Chapter 30

Chapter 30

“What, what are you doing?!”

“Don’t you remember the notice I sent earlier? That if the debt was not repaid by today, it would be settled with her dowry instead. Hmph, you should be grateful. What woman in the world brings thirty million Larks as a dowry?”

“Get out of the way!”

“You insolent wretches! Where have you thrown away your chivalry…… Argh!”

“Thompson! Kyaaah!”

“Madam Sara!”

Despite their desperate resolve, the bodies of Thompson and Madam Sara gave way all too easily.

The knights, snickering as they climbed the stairs, each seized one of Jenis’s wrists. Jenis twisted with her whole body and resisted, but it was useless.

“Let go of me! What kind of knights lay hands on a delicate woman’s body without permission!”

“Wouldn’t it have been better to repay the money long ago?”

“I told you to let go!”

Jenis resisted with all her strength, but it was impossible for her to shake off the knights by her own power.

Standing there arrogantly, watching his knights drag Jenis toward him, Harry gave a snort, as if to say he had never seen such a ridiculous sight.

“No matter how pretty, a strong-willed woman is not to my taste, you know.”

Jenis glared as if to kill the man who sauntered up before her.

“And who said you were to my taste?”

“What luck. Taming a fierce woman like you happens to be my specialty.”

Harry curled one corner of his mouth into a smile and patted her cheek.

“Do hold out for a good while, please. You have to be worth thirty million Larks.”

“You……!”

“You insolent wretches! Take your hands off her this instant!”

Harry lightly ignored the voice Thompson, collapsed on the floor, spat out as though coughing blood.

“Let’s go, boys.”

“No, I will never let you take her!”

Thompson clung to a knight’s ankle, only to be kicked brutally and sent rolling across the floor.

“Young lady……!”

“Thompson! Madam Sara!”

Jenis’s feet dragged along the floor as she looked back desperately.

Madam Sara had already fainted. Thompson tried by any means to raise his body, but no strength would come into his legs.

‘My lord……!’

Just as he was helplessly calling out for the one who was not there, the half-open door was flung wide, and a dazzling light poured into the lobby.

“Ugh…… what?”

While Harry, exposed defenseless to that light, knitted his brows, a short click of the tongue came from beyond the wide-open door.

“And here I wondered why there was no guard at the door.”

“Young lady!”

“What on earth are those fellows doing? Take your filthy hands off her this instant!”

“Michelle! Bin, Heath!”

Michelle? ……The mercenaries?

Thompson, who had struggled to lift his head at the names Jenis cried out so gladly, went wide-eyed.

“Argh!”

“Aaargh!”

A silver-haired young man brushed past Harry and darted in among the knights. At that very moment, the four knights went down one after another with cries of pain.

Seeing them all clutch their stomachs as if by agreement, it seemed they had each been struck there, but even though Thompson watched with his own eyes, he could not tell exactly what had happened. The movement was too fast.

“Good heavens……”

Jenis was just as astonished. She had been freed from the knights, but as she shuddered in fright, Hawk bowed politely at the waist before her.

“I, Hawk Nester, knight of Blair, offer my greetings to the Lady of Elpiers.”

“A knight of Blair……?”

Even in her bewilderment, Jenis found she had unconsciously extended her hand to the man who had paid his respects before her.

After lightly kissing the back of her hand, Hawk kicked the shoulder of one of the knights who was groaning as he struggled to rise.

“I have come at my master’s command to escort you, my lady, but……”

“Good heavens, Sara!”

“Thompson! Are you all right?”

The mercenaries, having passed by the fallen knights, helped up Thompson, who lay on the floor, and tended to Madam Sara. Bin approached Jenis.

“Young lady, are you all right?”

“Ah, yes, I’m fine……”

She said she was fine, but Jenis was trembling slightly.

Next, Hawk’s gaze fell on Jenis’s wrists. Her face flushed hot, and she quickly hid both hands behind her back, but Hawk had already seen the handprints left on her wrists.

“Y-You, what do you think you’re do…… Huh?”

Whatever Harry shouted, Hawk leaned forward and peered into the face of one of the fallen knights.

And then.

A resounding slap.

“Argh!”

Slap, slap, slap.

Argh, aaargh, argh! Every time Hawk struck one of the fallen knights across the cheek, a scream burst from their mouths.

Because he had not held back his strength, one of them even fainted outright. But Hawk paid no heed and surveyed the fallen knights.

“I, Hawk Nester, knight of Blair, challenge you to a duel.”

A challenge to a duel? That just now?

With his mouth hanging open, Harry flew into a rage.

“Isn’t he completely insane! Assaulting people one-sidedly and then calling it a challenge to a duel!”

“Did I do something wrong? I heard that to challenge someone to a duel, you throw your glove in his face.”

At Hawk, who adjusted his glove as if to show it off, it was Bin who spoke in an exasperated voice.

“Yes, you throw the glove in his face. You don’t slap his face with a gloved hand.”

