Chapter 40
It had been about six years since Rex conquered the marquisate and was naturally promoted to marquis.
“I wanted to be a salaried employee···”
Rex was still melting away in his office, unable to give up his dream of being a responsibility-free salaried worker.
While Ari stroked him and indulged her ulterior motives, Duke, the root cause of all this trouble, was···
“Hmm. No problems today either?”
“Yes! Nothing unusual, sir!”
He had been on patrol for quite some time.
It might seem odd for the second-in-command of the domain to be out on patrol, but there was a good reason for it.
The knights of this world were obsessed with advancing through the tiers.
In other words, they tended to dump knightly duties that did not help them advance, such as patrols, on the youngest members.
To correct this common practice, Duke, the foremost knight of them all, needed to lead by example···
That was the outward justification.
In reality, it was because sitting in the office meant having to deal with paperwork.
Once his patrol duty ended, he helped train the knights who had gone on patrol that day.
He made up for the time they had lost on patrol with the opportunity to study under a master.
As a result, the knights lined up for patrol duty, competing to put their names on the roster for one-on-one lessons with Duke.
It was truly a virtuous cycle in action.
However, there was one thing about this sight that bothered Duke.
‘Hmm. I feel like I’ve been working too much lately.’
Conquering the marquisate had expanded the territory he needed to protect, but since he had killed all the personnel who could have been drafted from the marquisate, his workload had merely doubled.
On top of that, he sometimes had to go on assignments as an undercover knight while patrolling and training, leaving him no time to himself.
Of course, it was not difficult.
It was simply tedious that, because he had so much work, he no longer had the time to create new content for himself as he had when he went to conquer the marquisate.
‘This isn’t why I conquered the marquisate.’
It did not matter that he had brought work to Rex, his superior.
What mattered was that his own workload had increased.
To Duke, who pursued pleasure without responsibility, this situation felt unreasonable.
‘I need to recruit more people to whom I can delegate work.’
However, bringing in a protagonist-level hero like Ari was always Rex’s role.
Until such a hero arrived, Duke and the personal guard had to protect the domain.
And so, after spending several years patrolling, training his successors, and occasionally sneaking into the archive to read his own records and refine his persona···
Rex finally launched a hero recruitment event.
[Now that the domain is stable, I think we need to reorganize the personal guard.]
Duke rejoiced inwardly at Rex’s long-awaited message.
Finally, things were proceeding as they had in the original story.
Rex explained the need to reorganize the personal guard.
[According to the information Lord Sneria sent us, it seems more and more domains are beginning to regard our domain as a threat.]
In a world that was wary of rapidly growing superhumans, it was only natural for people to be wary of Rex, who had devoured a marquisate in ten years.
In such a situation, they could not keep sending the personal guard out into the world forever.
The personal guard was Rex’s final shield.
Unlike other lords, Rex’s own martial prowess was pitiful, making it essential for him to keep a personal guard nearby to protect him.
Until now, he had dispatched them to promote the domain’s rapid development, but taking such a gamble was now too dangerous.
In particular, if ordinary knights who could betray him for a single elixir ever committed treason, Rex was certain he would be hanging in the square in an instant.
That was why he decided to create a new personal guard.
He would divide them into a guard that protected him and a guard that could be dispatched throughout the domain.
[First, I think we need to choose a new captain of the personal guard.]
In his previous life, he would have formed the personal guard first and chosen its captain afterward.
But in this world, a single hero-level knight was more important than hundreds of ordinary knights.
Therefore, the method was to choose the captain first and then form a new group of knights under that captain.
As luck would have it, several hero candidates appeared on Rex’s interface.
[Hedonius, Sagas, and Remesis. I would like to choose the captain of the personal guard from among these three.]
They were the three company commanders under Duke.
Because of the characteristics of the magic each used, Duke privately called them the red-blue-yellow brothers.
At Rex’s proposal, the three men lifted their chins proudly.
“I’m sorry. I’m Lord Duke’s adjutant.”
“I’m not cut out for such a position.”
“I can barely manage my own company.”
They all refused.
Normally, they would have been eager for a promotion and fought to become captain of the personal guard.
But the three brothers, bound together by responsibility and loyalty, refused as though the offer were not even worth considering.
Rex’s head began to ache when he heard their answers.
The domain still needed to grow, and there was plenty of work for the personal guard to do outside, such as serving as undercover knights.
But continuing to send his shield out into the world was no different from leaving his heart exposed.
At that moment, the head maid Ari, who had read his concerns, raised her hand.
“There’s been a rumor circulating among the maids about an unidentified wandering swordsman roaming the marquisate. What do you think about recruiting them?”
Why a maid was participating in a military council was not particularly important.
(It was because defending and fighting for the lord’s residence were also part of a maid’s duties.)
What mattered was that, as though her words had been a trigger, a golden dot began to appear on Rex’s interface.
‘Oh. It’s a recruitment quest.’
Rex realized that the golden dot represented the wandering swordsman.
The dot was located in the mountain range along the border between the marquisate and Sneria’s domain.
[Good. Then let’s offer this person a position first.]
His decision was swift.
Just as it had been before Duke’s recruitment, the golden marker confirmed that this person was a hero.
Although Rex did not want to attract too much attention, he also possessed a collector’s mentality as a gamer.
Seeing her master eager to recruit the golden marker as quickly as possible, Ari smiled with satisfaction.
“Then I’ll prepare for our outing.”
“Ddet?”
Rex let out a foolish sound.
Fortunately, the rabbit-eared chronicler did not hear it, so it went unrecorded.
[Why am I going out?]
“To recruit someone, you have to go yourself, Master. Surely you aren’t planning to send someone else to recruit them?”
