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Chapter 198

“So you skipped training again, huh?”

It was a cheerful and delightful dinner time.

Adelheid stared at the heap of mashed potatoes piled in one corner of her plate as if it were her lifetime enemy. She jolted when her father, sitting at the head of the table, made a comment.

“No, Father! I didn’t skip!”

“Looking away when you make excuses is just pleading that you’re not being honest. You must be feeling guilty about something.”

“U-um…”

Adelheid had no arguments left.

While she did fulfill her training hours as required, it was true that she had found ways to cut corners here and there.

This was possible because her assigned knight had been lenient, but the knight had his own side to the story too.

Even though training in prestigious families often starts at a young age, she was only thirteen!

Considering the Lion Duke’s bloodline’s slow aging, a girl who looked even younger couldn’t be pushed too hard, could she?

Adelheid shifted her gaze around.

Her mother wore a bitter smile as if to say she couldn’t help out, and her older brother seemed to avoid her pleading eyes, gazing at the distant mountains, as if he knew he couldn’t resist his cute little sister’s appeal.

In the end, Adel bowed her head.

“I’m sorry.”

She expected to hear a scolding, but her father’s words surprised her.

“Do you dislike wielding a sword?”

Adel peeked to gauge how to answer, realizing her father didn’t seem as angry as she thought. She responded honestly.

“It’s not that I dislike it, but doing just that… is a bit tough…”

Objectively speaking, the training amount her father, Lord Friedel, set for her wasn’t that harsh.

But for a young girl overflowing with curiosity at that age, consistently repeating a single task was itself quite challenging.

Lord Friedel fell silent, seemingly lost in thought.

Then, both her older brother and mother spoke up.

“Father, Adel is still young, right? There’s no need to rush her?”

“That’s right, dear. She doesn’t have to walk the path of a knight if she doesn’t want to.”

“…Is that so?”

After solemnly nodding in agreement, Lord Friedel said to Adel,

“Understood. From now on, I won’t force you to train. Do it if you want, or skip it if you don’t.”

Adel blinked in shock.

“R-really?”

“Though you carry the name of Lenart, you don’t have to follow the family traditions strictly. If you were an only child, I’d have to push you for heir reasons, but thankfully, you have an eager older brother to take care of that now.”

“Ugh, I feel like I just dug my own grave…”

Her older brother stuck out his tongue but soon wore a goofy smile.

Feeling lucky to have such a reliable brother, her mother chuckled, and even the usually strict and serious Lord Friedel wore a faint smile.

In the cheerful atmosphere where everyone was laughing, Adel’s face bloomed like a flower.

‘What should I do with my free time now?’

She indulged in happy musings.

She wanted to learn cooking or embroidery from her mother, and baking treats for her supportive brother or the knights of the estate seemed fun, too.

Figuring out what her father would enjoy was still a considerable challenge, but since she had plenty of time, she thought she could take it slow.

Yes.

Time was abundant.

It should have been.

‘Wait?’

Adelheid realized something was off.

She felt as if her line of sight was higher than usual.

Automatically lifting her hands in front of her, she saw familiar but larger hands and fingers.

‘Huh?’

In the mirror that had appeared out of nowhere, she caught her own reflection.

Instead of her usual fluffy and delicate dress, she looked like an adventurer clad in armor.

Something felt wrong.

Adel instinctively called out to her mother beside her.

“M-Mother! Mother?”

Her mother didn’t respond.

With a gentle smile, the hostess of Friedel sat at the table, but she was now lying on the bed with a gaunt face, lost in a deep slumber.

Adel turned to look at where her brother was, and the next moment, she stepped back in shock.

“Eek…!”

Her brother was still sitting at the table, but his neck was twisted at an impossible angle!

From his slightly squashed head, blood and brain matter were leaking out, and a nearby horse licked up the blood with its tongue.

Facing the last hope, as despair loomed, Adel turned towards her father.

He, who never lost his knightly spirit, had nowhere to be seen; the sword he always carried was missing.

Because he no longer had a body.

His severed head was impaled on a long pole and a sign saying this was stuck below it.

-August von Lenart. Executed for harming innocent civilians as the leader of a bandit group.

***

“─No!!”

Thud!

With a scream, Adel shot up from bed, gasping for breath.

Her entire body was drenched in sweat, and the horrific scene she had just witnessed fluttered behind her eyelids.

Staring in shock, Adel slowly realized it was all just a dream, and she sighed in relief.

While getting her thoughts together in a daze, a pain on her forehead made Adel frown slightly.

As she touched the painful spot, she caught a towel that had been resting on her head.

It was clean, slightly damp, and seemed like something someone had carelessly dropped while tending to them, um.

The pain in her forehead.

The used towel.

The sensation of bumping into something just as she stood up.

With an instinctive realization, cold sweat started to drip down Adel’s back for a different reason.

Creek, creek, in puppet-like movements, she turned to the side and spotted it.

The Black Witch, unconscious and slumped next to her bed, like she had been hit by a blunt object.

The drowsiness vanished instantly.

“M-Madam Witch? Madam Witch!?”

Having inadvertently committed an ungrateful act, Adel frantically called out to Dorothea.

Bang!

Realizing the commotion inside the room, the Tin Knight burst in through the door.

With blue, ghostly-like eyes, he moved from the panicked face of Adel to the collapsed Dorothea on the floor.

Then he said,

[“The ‘Tin Knight’ suggests that the Dark Corruption event is a good means for rapid strengthening, but since the high point is low, he doesn’t really recommend it!”]

“That’s not it!?”

