shout in reply when I said so.

===

◆Dark Knight; Kuroki

「Kuroki. There's so many people around. Shall I blast them to bits?」

I wonder how many times Kuna’s repeated those scary words today?

「You can't, Kuna. If you blast them to bi—」

Come to think of it, Rena said the exact same thing before. Was the reason that Kuna is saying the same thing because she was made based on Rena?

At noon, both Kuna and I were walking side by side in the Republic of Ariadya, basking under the sunlight.

Though I didn't agree with Kuna's decision, she might be right about the number of people.

The majority of them might be tourists who wanted to meet Reiji. And even if they're not, there are many foreigners who come to visit Ariadya.

Originally, the Republic of Ariadya was a country located in the western part of the eastern region of the central continent. That's why it got so many foreign visitors all year round.

I looked at the traveler-like people who were walking along the main street of Ariadya.

The ones who were wearing boots and trousers might be people who’d come from the East. The eastern part of the continent was mainly composed of forests and mountains. That's why most of its inhabitants wore trousers to prevent their skin getting scratched by branches or shrubs.

On the contrary, the people from the west, mainly from the Saird inlet, didn't wear trousers and wore sandals on their bare feet.

Naturally there were some exceptions. The citizens of the countries which are close to the sea in the eastern part wore sandals, and the citizens of the countries which are close to forests and mountains in the western part wore boots and trousers.

And Ariadya, which became the gathering place for east and west culture, eventually became the melting pot of fashion in this world.

Since there were so many travelers from east and west gathering together in the central plaza, we could barely move forward.

Moreover, Kuna must've had a hard time walking since both her body and face were covered by a veil. That must be the main reason for her irritation.

That is also the reason why she almost killed Shizufae who greeted us a while ago.

Maybe it's much better if we returned as soon as possible.

「Shall we go back, Kuna?」

Kuna shook her head when I asked her.

「No, Kuna wants to walk a while longer like this with Kuroki.」

Kuna hugged my left arm, the feeling of her big, soft yet bouncy br*asts was perfectly transmitted onto my left arm.

Maybe it's just my misunderstanding, but Kuna's irritation might be because I rarely have a date like this with her. That's why she wanted to fully enjoy the moment without any interruption.

「Well then, please take my hand, my lady.」

We're about to arrive at the place that sold sherbert.

I’d gone to that place once before with Rena. And now, I was once again going to that same place.

「Uhm? For some reason, this place seems to be familiar to me. It's the place where I ate sherbert with Kuroki in my dream.」

I was frozen stiff upon hearing Kuna's unexpected remark.

Wait a minute, what did she mean?

Could it be that Kuna and Rena have some sort of mental connection?

And then, I noticed something.

If Kuna was seeing Rena's dream, would that mean the opposite could happen?

If that was the case, it was only natural for Rena to know about my trend.

Rena definitely knew about Kuna's existence.

「Is something the matter, Kuroki?」

Since I suddenly fell silent as I pondered over this matter. Kuna looked up at my face with a puzzled look on her face.

「No, it's nothing.」

I replied with a smile to Kuna.

There was nothing I could do about that situation anyway. I shouldn't think about another person aside from Kuna right now. Nothing could be done even if some information was leaked from my side.

「I see, let's continue, Kuroki!!」

Kuna pulled my hand.

My mood brightens whenever I see the smile on her face. There was no particularly troublesome information that could’ve leaked out anyways.

Rather, let's show off this situation to Rena!!

I walked alongside Kuna as I thought that way.

===

◆Black Haired Sage; Chiyuki

The next day, Reiji and I visited the general's office. The reason was to form an investigation team for Karkinos' incident last night.

The reason why it was only the two of us was because Shirone, Rino and Nao were having too much fun dancing last night. Sahoko was looking after those three while Kyouka and Kaya had returned to the Holy Republic of Lenaria for some business matters.

Reiji was still asleep too, but I’d forced him to wake up to accompany me.

Upon entering the room, Decius and Clasus were already waiting in there for our arrival.

「Please enjoy, gob.」

The goblin slave who was employed by Clasus offered tea for us.

I barely stopped myself from thanking that goblin.

I’d already learned my lesson to never thank a goblin slave.

According to my investigation, it seems that the one who used goblin slaves was a magician called Hobadis. Thus, the goblins who were turned into slaves came to be called Hobadis Goblins. Many would abbreviate it as "HobGoblin".

Magician Hobadis was a busy person who was often away from his home due to his job. That's why he wanted a servant who could protect his home when he was away. Thus, his attention moved toward the goblins, using suggestion magic on a goblin to turn it into a slave and a faithful 「House Spirit」.

Since HobGoblins were a goblin who were planted with the idea of the goblin being a human slave with suggestion magic, the effect of the magic might wear off if we didn't treat them like slaves.

That's why their meals, such as bread and milk, have to be leftover food. And we couldn't give them clothes inappropriate for a slave.

If by some sort of mishap they were given excellent clothes unbefitting of a slave, they might say 「Maybe I actually am not a slave, then I'll sto~p being one.」.

That's why I mustn't thank the goblin slave. Because that's how you treat a slave.

The hobgoblin left the room after delivering our tea.

「Let's be honest… we actually have no idea about what to do with this case.」

Decius spoke in an apologetic manner.

Reiji, who was sitting by my side, didn't even try to hide his disappointment.

「I see… I guess we have no choice but to use straightforward methods, huh. General Clasus, how many personel you can allot for this case?」

I looked at Clasus.

The general office existed exactly for this reason: investigating by relying on the number of personnel.

Due to the small number of Oudith temple's knights of law, they couldn't be relied on for a large-scale investigation.

「I can prepare any number of soldiers you need, Chiyuki-dono. If that's not enough, let's call several freedom fighters from Teseshia.」

Clasus replied with a hearty laugh. Now that we have secured the personel we needed, what should we do next?

When I was pondering about that, another visitor came to the general office.

The one who came was Shizufae and co.

「Sorry, we are late.」

Shizufae bowed to us.

「No, it's okay. We also just arrived a moment ago.」

When Reiji replied with a refreshing smile on his face, Novis made a disgruntled face which was in contrast to his female comrade.

It seems he came too.

The reason might be to protect Shizufae from Reiji's evil claws.

「Eh, Shizufae-san. That helmet? Could it be that you became a believer of Goddess Rena?」

The helmet on Shizufae's head resembled the one worn by the battle maidens.

Rena's holy bird was a swan. That's why her battle maidens wore a helmet with swan wings ornament on its side.

In addition, the battle maidens were known as Swan's Maiden while their male counterpart, the temple knight of Holy Republic Lenaria, were known as Cygnus' Knight.

And the current Shizufae was wearing that very ornamental helmet.

「Yes, I received divine protection from Rena-sama.」

Shizufae spoke with an extremely delightful smile.

「Hee, that suits you, Shizufae-chan.」

===

TN : High possibility of Hazard Next week!! Be prepared, You've been warned!!!