"I heard that this guy who doesn't look like a decent man have got himself a woman, so I came here to watch. She's too skinny but she's pretty."
He said it while sizing me up from top to bottom. Uhm, somehow I'm getting frustrated. The Holy Knights and Imperial Knights are prohibited from having any duel, but right now I'm not a holy knight. The problem itself right now is I'm also not a knight either. Is it possible for me to ask a duel with a knight when I'm not a knight myself? If it's possible, then I would like to borrow Callitus to beat him up.
"If that's the case, then you're done. It's already late, so please go back."
The Luth guy had a grimace look on his face, indicating that he's got angry again by Ortzen's 'courteous' remarks. To begin with, his looks is already just average, not handsome at all, and now his face became crumpled like that that it seemed like it might got cracked.
"I also belong to this shitty squad! Where do you think you ask me to leave to?!"
"The last time I saw you was two months ago. I thought you've already resigned from the squad."
That was already enough reason to be fired for negligence in duty. The noisy Luth casted a ferocious gaze on Ortzen, -who always kept a consistent smile on his face-, then shifted his gaze on me. Oh, our eyes met. What should I do? Should I ask him for a duel?
"She is Count Epheria's daughter, isn't she? From what I know, this woman is the only legitimate descendant of Count Epheria's family, that means he could be a Count when they get married."
Looks like he didn't know the details situation of my family. But seriously, can I hit him or not? Previously I've seen some noble ladies slapped the other party on the cheek because they took offense due to the other party's rude behavior, then can I also give him a slap for his bold dirty looks that was directed at me? If I put a lot of holy power into my slap, at least one of his tooth might have fallen out.
While I was tightly clenching my fist, suddenly that guy reached out his hand to me. Ugh, what is this? If I caught his hand, then can I hit him? Should I hit? Can I…? As soon as that hand of his touched my body, I have already prepared to give him a blow with my fist, but Captain Jullius beat me into it.
"Aaaahh!"
Captain Jullius grabbed that bastard Luth's wrist and twisted it. On the surface, it appeared as if Captain Jullius had just grabbed it lightly, but that arrogant Luth grimaced and screamed. While looking at that bastard, Captain Jullius opened his mouth.
"Touch her and you're dead."
At the same time, a strong killing intent that made one's skin crawled, spread out from Captain Jullius. It has been a long time since the last time I was thrilled over this creepy feeling. Feeling this kind of emotion, arose my desire to grab anyone and engaged in a duel, but seemed like it's not the case for that bastard Luth. He drew back his wrist and held it with a pale face then quickly hurled back.
"That, I …"
Don't know what he's mumbling about, but then he ran away from the dining hall. Tsk, if it wasn't because of Captain Jullius' decided to meddle in, I would have hit him. I could have just hit his face while screaming, "Kyaaa, where are you touching?!" Noble women won't be found guilty by committing such assaults in these cases. Well, too bad that I missed the chance.
"Uhm, Miss Epheria…"
I stared at the dining hall's door where Luth disappeared to with much regret when suddenly Ortzen spoke to me carefully for some reason.
"Huh?"
After being called suddenly, I turned around to see that Ortzen has a somewhat difficult look on his face while Captain Jullius looked like a puppy who was getting scolded. Erm, could it be there was still something else I didn't know about? Why were you guys looking like that?
"Is it okay to chase him out just like that?"
Could it be that bastard has a strong backup so he might caused some problems later on? In response to my words, Ortzen looked carefully at me and opened his mouth.
"Are you alright?"
"He didn't even get to touch me, so of course I'm fine. If he really touch me, then I would have beat him up. But unfortunately Captain Jullius step in before I could do anything."
It's a pity that my 'prey' was gone just like that. I glanced up to look at Captain Jullius who was grumbling a bit but he flinched and avoided my eyes. Well, did he feel sorry for taking away my 'prey'? Hmm, you didn't have to think that far. I grabbed his hand and patted the back of his hand.
