Young Man And Broken Engagement

After their life-or-death battle with Lilim ended, Rudel and the others were carried to the nearby town on the vice-captain’s dragon. With six people aboard, the dragon’s back was understandably cramped, but Rudel remained in high spirits the entire way. After all, the vice-captain of the knight order he admired so much was personally giving him a ride into town, so perhaps his excitement was understandable.

“Stop getting so excited, Rudel. The hard part starts now. If Unias and I send letters home, our families might be willing to pull some strings. But your family…”

Luecke trailed off awkwardly, and Rudel answered with a wry smile. Both Luecke and Unias knew about Rudel’s family situation. Despite supposedly being the next head of the family, Rudel was treated with excessive—no, abnormal—harshness. Nor was that harshness meant to prepare him for the future. They simply treated him cruelly.

Luecke could hardly imagine Rudel’s family taking action merely because he sent them a letter. If anything, they might even act in direct opposition to Rudel’s wishes. That was what Luecke thought.

“It’ll be fine. My father and mother tend to cover up this sort of thing… Though since they don’t care much about me, maybe I’d be better off not sending them a letter at all. I’ve written to them since coming to the academy, but aside from official matters, they never reply.”

Unias jabbed Luecke in the side with his elbow for bringing up such a depressing subject. And so the rest of their journey into town passed in a slightly awkward atmosphere.

In the town near the border, Mies walked down the main street wrapped in a ragged piece of cloth. The cloth itself smelled terrible, but Mies was even worse, as the stench of the smoke screen she had used to escape still clung stubbornly to her.

“Dammit… I recovered the inn’s confidential documents and everything, but isn’t throwing me out immediately a little cruel? And why is every shop treating me so coldly?! I can’t even buy anything properly… This is why I hate this kingdom!!!”

The foul-smelling smoke screen had proven useful for escaping from a dragon. But Mies knew that the same odor could now be used to track her. In fact, she stood out tremendously. Because she smelled absolutely awful!

“I’m starving… I want a sizzling hot steak. Ow!”

Walking with her head lowered, Mies muttered to herself and promptly collided with someone approaching from ahead. It was Rudel, who had returned to town. Bargas and Basil had gone to the hospital, while Rudel was heading back to the inn with Luecke and Unias, carrying an armful of simple skewered meat he had bought from a street stall.

The moment Mies saw them, her stomach growled loudly. Smiling, Rudel took out one skewer and held it toward her. To Mies, Rudel looked almost radiant. However—

“Five ses per skewer.”

“You’re charging me?!”

Mies shouted. Reluctantly, she pulled money from her purse, handed it to Rudel, and received the food in exchange. She immediately bit into it. Luecke and Unias watched Mies from a short distance away… because she smelled.

“You couldn’t buy anything even when you tried, right? You’ve been talking to yourself so loudly that we heard everything. Or were you hoping I’d give it to you for free?”

“What?! H-How much did you hear?”

“Since the part where you got thrown out of the inn, I think. Well, with that smell, I can’t really blame them… But you should probably stop shouting that you hate the kingdom. The knights are on edge right now, so they’ll haul you away immediately if they hear that.”

Panicking, Mies immediately began thinking of a way to leave town. But she was still hungry, and crossing the border in her current condition would be difficult. Wanting a little more food, Mies stared, drooling at the large number of skewers in Rudel’s arms.

Seeing that, Rudel offered her the entire bag of skewers and said,

“Fifty-five ses for all of them.”

“Kh…! I-I know! I’ll buy them all! Fine, I’ll buy them from you!”

Unable to tell whether she felt embarrassed or delighted, Mies handed Rudel the money and looked up at his face as she reached for the bag. Growing even more embarrassed, she turned her face away… and that was her mistake.

Mies fumbled her grip, and because she was embarrassed and trying to hurry, what her hand grabbed instead was… Rudel’s trousers. Even worse, Rudel’s belt had been damaged during his fight with Lilim. Mies pulled with all her strength while Rudel had his guard completely down. The result was…

“W-What are you doing?!”

“Huh? …KYAAAAAAAH!!!!! IT’S HUUUUGE!!!”

Mies had somehow pulled down Rudel’s underwear along with his trousers. With his lower body completely exposed, Rudel could do nothing but panic. Worse still, Mies stared directly at him before fleeing with the bag of skewers… while Luecke and Unias were standing some distance away, leaving Rudel completely naked from the waist down in the middle of the street.

As luck would have it, Cattleya appeared at that exact moment.

“There you are. The vice-captain told me to escort you back to the academy… What the hell are you doing?!”

“N-No! It’s not what it looks like! Someone just pulled my trousers down!”

Rudel hurriedly pulled his trousers back up. Cattleya looked exasperated, though she herself had gotten a very good look at Rudel’s lower half. Once he was dressed again and she lost interest, she glanced around and noticed what appeared to be documents scattered across the ground. Assuming they belonged to Rudel, Cattleya began picking them up while preparing to complain, only to notice something.

“Honestly… I don’t know what happened, but you should take better care of your documents. Once you become a knight, you’ll be forced to fill out more paperwork than you could ever want… What is this?”

Cattleya grew suspicious after briefly looking over the contents. They appeared to be some sort of observation log, but something about the handwriting and manner in which it was written caught her attention. As she continued reading, the movements of the Imperial soldiers during the recent incident began to make sense.

“Those aren’t mine. The girl from earlier dropped them. Haah, I guess I’ll have to return them to her.”

“I’m going after that girl. What did she look like?!”

“Huh? …I guess the most distinctive thing was how badly she smelled.”

A smile spread across Cattleya’s face at those words. It was by no means a gentle smile… It was dark and ferocious, like that of a predator finally locating a hated enemy. Seeing it, Rudel found himself thinking something completely unrelated—that despite the smell, Cattleya really was beautiful.

(That Imperial woman humiliated me… I’ll find her no matter what and torture her!)

“I’m going after that woman immediately. You three return to the inn at once.”

With that, Cattleya dashed away. In the end, only Rudel remained standing there.

“…Guess I’ll head back to the inn. More importantly, Luecke! Unias! Stop laughing and help me out!”

Pushing their way through the crowd that had gathered before anyone noticed, Luecke appeared while desperately suppressing his laughter, with Unias openly roaring with it.

“N-No, sorry. It happened so suddenly that I was too slow to react.”

“Standing half-naked on a main street… That’s so like you, Rudel. I’ve definitely got to tell Izumi about this.”

“W-Wait! Izumi has nothing to do with this!”

The three returned to the inn while laughing. It was only after they had returned to the academy that they learned the documents Mies dropped had resulted in Lilim receiving a lighter punishment.

The Empire had been conducting a weapons test involving the Enhanced Ogre. Although it had been purely by coincidence, Lilim had saved Rudel and the others after they became its intended targets. Because of that fact, her punishment was reduced to demotion and confinement. Rudel himself forgave her for trying to kill him after the battle with the ogre, and because the two were still technically engaged at the time, that offense was also overlooked.

However, because of this incident and their previous conduct, both Cattleya and Lilim ultimately had their engagements with Rudel formally dissolved.