Vote for Your Knight! - Chapter 9

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

Vote for your knight!
Episode 9
“You destroyed one obstacle by using another?”
“With bare hands, no less…….”
“Is that why you didn’t bring a weapon?”
The participants marveled aloud.
Yet there were those among them who still derided Kusto for his slave origins.
“Must be his base instincts. Just brute strength, no finesse.”
“A knight of knights followed by a slave of slaves.”
But all three Valkyrias looked genuinely impressed.
Kusto had navigated the maze by turning its traps against themselves.
What couldn’t be solved that way, he’d handled with bare-handed combat.
He’d even uprooted a mechanical mole automaton to neutralize obstacles.
It was staggering power.
Though lacking polished technique, there was a raw ingenuity about him—methods born from survival itself.
“Ooh!”
“Yeah, that’s it!”
“He’s doing it again!”
The participants cheered as if watching a spectacle unfold.
The Valkyrias too nodded along with his movements—not judging, but savoring every moment.
The corners of Edith’s mouth lifted.
‘The ability to captivate someone. That’s star power.’
Moreover, coming right after David had created an unintended contrast.
The two opposites’ performances would naturally invite favorable comparison.
‘What a stroke of luck.’
Kusto emerged from the maze and climbed the steps to the judges’ platform with measured calm.
Mila leaned forward as if she’d been waiting for this.
“How did you decide to solve everything with bare hands, without weapons?”
Kusto started to answer, but Amont cut in before he could speak.
“We specifically instructed all participants to bring weapons. No matter how expertly you navigated the maze, failing to prepare properly is grounds for deduction. Why didn’t you?”
Edith flinched at Amont’s cold assessment.
Kusto, however, answered without hesitation.
“The journey to the Capital was costly. I spent all my money getting here.”
“Pardon?”
“I sold the weapons I had to pay for the journey. There was nothing left for new ones.”
……
Amont’s mouth fell open, words abandoning him, when a low chuckle sounded from beside him.
Ines.
All the judges stared at her in shock—Ines, actually laughing.
Sensing their gaze, Ines straightened her expression and asked coldly.
“Still, armor and weapons, a horse, and chivalry are the fundamentals a knight must possess. You have none of these four.”
Edith panicked.
‘You just laughed for him! How can you switch tactics like this?’
Kusto answered plainly.
“I would have liked to have them. But my circumstances wouldn’t allow it.”
Even Ines fell silent at that. Push further and she’d look like a villain.
‘Truth is, becoming a formal knight really does cost too much.’
Knighthood was the exclusive privilege of the wealthy.
A commoner had to labor relentlessly and save to ever afford it.
‘Di Eques stands directly opposed to that very custom.’
With popular selection, anyone could become a knight.
Even those with nothing could rise from the bottom—that was the very spirit of Di Eques!
‘And Kusto embodies that perfectly!’
He was living hope for the countless lowborn who aspired to join Di Eques.
‘Which means he can capture their interest and earn their support!’
Edith suppressed a satisfied smile.
Instead, she turned her attention to Amont as he opened his mouth to speak.
“Still, thank you for participating. But Swordsmanship can be practiced with just a stick. Do you have any formal Swordsmanship training?”
“None.”
“Spearmanship?”
“There isn’t.”
“Hmm……”
Even accounting for his past as a slave, there was simply no excuse to elevate him to Rank 1.
The three examiners conferred among themselves and announced the result.
“Rank 2.”
“Thank you.”
“From this point forward, you must study Swordsmanship and the like. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Amont offered the counsel with a sharp edge to his voice.
Then he murmured under his breath.
“I’d like to develop him. He has talent.”
Edith’s eyes widened.
‘But you were just being critical of him?’
The thought patterns of knights were utterly beyond her grasp.
* * *
Name: Kusto
Aliases: The Knight Bearing History, The Bare-Handed Monster, Perhaps Some Armor Wouldn’t Hurt, and so on….
Rank: 2
Barehanded Combat: A
Weaponry: F
Magic: —
Chivalry: —
Intellect: —
Notable Features: Bears a Slave Mark yet carries himself with confidence. There appears to be a reason he has not removed the Mark.
* * *
“That bastard gets Rank 2, higher than me?”
Contestants scattered across Ranks 4 and 5 muttered with open hostility.
Kusto took his seat in the Rank 2 section, pretending not to hear.
Then he mumbled loudly enough to be intentional.
“The chairs here are comfortable.”
He could see the crowns of heads bristling with indignation.
The higher your Rank, the further you could look down.
‘The treatment really is something else,’ he thought.
Among those assigned the lowest Ranks, some wept openly.
‘Is this Kartamen thing really that important?’
He’d heard the name before, but as a former slave, he hadn’t understood how crucial Kartamen was to warriors.
Yet now it was becoming clear—it ran far deeper than he’d realized.
He raised his gaze.
David sat gracefully in the Rank 1 section.
Just moments ago he’d been beside him; now he seemed impossibly distant and high.
Seeing that, something stirred in him—a desire to climb that high place himself.
‘This is……—is this an emotion?’
One that everyone else was feeling.
‘If so, then I’ll do this properly.’
The Rank 2 he’d just received wasn’t bad.
‘After all, I decided to participate, and I gave it my all.’
Not using a weapon had worked in his favor.
Facing the first evaluation with only Barehanded Combat was an intentional strategy.
