"Hey! Who are you? I don't know you."
Asked Clavius and without wasting time, he advanced forward, taking the place of his protégé. With a reaction worthy of a knight, he drew his sword:
"Let's fight a bit."
But before he could use the sword, he recognized the voice of his little lord.
"Please, Clavius, don't attack, it's me, Dimmy."
"Not at all," he replied. "I know who you are. Miau-Lee, the star student, the most famous among the martial arts schools."
Looking over the shoulder of her knight and curious as ever, Ylsean said:
"But she doesn't seem too short to be the favorite of this school?"
"Yeah, now that you mentioned it, she does."
"I've already said I'm little Dimmy and not Miau-Lee. You don't understand. There's no real warrior as small and good as me. So this here could only be me in disguise."
"Well..., but I'm still in doubt," said Ylsean from the corner of the knight's shoulder.
"And young lady, it seems you're right. How can a good warrior have this feminine face with long hair? Our team likes to keep hair really short, as far as I know."
"I'm a boy! Enough of this joke, I'm in trouble. Can you help me?" shouted Dimmy, losing his patience.
"My good little brother, from what I can see, it seems this time the trouble is really big. So I ask you right away: what will I gain?"
"Whatever you want, sis, but please help me, or this time dad will kill me."
"Alright, you've convinced me. But don't forget, you promised me whatever I want."
Almost regretting his promise, Dimmy asked:
"And what exactly do you want from me?"
"Brother, I'll decide that later. Let's solve your problem, but first we have a detail: I accepted, but what does the knight have to do with it? And what do you have to offer our knight Clavius? After all, he doesn't get paid to solve your troubles."
In fact, Clavius did get paid, but he disguised it. The knight was, among other things, paid to solve any problem that could put the baron's children's lives in danger.
"Don't worry, young lord. I will help. You don't need to pay me anything, I just ask you to avoid getting into so many successive troubles. It doesn't do well for my lord, the baron, nor for your image, young lord."
"Very well, little brother, tell me exactly what happened then."
Dimmy recounted from the beginning: what he intended to do was just a joke. He wanted little Joe to look like him, and he wanted to look like little Joe, just for fun and to see if anyone would notice and think he had a twin brother.
"How long will you stay with this girl's face?" asked Ylsean.
"I don't know, but I still have at least two hours to stay like this. There's nothing I can do until the effect of the stone essence wears off."
"Okay, that's not bad. We can use this fact to our advantage. However, you need to do something for my plan to work."
As expected from Ylsean, she thought quickly and Dimmy was already surprised by the correction. He was even more surprised by her speed, as she already had a plan. The impression was that she followed Dimmy's pranks from afar because her solutions were always very quick.
"Young lady, what do I need to do to help the young master?"
"Clavius, right away, I need you to take one of your soldiers, cover his face leaving only the body visible, and get some suspicious clothes for him to wear. Dress him in some suspicious and tattered clothes, tying his hands behind his back and also his legs with rope. Hurry and tell him the following: all he needs to do is apologize, nothing more. If he does everything right, he might even get a reward from the baron himself."
"What are you planning to do?" asked Dimmy.
"Well, your problem is now mine, brother. Just worry about paying me, leave the rest to me."
In less than 10 minutes, there he was: the baron's son, in women's clothes, made up and wearing a pair of shoes that made him taller, so no one would notice how fake that sister of Nilcem would be. Beside him, all imposing, was Clavius, the knight, leader of the Silver Claw order.
Right behind, being pulled by a rope, was precisely the soldier who had beaten little Joe earlier, not to mention that Ylsean hugged Dimmy mainly to give support, as Dimmy had never walked in high heels. If she didn't do that, he wouldn't even take two steps before falling in front of everyone.
As they walked, Ylsean gave instructions in Dimmy's ears:
"Walk right with this body, stop bending your legs. Look ahead and don't try to hold on to me. Balance yourself, do you want everyone to discover you're a fraud?"
And each time Ylsean gave these instructions, the baron's son got more nervous, until at one point she stopped, looked into his eyes and said:
"Remember, it's your fault. I'm just trying to help you, so please cooperate or you know what can happen if dad finds out what you've been up to."