Commendation – 2

ㅡSince it’s between us, I’ll just write comfortably. You’re doing well, right?

The letter began in a way that was very much like Rije, right from the first sentence. The writing style seemed to teeter precariously on the border between comfort and appropriateness.

And I preferred this approach too. If it had started with all sorts of flowery language and formalities, that would have felt stranger. Just as it was written in the letter, it was because it was between Rije and me.

ㅡI didn’t intend to write, feeling that conveying my feelings through a letter was a bit cringey, but then something I absolutely had to tell you suddenly came up.

‘Something I absolutely have to tell you?’

Did some incident happen? If Rije would use such an expression, it must mean it’s something very important.

ㅡI’m pregnant.

“Cough, cough! Keheuk!”

“Hieek! A-are you okay?!”

As soon as I saw the short sentence written right below, I choked and coughed violently.

At the rough, incessant kolok-kolok sound, as if I were coughing up my insides, Nyx, who was beside me, was startled and rushed over. Her fern-like hands gently tok-tok patted my back.

ㅡIt’s a joke. I just made a joke in case you, Delta, got too serious. How is it? Do you feel a bit more relaxed?

“Well, thanks a lot, you damn dirty trickster.”

Clutching my lungs, which felt like they were tearing from the violent coughing just now, I trembled along with Nyx’s todak-todak patting on my back. To think she’d pull such a petty prank.

If she jokes like that twice, I won’t live to see my full lifespan. Grumbling inwardly, I continued reading the letter.

ㅡWe’re doing perfectly fine, so you don’t have to worry about us. You know this is the Imperial Palace, right? What kind of incidents could possibly happen here? That’s the very reason we’re here in the first place.

‘……Indeed.’

Whether by lore or in-game, the Imperial Palace boasts the most stringent defenses in the entire Empire.

Based on the game, not only are protective magic circles that double as traps laid everywhere, but it’s also a place where five boss-level Knights, ten mid-boss-level Knights, dozens of elite Knights, and hundreds of regular Knights are stationed.

Furthermore, the Emperor himself possesses power that can be counted on one hand among humans, alongside the Popes and Minerva. So, it wasn’t easy for incidents to occur in such a place.

‘Though there are two guys who manage to pull off such difficult feats.’

One is the protagonist of the human-hostile route or the life-annihilation route, and the other is the Captain-nim of the Golden Twilight Knights.

At least the latter is quickly suppressed depending on the player’s actions, but the former was practically a natural disaster.

ㅡAh, but the atmosphere has been a bit like that lately. You know that guy who had half his Knights taken by you? His condition is getting worse and worse. These days, he doesn’t even pretend to know us.

‘Looks like he’s slowly revealing his true colors.’

It wasn’t surprising at all, as things were flowing just like in the game. That NPC has an inferiority complex even in the game.

When he first met the protagonist, he showed a rather magnanimous side, but that was simply because there was no reason for him to reveal his true personality to the protagonist.

The Silver Dawn Knights were torn apart and absorbed under his command, and their Captain-nims were exiled to obscure posts in the Empire’s remote regions. So, why would he act petty towards a mere low-ranking Knight like the protagonist?

ㅡOur kids say that the atmosphere in the Golden Twilight Knights is also getting worse and worse. Well, what can the subordinates do when their Captain-nim is throwing tantrums?

Of course, his magnanimous behavior is limited to at most the third encounter.

If the player diligently progresses through the Silver Dawn Knights route and starts to catch the Emperor’s eye, that guy also slowly reveals his true personality and openly begins to envy the player.

From there, if the story progresses a bit more and an event trigger is activated, he can’t overcome his inferiority complex and causes a huge incident, appearing as a boss monster.

ㅡLooking at how he’s acting, the Black Holy Night Knights might double in size soon. How about you expand your facilities in advance? Oh, by then, will you, Delta, be working at the Imperial Palace too?

“…….”

Whether I should like this or not.

ㅡOne last thing. This is the real reason I ended up writing this letter to you, Delta. And it’s also that thing I absolutely had to tell you earlier.

Seeing the words, ‘something I absolutely had to tell you,’ I slightly adjusted my posture and sat up. That meant this was where the main point began.

ㅡHow did you charm Iris again?

What is this supposed to mean?

‘Charm Iris? Me?’

I looked at the letter again. It was clearly written with firm, rounded handwriting, showing that each character was carefully pressed. It definitely wasn’t a mistake.

Wondering if this was also a joke, I checked the next sentence.

ㅡYou’re my man, but you really have a knack for it. Huh? How did you make that stone-cold girl confess to me that she thinks she likes you, Delta, in just a few days?

Unfortunately, there was no sentence correcting it as a joke. My eyebrows twitched as I read the letter. My head felt throbbing.

ㅡThanks to that, we’re in an uproar too. Iris can’t even properly meet my eyes, Claudia is laughing, saying you might charm her next, and Erica said I should rest assured because she’d never fall for your seduction.

‘Why is it assumed that I’m charming them?’

Isn’t her way of thinking a bit strange?

ㅡBut, in my experience, the people who say things like that are the first ones to fall. If you want, Delta, you can even charm Erica and do it with all three of us. Isn’t doing it with sisters simultaneously a man’s fantasy?