If he’d wielded a sword, the examiners would have seen his swordplay—honed only through slave combat and nothing more—as pathetic.
Even having navigated the maze without incident, they would have criticized him for lacking proper training.
Here, they set store by formally taught technique.
No matter how strong one’s power, half-learned weapon use would be rated poorly.
Showing mediocre technique would damage one’s image from the start.
‘So instead, I decided to focus on displaying potential—unlimited potential.’
And appearing bare-handed, unarmored, also had the benefit of catching the examiners off-guard. It was rather fun.
‘For now, it worked.’
If he had potential, he could always learn Swordsmanship later.
Indeed, one of the examiners had even advised him to study it.
Kusto looked up at the Rank 1 section once more.
‘I’ll climb. Up to that place.’
* * *
The entrance evaluation was in its final stages.
Over the course of the proceedings, Edith had added several more names to her notebook.
……
Notes: Operates an orphanage.
……
Just then, voices drifted down from the fifth-rank seating section.
“It’s unfair. That orphanage director has no fundamentals whatsoever, yet they’re calling him Rank 1 because of ‘potential for growth’?”
“Didn’t the judges get swayed by some sob story? His face looked pitiful enough.”
That wasn’t quite fair, but Edith felt a twinge of guilt nonetheless.
She quickly turned the notebook page.
……
Alias: Academy Valedictorian.
……
“But what’s the Academy Valedictorian doing competing in Kartamen?”
Edith stiffened.
“Doesn’t calculating trap patterns to avoid them count as cheating?”
“That one came from nothing—apparently had monstrous ambition even back at the academy.”
Edith hastily turned that page as well.
‘As expected, the ones who stand out get talked about by everyone else too.’
At least the ones being discussed now had respectable Ranks.
‘Among the ones who stand out, half are unusual in different ways.’
Mila cheerfully tried to comfort Edith.
“Your Highness, the quality of these competitors is rather poor. Having to watch such pathetic displays—please don’t lose heart.”
‘No, it’s not entirely distasteful.’
Pitiful as it might be, it wasn’t without use.
Either way, having many unusual types made it easier to structure the competition.
There must be darkness for light to shine.
“Then let us have the final participant, number 100, come forth.”
Edith had spoken without thinking, then hesitated.
The smile drained from the judges’ faces as well.
At the same moment, a curtain descended from the void.
A traitor’s face unfurled.
Some of the Rank-recipients booed.
But Dmitri, standing before the maze, let his crimson eyes glow coldly as he spoke.
“Participant number 100, Dmitri Cassell. I am from Bonum, the region famous for its snow-capped mountains.”
In that instant, Edith felt it.
‘It doesn’t show, but he’s tense. That ‘Dmitri’ is.’
Without a question from the judges, Dmitri’s evaluation began.
Dmitri’s primary weapon was the bow.
Just as he was about to shoot at a protruding mole, a thick log-made obstacle burst from the wall.
Though blunt-ended so that even a direct hit wouldn’t cause serious injury, the immediate impact was severe enough to hamper the next trial.
Edith found herself clenching her fists without realizing it.
‘Dmitri, please……!’
In that moment, Dmitri leaped upward in a graceful bound.
He landed squarely atop the log, drew his bowstring toward the incoming sphere, and released.
Then, bounding to the next log as it emerged, he struck the popping-up mole in perfect succession.
His timing as he jumped clear just before the log vanished beyond the wall was flawless.
“What is that!”
“I wish I could do that!”
Shouts erupted from the participant section.
“Anyone could manage such a trick.”
Anyone could, could they. You couldn’t.
Unable to bring herself to acknowledge Dmitri, the sarcastic voice received a silent rebuttal in Edith’s mind.
Dmitri’s arrows flew true, striking both moles and obstacles, carving a path through the maze.
When Dmitri bounded over the floor traps with ease, even those who had jeered moments before could not help but marvel.
Once his arrows were spent, he picked up the fallen ones and used them like a spear to pierce through the obstacles.
He demonstrated not only textbook technique but also the ability to adapt to unexpected circumstances.
In short—a nearly perfect trial.
When Dmitri finally climbed the stairs and stood before the judges, everyone had acknowledged that he was a “Chivalrous Knight” to rival David himself.
It was purely skill.
“Did you come out here because you wanted recognition?”
Ines asked sharply.
‘Dmitri, say no. Answer it textbook-perfect!’
Edith silently begged him.
But Dmitri, stubborn as ever,
“Yes.”
made Edith lower her head in defeat.
Dmitri glanced at Edith before continuing.
“I came out here because I want to be recognized by myself.”
Edith’s head snapped up in surprise.
The other contestants and the Valkyria murmured at the unexpected answer.
Amont spoke.
“Then you’re saying you cannot recognize yourself now? You’ve just displayed countless archery techniques passed down through a renowned archery lineage. And yet?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
Amont and Ines were hesitating over what else to ask
when Mila suddenly spoke up.
“Is it because you regret being the tyrant’s knight?”
The arena turned cold in an instant.
The other contestants could only whisper, not daring to speak aloud.
“Wow, how does she handle that mouth of truth?”
“She spoke the truth everyone knew but couldn’t bear to voice.”
Dmitri’s face grew contemplative.
Edith found herself praying again.
‘Please say you regret it! Stop being stubborn and give the textbook answer!’

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