Commemorative Banquet – 4

‘Cute.’

Rije looked at the newcomer, who was looking around with hazy eyes as if they couldn’t understand the current situation at all, with a pleased smile. Poke poke, her index finger poked their cheek.

It was the first time she had seen the newcomer so disheveled. He was a man who wouldn’t even bat an eye, as if he had anticipated whatever happened.

Except when it came to women. Every time she tempted him by pushing her chest or bare skin forward, he would visibly panic.

“That… that, what…”

“Oh dear, be careful, newcomer. You’re going to fall.”

Claudia caught his body as he swayed and was about to fall sideways, having stopped trying to get up from his seat.

Although the weight of one healthy adult male was entirely concentrated on one arm, Claudia was the kind of person who could lift and drink an entire wine-filled oak barrel and easily wield a greatsword larger than her own body.

There was no way she couldn’t support just one person.

“Since, wh, en…?”

“It hasn’t been long, since we came to an agreement among ourselves even before holding this banquet. They say they didn’t really intend to go this far at first? But as they watched the situation unfold, they thought this would work, so they did it.”

“Then…”

“The start was Lord-nim and Iris, Iris tipped me off, and I told Erica and Claudia. According to Iris, the first suggestion came from Lord-nim?”

Aurora nodded. Since it was something she had suggested, there was no need for excuses or anything.

Claudia carefully seated the newcomer in the chair. As the hand supporting his shoulder dropped, his body fell with a thud onto the chair, like a puppet with its strings cut.

“You don’t have to be too scared by the talk of digging up secrets, Newcomer-ssi. It’s just a figure of speech; the questions will be simple.”

Erica carefully opened her mouth.

“Newcomer-ssi said so when you first met us, didn’t you? That your memories had all vanished due to a curse. And that your memories were slowly returning, triggered by something. We even confirmed that all of Newcomer-ssi’s stats were 1 with the ability-checking orb, so there was no room to doubt your words at all.”

The aftermath was the problem. Erica sighed softly.

“Of course, we still completely trust Newcomer-ssi. This feeling will never change. However, we keep feeling that there’s a fact Newcomer-ssi hasn’t told us. Not that you lied, but that you hid the truth from the beginning. Newcomer-ssi knows well that these two things are different, don’t you?”

“The fact that you’re cursed might be true. However, that’s not the truth we want to know.”

Iris took over. The newcomer still had hazy, drunken eyes. He seemed to be trying to rack his brain, but the alcohol made it impossible.

“Who exactly were you in the past?”

Yes, this question was the core of the current situation. Who exactly was the newcomer in the past?

Although there were mountains of other questions besides this, the root of all of them was ultimately this question. Even just hearing the answer to who the newcomer was in the past would mean their goal was achieved.

“What you said ultimately means that you could come up with all those solutions because your old memories returned, didn’t it? If so, the core is who exactly you were in the past. Don’t you think you can explain it to us now?”

What kind of past did he have to be able to recognize the actions of monsters he’d never heard of, grasp the entire internal structure of Rune Dungeons, and even handle demons as if it were nothing?

If all those actions were truly based on past memories, then he must have been a great hero.

But no human in the Empire, not even the Emperor himself, had achieved such feats. Because the Emperor had solved problems by crushing opponents with overwhelming power.

He was fundamentally different from the newcomer, who had overcome difficulties with abilities that were nothing short of rock bottom, let alone overwhelming power.

Especially when it came to handling demons.

What kind of past did he have, what kind of experiences did he go through in the past, to dismiss the advent of a demon as ‘nothing’ and calmly devise a plan to use it to kill the Lord? They couldn’t even guess.

Demons were far from something that could be caught simply by being highly skilled. They were beings that even the priests of the Holy Kingdom had to be prepared for terrible sacrifices to face.

Yet, the newcomer was utterly calm. It was from that moment that the Knight Commanders truly began to genuinely wonder about his past actions.

“Can’t you tell us what you’re hiding from us?”

Despite Iris’s polite request, the newcomer merely kept his mouth shut. His tightly closed lips showed no intention of opening even a little.

There was definitely something. The Knight Commanders and Aurora exchanged glances. They said silence was affirmation. If he chose silence instead of denial, it clearly meant there was something he couldn’t speak about.

Aurora, who was right beside him, stepped forward, gently cupped his cheek with her hand, and met his gaze. The hazy black pupils and the golden pupils filled with strong will exchanged glances.

“Now, listen. I don’t know what kind of secret it is that you’re trying to hide so tightly, but we’re not trying to do anything to you with it. On the contrary, we’re trying to help you, you know?”

“…”

“Whatever you did in the past, whoever you were, we have no intention of finding fault with it. Even if you truly committed a crime and were imprisoned, it’s the same. It might have been that way then, but it’s not now, is it? You can just dismiss that as a past event and start anew.”

“…”

“Look here. This is a place where you can achieve everything you want. We have enough money, and enough power that it’s not unusable, and… most importantly, there are women, aren’t there? Women you could have right now if you wanted.”

“Wait a minute. Lord-nim. What did you just say?”

Rije cut Aurora off. Her blue eyes glared at Aurora with a growl. She was clearly very wary of her opponent.

Somehow, ever since they first met at the mansion over the demon summoning incident, the way she looked at the newcomer had been unusual, but to think she truly harbored such feelings. Her internal level of caution rose to its peak.

If one were to just casually hear it, they might dismiss it as a word that simply saw through Rije’s heart and was uttered, referring to Rije.