“Isn’t it fine as long as I hit the face with the glove, either way? Well, anyway.”

Hawk’s gaze reached Harry.

“It seems I have won the duel, so for the crime of daring to wound the lady’s person, kneel and apologize.”

“What?”

“If you can’t accept the result, then duel.”

Hawk, who had raised his hand out of habit, belatedly realized his mistake and took off the glove.

At Hawk, who looked at him with an expression of whether to throw the glove or not, Harry, his face red enough to burst, bellowed at the top of his lungs.

“You insolent bastard! Do you know who I am? I am Harry Miles. My father is Count Miles, lord of the vast Olbia Plain!”

“I am Hawk Nester. My lord is Marchioness Blair, master of the Debora Coast, the Shearer Trading Port, the Philiona Mountain Range, and many other plains and mines.”

“Do you think I’m playing word games here!”

“Wasn’t this the time for introductions before a duel?”

In Hawk’s hand, the sword blade clattered against its scabbard.

Harry flinched in alarm, and as if ashamed of having reacted that way, he deliberately raised his voice even louder.

“Knight of Blair or whatever, do not meddle without knowing the circumstances! Since she, as debtor, failed to fulfill her proper duty of repayment, that woman’s person belongs as of today to my rights as creditor. Not even if you were a knight of His Majesty the Emperor could you interfere in this!”

Jenis’s and Thompson’s faces went white at the raging Harry, but Hawk only tilted his head with an unruffled face.

“Failed to fulfill the duty as debtor? Aren’t you mistaken about something? Count Elpiers should have gone to repay the debt.”

“What……?”

“Is that true, Sir?”

Her hand clutching at Hawk’s clothes was as desperate as her earnest voice.

Though skin had not touched skin, Hawk rolled his eyes once, as if embarrassed.

“My master said so, so it is probably true.”

“Ha! So in the end there is no proof. Anyone can say words. What if I take your word and go back, and these people make a run for it in the dead of night? Will Blair take responsibility for my thirty million Larks?”

“It’s not as if we couldn’t pay it.”

“What?”

“How much did you say the debt was? Thirty million Larks?”

With the look of a man thinking, so she’s making me bring this out after all, Hawk fumbled a checkbook and a quill out of his bag.

Then he wrote thirty million Larks on the check and stamped the bottom. It was the Blair seal Irenea had handed him along with the checkbook.

“Here you are.”

His manner was offhand, as if he were handing over a slip of paper.

Harry, who had taken the check without thinking, blinked and checked the amount written on it, the official seal of the president of Jacqueline Bank, and the Blair seal.

Even so, he could not believe the situation at all, and raged on.

“Don’t make me laugh! A mere knight like you can pay the enormous sum of thirty million Larks?”

“To be precise, it is not I but my master who is paying. If you really can’t believe it, go ahead and take it to the bank.”

‘If Ray rants that he doesn’t believe Ray went to repay the debt, just give him thirty million Larks.’

‘What if that man spends such a large sum as he pleases?’

‘Then all the better. I really wish he would spend it, you know?’

“But keep this in mind. If Count Elpiers has repaid the debt and you use that check on your own, Blair will report you for fraud.”

“I-Impossible……”

Judging by the blank look with which he stared at the check, he evidently had never been very interested in the money in the first place.

As Hawk clicked his tongue briefly, recalling what Irenea had told him, Harry Miles cried out in a desperate rage.

“Why on earth! Why is Blair meddling in the affairs between Elpiers and Miles?”

“Why else? Because Count Elpiers is to be my master’s husband.”

“Husband?”

“B-Brother is?”

Stunned gazes turned toward Hawk. Everyone who had not yet heard the news from the capital looked at him with such eyes.

“Husband? That bastard is marrying Marchioness Blair?”

“Don’t dare spout……”

Jenis’s mouth, which had been pouring out words with spirit, snapped shut. She had become conscious of Hawk.

“If your curiosity is satisfied, let’s finish what we were doing.”

“What we were doing…… Ugh!”

A resounding slap.

The instant Harry was struck across the cheek by the glove, a snort of laughter burst out from somewhere.

Rather than seek out the owner of that laughter, Hawk glanced back once.

“This is how it’s done, isn’t it? Right?”

Jenis, who met Hawk’s eyes in place of Bin, nodded eagerly.

“Yes, that’s right. Of course, I preferred the way Sir Hawk did it earlier.”

“Right? So I wasn’t wrong, was I?”

Pleased that Jenis had taken his side, the corners of Hawk’s mouth twitched.

With that very same face, he approached Harry. Wrapping one hand around his clenched fist, he made his knuckles crack and pop.

“I can’t have blood spilled in front of a delicate lady, so let us settle this cleanly, fist against fist.”

The one-sided duel that began then was not clean at all, but since the delicate lady was very pleased by it, there was no particular problem.

Of course, it goes without saying that Thompson was pleased as well.