Chapter 16
Lephonia headed toward the training grounds, cradled in Pretes’s arms. Since he clearly had no intention of putting her down even if she asked, she neatly gave up on struggling.
"The knights of the Kreitan family are all incredibly skilled. Even the trainees are at the level of official knights in other houses, so you’ll be surprised when you see them."
I already know.
Back when I was stealing items on missions for the Pope, I was once chased by Kreitan knights, and it had been truly difficult.
'A bodyguard, huh.'
Lephonia suddenly recalled the boy she had met across the terrace last night.
Seeing as he was at the Kreitan mansion, could he be a member of the Kreitan family too?
'The vibe he gave off didn't feel like a servant's.'
The first son of the Kreitan family couldn't possibly be that young, so was he a knight?
If he had a bodyguard, he wouldn't have been able to meet that boy who had wandered onto the Lady’s bedroom terrace as he pleased.
"Senior. By any chance, is there another child in the mansion besides me?"
"Another child? You mean a friend your age?"
Lephonia nodded. Pretes tilted his head, searching his memory.
"Well. I’ve been at the Academy for so long that I’m not really up to date on the recent status of the household staff. Why? Do you want a friend your age?"
"That’s not it."
"Fair enough. I used to look for friends my age when I was little, too. There was an incident in our family, and after that, Father was too sad to even come out, and my older brother was too busy being the heir to pay me any mind. They say I was three years old back then. I was basically neglected from the age of three. So, maybe since I was six? I think that’s when I decided I didn't have a family."
Pretes smiled bitterly, as if the memories of that time were surfacing.
Suddenly, his words from earlier came to mind.
Did he say there was no family here?
'If it’s a family incident, he must mean the accident involving the Duchess and the young Lady.'
And at the time of the accident, Pretes would have been at an age where he needed a family, too.
'Was that what he meant?'
As if he had never been sad at all, he returned to his usual self and said, "If you want, I can bring you as many friends your age as you like."
Pretes chuckled, as if thinking a child is just a child. Lephonia pushed his cheek with her small palm as he laughed.
"It’s not like that. I’m just asking because there’s a boy I’m looking for."
"A boy you're looking for? What does he look like? Tell me. I’ll find him for you."
"Hmm. His eyebrows are tilted up like this, and he has black hair. His eyes are golden, and they sparkle really prettily. And he has a nice voice, too."
"A boy with black hair and golden eyes? Is his hair long?"
"No. He’s a boy."
Pretes, who had been walking down the hallway with a constant smirk, stopped dead in his tracks.
"A boy?"
What’s wrong with him? Is there a problem if the child I’m looking for is a different gender?
"You said his eyes sparkle really prettily and he has a nice voice."
"Yeah. That boy’s eyes sparkle and his voice is nice."
"Why are you looking for him? Did he bully you?"
His voice had dropped in a strange way. His face was still smiling, but the atmosphere was completely different.
The moment I told him he had been peeking at the Lady’s bedroom terrace as he pleased, he looked ready to find him and punish him immediately.
'Let’s not say that.'
Lephonia decided to protect the boy whose name she didn't even know and shook her head.
"Then why are you looking for him?"
"I just saw him from afar once, so I was curious."
"You saw him from afar, so how do you know his voice is nice..."
"Oh? It’s the training ground."
Lephonia changed the subject.
Just as Pretes was about to press for the reason, the two of them arrived at the Kreitan family’s training ground.
Pretes looked at Lephonia with suspicious eyes, but he didn't press her further and played along.
Perhaps because it was the knights' training time, a sweltering heat washed over them.
Sandstorms rose in various places, accompanied by thunderous shouts.
"Wow."
Lephonia’s eyes widened in surprise. She had been to the training ground while wandering around looking for the heirloom, but this was her first time visiting during training hours.
'The training ground... it’s a space that only feels complete when the knights are here.'
When she had come before, it was empty and vacant, so she had thought the Duke’s family was wasting such a large space, but that wasn't the case at all.
The vast training ground was packed with knights in training. It even looked a bit cramped.
'So this is how the family’s knights train.'
It was completely different from the training Lephonia had received.
These were trainings to protect people, not to kill or threaten them.
'I haven't even had a mission to kill anyone yet, so should I be grateful to the Pope for that?'
Lephonia looked down at her small palms. The Pope cherished Lephonia because she was the most skilled. That was why he didn't give her missions that involved killing people.
She had also cried and begged the Pope to withdraw his orders, and if she were to get caught while killing someone for no reason, she would be executed immediately and would be of no more use.
'Someday, I might have ended up in the hands of these people, heading to the execution block.'
Thinking that made her feel very strange. But Lephonia soon shook her head and brushed the thought away.
