The Female Knight Who Was Too Adorable When She Caught A Cold And Got Nursed Back To Health

Mornings in the royal capital were bitterly cold.

Since the kingdom was originally located in the northern part of the continent, summers were relatively cool and pleasant, but as winter approached, the cold grew increasingly severe, and on some days even the water in outdoor wells froze solid and became unusable.

So, as someone serving this country as a knight, naturally, I had to pay proper attention to managing my health as well, but—

“Mmm… good morning…”

Early in the morning, when the sun had barely begun to rise, I entered Black Hawk’s underground station as usual. In fact, this was the busiest time of day, with knights returning home after finishing late-night missions and others preparing to deploy from the early morning.

It would be unthinkable in other departments, but conversely, during the daytime, most people were often out on assignments, and sometimes there was nobody left except the person on watch.

After exchanging a few greetings with the senior knights, I entered the captain’s office where Karen-san was. My current duties were mainly administrative work. Organizing missions for which deployment orders had been issued, assisting with selecting personnel for each mission, ordering supplies needed for missions, bookkeeping, and so on… There was surprisingly a lot to do.

On top of that came training as a knight, and then actually going out on missions myself… so naturally, there was absolutely no time to rest.

“Good morning, Captain.”

“…………”

I greeted Karen-san, who was sitting in the captain’s chair, but she stared blankly down at her documents and showed no sign of noticing me.

“—Um, Captain?”

“…”

“Uh, Captain? It’s Haru. I’ve just reported for duty.”

“! Hm? Ah, yes. Good morning, Haru.”

“…?”

Normally, Karen-san would greet me first thing in the morning with a sharp expression and the very welcome words, “You’re late, you idiot!” but today her response was strangely weak. She was looking through a pile of documents, but it didn’t seem like she was concentrating on them either. She simply looked dazed.

“Captain, you seem a little under the weather today… Are you all right?”

“Hmm? Ah, don’t worry. My body has just felt a little sluggish since this morning—achoo.”

Karen-san’s natural sneeze, overflowing with femininity, was incredibly adorable, but if she had caught a cold, then I was worried.

“See? You really aren’t okay. I’ll take care of everything today, so Karen-san, please go home and sleep.”

“…Idiot. How could I possibly be the only one resting while everyone else is working hard? Besides, even if you’ve gotten used to things, don’t get too full of yourself and think a rookie like you can handle my job.”

Karen-san shook her head at my words, slung her beloved sword over her shoulder, and tried to head out on a mission, but—

“So, stop getting ahead… of… your—”

“!”

After taking only two or three steps, she collapsed face-first without any strength. From the impact, a bottle of healing medicine flew out of her bag and shattered noisily, spilling its contents all over the floor.

“Captain!”

I immediately rushed over to Karen-san, quickly removed her armor, and lifted her into my arms.

“She’s burning up…!”

The instant Karen-san’s body touched my arms, I could tell immediately that she had an extremely high fever.

It was a very severe cold, and her temperature had probably easily exceeded forty degrees. It was almost unbelievable that she had managed to report to work normally in this condition. For it to have gotten this bad, she must have ignored it and continued working the entire time.

And after pushing herself too far, she had finally collapsed.

“Captain, excuse me for a moment.”

The instant I saw Karen-san groaning painfully, I cast a spell on her.

“! Don’t tell me you’re using sleep magic—”

“Please forgive my insolence, Captain. But if I don’t do this, you won’t listen to me.”

Karen-san twisted her body in an attempt to resist, but even though she was a captain-class knight, she was still sick.

There was no way someone in that condition could do anything about it.

“Haru… you… idi—”

After finishing the Sleep spell, I firmly caught Karen-san as she collapsed against me, then lifted her in a princess carry.

Walking through the royal palace in the morning like this would draw an incredible amount of attention, but given the circumstances, it couldn’t be helped.

Karen-san would simply have to endure the humiliation of being known for a while as “the knight captain who got carried like a princess by a rookie.”

