Episode 176. Resolution (5)

The bastard appeared during one of those days when a typical, if you could call it that, battle was unfolding.

“You’ve worked hard in my absence, Baron Daniel.”

“Not at all, Sir Edward Yulstein. It is the duty of anyone who governs this land. Rather, I am always grateful for your efforts.”

“Haha, there’s no need for that…”

A relatively clean gauntlet meets a gauntlet frozen with bits of flesh and blood. After shaking hands with Baron Daniel, I headed to the battlefield. While I rested, the knight with the blue helmet, Baron Daniel, took over. While the Baron rested, I took turns blocking the enemy forces, conserving our stamina.

“I saw you fighting briefly earlier, and Baron Daniel-nim is incredibly strong too.”

“Of course, he’s out there leading the charge and fighting directly. A weakling couldn’t even imitate that.”

“Our knight-nim is even stronger than that, right?”

“That’s obvious. I’m the champion, and Baron Daniel is the runner-up.”

If I hadn’t been there, he might have had a shot at winning. But since it was a tournament where I was the protagonist, I couldn’t be absent. Just being the runner-up against me is impressive enough… That’s why he’s holding a position as a Baron here, isn’t it?

For the first few days after arriving, Sir Daniel, who had defended the castle walls without me, went in to rest. Now that he’s recovered, I go out twice for every one time Baron Daniel goes out. I’m working twice as much, but that’s only natural. I’m stronger than Baron Daniel. No, it’s a blessing that there’s even a knight who can do half as much as I can.

Besides, the more I minimize my moves, the less burden on Baron Daniel, allowing him to endure longer. It’s motivating and good. I chatted with Johnson while mounting my horse, preparing for battle.

“Ugh, it’s cold.”

“Our strongest knight-nim, let’s wrap this up quickly and go rest.”

“Alright, alright, you little shit.”

I wondered why Sir Daniel’s gauntlet was so frozen when I shook his hand earlier. It’s because of this weather. The visibility seems to be less than half due to the intensified blizzard. Wind like a blade, cold enough to freeze snot.

I can hear the soldiers complaining and shivering behind me… But it’s better to be cold than to have your head smashed by a barbarian’s axe, you guys. You’re not even walking on your own feet, sitting on warm horse asses. Of course, it’s easier for me to endure thanks to this warm pouch Winnie gave me.

Looking at the bastards who are either immune to the cold or rushing to die to escape the cold, I checked my own condition. I drew the sword I received from Monica. Even in the freezing cold, the sharp and sleek blade shows no signs of distortion or fading. The pouch I received from Winnie is emitting heat inside my clothes.

Lastly, I kissed the ring from Vera noona, which I hung around my neck on a string like a necklace. It’s a bit much to put my lips directly on the metal in this weather, so I held it in my hand and kissed my fist. It might be superstition, but I’ve never lost a battle after doing these three things.

Pak- I kicked the horse’s flank. The horse started moving forward at a similar speed to the barbarians running towards us. Feeling the cavalry behind me matching their pace through the vibrating ground, I gradually increased the speed. The speed, which was initially similar to that of humans, soon became incomparably faster.

The wind cuts at my skin even more sharply, but I lower my posture and stick close to the horse to avoid the wind as much as possible. As accustomed as I am, we now have a pretty good synergy without any special signals. Forming a line, like a shield pushing back the enemies all at once…

Kwang-

Chunks of flesh that seem to be frozen under the hooves are crushed and shattered. Trampling the enemies with the momentum of the charge, pushing straight through… and turning left. No matter how good the cavalry’s breakthrough power is, they can’t penetrate that thick main camp… And that’s when the problem occurred.

“Uh-oh?”

Normally, turning like this would give us enough distance to rotate and reorganize the formation before charging again. But it seems the barbarians have gotten used to it, as they were waiting for the cavalry in advance. If the weather had been clear, we could have seen them and avoided it. It seems they were waiting for this kind of weather, as we were caught off guard by the blizzard that limited visibility.

“Keuh,”

The horse’s leg gets caught on an obstacle and it falls. I tried to avoid it as much as possible with my skills. But it was too high to jump over, and the barbarians were grabbing onto it from the side, making it impossible to move. In the end, I fell off the horse and rolled on the cold snowfield.

The castle is boring without Edward.

Originally, I would train in the castle. Eat meals. He was the one who solved all the problems, so I didn’t really notice it, but…

Now that Edward has to go to the front lines more often, Monica is feeling a strong sense of boredom and ennui, wondering how she lived before marriage. Even Winnie and her mother are now watching her closely and helping with her work, reducing her working hours. She can’t focus on work and only has more boring time on her hands.

Of course, he’s a detestable man. And she doesn’t like his slick attitude. But it’s even harder to live without seeing him. She jokingly mentioned it lightly in front of Edward, but she’s really worried that he might be touching the women in those territories every time he goes on an expedition.

Of course, if he’s messing around, there’s nothing she can do. He begs for forgiveness in front of her and then does that kind of thing where she can’t see him…? There’s no possibility of redemption, not even a sliver of a chance. But the fact that her husband is capable enough to do that is also a problem. It’s not like only men have to make the first move in this world.

If a knight from a noble family is around, the women around him won’t leave him alone, even if he doesn’t want to. A man as handsome and capable as Edward, who is even a noble and a knight, protects a territory in crisis? Even if Monica was a naive country girl, she would worry about whether she could help but fall for him.

Already married? Has another woman? Isn’t it true that she’s keeping Edward, who was caught having an affair, by her side because he still loves her? Even when sending Edward to Daniel’s territory, she was internally conflicted about whether she should follow him and monitor him, but in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Moreover, there’s a strange woman in Daniel’s territory, isn’t there? Jeina Daniel, who now has Daniel’s surname. The former Jeina Enicson, that is. When suppressing Baron Enicson’s rebellion, she had already tried to seduce her husband.

Of course, Edward said that he wouldn’t take something that ugly even if it was given to him… But Monica felt that if Edward were a husband, he would find a way to use any hole, no matter how ugly the thing attached to that hole was. Monica was confident that Edward wouldn’t be able to refute this even if he heard it.

Even though she was attached to Jack Daniel, if she hadn’t flirted with Edward after getting married, she wouldn’t have flirted with him at the time of Edward’s marriage. Moreover, that bitch is so power-hungry that if she had a child with Edward, she might try to challenge the Count title somehow… Would it be better to bring in a real barbarian woman instead?

No, no. She decided not to forgive him if he made another woman in the first place. Why is she imagining what will happen after that? Seeing her shake her head and organize her thoughts, Winnie, who was helping with her work next to her, called her.

“Hey, Monica.”

“Huh?”

“You have to sign properly and correctly…”

Looking down at the documents again at those words, her name, which should have been written in the signature box, was scattered messily, and she was even writing strange things. Did she do this because she was spacing out? No, she thought that other people made mistakes at work because they were spacing out. Before Monica could feel embarrassed, her mother took the documents away and took out new documents with the same content.

“Do it again here.”

“…Yes.”