“Heh! You say you don’t want it, but your body is being quite honest, isn’t it, my dear Holy Knight? Why are you reacting to the evil witch?”
……
“So in the end, today is my complete victory as well. Ah, that was satisfying. Time to sleep.”
Tonight, Elvira once again drifted off to sleep feeling thoroughly content. After all, she had so easily made Maurice lose his composure first, firmly taking the lead and claiming absolute victory.
She was completely unaware that it was because Roselia had already worn out more than half of Maurice’s stamina before her.
Of course, Maurice had no intention of ever telling her the truth.
He’d just let her think she could easily overpower him in that regard.
The next morning, still in a remarkably good mood, Elvira generously granted Maurice free rein to move about the royal palace once again.
But this time, it wasn’t Dorinnia who accompanied Maurice, but two unfamiliar maids.
Elvira truly trusted her subordinates and servants. After entrusting Maurice to the two maids who normally took care of her, she left the palace contentedly with Roselia by her side.
Before leaving, aside from casting an extra glance at Maurice’s clearly ‘dissatisfied’ face, Roselia made no further reaction.
As long as she wasn’t alone with Maurice, she remained that same gentle, smiling figure as always.
Maurice actually wanted to have a proper talk with Roselia, but since he didn’t have the chance, he could only give up for now.
Today, he planned to probe these two seemingly ordinary—yet anything but simple—maids for information.
After spending the entire morning at it, Maurice did, in fact, manage to glean some rather important tidbits from their mouths without arousing suspicion.
For example, Roselia was a mysterious woman who’d suddenly appeared at Elvira’s side a few years ago. Her origins were unknown, but she quickly earned Elvira’s trust with her outstanding talent, and after helping Elvira seize the throne, she became her most trusted confidant. For that reason, she had also made quite a few enemies among the kingdom’s nobility.
Dorinnia, on the other hand, rarely appeared in the royal palace except when summoned by Elvira. Most of the time, she was either out on missions or training and selecting new recruits, and she was extremely popular among the troops.
There was also Evelinde, a marquis whose territory lay to the north of the royal capital. Thanks to Elvira’s support, her domain had grown much larger than during the previous marquis’ time; in fact, in terms of sheer land area, it was already bigger than that of several royal-blooded dukes. However, Evelinde herself didn’t stay in her own territory, instead residing in the capital as a formal military commander.
Though on the surface there were high-ranking male nobles serving as officials, the true core of decision-making rested with Elvira and her three trusted confidants. The policies and strategies they set were merely for the dukes and marshals to carry out—nothing more.
In short, Elvira was centralizing royal power, while the local nobles were being suppressed.
Because of Elvira’s strength and dominance, the other nobles could only grit their teeth and endure for now. But if anything were to happen to Elvira, things might not remain so peaceful.
In that sense, the internal environment of Faastal was a little better. Faastal had basically completed its unification, and power was already consolidated in the central government.
Elvira’s Dratnia, on the other hand, was progressing more slowly.
One other noteworthy point was Elvira’s intense rivalry toward the Queen of Faastal. Originally, Elvira hadn’t cared at all about national development, focusing solely on her magical research as a witch.
The only reason she became the queen she was now was because Faastal’s queen ruled a centralized nation—so Elvira wanted to become the queen of a centralized country as well. It was as simple as that.
And because the Queen of Faastal promoted chivalry, Elvira opposed it. Now, within Dratnia, the ‘knight’ profession no longer existed—only ‘soldiers’ remained. The former knightly orders had all been dissolved, and after ample reforms, were now the present military.
Maurice found this hard to judge, as he understood all too well why Elvira felt such rivalry toward the Queen of Faastal.
These weren’t exactly top-secret matters, so under Maurice’s subtle guidance, the two maids naturally revealed them.
But getting any deeper information would be impossible.
After the maids arranged a rather lavish lunch for him in the guest room, Maurice spent the afternoon wandering about.
He’d already familiarized himself with the layout of the palace; escaping on his own would be nearly impossible, but fortunately, he wasn’t planning to run away just yet.
Still, he had to admit, there really wasn’t much to do in the royal palace. Besides reading and training, there wasn’t much else for entertainment.
Since he was allowed to roam the palace, Maurice didn’t want to just sit in his room reading.
So he decided to visit the training grounds and see how this country’s soldiers were trained.
He wanted to see what kind of drills the former ‘knights’—now stripped of their titles—underwent.
Around two thirty in the afternoon, Maurice arrived near the palace training grounds. He was in luck: dozens of soldiers dressed in black were undergoing drills under their captain’s orders.
The maids following and monitoring him kindly explained that these soldiers were responsible for the palace’s protection.
“…Rather than protecting the palace, I’d say they’re protecting the other nobles and ministers—everyone except Elvira.”
Maurice glanced at the two maids before him and spoke his guess in a casual tone.
The reason he said this, of course, was because, in his view, these professional soldiers were nothing compared to these two maids—whose names he still didn’t know.
In this palace, the maids’ combat abilities far outstripped those of the regular soldiers. Each one was elite—at least at the captain level.
It was entirely possible that those who hadn’t passed Dorinnia’s tests to join her special unit simply stayed on in the palace as maids.
He hadn’t seen a single older maid yet. They all seemed to be between twenty and thirty, with the oldest no more than thirty-five or so.
To Maurice’s guess, the two maids simply smiled politely—neither confirming nor denying.
Whether they admitted it or not didn’t matter; Maurice could see from their everyday actions that they’d received professional training.
Especially considering the head maid’s position. As Roselia’s subordinates, it would be odd if they didn’t have combat abilities.
As the saying goes: Like superior, like subordinate.
Giving up on chatting with the maids, Maurice turned his attention back to the training field. As a knight, he was still very interested in combat drills.
For the next half hour, Maurice quietly observed the black-clad soldiers’ training.
If nothing unexpected happened, he planned to watch until the soldiers took a break.
But unexpected things always came so suddenly.
Just as Maurice was intently watching, the solemn training ground was suddenly thrown into commotion as the soldiers all looked in the same direction.
Maurice could easily understand their surprise and confusion.
He too, watching from above, had his attention immediately captured by a suit of white armor. His expression flickered with a hint of bewilderment.
Because the armor and equipment worn by the woman who suddenly appeared on the training grounds was identical to that of the Queen of Faastal!
Could it be…
Gazing at the familiar armor, Maurice’s expression gradually grew serious.