029
She has no name.
To be exact, before rebuilding the family that had fallen with the fall of the North, he had vowed to live forgetting his original name.
But she still needs a name for herself so she asks people to call her Luna, a pseudonym she thinks is pretty······.
“Oh, Jane. I heard you infiltrated the palace with Alfonso. When did you come back?”
She glared at the bandit who had called her by the name of an old woman, one or two of whom were present in every village in the rural baronial domain.
“Huh? Wasn’t it Jane? What was it?”
“Luna. Originally it was Kate, but she changed it before infiltrating the palace because she didn’t like something.”
“Oh! That’s right. I’m sorry.”
The bandit hit his forehead at the sorceress’s words.
“Please be careful next time.”
Luna, who had asked the bandit with a fresh expression, glanced at the fox mask.
The blood relative of the teacher who was the leader of the Northern Liberation Army.
The sole successor to the Saturn family.
Even Alfonso and her, who trained together under the master, don’t know for sure whether he’s a man or a woman. He’s been wearing that mask since they first met. Did he get a serious injury to his face?
The fox mask that met her eyes said.
“Luna, even though you didn’t work at the Emerald Palace for long, you were with Alfonso when you infiltrated the palace. Tell everyone about the Five Princes that you saw and heard.”
“Uh, um. Since you asked me to, there’s nothing I can’t do, but could you at least tell me what the situation is?”
Luna didn’t know why she had been called to the executives’ meeting.
As soon as he heard the news that the Royal Guard was trying to capture Alfonso, he fled from the palace without looking back and headed towards the headquarters of the Northern Liberation Army.
While they were having a hard time encountering the Hamul Empire’s scouts at the border, the fox mask suddenly appeared. It was a lucky meeting, so it wiped out the scouts and dragged her here.
“That’s better. It would be more believable if someone who doesn’t know what’s going on said that.”
“I think so too. Just tell me what you know about the Five Princes.”
The bandit and the blind woman welcomed the situation. The black-clad man and the female magician nodded in agreement.
Luna opened her mouth and scratched the bridge of her nose.
“I saw the prince nearby, but I saw the laundry without any change in the face.
“Luna, as you know, you and Alfonso were the only ones who infiltrated the palace. Most of what we’ve heard about the Fifth Prince recently is a distortion of what the palace servants were saying while out and about. Tell me the vivid information you heard on the scene.”
Luna furrowed her brows at the sorceress’ request.
“Didn’t Alfonso’s report come up?”
“The last time it was posted was about two months ago, saying, ‘The 5th Prince has become strange. We will continue to observe him.’”
“Anyway, if you’re lazy······.”
Luna grumbled softly.
“Okay, fine. Ask me anything you’re curious about. I’ll answer anything I can.”
Her words made the executives think for a moment as they tried to come up with questions.
The bandit asked first.
“Did the 5th prince really defeat the 4th prince?”
“I kept quiet about it at the time, but I think it’s true. A maid I knew said she saw a bloody, punk bastard being carried in from the 3rd Division’s training grounds, screaming and getting beaten up.”
“What were the accomplishments of the four princes at that time?”
“He was a two-star knight. That’s for sure. The queen held a banquet to celebrate his achievement.”
“Hmm, there was a rumor that he was locked up in the palace and lived like a ghost, and then he unilaterally defeated a two-star knight? The fifth prince was 13 years old, right? If he neglected his swordsmanship, that wouldn’t have happened······. Were the rumors false?”
“That, I wonder too. I’ve never heard of the story of the Fifth Prince training in the sword for almost a year since he infiltrated the palace. I’ve heard of him getting beaten up by a scoundrel a few times. But he beat up that scoundrel less than a month after revealing that he was learning swordsmanship. How on earth did he hold it in all that time?”
There was silence for a moment.
The man in black nodded as if he understood something and opened his mouth.
“So you were hiding yourself. Under the guise of the Ghost Prince. So secretly that no one, not even Alfonso, noticed.”
“Is that possible? And even if it is true, why did you suddenly reveal yourself?”
The sorceress received the woman’s questions.
“When Alfonso reported that the 5th prince had become strange, didn’t he decide that it was time to shed his skin? After that, judging by the fact that he joined hands with the 2nd prince in the royal trial to deal with the scoundrel 4th prince, the 5th prince must have had his own standards that we don’t know about.”
“If that’s true······.”
“Wow, I got goosebumps. Prince Fifth, it turns out he’s a really scary person. Wasn’t he eight years old five years ago? He’s been waiting for his chance since then?”
“Could it be that you had been calculating from a young age to try to contact us······.”
The blind woman shook off the goosebumps on her arms, and the man in black was lost in deep thought.
“I don’t know about anything else, but it’s certain that he wasn’t a cornered gentleman. He beat up a two-star knight at the age of 13… That means he’s close to becoming a three-star knight. That’s a great achievement. I guess that blood didn’t go anywhere.”
The bandit closed his eyes for a moment and thought of the back of the great Northern Sword, Marquis Richard Bayrn.
Soon, he opened his eyes and opened his mouth.
“Luna, are the 5th prince trustworthy?”
“Oh, yes? That’s… As I said before, from a distance….”
“Just tell me what you think.”
Luna recalled the stories she had heard about the Five Princes during her brief time working as a kitchen assistant in the Emerald Palace.
– Did you hear that? Last time, Lois was thinking hard about whether or not to buy the land that her friend recommended. The prince overheard her passing by and told her not to buy it. It turned out that it was a scam. The prince saved a person’s life.