[What about Duke?]
Rex turned his head toward Duke.
He wondered if Duke might handle it on his own even if Rex did not go.
But despite having known each other for ten years, Duke and Rex had not reached the level of communicating through nothing but their eyes.
“Don’t worry, Lord Rex. I’ll be coming along too.”
Rex froze like a stone at Duke’s misunderstanding.
Though perhaps it was not a misunderstanding; perhaps Duke knew perfectly well and had said it anyway.
In any case, there was no option for Rex not to go.
Rex’s heart began pounding wildly.
Over the past ten years, the situation had improved enough for him to move around the domain to some extent, since it was within the range of his ability.
(Though one hour a day was the maximum.)
But this journey would require him to leave the domain.
It was even a long journey, meaning he would have to prepare to sleep rough, let alone being limited to one hour a day.
Wow! A new place! A new journey! A new encounter!
Brrrrrr!
Rex’s body began vibrating at 2,500 Hz at the prospect of leaving the domain for the first time in ten years.
Even though cold sweat poured off him heavily enough to raise concerns about dehydration, Ari bundled Rex up appropriately and took him to his room.
“I’ll help you prepare for the outing.”
She had learned how to handle Rex over the course of ten years.
Of course, thanks to the power of her rose-colored glasses and the misunderstanding trope, he appeared to her to be a dependable and beloved master who was a little reluctant to go out and prone to exaggeration.
When the head maid bundled her lord away, the knights left behind exchanged glances.
It concerned who would accompany Duke as his aide.
Sensing the atmosphere, Duke spoke to the company commanders.
“I haven’t told our lord, but I’ve sensed an ominous atmosphere lately.”
Of course, it was all a line based on his knowledge of the original story.
“I’ll take Platoon Leader Jane with me on this journey. You will guard this place and keep your swords sharp in case of emergency.”
There it is! The second-in-command’s foresight!
The company commanders’ eyes lit up all at once.
Duke’s words had never been wrong, so under a faith bordering on fanaticism, they accepted his order.
“”Understood, sir.””
“Hmm.”
Finally, Duke muttered loudly enough for the chronicler beyond the wall to hear.
“And I’ll take the chronicler along at my discretion.”
With his subordinates’ salutes behind him, Duke left the room.
‘Shall I go meet the next companion?’
***
A fortnight later.
The party consisting of Rex, Ari, Duke, and Jane arrived at the mountain range where the wandering swordsman was said to be.
(The chronicler was following while maintaining operational secrecy.)
“Uuugh···”
Rex was dying in the carriage with the mountain range before his eyes.
While Ari tended to the dying Rex and indulged her ulterior motives, Duke quietly watched the mountain range from horseback.
At that moment, the elf Jane rode over beside him and tugged on his cloak.
“Captain, what are you looking at so intently?”
“I believe I told you to mind your conduct as a knight.”
“Eee~ Isn’t that too stiff? No one can see us out here anyway~”
“I can see myself.”
“Ugh. The way you talk is exactly the same as when you were a butler.”
“Hmm.”
Of course, Duke was acting this way because of the chronicler hiding in the forest over there.
Though clearly not a superhuman and probably only Tier Zero, the chronicler’s ability to evade a Tier Four’s detection and continue recording was truly astonishing.
In any case, Duke continued watching the mountain range until Rex came to his senses.
A few minutes later, after recovering from his motion sickness through Ari’s head-patting therapy, Rex got out of the carriage.
[We have to walk from here, right?]
“Shall I carry you on my back, Master?”
Rex ignored Ari’s offer and sighed deeply while looking at the mountain range.
They had come this far. Surely they could not turn back now.
Just as Rex was about to set off, Duke, who had been quietly watching the mountain range, opened his mouth.
“I sense two powerful presences nearby.”
“Two?”
Rex looked at the minimap in puzzlement.
One golden dot was still shining brightly, as though waiting for Rex.
But apart from that dot, there was no particularly notable marker···
‘Huh?’
Barely had he finished speaking when a new marker appeared on the minimap.
A vermilion dot indicating something between slight hostility and neutrality.
Its location was directly behind them.
‘How?’
It was the first time this had happened.
The interface ability had missed a person.
Normally, the interface displayed every hostile, friendly, and neutral target in his domain and the surrounding area.
But, as in games, there were occasional exceptions where it did not display them,
‘An assassin!’
Assassins who used stealth-type magic were one such example.
When his thoughts reached that conclusion, Rex spun around in alarm.
He began preparing to order Ari and Duke.
But unlike Rex, Duke did not even turn his gaze behind him.
While Rex was wondering at Duke’s behavior, a person emerged from beneath the shadows of the trees.
A woman in uniform, with black hair streaked blue, bowed to Rex.
“Have you been well all this time, Lord Providence?”
“Lady Sneria?”
Rex greeted her, still dumbfounded.
The vermilion dot shown on the minimap remained unchanged.
While Rex wondered why she regarded him with slight hostility, she exchanged greetings with Duke as well.
“Long time no see.”
“It’s been only three months, Lord Duke.”
“Three months ’already’ have passed.”
They had originally agreed to meet once a month, but their schedules had failed to align, and they had ended up skipping two months.
A subtle tension flowed between the two.
This was Jane’s first time seeing Hana, but for some reason, she disliked the atmosphere.
As Jane glared at Hana, Duke spoke again.
“May I assume you came here for the same reason we did?”
“I suppose so.”
Only after hearing their conversation did Rex realize why Hana was marked in vermilion.
Hana smiled, her expression tinged with fatigue but also happiness at seeing them after such a long time.
“I’m sorry, but we need this person in our domain too. I’m afraid I can’t easily yield them to you.”
She was a rival in the recruitment competition.