'No. This is my last mission.'
The Pope swore it in the name of God.
The Pope was a man who feared losing his Divine Power. He was a man who ordered that not even a single ant be killed around him when he prayed, so he wouldn't lie while staking his Divine Power.
If she could just finish this mission safely.
Once she stole the heirloom.
'I won't have to do things like this anymore.'
So, let’s not think about other things. Let’s focus on this mission, on the heirloom.
Having cleared her thoughts, Lephonia scanned the training ground lightly.
'He’s not here.'
She had secretly hoped she might meet him if she came here... is he not a knight, but in a different profession?
It was when Lephonia was tilting her head that she saw a familiar face among the knights in training.
"Oh? That knight is..."
At Lephonia’s mutter, Pretes, who had been scanning the knights, turned his head to follow her gaze.
"Who? Sir Belic? Do you know him?"
"Yeah. The knight who came to catch me when I was home alone."
So it’s Sir Belic.
I was caught by that knight and couldn't even run away, and I almost got dragged off to the poorhouse. Of course, I ended up catching the Duke of Kreitan’s eye and getting adopted.
"Kid. You said you came here after living alone at home, right?"
"You don't need to know, Senior."
"You little fluff ball."
Pretes furrowed his brows and approached Sir Belic, who was in the middle of training.
"Sir Belic."
"Yes? ...Gasp. Young Master! Lady!"
Sir Belic, who had been training until his uniform was soaked with sweat, spotted Pretes and Lephonia and widened his eyes in surprise.
At Sir Belic’s shout, the other knights also stopped their training and turned around.
"I greet the Young Master! I greet the Lady!"
Perhaps because they were knights in the middle of training, their voices were much louder than when the household staff greeted them. Startled, Lephonia quickly covered both her ears.
Pretes hurriedly hugged Lephonia tight to hide her in his arms, his face twisting.
"Can't you be quiet?! You're scaring the kid!"
You’re the one being louder.
"I, I apologize."
The knights lowered their voices and whispered. Because they had been in the middle of intense training, the sight of these muscular knights whispering was quite funny.
The knights' gazes turned toward the five-year-old child held in Pretes’s arms. Feeling their eyes on her, Lephonia peeked her head out from Pretes’s arms.
"...Do I have to greet them too?"
Lephonia asked. Her voice was as soft and fluffy as a cloud, and the knights were so surprised they held their breath.
Perhaps because the eldest son of the Kreitan family was calm and a genius, he had treated everyone around him like fools and ignored them since he was young. By the age of five, he had mastered reading, math, and science, and he would walk around reading professional books, refusing to even speak to people he couldn't have a conversation with.
The second son had been a late talker, babbling even at five, and because of his impulsive personality and tendency to cause trouble, he had broken things all over the mansion.
So, Lephonia’s reaction couldn't help but surprise the knights.
"She’s... she’s so cute."
"Yeah, she’s incredibly cute."
Whether Lephonia was a con artist or not was a matter of the Duke’s family history. Since the knights protected and followed the Duke’s family, they were not in a position to judge whether Lephonia was a con artist or not.
What mattered was that the reckless second son, Pretes, had brought her to the training ground in his own arms.
"Young Master, but what brings you here..."
"You all know that there was a fire in the kid’s bedroom, right? We haven't found the culprit, and I’m planning to assign a bodyguard to the kid in case the same thing happens again. That’s why we’re here."
The Lady’s bodyguard.
The bodyguard for the fluffy, cute Lephonia.
The knights’ eyes lit up as if they all wanted the job.
Pretes shielded Lephonia from the knights' gazes and approached Sir Belic.
"Sir Belic. I have one thing I want to ask."
"Yes! Young Master!"
"It’s said that the kid was living alone in an empty house before she was caught by you, is that right?"
"Yes? Ah... yes! It was an empty house with no one around, but a report came in that a child seemed to be living there alone, so I visited to check."
Why is he asking that again? And why is that knight reporting it in such detail?
'I guess he’s suspicious.'
Lephonia glared at Pretes, but he nodded as if telling him to keep talking.
"There were no signs of anyone living there, and the child—no, the Lady was there alone. I was in the middle of transferring her to the poorhouse when I saw the Duke, and after that—"
"And that’s how Father adopted the kid?"
"Yes, that is correct."
Pretes looked intently at Lephonia in his arms.
No matter how you look at it, there are no traces of a con artist, right? Of course not. Because I wasn't trying to get adopted as a Lady, I was trying to get hired as a maid!
Lephonia smiled triumphantly.
"Then who was the reporter?"
I remember that very clearly, too. It was the lady next door...
"The initial reporter was a young boy."
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