Ch.1217You’re Only Telling Me This Now?

His life was just a doll projecting the twisted desires of his insane parents—not even a regular doll, but a murderous one built on lies. Upon realizing this, Nigel became a runaway girl.

It was supposedly the first decision in her life where she prioritized her own will over her parents’.

Of course, as is typical with impulsive decisions, life after cutting ties with her parents was anything but smooth.

“What did you do for a living after that?”

“I tried various things as they came along. I worked as a restaurant employee, temporary housekeeper for noble families, learned cooking, and even served as a private tutor for wealthy merchants’ children…”

“Employee and housekeeper…?”

Nigel serving tables or wearing a maid uniform—that would be bizarrely unsuitable for her.

Specifically, it would be as unsuitable as Aishan-Gioro Hersella with twin tails, dancing and singing as everyone’s idol.

“You must have been really strapped for cash to do all those jobs, Nigel.”

“Oh, not really. I still had quite a bit of salary left from my days in the knighthood. If I hadn’t wasted it, it would have lasted me comfortably for about 10 years.”

I thought she might have taken any job because she was broke, but that wasn’t the case. She had saved enough salary to live as a jobless person for 10 years.

“Then why didn’t you just take some time off?”

“Time is precious, isn’t it? Besides, considering my future beyond those 10 years, I eventually needed to find a profession that could provide a living.”

“That’s true.”

While that’s sound reasoning… a normal person would probably have enjoyed themselves for about 3 years before starting to look for a new job.

Anyway, she was strict with herself and diligent then just as she is now.

“You really did all sorts of things. Timewise, it would have been just about 2 years at most. Were you trying to figure out what suited you?”

“Not really… The thing is, nothing I tried worked out well. Either I was fired for lacking talent, or I had to leave after refusing ‘other requests’ from employers…”

Nigel blushed slightly and shook her head.

She explained that she bounced between so many different jobs in a short period not by choice, but because nothing worked out well for her.

Well, having been raised from birth for over a decade learning only how to become a knight, adapting to a normal life couldn’t have been easy.

Everything would have been new to her, and honestly wouldn’t have suited her aptitude, so it was only natural that things didn’t work out properly.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to do something you were good at? If not a knight, then something like an adventurer or mercenary…”

“That’s a valid point. That kind of work would certainly have suited me best. I knew that.”

Well, she probably knew that better than anyone else.

Yet the fact that she deliberately avoided choosing a profession involving swords suggests she had her own reasons.

“But at that time, I wanted to reject the entire lifestyle my family had taught me. I wanted to put down the spear, put down the sword, and try living as an ordinary person rather than a knight.”

So she was mentally rejecting the path of combat altogether out of resentment toward her parents who had forced her to be a male knight?

That was truly a rebellious teenage reason. Though her feelings must have been much heavier than that.

“But as I kept failing at everything I tried, I felt my resolve weakening… and eventually, I found myself becoming an adventurer—the very thing I had been so desperately avoiding.”

After two years of wandering, Nigel eventually made a living as an adventurer, hunting dungeon monsters and bounties, utilizing her existing aptitude.

“I realized that all I could do was wield spears and swords, cut down enemies… I half-resigned myself to that fact.”

Being a former Imperial knight, this work came to her surprisingly easily and smoothly, unlike other professions.

However, she wasn’t particularly satisfied with her life, as she was always questioning and worrying whether choosing this path had been the right decision.

“Then one day… during a monster subjugation request in the eastern dungeon, I encountered a knight from Landenburg who had come for the same purpose.”

So while she was more or less adapting to life as an adventurer, she happened to meet a knight from Landenburg.

“A Landenburg knight? Who was it? Someone I know?”

“It was Sir Heiden.”

Who was that again… Ah, I remember.

“The Seventh Sword? That somewhat frivolous dual-wielder…?”

“Yes. Though he wasn’t a Master yet at that time.”

The dual-sword knight who had participated in the Battle of Einfeld Fortress alongside Ludwig when Leopold was still a prince, fighting fiercely against undead monsters.

He had survived countless bloody battles since then and was serving in the Wall of Berengaria defense force, wasn’t he?

It felt somewhat refreshing to hear that name after so long.

“Contrary to the request details, there was a fairly strong magical beast lurking in that dungeon, and I barely managed to subdue it with Sir Heiden’s cooperation.”

“And that led you to Landenburg?”

“Yes. Sir Heiden recommended an unofficial knight position at Landenburg to me, and I accepted, becoming a private soldier of Landenburg.”

After explaining how she came to join the Landenburg knights, Nigel took a sip from her teacup, let out a faint sigh, and asked:

“Don’t you find it amusing?”

“Me? No, why would I? You ultimately chose a job that suited your aptitude.”

After all, isn’t being an elite private soldier for a lord much better than being an adventurer with unstable income and prospects?

“I see, you’re saying the same thing as Sir Heiden.”

