Vote for Your Knight! - Chapter 23

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Vote for your knight!
23
Edith smiled and opened her mouth.
“Dmitri’s team!”
“!”
The participants stirred at the unexpected result.
“Did they miscalculate?”
“How did the team that chose rabbit scent place second?”
Even Dmitri’s team couldn’t believe the result.
“We’re in second place?”
“Does that even make sense?”
Edith drove the point home to the skeptical participants.
“Second place goes to Dmitri’s team with five stag beasts, seven boar beasts, two fox beasts, and twenty rabbit beasts caught, for a total of 149 points!”
Just twenty points behind first place!
Moreover, it was a far higher score than first place in Zone 1.
Only then did Dmitri’s team embrace and cheer.
“Wow, this is incredible!”
“We’re truly the best! We actually did it!”
“We did well catching so many rabbits, didn’t we?”
Dmitri smiled brightly for the first time since arriving in Kartamen.
Deni, who had unconsciously hugged Pavel tight, came to his senses belatedly and awkwardly stepped back.
Kusto’s head felt hot with a strange feeling rising from his chest.
‘This Team Battle thing with my teammates is more fun than I expected.’
In the past, there were no teammates.
Everyone for themselves.
Life had been too consumed with survival to do anything else.
Yet now, pooling their strength together, they’d achieved results even in crisis.
His teammates suddenly looked different to him.
More familiar, somehow.
Meanwhile, Raphael’s team, who had lost five boars while retrieving Kilman, placed fifth.
“I told you we should just leave Kilman behind.”
Joan, the team leader, spoke to Raphael with resentment in his voice.
“The result’s already decided—is there any point in blaming a teammate?”
Olivier, who had first suggested abandoning Kilman, instead defended Raphael.
“No, what I meant was…”
“According to the Imperial Academy required course, ‘The Fundamentals of Discourse,’ that’s merely an unproductive argument.”
“…”
Raphael spoke back firmly without flinching.
“I have no regrets about my decision. This isn’t an individual competition—it’s a Team Battle. I believe not losing a single teammate is more important than catching more prey.”
“I understand that logic, but the fact remains we finished fifth.”
Joan was about to add something more with an exasperated expression when—
Ines, watching this exchange, spoke sharply.
“I reviewed all the footage before the judging.”
“Then you understand the situation!”
Joan said, as if relieved.
But Ines didn’t even nod, and continued speaking.
“Raphael is correct. If you’d abandoned your teammate, you would have been disqualified.”
At that, Joan fell silent.
* * *
After the second evaluation ended, the participants were given rest until the Foundation Day Festival.
While everyone else headed home or back to their reserved lodgings,
‘Well, this time the Kartamen lodging is all mine, right? My own private world…’
“You’re going to mope around alone in the lodging?”
“?”
Kusto turned his head.
Dmitri was looking at him with an expression full of pity.
“What’s with that look?”
When Kusto met his gaze with displeasure, Dmitri suddenly looked away.
Then he spoke softly, almost in a whisper.
“If you’ve got nowhere else to go, come to our place instead.”
“Ah, I was planning to stay at the inn…….”
Kusto trailed off mid-sentence and hesitated.
‘He’s offering kindness first—it would be rude to refuse.’
Besides, after hunting together as a team, he’d grown oddly fond of the man.
‘I’m thinking it wouldn’t be so bad to spend time with him after all.’
And the other person was Dmitri.
‘Already shunned by everyone—how much courage must it have taken for him to offer kindness first?’
If he refused now, Dmitri might not show it on the surface, but inwardly he could be devastated.
Kusto made his decision.
“Thank you. Then just for one night…….”
“If you’d like, you can stay until the Foundation Day Festival.”
Dmitri’s eyes met his for a moment before he looked away, speaking in a rush.
He’d said it so quickly that Kusto almost missed it entirely.
“…….”
That felt like too much to ask.
Even as Kusto thought this, he nodded nonetheless.
‘Well, I’ll figure something out.’
Dmitri’s house stood on the outskirts of the Capital.
A solitary blackened mansion in a desolate place with no village nearby.
‘It’s just like where I live.’
“It’s a fine house,” Kusto said, concealing his true thoughts.
Once inside, he found it wasn’t so bad after all.
Of course, compared to the other grand mansions in the Capital, it was modest in scale.
The exterior was somewhat dreary, but the interior was clean and orderly.
“Come in. I’ll show you to the room you’ll be staying in.”
Dmitri led Kusto up to the second floor.
Suddenly, Kusto felt a strange unease.
“Where are all the servants?”
In a mansion of that size, he couldn’t spot a single attendant.
Dmitri paused as he reached for the door.
Soon he opened it as though nothing was wrong and spoke.
“There aren’t any.”
“What? Why? Are you short on money?”
“No one wants to work for me…….”
Dmitri spoke in a pitiful tone.
Kusto wanted to slap himself.
‘By now, you should have realized—he’s the only person willing to come near you!’
He quickly turned his gaze into the reasonably sized room and changed the subject.
“Ha, the room’s nice. Compared to the inn in Kartamen, it’s like a palace.”
“Glad you like it. Get some rest then.”
Dmitri hurried downstairs as if he had something to do.
Left alone, Kusto gazed out the window.
Weeds grew haphazardly in the small garden.
‘The house interior was neat, but it must have been impossible to tend the garden while attending the Kartamen Festival.’
Kusto made up his mind and went down to the garden.
He began pulling out the weeds with his bare hands.
‘If he’s putting me up for free, I should earn my keep.’
It didn’t take long for the garden to look tidy. Kusto straightened up with satisfaction, wiping sweat from his brow, when he heard footsteps.
“Kusto?”
Dmitri stood at the doorway, his face startled.
“Oh, the garden really is…….”
“You didn’t have to thank me…….”
“A mess.”
“……I just pulled out the weeds.”
When Kusto fixed him with a sharp look, Dmitri laughed softly as if it had been a joke.
“In any case, thank you. You must be tired—come inside and have dinner.”
“Dinner?”
Had Dmitri actually prepared a meal?
Skeptical but curious, Kusto went to the dining room and found that dinner was indeed ready.

