The Female Knight Who Unknowingly Led An Innocent Young Girl Astray Was Way Too Cute

After somehow managing to send Karen-san home despite her throwing a tantrum and insisting she did not want to leave, the next day arrived.

Ena, Zena, and I had gathered in the commander’s room.

It was early morning, just before the dawn sun was about to peek over the horizon.

Naturally, the reason we were wearing such serious expressions at this hour was to discuss what we were going to do from here on out.

I had already sent Madeleine-san a report last night about what had happened yesterday. We had yet to receive a response from the princess, but arrangements would probably be made to send reinforcements as soon as possible.

“It takes about two days by sea from the Royal Capital to here… three if the weather’s bad, so—”

“Meaning we can’t let that woman notice anything until then.”

“…Yeah.”

The three of us were almost entirely in agreement.

We simply had to buy as much time as possible until reinforcements arrived.

Based on everything Ena and Zena had told me, there were currently well over a thousand soldiers whom Nevan had sent into the Republic disguised as slaves. If they were merely a thousand ordinary men, I and the other female warriors could band together and deal with them with plenty of strength to spare, but these thousand were trained soldiers of the Empire. The three of us could probably hold our own without much trouble, but the other girls, who were less skilled, could not.

And there was one more problem.

“Ena, Zena. Let me ask just in case… is there anyone besides you two whom we can safely tell about this?”

“…………”

At my question, both of them made equally bitter expressions.

“…I don’t think so.”

“Yeah. On this one, I agree with Zena.”

“Figures…”

This was only speculation, but since we had already asked the Royal Capital for reinforcements, whether our attempt to buy time succeeded or failed, a clash with the Empire would probably be unavoidable.

I had no idea how many reinforcements would be sent, but even if they gathered their elite forces, there was a limit to how many people they could spare. In that case, we would inevitably have to count the girls here among our fighting strength as well.

Which meant that, sooner or later, we had to tell them about this so they could prepare for battle, but—

“If we tell everyone carelessly… they’ll probably panic.”

Zena was right. If we suddenly told them, “There might be a war soon”—“The enemy is the slaves you’ve been ordering around”—“And those slaves are trained Imperial soldiers”—then obvious unrest would spread among them immediately.

That would be practically the same as confessing to Nevan, “We’ve figured you out.” At that point, doing nothing at all would almost be better.

“For now, we’ll just have to act as normally as possible today. I’ll handle the training by myself, so you two go take care of Lilia. All right?”

“Got it.”

“Mm. Understood.”

Just after we ended our discussion and were about to quickly leave the room—

“Hinyan!?”

I felt something bump into the door and heard a girl’s rather silly-sounding shriek.

“Who’s there!?”

Ena reacted immediately, reached toward the small figure crouching behind the door, and hauled her up.

“Hiiin!? Ena-neesama, I’m sorry—!”

The person she had grabbed by the scruff of the neck, who was flailing her legs in midair with tears in her eyes, was a dark-skinned girl with a bob haircut who was almost exactly the same size as Lilia.

“Noka…?”

“Y-yes! That’s right, Zena-neesama. I am Noka!”

Watching her whole body tremble as she rapidly bobbed her head up and down reminded me of a tiny animal like a squirrel.

Frankly, she did not look like a warrior at all, but—

“Ena, is this girl really a knight? I don’t remember seeing her even once.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s been a while since even I’ve seen her.”

“Eep!?”

When Ena pointed at her, Noka reacted by springing backward like an insect. Pointlessly enough, she apparently had surprisingly good jumping ability.

“She returned starting with yesterday’s training. She was with me.”

If she had been among the girls training with Karen-san, then it made sense that I had not noticed her. A girl this tiny would have stood out whether she wanted to or not.

“Um, Noka-chan?”

“—!!”

Perhaps being addressed by me, a man, had startled her that badly, because Noka’s face turned so pale that she looked ready to faint.

“…Noka, it’s okay. This person isn’t scary. He’s kind.”

“I-is that… true?”

Her large, round eyes timidly turned toward me, glistening with tears.

She was roughly the same size as Lilia, but because of their personalities, Noka somehow seemed considerably younger.

“Um… Noka, do you know who I am?”

“Yes… You are Commander Haru-dono-sama, newly dispatched here from the Royal Capital.”

“Dono,” and then “sama” on top of that—I felt as though I had suddenly become someone incredibly important. Well, setting that aside—

“Just Haru is fine. I’m really not that important.”

So as not to frighten Noka, I slowly reached toward her head and gently stroked her hair as softly as I possibly could.

“Noka, why were you lurking around here this early in the morning? It’s still a long time before training, let alone breakfast.”

“Eh, ah… um, well… uuuu…”

“…Argh, you’re driving me crazy!”

Apparently irritated by Noka’s extremely hesitant manner, Ena grabbed her by the scruff of the neck again and lifted her up.

“Spit it out already, Noka! You’ve got ten seconds, starting now! Otherwise I’m gonna knock you flying!”

“E-eep, eeeeeeeek!??”

“Come on… Don’t do that, Ena. You can’t solve everything with violence.”

I hurriedly pulled the two apart and once again waited patiently for Noka to answer.

From the way she was behaving, I could tell she had not intended to eavesdrop on our conversation. If so, why had she been sneaking around a place like this at such an early hour?

“Um… actually, I… wanted to breathe—the air. The air in the room where the queen had been.”

“…What?”

The queen? The air?

I tilted my head at the words that came out of Noka’s mouth.

Normally, the three of us standing here were the only ones who used this room, aside from Noka. I was a man, so I was obviously out of the question, while Ena and Zena were her “neesama.” Neither of them was a queen, and Lilia never came anywhere near this room.

Which meant there was only one other person who had used this room—

“…Do you mean Karen-san?”

“—(nod nod)!!”

Noka bobbed her head up and down with incredible force.

—I knew it.

“From the moment I first saw her, I was captivated by her dignified figure…! I wanted to become close to her, and even if I couldn’t, I wanted to breathe the same air in the same room as her—once I started thinking that, I couldn’t sit still anymore.”

“—So you secretly snuck in here early in the morning so nobody would find you. Is that what happened?”

“…Yes.”

“And while you were here, you happened to overhear our secret conversation too.”

“Uuu… That is, broadly speaking, exactly what happened… Ena-neesama.”

Putting the reason itself aside, that at least explained how she had ended up here. I knew what it felt like to fall for someone so completely that everything else around you disappeared from view—I had experienced that myself. Though the fact that we had both fallen for the same person left me with some rather complicated feelings.

Still, to think Karen-san had managed to push such an innocent little girl so firmly down that particular path in just a single day—what a sinful woman she was.

No wonder people secretly called her “the Royal Capital’s Hardcore Lesbian Mass-Production Machine (name coined by Madeleine-san)” behind her back.

“…Still, this is a problem. Even if it was accidental, now that Noka’s heard everything, the other girls will probably notice something soon too…”

Given Noka’s timid personality, even if we told her to “pretend you don’t know anything,” she would probably never manage it convincingly.

And if that happened, unrest would inevitably spread, but—

“Hey, Commander. I’ve got a suggestion—mind hearing me out?”

“What is it, Ena? Do you have an idea?”

“Yeah. About that—”

At that point, Ena pointed toward the tiny female warrior—Noka.

“Why don’t we make her our messenger?”

The instant Ena said that, a birdlike shriek of “Pieh!?” echoed across the island before dawn.