Chapter 30
『The Beloved Ally』
To put it positively, it meant maintaining amicable relations with everyone; put negatively, it meant proclaiming neutrality and being called a bat.
In most works of fiction, such people are portrayed as uncool and excessively sly, so they are ignored.
However, historically, the people who survived for a long time had one thing in common: they became beloved allies and avoided making enemies.
Not making enemies is an incredible ability.
People and organizations have thorns, so they end up making enemies.
In such circumstances, those who hid their thorns and managed their relationships well—doing their utmost to smooth things over even when conflicts arose so they would not be seen as enemies—might not become heroes, but they became beloved allies and survived for a long time.
Of course, there were drawbacks too.
They were often treated poorly compared to their efforts and achievements, and because they profited by attaching themselves to both sides, they could be called bats and reviled.
But that was fine.
Being called a bat vs. getting your head chopped off—which was the better option?
There was no comparison.
So I decided to become a bat and began paying attention to diplomacy.
I sent bribes to the Platinum Council and sent 15% of Dreihart's profits each to House Silk and House Ryan, helping them save face.
Honestly, I wanted to ignore House Ryan, but I sent it out of consideration for the prince's reputation.
I was building a good relationship with the princess by using Rana.
Since there was nothing to hide in the first place, I took Rana around with me and openly shared all my information.
I invested all the money I earned for my people and shared as much of Dreihart's profits as possible, emphasizing that I had no political ambitions.
I showered them with the message that I was simply a kind, modest, unambitious lord, so they should make me an ally rather than an enemy.
The princess's faction, having heard the information from Rana, would probably now regard me as either an ally or a prospective ally.
The problem was the prince's side.
My only connection to the prince was House Ryan, and the relationship between them and our house was the worst possible.
House Ryan was largely at fault, but that was a separate issue.
Just as I was wondering how to improve my relationship with the prince, someone knocked.
Knock! Knock!
“Come in.”
At my words, the door opened and a messenger entered.
He entered with an extremely nervous expression this time as well.
“What is it?”
“Yes! My lord! The Imperial Family has sent a letter addressed to you.”
“The Imperial Family sent a letter!?”
Hearing that another letter had come from the Imperial Family, I hurriedly took it from the messenger.
What kind of letter was it this time?
Honestly, I could think of too many reasons they might send one, so I had no idea who it was from.
The prince might have sent it, or the princess might have sent it to ask me to come see her.
Praying that it was not another event letter, I broke the Imperial seal and read it.
And it said:
——————————
Calix Kron, Lord of Kron.
Your name, carried on the winds of the Empire, has reached me.
The expansion of compensation for your people, tax reform, and even the suppression of the rebellion in Dreihart—the resolve and sense of responsibility you displayed throughout these endeavors will serve as an example to every noble.
However, that also means your actions are attracting just as much attention.
These days, the Bloodkin's black hands are reaching throughout the Empire.
I hear that you too have faced the threat of assassination.
Since a talent like you must not fall victim to assassination or similar schemes, I wish to send one of my escort knights to your side.
She is a skilled fighter recognized even within the Golden Knights, and she will be more than capable of protecting you.
I look forward to the day we can meet safely.
First Prince – Kailos Sword Novarens
——————————
“…………”
Having just read the princess's letter, I was surprised by how proper this one was.
Of course. Since letter-writing culture was not all that different in this other world, sending a properly formal letter like this was normal.
As expected, the princess was the strange one!
When I finished reading the letter, Hart asked,
“My lord, who in the Imperial Family sent the letter?”
“It was the prince. He said that the threat of assassination was serious, so he would send me an escort knight.”
“How could this be! The prince is sending you an escort knight? That is an incredible honor!”
“Yes, it is.”
After Rana came to us, I investigated and learned that, unlike the princess, the prince almost never sent his people to other lords.
On top of that, even with rivals, the prince was the person with the greatest power in the Empire.
It was an incredible honor for such a prince to worry about my safety and even send me an escort knight.