But Aurora’s gaze told her that was absolutely not the case.

Those were eyes filled with the same female emotions Rije herself had when looking at the newcomer. At the same time, they were eyes that felt sexual desire for the man in front of her.

Therefore, it was clear who the word ‘woman’ that Aurora uttered referred to.

“Oh my, why are you like that? I didn’t say anything wrong, did I?”

“I think you said something very wrong. ‘Us’? He strictly belongs to our Silver Dawn Knights. You shouldn’t speak so carelessly.”

“You all eventually have to obey my commands. So your subordinate is soon my subordinate.”

“You’re using the same logic as that pig bastard?”

“It’s natural, isn’t it? Since His Imperial Majesty said so from the Imperial Palace. That pig bastard and I both used to live in the Imperial Palace. Or are you perhaps saying you won’t follow the Emperor?”

Flinching, Rije hesitated when that topic came up. Not following the Emperor? That was an impossible notion for the Silver Dawn Knights. Aurora, in contrast, smiled victoriously.

Rije, who had hesitated for a moment, soon seemed to find a clue for a counterattack. She glanced at Aurora’s chest, chuckled, and made a gesture of reluctantly backing down.

This time, it was Aurora’s turn to flare up. She immediately understood what that glance meant.

Although Aurora’s size was by no means small, it was true that it was woefully insufficient when compared to Rije, who had absurdly massive breasts the size of her own head.

The newcomer, too, had been constantly staring at Rije’s chest from the moment he started getting tipsy, so it was easy to guess what his preferences were, which made it even more so.

“Now, now. Lord-nim, let’s stop there. Rije, you too, let’s leave it at that.”

Claudia quickly intervened before the atmosphere could get any more heated. This was a place to uncover the newcomer’s secret, not a place for them to fight each other.

The two of them knew this well, so it didn’t escalate into a second round. They knew that no matter how much they bickered here, ultimately, they weren’t the ones holding the final choice.

“The conversation strayed for a moment, but anyway, what we ultimately want to say is this: Who exactly were you in the past?”

“That… I shouldn’t… say… it…”

“You shouldn’t say it? So that means there is something, doesn’t it?”

“…”

Oops, his mouth closed again, but the water was already spilled. The Knight Commanders’ and Aurora’s gazes changed.

His words just now were as good as saying that there was something that shouldn’t be revealed to others. And that would surely be related to the newcomer’s past actions.

Finding that out was their task from now on.

The next day, I vigorously got up from an unknown place.

‘This is truly absurd.’

Memories of last night immediately came to mind. I had expected them to be curious about my past, but I never imagined they would try to find out by mobilizing even such methods.

I had intended to reveal it someday, but the timing almost got pushed forward significantly.

Rather than being angry, it was more a feeling of bewilderment. If we were to assign blame, I was the one with the problem first, having brazenly lied. They were merely trying to find out what my lie was.

Even if their methods were absurd.

I wondered if this was how the Knight Commanders felt when they heard I had used a demon to kill the Lord.

‘Did I answer the question?’

My head was already groggy from the alcohol, but I could quite clearly recall the situation where I got caught by Claudia’s wordplay and openly admitted, ‘I have a secret.’

But I had no memory after that.

Whether I had answered the question or barely managed to keep my mouth shut was completely unknown. My memory had completely blacked out.

‘Wait. Where am I now?’

I hastily looked around. Antique wallpaper and a carpet on the floor. A bed large enough for four or five people to comfortably lie on. It seemed to be one of the rooms in the Lord’s mansion.

A chilling sensation made me check beside me. Fortunately, there was no one there. The bed was also neat, and there were no signs of my clothes being taken off or torn.

‘……Surely nothing happened to me, right?’

The possibility seemed high if it was Rije, which deepened my worries. Like she had seduced me and made me pounce on her while I was blacked out, or even that she had pounced on me instead.

Neither of the two scenarios was an absurd notion.

‘What happened after that…’

“What, you’re really awake? How did she know this again?”

While I was desperately trying to recall my memories, the door flung open, and Rije, with a bright smile on her face, strode in carrying a tray.

She wasn’t wearing her see-through banquet dress, but her usual white sleeveless top and blue dolphin shorts.

“Hey, you made me drink alcohol to interrogate me? And all five of you conspired together?”

“You remembered. What a shame. I can’t use it twice.”

Although I wasn’t angry, I had thought I should say something sharp, but seeing her so calm, I was dumbfounded and all my words vanished. I also owed her a lot in many ways.

‘Is this why Rije came, out of all the people?’

Rije calmly walked over, sat on the edge of the bed, and set down the tray. On it was a plate of steaming soup.

My stomach wasn’t particularly upset or anything, but the time for anger had passed, and I felt like I should eat something, so I reached for the soup bowl.

Smack, Rije smacked the back of my hand with a prim expression.

When I looked at her with a question mark floating above my head, Rije picked up the soup plate herself, scooped some with a spoon, and held it out to me.

“…”

My appeal that I could eat by myself fell on deaf ears.

When I gave up resisting and obediently ate the soup, Rije finally smiled brightly, put the spoon back on the tray, and opened her mouth.

“How much do you remember about what happened yesterday?”

“How much do you think I remember?”

I returned the exact same action she had done to me at the beginning of the banquet. The thought that I had gotten her back lasted only a moment, then I saw Rije looking at me with a very meaningful smile.

What kind of face was that again?