Vote for Your Knight! - Chapter 4

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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!
Chapter 4
Kusto’s mind grew cold.
If the Cartamen were held, all manner of skilled warriors sharpened over twenty years would emerge.
If he couldn’t break through that competition, he would die.
‘But the Royal Court has lost credibility because of the tyrant.’
Perhaps there wouldn’t be as many participants as expected.
That was a positive thing.
‘Though I had no choice anyway.’
Kusto nodded.
“Understood. I will participate. However—”
Kusto extended his forearm.
A Slave Mark was carved into his skin.
“I will not hide this mark.”
Edit glanced at the mark, then spoke with genuine warmth.
“That’s wonderful.”
!
Kusto stood dazed, startled by what he had just heard.
‘Does she truly not care that I’m a slave, or about this mark?’
He gazed at the girl before him—so endearing, yet somehow growing frightening.
A strange premonition seized him.
Perhaps this was—
‘going to be interesting.’
* * *
After unpacking at an Inn in some distant town, I immediately retrieved my Notebook.
‘Bringing Kusto along wasn’t part of the plan.’
If it were just Dmitri and me, we could return to the Capital today, but to take Kusto with us, I’d need to stay another night.
‘Actually, that works in my favor.’
I could organize my thoughts.
I began writing my assessment of Kusto into the Notebook.
Name: Kusto
(Appears to have no family name, being of slave origin)
Aliases: Knight Who Bears the Past, Nightmare of Pirates, and so forth….
Close Combat: A
Weapon Mastery: —
Magic: —
Chivalry: A
Intellect: —
Distinctive Features: Bears a Slave Mark yet carries himself with confidence. There seems to be a reason he hasn’t erased the mark.
Possesses the spirit of Chivalry—willing to sacrifice himself for the weak.
My pen pressed harder against the page.
‘Every trait is box office gold.’
But I had to approach carefully.
‘It’s sensitive territory.’
I’d nearly bitten my tongue restraining myself from asking earlier why he hadn’t concealed the mark.
‘Fortunate I held back.’
Once I returned to the Capital, I’d need to rest one day, then immediately scout the next candidate.
I felt a twinge of anxiety.
‘The person I’m going to meet next must be cast—unlike the Lord of Pius.’
Without this person, the entire ‘Knight’s Tournament’ itself would lose all meaning.
‘Put plainly: without them, it all falls apart.’
I would soon need to persuade someone whose participation determined whether this tournament lived or died.
* * *
A beautiful knight with blue eyes stood before a window, polishing a sword.
Sunlight gleamed off the smooth blade, yet the man continued to attend to it as if it still fell short.
With each stroke, the sword’s owner whispered.
“Don’t worry, David. I’ll win the Bloodbattle. And remember—everything that happens from now on, it’s not because of you.”
A lie.
It is because of me.
No matter how many times he polished, the blood staining the blade refused to fade.
At that moment, someone intruded unbidden into David’s thoughts.
“……I fear greatly for the future of our realm. Is this not the moment for Your Grace to step forward?”
It was the Lord of Naias, who came seeking David without invitation, wearing out his shoes to do so. As administrator of the Western Region, he was a man who mistook himself for its true master.
“Should Your Grace merely wish it, we would support you wholeheartedly from behind.”
The blue eyes reflected in the transparent blade flashed with cold light.
‘Perhaps I should throw him out.’
David was a knight.
He had no interest in struggles for power.
He despised greedy lords like this one.
But he despised even more the Royal Court as it was now, attempting once again to deceive a knight under the guise of Cartamen.
‘I want no part of their affairs.’
David took up his sword and walked toward the lord with heavy steps.
The lord, who had turned his head away, caught sight of the well-honed blade in David’s hand and let out a yelp of terror.
“Y-Your Grace! If you would just put away the sword……!”
David gazed at the blade as though only now remembering it, yet did not sheathe it as he spoke.
“Forgive me. I was lost in contemplation of the sword.”
So while the man had been speaking, he had been absorbed in the blade.
Which was to say he had not been listening to a word.
Grasping this, the lord leapt to his feet.
And then it came.
“P-please, spare me!”
From outside came the Gatekeeper’s cry of distress.
David quickly approached the window. Before someone who had come to the Mansion, the Gatekeeper was on his knees.
‘Who in the world!’
For David, who did not treat even lowly servants roughly, this was a sight he could not abide.
Moreover, judging by recent circumstances, whoever had come—
‘They are emissaries from the Royal Palace sent to make me participate in Cartamen.’
In other words, unwelcome visitors.
David bit his lip and walked out swiftly.
* * *
I looked up at the immense white Mansion. Sunlight gathered on the sharp peak of the roof and blazed dazzlingly.
‘This is it.’
The place where the second person for casting would be.
I was about to remove my stifling robe when the Gatekeeper, who had just spotted me, cried out sharply.
“Are you here for some competition recruitment or other? I’m sorry, but His Grace……Ugh!”
