I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 37

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 37
* * *
Summer had arrived in full. Scorching sunlight baked the earth, and the foliage had grown thick and wild.
With the season came a fresh wind through the knight orders of the Laurentia Empire—the beginning of the intern practicum for Veritas Academy graduates.
And for the Luxus Knights, visitors were expected to arrive for the first time in a very long while. Three of them, no less.
“Seniors, hello there!”
“Bennet. Please be quiet for once…….”
“This is what they call professional etiquette, Olivia.”
“Not every knight here is our senior anyway. And the person you just greeted isn’t a knight at all—just a visitor to the order. He was holding a visitor’s pass.”
“Huh?”
Olivia’s frustration swelled. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them, and Panya’s voice came at once from beside her.
“Olivia, just bear with him. He’s always like this.”
“And what are you doing here?”
Olivia pressed her palm to her forehead and sighed.
She’d thought she was the only one who’d applied to the Luxus Knights, but when the assignment came through, two more familiar faces appeared.
And not just anyone—her closest friends!
“How could neither of you say a word to me about this?”
“It was a surprise. Doesn’t it make you happy?”
Panya shrugged with that easy tone, and for a moment Olivia was at a loss for words.
Happy? Well, yes, happy—but……
“Weren’t you both planning to apply to different orders?”
“Well… I got interested in the Luxus Knights after this practicum.”
“I don’t have some grand reason like Bennet. I just thought you’d be here, so why not?”
That was hardly a reason at all. Olivia gave her a short, skeptical look, but Panya brushed it aside with easy familiarity.
“Honestly, there wasn’t a particular order I was dying to join. Seemed fine enough to go somewhere with people I already know.”
“The internship isn’t the final posting anyway?”
“That helped too.”
Her nonchalant answer drew a laugh despite everything.
Olivia had played the skeptic, but in truth, this was a new challenge for her as well, and the comfort of having familiar friends nearby settled over her like warmth.
The three of them bickered their way across the order grounds.
The Luxus Knights occupied one of the most remote corners where the orders clustered together, so their walk was longer than expected.
“Why on earth is it stuck way out here?”
“Right? Wait, is that it over there?”
Panya and Bennet pointed at something, eyes bright with hope. But Olivia knew better—they hadn’t found the right building yet.
“You two. Where are you going?”
“Huh? Isn’t this the headquarters?”
“That’s the Lumen Knights headquarters. The Luxus Knights are this way.”
“……Where?”
Olivia pointed to the brush beside the Lumen Knights building.
“Uh? There’s nothing there.”
“Look more carefully.”
“The undergrowth is really quite lush.”
“That’s not it.”
“An order nestled among gardens and trees—how romantic!”
“That’s not it either.”
These two were clearly lacking in observation. Olivia clicked her tongue and took a step forward.
“There’s a shortcut right here.”
Thump. Olivia’s foot found a tiny gap between the shrubs.
“……Huh?”
“A shortcut.”
“How is this a shortcut? This isn’t a path, Olivia.”
“No, it is.”
She’d come this way before and knew it well. That time too, she’d wandered for a while trying to find where the Luxus Knights were located.
“You really did come looking for the Luxus Knights?”
“Yes. Would you mind showing us the way? No matter how hard we search, we can’t find the entrance.”
“Ah, um……. Just a moment. There should be a path around here somewhere.”
She remembered a knight who must have been from the Lumen Knights pointing out this shortcut.
‘I thought they were being territorial back then.’
Of course, it wasn’t so narrow that people couldn’t pass through. Once you went in a little way, an actual path appeared.
The entrance could use some tidying up, though. Olivia made a brief sound of complaint before squeezing through into the narrow passage.
In any case, this was her first day joining the Luxus Knights.
As the three of them passed through the cramped entrance toward the headquarters, anticipation and anxiety about this new environment clung to their heels.
And not far away from there—
Rustle, rustle!
“Three of them came?”
“This is a miracle!”
Two figures in camouflage suits emerged from the brush, eyes gleaming as they dashed off in some direction.