Having read up to this point, I briefly took my eyes off the letter. I needed time to clear my head. The temperature difference from the previous sentence was too great.

As I reacted this way, Nyx, once again, hikkup-ed and hiccupped, cautiously observing me.

I sat her beside me and stroked her head. It seemed I needed to calm my mind and body, even if it was just like this. Nyx, who had been cautiously observing me just moments ago, was now purring, giggling hehe.

‘……I guess I should say it’s just like Rije, if it’s like Rije.’

She still had a personality that showed not even a hint of hesitation when it came to such matters.

‘No, even so.’

Where in the world is there an older sister who would suggest to a man that he charm her own younger sister and have a threesome? I wondered if Erica even knew about this.

Suddenly, I wondered what Rije’s reaction would be if I told her I’d already had my fill of ‘sister-rice bowls’ (a slang term for having sex with sisters) in the Holy Nation, but I decided to leave it as mere curiosity. It was better not to stir up trouble.

ㅡI have a lot to say, but it’s just too uncomfortable to write it all in a letter. Let’s talk when we meet later, okay?

The ending was surprisingly normal. The only problem was that everything before it was completely abnormal. I sighed and folded the letter twice in half, then slipped it into my inner pocket.

If I had known this would happen, I would have asked Stella to catch Iris when she jumped to conclusions and ran away on her own. If only I had explained properly, this wouldn’t have happened.

I left it alone, thinking, ‘Surely she wouldn’t think anything weird,’ but ‘surely not’ caught me again.

‘Things are really turning strange.’

Rije, the actual person involved, didn’t seem to be greatly affected, but somehow Iris alone seemed to be watching her every move.

Or perhaps they’d already had a big fight.

“U-um…… Are you okay? Hehe.”

Nyx, who had been rubbing her face against my hand and purring incessantly, glanced at me.

“Well, it’s hard to say definitively. It’s an internal matter of the Knights, you see. Sorry.”

“Hehe…… In that case, there’s nothing to be done. I understand.”

Nyx clung to me again and smiled eerily.

‘I don’t know what to tell Rije later.’

For now, it didn’t seem like she was angry that Iris had done such a thing. Or perhaps her feelings had been resolved after they’d already had a big fight.

It’s probably closer to the former. Not only did she say she didn’t care about him having multiple women, but she even explicitly wrote in the letter to seduce her own younger sister.

‘Should I clear up the misunderstanding first?’

I was in the middle of thinking whether there was any stationery left in the castle.

“Captain-nim! Captain-nim!”

I heard someone kung-kung pounding on the door outside. It sounded very urgent. It was Rakshia’s voice.

“Rakshia? What’s wrong?”

“You need to come out quickly!”

“……Why?”

“The Imperial Palace sent a whole bunch of things to Captain-nim as a token of commendationㅡ”

‘Ah.’

Only then did I recall Kaikilia’s imperial edict, which I had forgotten for a while. The edict that stated they would commend my merit for defeating the demon.

‘……That arrived now?’

The timing was as if they had conspired together. I idly thought that there wouldn’t be any more storage space left in the castle now, and followed Rakshia to the training grounds.

“Hello! Delta!”

“……Rije?”

And then, I spotted Rije, who was on a carriage, smiling brightly and waving at me.

Her armor was neatly placed beside her, and she was dressed in the uniform of the Silver Dawn Knights. Her chest continuously moved in sync with the waving motion of her hand, visible beneath her thin white sleeveless top.

Rije leaped gracefully from the carriage. Her chest violently swayed before quickly returning to its original calm. Her bursting buttocks and thighs, hidden beneath her dolphin shorts, were also still as impressive as ever.

“Did you get the letter?”

“I did get it, but…… how did you get here already? It feels like it hasn’t even been 10 minutes since I received it.”

“Huh? That’s because I intentionally sent it so it would arrive like that.”

“You did that on purpose?”

When I asked back, Rije nodded.

“Considering the travel time to you, I arranged for it to arrive about 20 minutes before I did. I did it to surprise you, so how is it? Are you touched?”

“……I don’t know about ‘touched,’ but I was certainly surprised.”

“Then my goal is achieved!”

Behind the carriage Rije had leaped from, double-headed carriages bearing the Emperor’s seal were lined up one after another. I counted them. Including the one Rije had been riding, there were exactly 10.

How could even this be the same?

All of us wore blank expressions. It was only natural, as what had happened early this morning was repeating itself. Rakshia, in particular, looked like she truly didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

“What’s wrong? Why the faces?”

Since the recipients of the gifts reacted this way, Rije also looked bewildered. Thinking it would be better to show her directly rather than explain with words, I led her to the storage room.

As soon as I opened the door, Rije, seeing the overflowing treasures that looked as if they would spill out, made the same face as me. And indeed, the deeper we went inside, the more things there seemed to be.

“Uh…… what is all this?”

“Things I received from the Holy Nation. And Rije, that was about 6 hours before you arrived.”

“You received them from the Holy Nation? Why?”

“……There were circumstances.”

“Hrmmm……”

Perhaps not satisfied with my answer, Rije, who had been staring at me with narrowed eyes, turned her body, saying she understood.

ㅡChalkak.

The sound of the storage room door locking echoed.