– Did you know that our youngest got into the Royal Academy of Government last time? There was a book that Prince Evan told us we absolutely had to solve? Well, the exact same problem was in there. If we got that wrong, we would have failed. Oh my.
– Great news! Great news! Prince Evan······.
– Prince Evan······.
.
.
.
The stories told by the servants and maids going back and forth in the kitchen. Luna, searching her memories, discovered one thing in common.
She opened her mouth cautiously.
“Uh······ This is a separate issue from whether you believe it or not······.”
——————
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“What is it? Tell me.”
“That’s right, don’t be shy.”
“So, it seems like no one was harmed by listening to the words of the Five Princes.”
Is he a trustworthy person or not?
Even more than that, these were the words that determined the minds of the Northern Liberation Army officers.
***
I visited the training grounds of the 3rd Division with Alfonso for the first time in a long time.
When I showed up, several knights who had noticed me bowed their heads. I nodded in response and looked at the training ground.
It’s changed a lot since I first came here.
The knights’ reactions are reactions, but what has changed the most is······.
“one.”
“Motivational!”
“two.”
“Saraaaaaaaang!”
When I first visited the 3rd Division training grounds, there was a knight with a long sword and a bald head sparring. The two of them were walking around the training grounds with their arms around each other’s shoulders, chanting to the beat of the commands.
‘Hey, those two are arm in arm.’
In addition to the two, many other reserve members followed them. It seemed as if they were fighting each other and were getting a kick out of it because they were arm-in-arm with each other, both of whom were commoners and nobles.
“The sound is small! One!”
“Motivational!”
I looked at the knight who was glaring as he watched them.
“two!”
“Saraaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
‘Senior Knight.’
Just before the bomb called the Royal Guard Inspectorate was delivered to the Emerald Palace, the senior knights including the Knight Commander who had been on an expedition to the western region returned.
“Your Majesty, I can’t see the captain.”
“Yeah, you said you’d definitely be in the training ground with your unit members at this time.”
“Oh, it really happened. It happened yesterday, and the day before that.”
“Let’s wait for now.”
I crossed my arms and looked at the training ground, thinking about why I came here.
‘Bert Leon.’
The royal family of the Kingdom of Lionel, excluding the direct line of the King, uses the surname ‘Leon’. Bert Lion is the half-brother of the previous King, and can be considered my great-grandfather.
He was the former commander of the 3rd Knights Division and can be said to be the representative of the six members of the Royal Council who advocate neutrality.
If I went to see him in person, the First Prince’s camp would glare at me and try to find out the reason. While wondering how I could secretly contact him, I went to the training ground of the Third Division.
‘Gert Leon, the current commander of the 3rd Knight Division, is his son.’
My idea was to try to establish secret contact with Senator Bert through him.
‘Is this the same person I heard about?’
There are two major cases in which royalist lawmakers who followed the previous king were not purged.
One, because it’s a waste of ability to purge it.
Second, I am not interested in factional strife.
I know that Rep. Bert is both. Most people think that he is a person who acts only for the sake of the country.
‘You’ll know when you see it for yourself. But to do that, you have to meet the commander of the 3rd division······.’
As I was spending time thinking about that, someone came up next to me.
“I wanted to see you, Prince Evan. I haven’t seen you in a while, but you’re finally here.”
“Sir Reina?”
Why is this woman here?
“Thank you, Prince, I was able to avoid giving up my knighthood. Thank you.”
Are you talking about the time you almost got court-martialed?
I knew that it was canceled without a sound when it was revealed that Arcade had staged it himself.
“No. It’s just because of me that Lord Reina got involved. It’s embarrassing to be thanked when an apology is not enough.”
She looked me up and down with her bright eyes.
“Have you come to practice?”
“Oh, not today. I was going to meet someone······ But, why on earth is Lord Reina here?”
“I was dispatched to promote knighthood exchange.”
Was there something like that?
She answered me as if she had read the question in my eyes.
“Oh, there’s something new this time.”
“I see. When are you going back?”
“Um······ I don’t know. He said he’d call me when the time came.”
Well, I felt like there was a backstory I didn’t know about. I was curious, but I didn’t have the time to bother looking into it.
“Then, what do you do when you go on a mission?”
“It’s the same as when I was in the 2nd Division. I eat, I train. Oh! I even sparred.”
“Daria?”
“Yes. After the first day, no one asked me to do it, so it was a little boring.”
Reina said with a bright smile.
I was curious about the results of the duel.
“If you don’t mind, the result is······.”
“I had a hard time with some of them, but I was lucky and was able to win them all.”
I thought I knew why the 3rd Division members didn’t even look this way after Reina approached.
“Have you ever sparred with the Commander of the Third Division?”
“······I lost. Cleanly.”
The anger was clearly read on Reina’s face.
Talking to her, I felt like she was pure. It was like talking to an untainted child.
I was curious about his personality as he was called a monster at the Royal Military Academy and even after becoming a knight in the Royal Guard, but it was refreshing to hear.
“Well······If you came to train, I could have helped you out a bit.”
My ears perked up.
It was Reina who first made me this offer. I had no reason to refuse. It was just that the timing was not good.
I smiled and opened my mouth.
“I’ve been having a bit of a headache lately, so please just take care of it. Please!”
“I’m looking forward to it. Oh, by the way, who did you come to see?”
“I am the commander of the 3rd division.”
“Oh, the captain.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“You were there a while ago.”
I turned my head to where Reina’s eyes were. A middle-aged knight with a sturdy shield was looking at me with his arms crossed.
‘Hmm······.’
Somehow, it seemed like there wouldn’t be a single scratch on [Evan’s Agari Technique] even if I used it with all my might.
