Chapter 14

“What on earth are you doing in a place like this?”

The man who had seized Diana’s right arm let his anger roughen his tone.

Ian, who had momentarily assumed a defensive stance, quickly loosened the hand resting on the hilt of his sword at his waist.

“Lord Alan…”

Seeing anger flickering within those usually gentle blue-gray eyes, Diana made her voice tremble slightly.

“Lord Alan, what are you doing here?”

“Didn’t I tell you? We are stepping up patrols in the surrounding area.”

Now that she looked, Alan was not alone.

The knights of the Third Order whom she had seen during the expedition seemed to be patrolling alongside him.

“From your reaction when we spoke of the illness, I thought something felt amiss… but why on earth did you come all the way out here?”

It was the first time Diana had ever seen Alan wear an angry expression.

Even so, she could not back down here.

“I simply thought if there was anything I could do to help.”

“If you remain here, there is a risk you might catch the sickness yourself. We will handle matters here, so I want you to stay safely at the mansion.”

Alan’s words came from a place of absolute sincerity.

No matter how top-tier her grades at the academy were, Diana was still a young aristocratic lady.

She did not possess the physical stamina of trained knights.

Though skilled in magic and unmatched on the battlefield, her opponent this time was a disease.

How was she supposed to face such a thing with that slender frame of hers?—The thought alone gave him a headache.

For her part, Diana could not afford to yield, either.

If the illness were allowed to spread unchecked, it wouldn’t just be her father; countless people across the entire kingdom would fall victim to it.

Even Alan, who had barely managed to return alive from the magical beast subjugation, was not guaranteed to remain safe.

“If that is the case…”

This was a gamble.

She had no way of knowing how much credence they would give her words.

Yet, it was still infinitely better than doing nothing at all.

“Lord Alan… will you trust me?”

Claiming that the source of the epidemic lay in the rats nesting within the sewers, Diana proposed to Alan and the knights of the Third Order that they assist in cleaning the sewers and exterminating the vermin.

Naturally, upon hearing the words “sewer cleaning,” the knights did not look pleased.

“Treating the members of our knighthood like common sanitation laborers—regardless of how illustrious a house of the Duke of Gazard you may be, I cannot overlook this.”

“That is not my intention at all, but we urgently need the manpower…”

The barracks of the Third Order, where she had gone to persuade the regiment members.

Though she had appealed to the vice-commander who happened to be present at the time, the response was dripping with hostility.

After Alan stepped down as commander of the Third Order, the former vice-commander had assumed the role of current commander, and an exceptionally rare female knight had been promoted to vice-commander in his place.

Monique Goddard—though born a lady of the Count Goddard household, she had studied swordsmanship since childhood and was one of the very few female knights in the kingdom.

While Diana had no direct acquaintance with her, it was a name she had heard repeatedly during her sword training.

A pioneer who had carved out a path for herself through swordsmanship despite being a woman.

She had always harbored a secret desire to meet her in person if the chance ever arose.

Her vibrant beauty was anchored by red hair tied back high in a single ponytail.

With a tall, leanly muscled frame, her emerald eyes radiated immense strength of will.

That very Monique was casting a resentful, hostile glare straight toward Diana.

“If manpower is truly what you require, why not dispatch your boasted Gazard Knighthood?”

“Such a thing—!”

The Duke of Gazard’s knighthood was, after all, a military force sworn to protect the Gazard domain.

Deploying them to act within the royal capital—the very heart of royal authority—could easily arouse suspicions of treason against the crown.

That was entirely different from accompanying them to a magical beast subjugation in the northern territories.

“If that displeases you, you are free to handle it all by yourself. Are you not an accomplished mage? Or perhaps your academic scores at the academy were merely a product of your family’s connections?”

Monique’s lovely features twisted into a sarcastic sneer.

(Why is she harboring such intense hostility toward me…?)

Diana’s chest ached with the thought of whether she had somehow said something terribly impolite.

Regardless of what Alan might say, as long as the vice-commander felt this way, securing the assistance of the Third Order would likely prove exceedingly difficult.

“…I understand. I shall find a way on my own.”

“Diana!”

To Diana, who quietly backed down, Alan raised his voice.

“Monique, why—”

“It is only natural. Without any tangible basis, there is no way we can mobilize the knights. Alan, why on earth are you so quietly listening to the words of a mere girl?”

Monique seized Alan’s arm.

The distance between the two of them was far too close.

“To be led around by the nose by a little thing like this… It is entirely unlike you.”

Even as Diana tried not to look, Monique’s deliberately intimate voice carried straight to her ears.

