The Duke and the Nanny (2)
“What… what did you just say?”
Jerome’s face twisted as if my answer was completely beyond his comprehension.
“You can’t trust a duke of the empire? What possible reason could you have for that?”
If it was reasons, I had more than enough to fill a cart.
I recalled the memory of the battlefield where I had first encountered Jerome Crown.
At the time, I had slipped into his tent to carry out the organization’s order to assassinate the duke.
- A woman, huh. So you’re the infamous ‘Silver Thread Reaper’?
But the low-ranking member who had been assigned as my support made a critical mistake.
Thanks to that, Jerome Crown noticed our presence in an instant.
- Let that one live.
I knelt directly before Jerome Crown.
The low-ranking member had been nothing more than a child who hadn’t even had his coming-of-age ceremony yet.
A kid sold to the organization because his parents had too many mouths to feed at home.
- I’ll tell you everything about who hired us. So just let him go.
An assassin was never supposed to beg for their life from the target.
They were never supposed to reveal who had commissioned the hit.
But I couldn’t let a kid who still had baby fat on his cheeks die for nothing.
- I just need to buy enough time for him to get away safely.
With that thought, I tried to spin some story, anything, to get the young low-ranking member out of there.
He had already lost his mind, collapsed on the spot and even wet himself.
- You’re saying you’ll tell me who ordered my death?
Jerome seemed to chew on my words for a moment before he grinned.
- I’m not really that curious. What now?
He appeared more intrigued by the fact that the one who had come to take his life on the battlefield was the famous ‘Silver Thread Reaper.’
- Instead, Silver Thread Reaper, if you can beat me, I’ll let not only that kid go, but you as well. How about it?
What were the odds that an assassin could win a head-on fight against the empire’s greatest knight?
It was a meaningless question. No matter what the odds were, at that moment, I had no choice.
- I wondered how impressive you were! Turns out you’re nothing compared to your reputation!
- Looks like the same could be said for you, Jerome Crown.
At first, I was completely overpowered by the Crown Duke’s strength.
But as time passed, the situation gradually began to turn in my favor.
Or more precisely, I forced the tide of battle to shift.
- Gaaah!
I unleashed a relentless barrage of surprise attacks using the weapons I had hidden inside my clothes.
The careless Jerome eventually dropped to one knee before me.
‘I shouldn’t have let my guard down back then.’
No. More accurately, I should never have trusted anyone.
- As promised, I won, so I’ll be taking my leave now. And you don’t have to worry about any further assassination attempts…
The moment I grabbed the terrified low-ranking member’s hand and tried to leave the tent—
Shiiing—!
Blood splattered across the floor, and the child screamed.
When I looked back, one of the boy’s arms was gone.
- You rat bastard, where do you think you’re running off to!
The enraged Jerome swung his sword wildly.
The small tent was torn to shreds, the canopy completely ripped apart.
- Reaper! Where do you think you’re going! The next time I see you, I will kill you without fail! How dare a murderous wretch like you try to assassinate a duke of this nation and think you’ll get away with it!
The terrifying curse chased after my back, but I ignored it.
I hoisted the child onto my back and ran like a madwoman.
Thanks to that, I barely managed to escape the encampment, but I failed to save the boy.
The bleeding was too severe for his small body to endure.
“The reason, you ask? Well…”
A person who could flip their stance depending on their emotions and circumstances could never be trusted.
If that was the reason I couldn’t trust Jerome, then so be it.
“I simply believe that one shouldn’t trust people based solely on their title or status.”
Jerome remained silent for a long time after hearing my answer.
He looked quite confused.
“Then I’ll truly be going now. I have to attend to Their Highnesses tomorrow as well.”
“Hey! Wait a moment!”
“If you’re going to make another offer like this, then please ask His Highness the Prince directly next time instead of me.”
“Wait! Just a second…”
I quickly walked away, leaving behind Jerome who was once again trying to stop me.
An intense gaze bored into the back of my head, but I deliberately ignored it.
‘What a shame.’
An offer to receive personal instruction from the empire’s strongest knight.
On the surface, it didn’t sound like a bad proposal at all.
Normally, it would have been something I should accept even if it meant incurring the Second Empress’s wrath.
‘But who in their right mind would accept after hearing something like that?’
Duke Crown had not approached me with pure intentions.
To him, Edwin was nothing more than a replacement for the First Prince.
I had overheard it during his conversation with the emperor, after all.
‘A substitute is just a substitute. He has no intention of putting Edwin on the emperor’s throne in the First Prince’s place.’
What he wanted was probably just a shield for the First Prince.