[“The ‘Tin Knight’ then asks if it was personal vendetta and expresses admiration for his apprentice’s bold hand!”]

“That’s not it either!”

The Tin Knight paused.

A light of deep understanding flickered in his eyes.

Then, he nodded seriously.

[“The ‘Tin Knight’ believes that for heroes, achievements are crucial; defeating the witch would be a fine feat worthy of the Lenart mask!”]

Thwack!

Adelheid’s towel hit the Tin Knight’s head.

The greatness of her master’s grace, which makes you forget even the worst of nightmares, was truly impressive!

***

Despite trembling in fear, thankfully enraged Dorothea didn’t cast a curse to turn Adelheid into a Golden Retriever.

“Good thing I took off my belt…I still feel like my head is ringing.”

“I-I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine. More importantly, do you have the mental clarity to listen while I explain the situation?”

Adel nodded in response to Dorothea’s question.

After the battle with that reckless girl from the Lion Duke’s bloodline, Hilda, Adelheid had immediately fallen into a state of exhaustion.

It was not just because her opponent was formidable but more so due to the effect of the purple lightning she had unleashed at the end.

While Sophia had been protecting Adel, two White Knights came to retrieve her and took a rest, which was why the current situation was as it was.

“What about… that girl, Hilda?”

At Adel’s question, Dorothea’s face scrunched up.

“I started tracking her down late but lost her. They tend to attract attention just by wandering around, so she must have already left this city.”

“What was her objective?”

“Well, to find out, we need to visit the Lenart Dojo once more.”

As she spoke, Adel imagined how the dojo’s people would react upon seeing her back to her original blond self, and it would surely be an amusing sight.

“So, what do you want to do? Should we go meet them right now? Or do you need more rest?”

Adel couldn’t help but smile at the idea of rest presented naturally.

While Dorothea herself would likely be anxious due to her master’s curse, she barely showed any signs of it.

Though still in a state of confusion, perhaps because of the ruckus with the Tin Knight, her gloomy feelings had somewhat dissipated.

“Let’s go right now. I have so many questions!”

***

This time, unlike the last discussion held by Sophia, Adel, and Norman, the reception room was bustling as all the Tin Knights were present.

Although the dojo side hesitated a bit, the representative instructor, Norman, welcomed them without concern.

“First of all, I need to share this with you.”

With a swift movement, Norman presented a small fan-shaped metal fragment.

This was the proof that Adel had passed the trial of the Lenart Dojo, Truadvangar branch.

If it were the usual Adel, she would have been quite pleased to receive the token, but not this time.

Calmly accepting the token, Adel quietly gathered her thoughts.

While they came as a team, they were mainly in a support role. At least in this matter, she needed to take the lead.

“Mr. Norman. First, I want to verify something.”

“Please go ahead.”

“What was it that you intended?”

The Lord of the Tower of Annihilation had spoken.

Without a proper apology for the ruckus caused, there could be no exchanges.

Conversely, that meant that the Tower had already made a ‘request for an apology’ towards Lenart or the Empire.

“It’s hard to believe that the representative instructor of the Lenart Dojo, especially someone in charge of dealings with the Empire, was unaware of this and had me take a role in this hopeless negotiation. How much did you understand, and what were your thoughts in sending me there?”

“…I understand how the current situation might feel quite malicious. So let’s go step by step and clarify everything. First, regarding the ‘localized conflict’ the Tower claims. The developments I confirmed by consulting with the family differ greatly.”

With a steady demeanor, Norman began to elaborate as if he had been waiting for this moment.

“It all began with a robbery incident in the northeastern part of the Empire. Several towns and villages near the border were reportedly set ablaze. However, the military found it suspicious that a mere bandit group could breach regions guarded by regular troops and launched an investigation, discovering that the bandit group, disguised as originating from the eastern lawless zone, actually had ties to the Magical Kingdom.”

The Empire sent a delegation to the Tower of Control, where the bandits were based, to express their grievances, but the Tower dismissed it as baseless accusations. Consequently, they had no choice but to engage in hunting down the bandits while staying within the confines of the border… Suddenly, a large force dispatched from the Magical Kingdom obliterated the detachment.

The military, or rather, the faction closely linked to the military’s family, had begun to push for a war, condemning the Magical Kingdom’s brazen acts. It had even escalated to the point of wanting to mobilize troops before the actual raid occurred.”

Yet, he noted, war had not broken out.

“─The Minister of Defense, Duke Lenart, had commanded this incident be dealt with quietly.”


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I Became a Tin Knight

I Became a Tin Knight

Status: Ongoing

「You see before you a tin knight, flecked with rust.」

「To this stranger, to this unfamiliar soul, yes, to none other than ‘you’, the knight makes a request.」

「You can choose to accept the knight’s request and write a new story, or ignore it and refuse.」

「So, what will you do?」

「1. Begin the story.」

「2. Do not begin.」

A Wicked Witch, trailed by vengeful spirits and curses.

“Hey, Tin Can! Did I not tell you to stop causing trouble?!”

A Courageous Lion, descended from the bloodline of a hero.

“Uh, no matter what, this seems like a bit much, no? Huh? Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger? Um, Sir Knight? Sir Knight!?”

A Scarecrow, sealed away for pursuing forbidden knowledge.

“Despite appearances, I’m quite capable from the shoulders up. Below that, you say? Let’s see, if I had to give a cold self-assessment… perhaps an emergency shield?”

A Solitary Tin Knight, forever barred from human warmth.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ urges everyone to initiate the boss battle, saying the cut scene is over!]

This is a cruel, fairytale-like adventure story told by twisted protagonists.

…Maybe!

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