This should be enough to improve my relationship with the prince, which had worried me, but at the same time, it was extremely burdensome.
If the princess had subtly formed a relationship with me, the prince had openly laid claim to me.
If I mishandled this, I could be hated by both sides, or be forced into one camp and made to sail in the same boat with them.
To become a beloved ally who received goodwill from both sides and survived to the end, I would have to practice some serious bat-like maneuvering—no, diplomacy—from now on.
As I steeled myself while drinking the tea Rana had given me, Rana spoke.
“It's strange. I'm by your side, my lord, so I don't understand why you need another escort knight.”
Rana's combat ability had been recognized, and she was now serving as both a maid and an escort.
Knowing Rana's abilities, I arranged a spar with Mark, one of the guards from the Kron Knights assigned to protect me, to draw out her skills, and, as expected, Rana beat him to a pulp.
To anyone watching, her movements looked like those of an assassin, or at least a ninja's, but Rana insisted to the very end that they were ordinary martial arts, and we decided to take her at her word.
I summed up what she had said in one sentence.
“Who will protect me when Rana goes to school during the day?”
“I understand now. You absolutely need another escort knight, my lord.”
Rana still went to school as a teacher two or three times a week.
She seemed genuinely suited to it and had grown attached to the children, so she kept asking permission to go; seeing how happy she was to pursue something of her own choosing, I continued to let her.
If Rana stopped going to school and guarded me, we would not need an additional escort knight...but judging by her reaction, she seemed to like going to school as a teacher very much.
“Now we can improve our relationship with the prince too.”
“Indeed, my lord. If the prince talks to those lions, they will quiet down as well.”
When I had briefly played the game, the prince had been a pragmatist, not a villain.
He had allowed Hadem to run wild because Hadem stayed within the minimum rules, and if Hadem had gone wild while breaking even those minimum rules, or if House Kron had been part of the prince's faction, he would have intervened long ago and sorted everything out.
The reason I could not quickly align myself with the prince was that this world always produced unexpected events, like the assassination event, that threatened my life.
This world was truly too hard to live in.
For now, I decided to revisit diplomacy with the prince after the escort knight arrived.
If Noah were here, we could settle on a policy more quickly, but Noah was working hard in Dreihart as my representative.
I looked forward to seeing which escort knight would come, thinking of the knights I remembered from when I had played on the prince's side in my previous life.
And a few days later, the escort knight arrived.
Unlike Rana, the escort knight arrived on horseback.
The female knight, her beautiful pale-green hair tied back, arrived at my castle with the elegant beauty of a noblewoman.
As befitted someone from the Golden Knights, she dismounted while observing perfect knightly etiquette, approached me, knelt on one knee, and spoke.
“I am 『Azel Tis』 of the Golden Knights, sent by His Highness the prince to escort you, my lord. It is an honor to protect the esteemed Lord of Kron, who upholds justice. From today onward, I will guard your person without fail!“
“Th...yes, welcome, Azel Tis…”
The escort knight who introduced herself as Azel Tis looked at me with an admiring gaze.
A beautiful young woman was looking at me admiringly, and a cold sweat broke out down my back.
Because, unlike with Rana, I knew her very well for an entirely different reason.
Her name was 『Azel Tis』.
She was an ‘escort knight’ with top-tier abilities among SSR knight characters, known by the epithet 『Moonlight Knight』.
In particular, she possessed an extremely unique blessing, which made her a knight character who displayed absolute power against certain types of bosses.
The problem was her sense of justice.
When I played with her as a vassal,
if I committed enough evil deeds for my morality gauge to fall below a certain point and thus became an unrighteous lord,
she would stab her unrighteous lord in the gut and take her own life.
Her actions were so far beyond common sense that she acquired various nicknames.
『Justice Psycho』, 『the Knight of Stabbing』, and 『Kingslayer (Lord-Killer)』
The prince had sent 『Kingslayer』 to our domain.
Azel Tis illustration