“Now then… Today is going to be busy—”

The Sleep spell I had just cast would probably take an entire day to wear off naturally, even for Karen-san, who had undergone magical resistance training.

Since I had unilaterally taken away one full day of Karen-san’s time, I had to take responsibility for it.

So—

—I thought I might get a little serious.

That night.

After finishing work, I entered Karen-san’s room again. As for the key, I had taken the liberty of borrowing it from Karen-san’s belongings.

“Whiiine…”

Cerberus, her pet, recognized me and approached with its tails drooping anxiously. Apparently it usually caused quite a mess running around the room, but today it must have sensed that something was different and had waited quietly.

“There, there. Good boy. It’s okay. The medicine Madeleine-san gave her seems to be working too. By tomorrow, she’ll be back to her usual energetic self.”

After carrying Karen-san straight to her bed earlier, I immediately explained the situation to Madeleine-san, and through her connections, I had a doctor come treat Karen-san.

The diagnosis was a cold, but apparently it had worsened quite badly and she was on the verge of developing pneumonia. Madeleine-san, who was with us, had looked exasperated and muttered, “Honestly, this hopeless woman…”

Still, it ultimately hadn’t developed into anything serious, and it seemed she would fully recover after a week of proper rest.

“Whew… All right, time to get started.”

After feeding Cerberus, who was hungry, I looked around Karen-san’s room.

What spread before my eyes were piles and piles and piles of garbage—

Dirty dishes abandoned in the kitchen, empty cans, and empty liquor bottles.

She had probably been so busy with work that she hadn’t even had time to take out the trash. The room was filled with stagnant air and a sour smell.

So first, I got to work dealing with all of that.

“Let’s see, first I should separate and throw out the garbage, then clean up the dust afterward…”

I supposed it was understandable for a single person to neglect their everyday life—but this looked more like the room of a middle-aged man. Karen-san, this was honestly a little too pathetic. Staying in a place like this would make it impossible for her to recover properly.

I started by tossing anything that was obviously garbage into bags. As for the papers carelessly scattered across the floor, I gathered them all together and temporarily placed them on the desk.

“Let’s see, what’s this…?”

Among them, one book that had been abandoned in the corner of the room caught my eye. The title on the cover was A Single Flower of Happiness.

“Hmm… Is this a romance novel?”

I could tell after flipping through only a few pages.

It was a classic romance story. A tale of tragic, unrequited love about a village girl who fell in love with the prince of a certain kingdom. Content-wise, it seemed like the kind of genre girls her age would enjoy.

Actually, now that I looked more closely, there seemed to be quite a lot of similar books mixed into the bookshelf among military strategy manuals and other work-related volumes.

And then there was “something” sticking out from the stuffed storage compartment—

“Stuffed animals… So Karen-san actually has some surprisingly girlish hobbies after all.”

Starting with dogs and cats and extending to cute versions of monsters such as slimes—countless stuffed animals filled Karen-san’s wardrobe.

Some of them looked a little crudely made, so perhaps she had even made a few herself.

“Mmm… ngh…”

Just as I discovered this new side of Karen-san, whether the timing was good or bad, she seemed to regain consciousness.

I wanted to say that my treasure hunt had only just begun—but I supposed I could save that for another opportunity.

“Captain, how are you feeling?”

“? Haru…? You… No, more importantly, where am I?”

“This is your home, Captain. I’m sorry for entering without permission, but given the circumstances…”

“My…”

“Woof!”

“Wah, hey, Cerberus… If you lick my face that fiercely, I won’t be able to breathe.”

The instant its owner woke up, Cerberus wagged its tails with all its might to express its joy, and Karen-san accepted the affection despite looking flustered. The color had returned to her face too, so apparently the medicine was working.

“Haru, now that I think about it, what about work…? What happened with today’s duties?”

“Don’t worry. I explained the circumstances to everyone in the squad, and they divided the workload among themselves. Everything was completed without any particular problems.”

Yes, of course that was a lie. I had personally taken full responsibility for completing all of the captain’s work.