“Apologies, but I must take my leave.”

Unable to bear staying in that place a moment longer, Diana turned on her heel and left the Third Order’s barracks behind.

“What’s wrong, Milady?”

Waiting outside, Ian peered intently into Diana’s face.

Hoping not to worry Ian, Diana forced an awkward smile.

“No, it’s nothing at all. More importantly, Ian, please guide me to the adventurers’ guild.”

“The adventurers’ guild?”

“Yes, I want to submit a request.”

Ironically, Monique’s words had provided Diana with a hint.

She couldn’t mobilize the Gazard Knighthood.

However, if she were to issue a commission to adventurers, that was an entirely different story.

Leaving aside veteran adventurers, fresh rookies would reportedly take on virtually any job, from cleaning to odd chores.

Could she not hire them to handle the sewer cleaning and rat extermination herself?

Diana, too, was a member of a ducal household.

She possessed a fair amount of disposable funds that she could use freely.

If she didn’t use them at a time like this, when on earth would she?

“Let’s go, to the adventurers’ guild!”

“Haa, well, if you insist…”

Glancing sideways at Diana’s fierce enthusiasm, Ian could only shrug in resignation.

Sewer cleaning and rat extermination.

When that commission was posted on the most prominent board of the adventurers’ guild, the adventurers sneered, asking who on earth would ever take such a job.

Yet the moment a single adventurer picked up the request out of sheer curiosity and saw the reward alongside the client’s name, the entire guild erupted in an uproar.

The stated reward was roughly ten times the market rate.

And the client was none other than the Duke of Gazard’s household—a house among houses, the very epitome of prestige.

Not only were the tools necessary for cleaning fully provided, but even the clothing to be worn during the work was completely supplied.

Light meals would be served before and after the work.

The conditions were astonishingly extravagant.

Moreover, no restriction was placed on the required adventurer rank.

Even a novice who registered as an adventurer that very day was eligible to accept the commission.

This request quickly became the talk of the town, drawing even desperate vagrants of the royal capital who didn’t normally operate as adventurers rushing to the guild in droves.

Because every single one of them was hired and put to work on the extermination, the compensation Diana paid out amounted to an astronomical sum.

While the people of the royal capital initially laughed it off as a wealthy noble’s extravagant whim, they soon rejoiced as the unplesant odor lingering in the backstreets began to vanish in tandem with the cleanliness of the sewers.

That was not all.

The outbreak of the deadly plague, which had been feared would spread into a massive epidemic if left unchecked, visibly lost momentum almost immediately after the sewer cleaning and extermination efforts commenced.

The response to the commission—cleaning the sewers and exterminating the rats—had initially begun with just Diana and Ian.

They distributed the necessary equipment to the adventurers, arranged the attire they wore, enforced thorough handwashing and gargling with clean water after the work was finished, and served meals following a change of clothes.

For anyone who complained of feeling unwell, a physician was arranged immediately.

Naturally, the more workers they hired, the greater Diana’s burden grew.

With the assistance of the estate’s servants, eventually even Duke Wesley Gazard himself stepped in to help.

Because Wesley possessed a wealth of accumulated know-how, he was able to propose strategies that hadn’t even crossed Diana’s mind.

It was two weeks after Diana first threw herself into the sewer cleaning that Wesley’s systematically organized proposal for sewer maintenance was formally presented to the royal palace.

“Thank you so much, Father.”

“Oh, nonsense. If this can suppress the spread of the plague, it’s a small price to pay.”

Today, too, Diana was busy serving meals to the adventurers.

Normally, there were adventurers who would casually call out things like “Diana-chan~,” but with the Duke of Gazard—her father—present, they dared not do so.

“Still, to figure out the source of the infection so precisely. Though you are my own daughter, I couldn’t be prouder.”

Hearing her father laugh as he said those words felt more glorious to Diana than anything else in the world.

(No, this was something Father uncovered in the first place. It only came to light because Father threw himself into the investigation in my past life…)

It was thanks to her father’s efforts that the epidemic had been subdued.

In her past life, her father himself had fallen victim to the illness along the way, but in this life, they had made it in time──.

(I was able to save both Lord Alan and Father…)

Yet, there was no time to bask in triumph.

It was still far too early to claim that all the sewers of the royal capital were completely sanitary.

Today, too, Diana was running about busily to express her gratitude to the adventurers who had dived into the sewers to labor on their behalf.

It was the very next day that an order was once again handed down commanding Diana to enter the royal castle to be honored for her achievements in suppressing the epidemic.