I finished removing my robe and showed him the ring inscribed with the Royal Court’s seal.
A ring only a princess could possess.
The Gatekeeper, who had been sneering moments before, turned ashen and pressed himself flat against the ground.
“Y-Your Highness, I-I, please, I-I beg your pardon, I deserve to d-d-die…….”
“If I told you to die, would you?”
“G-gah! N-no, that’s not…… P-please, spare me!”
“Just get up. Anyone can make a mistake.”
I extended my hand to him. The wide-eyed Gatekeeper took my hand without thinking and got to his feet.
“Th-thank you. How could I ever repay such mercy…….”
“If you insist on repaying it, I won’t stop you. Repay it by showing me to the duke.”
At the unexpectedly swift payment demand, the Gatekeeper’s face went white.
‘So David really did say he’d kill anyone who looked like a casting agent to him.’
This recruitment wouldn’t be easy either.
It was then that a familiar voice came from behind the Gatekeeper.
“Why were you on your knees?”
A figure so tall it drew the eye immediately.
A solid frame that was unmistakably dense with muscle.
Yet withal, lines as elegant and sharp as a painted portrait.
Platinum hair beautiful as though stepped from a masterwork, and a man with eyes of pale blue.
“Did you commit a discourtesy? Or—”
He turned his head to regard me.
“Did someone show you discourtesy……Your Highness?”
And in the next instant, he looked aghast, as though he had seen a ghost.
At last we met.
The very embodiment of a knight, perfect as if measured by a ruler.
A swordsman so skilled that even the wind itself splits before his blade.
A knight among knights, the object of longing for all aspiring warriors.
Thus, an indispensable figure for the prosperity of the knightly tournament.
Duke David Bertie!
* * *
Edit approached him, taking care not to appear hasty.
“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. Neither did the Gatekeeper.”
…….
“There was simply a small misunderstanding in communication.”
A crisp breeze set the princess’s golden hair dancing.
With that expression on her face, it wouldn’t have seemed strange if rabbit ears had suddenly sprouted from her head.
Yet from such a face came the words: “There was a small problem in communication.”
David observed the Gatekeeper, who was still trembling.
‘Given that he won’t raise his head even now that I’ve arrived, it seems he did make some misstep.’
Yet the princess was shielding him without hesitation.
‘It doesn’t look like she’s merely putting on an act of kindness.’
Rather, she seemed so genuinely unconcerned that she truly believed the Gatekeeper’s conduct had been no offense at all.
‘Peculiar.’
David Bertie, a man who maintained his composure even in the most dire circumstances, found himself unsettled as he gazed down at this girl.
Then he smiled warmly.
“It is an honor to make your acquaintance, though I confess the meeting comes late.”
There were few, regardless of age or gender, who could resist such a smile.
Yet the princess before him continued to smile gently, exactly as she had from the start.
To her, he seemed to be merely one candidate among those seeking to participate in Cartamen.
‘She’s assessing me with those innocent, smiling eyes.’
Were those the eyes of a tyrant like Bobuare?
Or were they truly the eyes of a genuine Cartamen evaluator?
“Will you turn me away at the door again this time?”
“I could never do such a thing to the princess. Please, do come in. Allow me to show you inside.”
David concealed his true thoughts as he led the princess deeper into the Mansion.
‘I had expected that someone of importance, not a mere servant, would seek me out.’
But for the princess to come in person—
‘Is she truly so earnest about Cartamen?’
A small crack formed in the suspicion that had been firmly rooted within David.
David too would have wished to participate if it were a ‘genuine’ Cartamen.
It was a legendary tournament he had heard of since childhood, worn into his very ears.
To pass Cartamen and become one of the Di Eques had been his brother’s dream as well.
“I want to become one of the Di Eques and hold the Legendary Weapon they once wielded. If I cannot do it, I hope you will, David.”
The memory of his brother saying those words before he departed came flooding back as though it were only yesterday.
That was why David wished to bring his brother a Legendary Weapon of the Di Eques.
Yet.
‘I find it difficult to trust the current Royal Court.’
What if the tournament were merely a guise for a Bloodbattle?
What if Cartamen were being exploited to consolidate their power?
David studied Edit with a piercing gaze.
It was then.
“Is that not the princess?”
The Lord of Naias, who had been standing awkwardly before the reception room, suddenly stepped forward.
‘He still hasn’t left?’
Tenacious fellow.
The princess, however, showed no surprise and greeted him with innocent cheerfulness.
“How lovely to see you. I didn’t expect to meet you here.”
“If this is about Cartamen, I fear you’ve come to the wrong place. Even commoners aren’t participating—would the Duke himself truly consider it?”
The Lord spoke with a contemptuous smile.
He too seemed certain that David would not participate in Cartamen.
‘His pride must be smarting considerably.’
David turned his gaze back to the princess.
Surprisingly, her expression remained unfazed.
“It seems the Lord and the Duke have had difficulty understanding one another as well. What a shame.”

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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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