I had asked Madeleine-san to provide some exceptional assistance as well, but aside from monsters that were difficult to defeat solo, I had handled nearly everything myself.

That was what happened when I got a little serious—although, if I was being completely truthful, it had been extremely exhausting. Still, it was for Karen-san’s sake.

Because I had managed to maintain my serious state for quite a long time, I was able to finish everything, including my own work.

“I see, everyone did… And my room has been completely cleaned up too… Don’t tell me you did this as well?”

“Yes. You certainly let quite a lot pile up. I understand that you’re busy and don’t have much free time, but you really should clean up a little more, you know?”

“Hmph. A rookie giving me a full-fledged lecture. You really are an impertinent little…”

At that moment, Karen-san’s face suddenly turned serious, as though she had realized something.

“Um, Captain? What’s wrong?”

“The room is clean… Everything is organized… Which means—”

After letting her gaze wander around several places, Karen-san finally looked directly at me and said only one thing.

“Haru… did you see it?”

“Huh?”

Karen-san’s face turned even redder than when she had been suffering from a high fever, to the point that I worried she might explode at any moment.

By “see it,” she was probably referring to the contents of the closet—in other words, the fancy stuffed animals.

Actually, there hadn’t really been anything else noticeable anyway.

“Yes… well, a little.”

“…Auuuuuuugh…”

At my response, Karen-san covered her cheeks with her hands and kicked her legs in embarrassment.

Even though she had awakened from Sleep, its effects still lingered, so she couldn’t move her body properly yet.

Karen-san writhed in humiliation after having a hobby she had desperately hidden from her subordinates exposed to me—ah, she was so unbearably adorable.

“Ah, but I really don’t think it’s anything to be embarrassed about, you know? You’re a woman, so it’s perfectly natural to have things like that. If anything, I was actually relieved to see it…”

“No, no, Haru, that’s not it. That wasn’t mine. She—yes, Madeleine—told me, ‘You’re technically a grown woman too, so you need to be ready whenever the time comes,’ and talked me into keeping it there. I never intended anything like—”

“Huh? A grown woman…? Were those stuffed animals really that expensive? I thought they looked rather cheaply made.”

“Wha? Stuffed… animals…?”

At that, Karen-san, who had been frantically trying to explain herself, suddenly froze.

Judging from the way she failed to understand what I meant, it seemed she had mistaken my words for something else.

“Ah—”

At that moment, being rather quick on the uptake, I realized what was going on.

Something Madeleine-san had encouraged her to have, something a grown woman should keep in her wardrobe so she would be ready whenever the time came—

A devilish flash of inspiration made my mischievous side peek out, and I spoke.

It would be far too much of a waste to pretend I hadn’t noticed.

“Um, Captain… I was talking about the stuffed animals inside the storage compartment… Were you perhaps thinking of something else?”

At my gentle probing, Karen-san stiffened from head to toe. She was so embarrassed that I could practically see steam rising from the top of her head.

Apparently I had hit the mark.

“Say, Captain? Just what exactly did you think I had seen? If you don’t mind, I’d really like to hear it directly from you.”

“W-Well, um, that’s…”

“Ah, come to think of it, I feel like there was something besides the stuffed animals. Some unusually flashy piece of black lace fabric—”

“U-UWAAAAAAAAAAAH!? D-Don’t say it! Don’t say anything more than thaaaaat!!”

Oh, so I had even guessed the type correctly. What an incredibly easy reaction to read.

“I’ll cut you down! I’m going to cut you down right now! If I split your head clean in two, even someone as smart as you should lose those memories, right!?”

“That wouldn’t just split my memories, it would split my life in half too!?”

“No excuses! DIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

Our game of tag, in which Karen-san tried to cut me in half with movements that made it impossible to believe she had been seriously ill only moments before, continued for several hours until dawn, when another resident, awakened by all the commotion, finally came over and began lecturing us.

Incidentally, in addition to black lace, Karen-san apparently owned another set of special lingerie consisting of pure white string panties as well (according to Madeleine-san).

And I found myself hoping that I would be the very first person to see her wearing them.