Chapter 164
“Wow, it’s really been a while!”
Teppy shouted, running toward Joshua, Cilia, and Bunny.
“Wow, look how tall you got! What, how much did you grow? That’s insane!”
“Cilia. You’re… what? Why’d you get so pretty?”
“Bunny, looks like your front teeth grew in more?”
He looked at the kids and gave them a thumbs up, his face full of anticipation. As if hoping for some praise in return himself.
“Teppy, you’re…”
The kids exchanged glances before speaking
“…exactly the same.”
“Seriously.”
“Same as ever, sir.”
“…”
Teppy’s face darkened instantly.
“That’s not a compliment. There’s no way anyone would call that a compliment.”
The kids quietly looked away. Then quickly changed the subject.
“Anyway, what brings you here? Did you come to see Daphne?”
“Or did the count come?”
At the barrage of questions, Teppy answered them one by one.
“Not exactly to see Daphne, though I figured it’d be nice if I did while I’m here. And yeah, I came with my father. He said he had something to discuss with Her Grace.”
“Yeah? What about?”
“Ah, it’s nothing much… wait, is it something?”
Teppy hesitated for a moment, then recalled what the count had said—namely, the proposal about his and Daphne’s engagement—and his shoulders trembled slightly.
“Ah, no. It’s really nothing. Seriously nothing. Totally.”
“…You clearly look like something’s up.”
If Daphne found out that the engagement had even been brought up? What would happen then? However much Teppy had been on the side trying to talk his father out of it, there was no doubt he’d get beaten to a pulp regardless. By whom? Daphne, obviously.
Having reached that conclusion, Teppy shook his head frantically.
“No, if it’s really nothing, why won’t you just tell us?”
At Cilia’s question, Teppy’s eyes darted around. If I can’t come up with a proper answer here, I’m done for…! He suddenly shouted, “Ah!”
“Ah! There is something! There is!”
He pointed and raised his voice.
“The ball!”
He continued, addressing the kids tilting their heads in confusion.
“There’s an imperial ball coming up! I came to ask if you all wanted to go together!”
“With Daphne?”
“Yeah, yeah! It’d be great to go with Daphne!”
Ahh.
Now it made sense why Teppy had come all this way. The kids murmured and nodded along—though it seemed they were the only ones who found it convincing.
“Says who?”
An unfamiliar voice came from behind them.
“Who gave you permission?”
Creak, Teppy slowly turned his head. The moment he did, he found himself face to face with a furious-looking Arius.
“Hic!”
Catching sight of Arius, Teppy let out an involuntary hiccup. It was purely an instinctive reaction. A reflex of fear from having been beaten so thoroughly as a child… Teppy recalled the time he’d said something like “he’s just an orphan anyway” in front of Arius, and had been beaten within an inch of his life for it. His shoulders trembled.
“You joking with me? Who do you think you are, going to a ball with Daphne? You want to die?”
“Hic! Ah, n-no, that’s, that’s not it.”
Teppy hastily tried to cut in, but Arius wouldn’t allow it. His eyes glinted with a look sharp enough to kill on sight alone, and he raised a clenched fist toward Teppy.
“You so much as try approaching Daphne, and I’ll cut off that head of yours and kick it around like a soccer ball…”
“Lord Arius?”
“…leave it be, though. Yeah.”
But the moment Arius heard a voice approaching from just behind him, he changed his tune instantly.
The one who’d approached was none other than Brysa. The child Daphne had once saved from a bombing. Daphne’s friend, Daphne’s (unknowing to herself) slave, and a fellow trainee alongside Arius.
Brysa approached Arius, her pink hair braided into twin tails bouncing as she walked.
“Surely… you weren’t just cursing at someone, were you?”
“Me? Me? Cursing? Me? Oh, come on, no way!”
Arius shook his head frantically and turned to Teppy.
“Hey.”
“Y-yes?”
“Did I just curse?”
Yes. You just dropped a string of curses. That’s exactly what you did.
But saying that here would mean not just getting beaten to a pulp, but disintegrating into dust entirely. Teppy answered with a perfectly composed expression.
“…No? Absolutely not?”
At that, the corners of Arius’s mouth curled up, satisfied.
“See? I don’t curse or anything, Brysa.”
“I knew it! Lord Arius really is such a kind person!”
Brysa clapped her hands, beaming, and Arius, flushing with embarrassment, scratched the back of his head.
And watching the two of them…
“Wh-what is this?”
Teppy asked, his expression suggesting this was simply impossible to believe.
“What’s going on with those two. Something’s going on there, right? A thing? Are they engaged or something?”
“No. It’s not that.”
Cilia answered, and Bunny continued.
“They’re just close, ain’t they? Like, best friends, that kinda thing?”
“…Friends?”
Teppy shook his head, watching Arius blush every single time Brysa’s hand touched him.
“If that’s what friends look like, then I have no friends.”
“You never had friends to begin with, though.”
“Well, that’s… argh, seriously!”
Teppy glared sideways at Joshua, then let out a heavy sigh and shook his head a couple of times.
“Anyway, I came here to talk about the ball.”
Then he quickly added.
“You’re all coming to the ball too, alright? Got it?”
“Wh-what?”
“Why us?”
Watching the kids ask with utterly baffled expressions, Teppy looked even more baffled in return. Wait, what do you mean, “why”?
“What do you mean why. Because you’re the most famous knight order in the capital right now, that’s why. I bet there’ve been tons of letters asking for you all to be included this time too.”
“We’re… famous?”
“Famous…?”
The kids’ eyes trembled faintly, as if they couldn’t quite believe Teppy’s words, but Teppy added one more line, driving the point home.
“Yeah. Even people in the principality know about you. Said you’re all pretty impressive.”
“…”
Even people abroad know about us?
Could that even be true. They wanted to say, don’t lie… but looking at Teppy’s face, he seemed rather serious about it, so it didn’t seem like a total lie. Ha, seriously. Wow, seriously.
Cilia and Bunny, utterly unable to control their expressions, twitched their lips. It looked as though they wanted to leap up and run around right then and there, but were forcing themselves to hold back for the sake of appearances.
Either way, they had both completely made up their minds to attend the ball, and among them, Joshua alone remained the sole voice of reason.
“Daphne might not allow it.”
He said, his expression somewhat stern.
“Whatever the case, Daphne is our leader. We need her permission.”
“Hmm…”
Teppy tilted his head to one side.
“Is there really any reason Daphne wouldn’t allow it?”
Honestly, if the knight order became famous, that would only benefit Daphne too.
Teppy thought about it that simply.
“She’ll allow it. Definitely.”
* * *
“Absolutely not.”
But Daphne was not one to be so easily swayed.
“I know their skill level better than anyone. They should be getting mocked for being called knights of the Grand Duke’s household with skill barely at that level, and what? Famous? Fahmous?”
Daphne, her anger escalating with each word, thumped her chest repeatedly.
“You get famous a second time and you’ll be tossing your swords aside to go running around instead? Huh? And you call yourselves knights? A real knight should be worrying about swinging a sword first, ball or no ball…!”
“Apparently the Emperor’s coming too.”
“Then we’re going, obviously.”
But Daphne’s fury, faced with the mention of the Emperor’s appearance, dissolved as easily as some kind of manic mood swing.
“The Emperor…”
Daphne clenched and unclenched her fist repeatedly.
The imperial ball.
The knight order.
My people.
Running through each point one by one, Daphne soon let her mouth curl into a crooked smirk.
“Let’s smear some dirt on that man’s face, shall we.”
Yep.
You’re dead meat.
