The Female Knight Who Finally Started Dating Me But Got Seriously Depressed Because Her Younger Boyfriend Was Sent Away On A Solo Assignment Is Way Too Cute

And so, after various twists and turns, Karen-san the female knight and I, Haru, the rookie knight of Black Hawk, had officially become lovers and begun climbing the steps of our relationship together.

But that did not mean our lives changed all that much――.

“Hey, Haru, about ten of them are headed your way! If you’ve got time to rest, hurry up and finish them off!”

“Fweeh, more of them…? I thought we’d already killed quite a lot.”

The Fourth Knight Squad of the Royal Capital Guard, commonly known as “Black Hawk,” to which I belonged, was currently on a mission to completely eradicate a pack of magical beasts that had infested a magic-stone mine within the kingdom’s territory.

The creatures pouring out from the depths of the mine had all grown by feeding on high-purity magical ore and developed extremely strong magical resistance. They were a terrible match for me, since I usually relied heavily on magic in battle, and even killing a single small beast from the relatively weaker varieties was taking me quite a while.

“Honestly――this is what happens when you grow complacent because of your talent and neglect your training! A thousand practice swings before breakfast, a thousand strikes against a target, and ten laps around the outer perimeter of the royal castle walls to build stamina! That’s basic common sense, isn’t it?”

Karen-san casually cut down a giant boar with an ore-covered, rock-hard hide in a single swing of her beloved sword while spouting that completely unreasonable logic. If I did all that, it would not just take until breakfast, it would easily take until lunchtime. Incidentally, one full lap around the outer castle walls took roughly twenty minutes at a full sprint――I thought my stamina would run out long before I managed to build any.

“Sh-She’s… exactly, right… Haru. At this rate, you’ll never… be fit to serve… in our Black Hawk… haaah, haaah…”

Mulberry, who had been sent into the field alongside Karen-san and me, breathlessly agreed with her. But considering her legs were trembling like those of a newborn fawn, her words had absolutely no persuasive power.

And so, this was just another ordinary day in Black Hawk.

Well, when I really thought about it, all that had happened was that Karen-san and I had started dating――we had simply become boyfriend and girlfriend, so naturally the work continued pouring in endlessly as always.

Wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to work, work, come home late at night, eat dinner, sometimes take a bath and sometimes not, then immediately go to sleep――that daily cycle would probably continue almost indefinitely for as long as I belonged to Black Hawk.

“Good work, Madeleine-san… Haru has returned…”

“Oh, Haru, welcome baaack…”

The person who greeted me with that listless voice when I returned from my mission was Madeleine-san, Black Hawk’s deputy captain and Karen-san’s best friend. Normally she was always sharp and composed, but even Madeleine-san could no longer hide her exhaustion this deep into the night.

“You’re alone? What happened to the other two?”

“Karen-san said she had some business and went to the office of someone important. Mulberry ran out of strength on the way back, so the captain told her to go straight home.”

“Mm, got it. Then I’ll handle everyone’s return-time records and daily reports, so you can head home first, Haru.”

With that, Madeleine-san took out rectangular slips of paper bearing Karen-san’s, Mulberry’s, and my names, then carefully wrote the current time on them in small letters. Records of when work began and ended――when it came to attendance records during the busy period at the end of the fiscal year, they became so evil they were almost nauseating.

Incidentally, Black Hawk had no concept of overtime pay. After all, every member of the Royal Capital Guard always left work exactly on time! (Officially.)

“Thanks for looking out for me, Madeleine-san. But I’m going to wait here a little longer.”

Wait for what――that was obvious.

Naturally, Madeleine-san did not ask, “For whom?”

The same person had already come to mind for both of us.

“…You look gloomy. Things are not going well with Karen lately?”

That should not have been the case. I trained with Karen-san before work almost every day, and nothing awkward had happened between us while on duty.

But at the same time, it was also true that I could not say I was completely satisfied with the current situation.

“――Ah, I see. So you and Karen have been ‘going without’ lately.”

“Ugh… you can tell?”

“Of course I can. You’re a young man in your prime too, Haru. And you only just started dating. If you’ve been forced to ‘wait,’ of course it’s going to show on your face and in your behavior.”

Since we were at work, I thought I had been doing my best to keep it hidden, but apparently that was only in my own head.

That’s right. It was great that Karen-san and I had finally started dating, but even after some time had passed, it had still been nothing but work, work, work… and we had barely managed to do anything particularly couple-like together.

“Haah… seriously, what is that woman doing? I thought she might mellow out a little once she started dating Haru… but I guess she’s still as stiff and stubborn as ever…”

Madeleine-san sighed with an exasperated expression as she worried about her best friend.

“Sorry. It’s because I’m such a useless boyfriend…”

“This isn’t something you need to apologize for, Haru. It’s entirely that older woman’s fault for being unable to properly handle the desires of a young man. I’ve even been deliberately pretending to get close to you to provoke her… but at this rate, it’s only a matter of time before Haru gets tempted by another woman.”

I did not think there was any possibility of me being tempted by another woman, but considering the women around me, such as Mulberry and Princess Erluka, I could understand why Madeleine-san would think that way.

And of course, it was always at times like this――

“…I-I-I’m… back…”

At that moment, the door creaked open weakly, and Karen-san appeared on the other side.

“Welcome back, Karen――wait, what’s with that end-of-the-world expression?”

Just as Madeleine-san said, Karen-san looked completely different from when I had parted ways with her earlier, her face clouded over as heavily as a torrential rainstorm.

Honestly, I never thought I would see a real person making an expression like “(´；ω；｀).”

“What’s wrong, Captain? Did you get some bad news?”

“Haru… no, it’s not exactly bad news. If anything, it should probably be considered good news, but for me, it’s kind of…”

So for her, it was bad news.

And apparently, the answer was inside the crumpled envelope Karen-san was holding.

“Karen, let me see that――what the hell is this…?”

Madeleine-san noticed it and forcibly snatched it from Karen-san’s hand――but the moment she read it, she turned her gaze toward me with a complicated expression.

“――Um, I’ve got an incredibly bad feeling about this.”

Frankly, I did not want to hear it.

From the way the two of them were acting, I could more or less guess. It was probably a document addressed to me, and under normal circumstances, it would be something I should celebrate.

At least, if I only thought about it from a career perspective.

“Effective tomorrow, Haru, member of the Fourth Knight Squad of the Royal Capital Guard, is hereby appointed ‘Acting Commander for the Southwestern Islands of the Southern Nations Alliance’――”

――Seriously, every single time, it was always moments like these when my bad feelings ended up being right.