He planned to tame Edwin first and then decide how to make use of him.
‘Whether he sets him up as a puppet emperor or turns him into a blindly loyal subject.’
In the end, the duke simply needed a puppet.
One that could carry out Cabelius III’s will and protect his own nephew.
‘If the First Prince dies early, that might be a different story.’
But even if the First Prince died young and Edwin ascended the throne,
could that throne truly become Edwin’s?
An emperor with no power was worth less than a dog on the street.
“I won’t fall for it twice.”
He must have been certain I would accept the offer.
A strange sense of satisfaction lifted the corner of my mouth.
‘Where did I bury that child, I wonder.’
Though the memory of the boy who had died that day surfaced and quickly sank my heart again.
The training grounds of the Gloria Knights, right in the center.
“Salute to the Commander!”
With a powerful shout, the knights saluted with crisp, disciplined movements.
All their heads were turned toward the platform.
Standing atop it, Jerome scanned his subordinate knights with sharp eyes.
“I saw your performance in yesterday’s monster subjugation quite clearly.”
For some reason, the duke looked particularly furious today.
“It was utterly pathetic.”
At Jerome’s low, sunken voice, the knights’ shoulders flinched slightly.
Their faces, tanned dark from training, seemed to pale.
“It took you half a day just to deal with a few wyverns. After seeing how the Adamanth Knight Order takes down a single monster in mere minutes, did none of you feel anything?”
His voice, spat out like he was chewing on gravel, dripped with rage.
“Can you still call yourselves imperial knights after that!”
“No, sir!”
Calling them “just a few wyverns” was a stretch when they had been massive creatures over ten feet tall, more than a dozen of them.
But that was the only answer they could give.
“Hearing yourselves called the empire’s greatest knight order has made you all arrogant! Today, I’ll fix every last one of your rotten attitudes!”
Jerome looked like a demon risen from hell.
“Starting today, training volume will be doubled!”
It was a bolt from the blue.
Twenty round trips up the mountain in full armor.
The knights exchanged silent screams with their eyes.
But not a single one dared to rebel against the commander.
No, they couldn’t. They knew the duke’s terror better than anyone.
“What are you doing standing around for! Start running!”
At the hot-tempered duke’s roar, the knights immediately fell into formation and began to run.
The sound of clashing armor echoed across the training grounds.
“You there, stop.”
Jerome called out to the person at the very end of the line.
“Your Highness Edwin.”
Edwin, who had never imagined he would be called, looked at Jerome with a startled face.
“…Me?”
“Is there another Edwin here besides Your Highness?”
Jerome approached the frozen prince.
A small boy he had to look down at for quite a while.
Unlike before, he spoke in a gentle voice.
“Let’s have a word, just the two of us.”
“By the way, Jerome Crown. It’s been a while since I’ve heard that name.”
Sage muttered while sorting the herbs he had grown himself.
“You really got lucky. How did you manage to keep your identity hidden from that monster?”
“Humans are weak to what they can see with their eyes. He’s no different in that regard.”
I leaned back in the chair with both legs propped up on Sage’s desk, tilting my head over the backrest.
“Besides, right now I look like an ordinary woman no matter who sees me, so it’s only natural.”
“That’s true. This time, I’ll admit you did an unusually thorough job with the disguise. How did you shrink your height? Did you drink some magic potion?”
Sage examined me with curious eyes.
“…Something like that.”
I had no intention of telling him the truth yet.
If he found out I had died and come back in someone else’s body,
‘He’d be ten times more annoying, talking about dissections and experiments.’
I silently scanned Sage’s hut.
This place, built behind the annex, was an exclusive hideout just for the gardener Sage.
Surrounded by nothing but bushes, tall trees, and a small herb garden, it was well hidden from other people’s eyes.
“So why did you suddenly bring up Duke Crown?”
I shrugged at Sage’s question.
“I was wondering if you knew anything about him.”
“Wouldn’t you know more than me? You said you fought him.”
“I don’t know him well. What I know is the ‘knight’ named Jerome Crown, not the ‘human’ named Jerome.”
Sage seemed to ponder for a moment before speaking again.
“Let’s see. The only thing I know is that the duke isn’t the legitimate heir to the ducal house.”
“Not the legitimate heir? What does that mean?”
“He’s an adopted son. The previous duke supposedly took him in specifically to secure an heir.”
“You mean an illegitimate child?”
“Hmm, it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
Sage waved his finger in the air as if drawing a family tree.
“I heard he’s the son born from the previous duke’s former wife’s affair with a commoner knight.”