Nigel nodded as if she had expected me to answer that way.

What’s with this reaction? Is it like she got the right answer so she’ll spare me this time?

Like some big cat-faced sphinx with breasts who randomly challenges desert travelers to riddles and sends them on a journey through her stomach if they answer incorrectly?

“What you say is certainly true. But at that time, I saw it as a compromise… no, a surrender.”

“Surrender?”

“Despite leaving my family because I was sick of the life forced upon me, I ended up relying on what I had learned and doing exactly the same thing as before… That was my concern.”

What kind of concern is that? She really must have had an intense storm and stress period.

“No matter how much I tried to run away, I couldn’t truly escape. Perhaps I was destined to live like a puppet, doing as I was told from the beginning. If so, what meaning did my life have? Such thoughts filled my head.”

“I see, so that’s how it was…?”

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

“Please don’t laugh. I know how this sounds, but it was a genuine concern for me at the time.”

“No, I understand, but honestly, it’s funny…!”

While the content was certainly heavy… there was something about it—like someone embarrassedly confessing their dark past from childhood—that made it not just funny but almost cute.

Is this what they mean when they say life is a comedy when viewed from a distance?

If Nigel’s concerns and conflicts were still ongoing, I would have counseled her seriously, but since it was all in the past, I found it merely amusing.

“…Anyway, perhaps because I seemed unstable due to these thoughts, one day Sir Heiden called me and asked if I had any concerns, saying I should share them if I did.”

“Like I’m doing now?”

“Well… I suppose it was somewhat similar. After hesitation, I revealed the reasons for my concerns and frustrations. Of course, without including any information that would identify the Winlandria family.”

So Nigel spilled her ongoing dark history to daily counselor Senior Heiden.

Heiden listened quite seriously up to the middle part, but when she got to the latter part about her various ongoing conflicts, he just snickered.

Well, I would have laughed too. It’s like getting a mentally ill adolescent as my successor—how could anyone not laugh?

– A doll’s life? The same as before? Huh, really. The same? I don’t understand why you think that way.

– What? But you’ve been listening to my explanation. Actually, apart from my residence and attire, nothing has changed…

– Your mindset has changed, your mindset. That’s the most important thing.

However, despite snickering with an incredulous expression, Heiden continued the counseling surprisingly seriously and thoroughly.

– You massacred those trolls that attacked the village last time and saved the villagers, right? How did you feel when they thanked you? Did you feel like shit, thinking they didn’t understand your feelings?

– Of course not. Rather, I…

– It felt good, right? Like you were a hero from an old tale. Like it was good that you took up the sword. Like you were glad you weren’t too late. Like you wanted to smile because everyone else was smiling happily. Isn’t that right?

– That’s… yes, I suppose so.

– Then that’s all that matters. It’s not like someone forced you to come here; it was all your choice, and you’re even finding fulfillment in it, aren’t you?

– I’m… not sure if I felt fulfillment…

– Come on, it’s obvious to anyone watching. You quit being a knight because you were sick of it, but now you’re enjoying similar work yet stubbornly insisting you can’t possibly enjoy it.

He pointed out that although Nigel herself was unwilling to acknowledge it, she was already finding a sense of achievement in her work as a female knight of Landenburg.

– Stubborn? What do you mean…

– Yes, stubborn. You said you ran away because you hated living a life of deceiving others and yourself. But now you’re so fixated on denying your past that you’re deceiving yourself again. How is that any better?

– That’s…

– So just live how you want to live. If someone bothers you, go up and beat them for looking at you funny. If you enjoy protecting people, train hard and fight to protect them. It’s not that complicated, is it?

– Well, the latter might be fine, but isn’t the former just being a thug?

– Didn’t you know? Knights are mostly just sword-wielding thugs pretending to be cultured. There are just a few with good personalities mixed in.

Listening to the conversation they supposedly had under the pretext of counseling, my image of Heiden in my memory was completely changing.

I had thought he was just a reckless, frivolous battle maniac, but I realized he was surprisingly eloquent and quite thoughtful.

– And what was it you said? Injected talent? Come on. Do you think talent can be properly injected if you don’t have the aptitude for it? Even after twenty years of training, those without talent can’t reach half your level.

– Even after twenty years of training, they can only reach that level…?

– That’s right. You and those people were simply born the way you were. So you should consider it a blessing instead. With your talent, becoming one of the “Swords of Landenburg” within a few years isn’t impossible.

Perhaps thanks to Heiden’s advice and counsel sinking in, Nigel erased her adolescent concerns about her life from her mind and lived each day diligently as one of Landenburg’s knight-level forces.

Perhaps because the knot in her heart had been untied, her skills improved dramatically with each achievement, and she reached the level of Master the following year.

That was the extent of Nigel’s past that she revealed herself.

For a story I was finally hearing after several years of facing each other—which would be around chapter 1,200 if this were a novel—it was somewhat underwhelming content.