"It's okay. Don't mind it. But instead, the next time that guy comes again to look for trouble, Captain Jullius must leave him be for me to handle, okay?"
"…, leave it to Miss?"
"Yup. He looks weaker than me. If you're worried, then lend me Callitus."
The pale grey eyes that have been avoiding me, slowly turned their gaze on me. You didn't have to be that nervous, I'm not that kind of narrow-minded woman.
"Miss Epheria… are you really okay…?"
"I'm really okay. It's a pity, but I'm not angry."
It's just that I felt a bit frustated. In the past, I've always had mock battles or duels everyday so it has been a while since then. My dear stepmother didn't seem to have any intention to send any assassins to come after me either. I was still patting the seemingly depressed Captain Jullius' hand then turned my head to look at Ortzen.
"That guy earlier is the vice-captain of Special Task Squad? He looks weak."
Captain Jullius has only let out a bit of his murderous aura but he's already scared witless and ran away. Ortzen cleared his throat once before repliying to my question.
"The characteristics of Special Task Squad are quite different in comparison to the other Imperial Knight Squads. Even though the Imperial Knights pledge their allegiances to the Imperial Family, there are still some noble-born knights who put their own respective households in the utmost interest. While there are indeed some who are earnestly loyal to the Imperial Family, there are also some who only think about the benefits for their respective households. And ironically in the reality, the later are greater in numbers."
Well, that's true. It's common for most people to care more about their own flesh and blood than the Emperor.
"On the contrary, with the exception of Captain and Vice-Captain, the rights to live of all members of Special Task Squad are in His Majesty's hand. And because His Majesty owns our life, thus he can give us any orders for any of his objectives without worrying about outside's intervention. In other words, the whole Special Task Squad is owned by the Emperor."
And based on that fact, it means that the Special Task Squad is purely a squad whose absolute authority is owned by the Emperor himself without any intervention from other noble factions.
"Obviously, there are many nobles who are against the existence of Special Task Squad. Because they won't know when the Special Task Squad's sword is going to be directed at them, and when that time comes, there's no way they could stop it. To prevent that, in every generation, the high ranking nobles with great influences will push someone they can control to be the vice-captain of Special Task Squad. And for the current generation, it's Sir Luth."
So it means that he acted as a spy for those nobles who feared that the Emperor is going after their heads?
"Even so, it doesn't look like he did his job though? You said that he comes here after two months."
Ortzen made a bitter smile in response to my words.
"From Sir Luth's perspective, for him to come here makes him feels like he has lowered himself to a certain degree and he considered it as disgraceful."
"But still, he's just being lazy."
"Well, we very much prefer that he doesn't appear much before us. Whenever he came to look for troubles, I always told Captain to just ignore him."
So that's why he shouted and yelled like that to Captain Jullius. When you can't hit him, then it's better to just ignore him.
"If that bastard dares to make troubles out of the accident a while ago, just say that he was slapped by a weak noble lady. Don't worry, I'll testify."
"Thank you."
Actually, I really almost slap him back then. Anyway, it must have been hard for my Captain Jullius from being disturbed by a clinging bug like that. Now it's time to sleep. I was still holding Captain Jullius' hand and looked up to him.
"Do you want to sleep together?"
It's troublesome to return home now. Although Sofia has warned me from staying overnight, but if I stayed at my fiancee's house then it shouldn't cause any problems, right? I just need to send someone to inform my house that I will stay overnight here. In response to my words, Captain Jullius had a difficult look on his face.
"Clauen said we shouldn't do that…"
"Just ignore that silly brat's nagging."
Clauen isn't scary. But Ortzen is a little scary… I swept a quick glance at Ortzen and he just waved his hand slowly and said.
"I don't care, so you can do whatever you want. I won't even care whether you guys want to sleep together or do something even more troublesome than that."
What did he mean by saying that? Did he mean we can sneak out in the middle of the night to cause some troubles? Whoa, it turns out he's much more tolerant than my deputy. But, today I don't have any intentions to stir up troubles because right now I really want to sleep more than anything else.