* * *
The Luxus Knights—a notoriously unpopular order boasting an average recruitment of 0.34 members per year.
Everyone mocked and dismissed the Luxus Knights, yet the order possessed something no other had.
“A bond of solidarity and perfect unity!”
“What bond? You lot left me alone at a tavern and bolted yesterday. Do you have any idea how much the captain chewed me out? This is your bond and unity? Huh?”
“All members except the one who lost consciousness agreed, so wouldn’t you call that unity?”
“Then what about the bond!”
“We all shared the guilt of abandoning a former comrade in a cold tavern. That’s the bond, isn’t it?”
“What guilt? Get over here. I said get over here! Did you rat me out to the captain?”
In truth, it was nothing but unvarnished chaos and disorder.
Aiden observed his embarrassing comrades with narrowed eyes today as well. Even though he’d heard the academy students’ dispatch period was approaching, their attitude had not changed one bit.
“Isn’t it about time the academy students arrive for their internship?”
“So I heard. But do you really think we need to worry about that?”
“True. Who would apply here? Except for an eccentric like Aiden Oblivion over there.”
Most of the personnel here had been personally scouted by Ujin. Academy graduates were exceedingly rare, and those who did join were only fallen nobility.
That’s why, when Aiden Oblivion—the most aristocratic of all aristocrats—had kicked open the captain’s door and stormed in a few years ago, it became a running joke among the members that was still being retold.
“The door he kicked still creaks, I heard.”
“Tsk tsk……. Aiden, in good conscience, shouldn’t you fix the door you broke?”
“Where would I get the money for that? And the door opens and closes just fine. Doesn’t it?”
By now, Aiden had integrated fairly well with them. Though admittedly it had been a very difficult beginning.
“Hey. Where exactly is the personal training grounds-”
“Eeeek!”
“What! What’s wrong— Wait, stop right there!”
Those cowards still felt fresh in his memory, scattering in panic whenever he drew near.
“Let me talk to you for a moment.”
“A-a-a real nobleman?”
“I said let me talk to you.”
“I-I-I have important business!”
“I said I’d help with that business? Come here. If anyone sees this, they’ll think I’m devouring you whole. Come on now.”
“Kyaaaa!”
It had taken considerable effort to round them all up and drag them around until they’d finally accepted him.
Still, there were results.
Rolling and fighting together, roughing it out side by side, they gradually became comrades and friends.
In their minds now, Aiden was simply Aiden—not “Aiden Oblivion” anymore.
“Anyway. So you had a rough time as an instructor at the academy, eh? The academy these days-”
“Eeeek!”
“What?”
Two figures in brush gear came tumbling toward them like rolling saplings.
“Emergency! Everyone gather around!”
“What is it? Oh, it’s just Kunta and Nick. What’s gotten into them now?”
“They’ve been staked out waiting for the interns. Same thing every year.”
“Yeah……. Usually it’s for nothing— Wait. Are they coming like that because……?”
Crash-bang-thud. Two men in long camouflage suits came rolling in a tangle, their feet caught in their own gear. Aiden brought the tumbling pair to a halt, regarding their pathetic state with disdain.
“Shouldn’t you two have outgrown acting like this by now? For twins, you really do the same foolish things in exactly the same way.”
“Artists die the moment they grow up.”
“You’re not artists, you’re knights. Idiots.”
Once he’d separated the two babbling men, a face suddenly popped out from the brush. It was covered in some kind of smudge—streaks of camouflage paint—which looked quite unpleasant.
“Anyway! Listen up. We have visitors.”
“The interns arrived!”
“Our Luxus Knights finally have interns coming!”
They completed their sentence by speaking over each other, their newly emerged faces full of hope.
“We’re finally going to escape being the youngest members!”
This was nothing but a yearning to shed their lowest-rank status.
The two men were twenty-one years old, but they’d been with the order for three years already. Only one year younger than Aiden.
Having had no new recruits during all that time, forced to endure being the youngest members, their faces now shone as if clouds had parted to reveal clear sky.
But things wouldn’t go as they hoped. Aiden clicked his tongue and spoke.
“Did you see who’s coming?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————