It was quite a plausible dinner.
“Did you make this?”
“I did.”
Dmitri nodded, his face flushed with something like shyness.
“Thank you. It looks really delicious…….”
Kusto had taken one bite of the meat when he faltered.
‘Can meat really taste this… bland?’
Kusto was someone who had gnawed on dirt when times grew desperate.
Yet this meat possessed a strange, utterly unfamiliar flavor he had never encountered in his life.
Still, across from him, Dmitri was watching with expectant eyes.
Kusto managed a smile.
“It’s passable.”
“Really? I tried making a new sauce today, and I’m relieved it suits your palate…….”
“Next time, I’ll return the favor and prepare a meal. I won’t hear any refusals.”
* * *
Days before the Foundation Day Festival.
The Emperor hosted a grand banquet at the Imperial Palace.
He had invited the nobility from across the realm who had arrived to attend the Foundation Day Festival.
Each noble guest was presented with a small gift box.
“A humble token of goodwill from my beloved Edith.”
The Emperor spoke with evident pride.
The sole topic of conversation at the banquet was Kartamen.
“Our servants talk of nothing else these days. I haven’t seen it myself, but they’re particularly taken with Duke David, asking me to vote for him, or rather, imploring me to…….”
“My handmaiden is the same. She says a participant named Kusto has an extraordinary physique, and wishes the production had given him more screen time.”
“I confess I’m lost as well, but the people of my domain keep speaking of this Maurice—you know, the merchant heir? They acknowledge his skill is lacking, but he’s so handsome that merely watching him improves one’s eyesight, or so they claim…… and they see no harm in casting their vote for such a participant.”
Though they had watched Kartamen in full, the nobles suddenly feigned ignorance.
Edith nodded with a satisfied smile.
“Yes, I’ll make sure to reflect the opinions of your people and domain folk well.”
Of course, there was one person who disliked this cheerful atmosphere.
Thierry Borne, the lord of Pius.
Kartamen, which he had been certain would fail, was the talk of the realm day after day.
And worse—it was that accursed Kartamen, hosted by none other than the princess he already despised!
‘If she weren’t the princess, perhaps I would have competed in Kartamen and taken first place myself.’
Besides, both of them had contributed equally to the revolution, so why was she the imperial heir while he remained merely a petty lord?
And she was even younger than him.
He clenched his teeth and forced an artificial smile.
“By the way, I hear Your Highness has been collecting Mana Stones?”
As Thierry suddenly raised this new topic, the atmosphere among the nobles grew tense.
Collecting Mana Stones, no less.
What could she possibly be planning?
Was she fashioning a weapon using her Alchemy skill to threaten the nobility?
“That’s right.”
Edith affirmed without hesitation.
The banquet hall buzzed with murmurs. But Edith paid them no mind and continued.
“Not just any Mana Stones—I’m collecting Low-Quality Mana Stones that are otherwise discarded.”
“Those are thrown away precisely because they’re defective. No one collects garbage. If you mean to deceive us…….”
“Please examine the humble gifts I offered you today.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The nobles protested at Edith’s words.
“Surely you haven’t given us Low-Quality Mana Stones as gifts?”
“This is frankly too much!”
“No matter how talented Your Highness may be in Alchemy, Low-Quality Mana Stones are useless…….”
“Oh!”
That was when it happened.
One man, who had quietly opened his gift, let out a gasp of astonishment.
In his hand lay a round Mana Stone the size of an adult’s fist.
And from within that Mana Stone, an image was playing.

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