The quota of the Seal Chivalric Order was fixed to be eighty-nine people.
Since its establishment, it had neither increased nor decreased. Even if a vacancy appeared, since a great many people wanted to join, the vacancy would be filled immediately. The status of a Seal Chivalric Order member was that valuable to the young noblemen.
All current eighty-three official members and about twenty apprentices, who were aiming for the remaining six quotas, were participating in the mission this time. The rest were the ten or so attendants who took personal care of Shakira. It was a large group of more than one hundred people in all.
Almost all of them were putting up countless tents on the outskirts of the town and encamping at night.
In short, it was also due to that that Dimitar was shouldering the spear, which he wasn’t accustomed to using, and standing up straight near the bonfire.
The Seal Chivalric Order, which was composed of influential nobles’ children, often used military exercise as a pretext for leaving the holy city, but the fact was that it was a mere journey to go on a pleasure trip. After all, the members were merely green young men from well-to-do families who didn’t know hardships, so they absolutely wouldn’t encamp at night. The planned site for the military exercise would always be close to a large town, and all the members would stay at an inn. Rather, places that didn’t have inns at which all the members could stay wouldn’t become the proposed site for the military exercise from the beginning.
That it’d become a situation where they had to encamp at night for tonight was simply because there wasn’t an inn that had a capacity of that much in this town. In the first place, if not for the irregular mission to guard the Dominas returning home, this west Selsuru wasn’t a town that the Seal Chivalric Order would come to. In the end, only Shakira, the Crown Prince and Lucius could rest on soft beds; most of the members had to pitch camp outside the town and encamp at night.
However, for Dimitar who wasn’t very particular about the softness of the bed, whether it was the bed of an inn or a mattress of grass, either was fine. If he could be freed from Shakira who would irritatingly play with people, he even thought it was also fine to sleep outdoors without a tent.
「…This is sufficient as long as it doesn’t get colder」
Stifling a yawn, Dimitar stroked his neck.
Figures of members sitting down and dozing near the countless burning bonfires could be seen here and there. Only a very few members besides Dimitar were standing guard seriously.
In a sense, the Seal Chivalric Order, which the Crown Prince led, possessed a nature like that of a squad of imperial guards, but honestly, its quality wasn’t high. Being composed of nobles’ children meant that, roughly speaking, many behaved like a spoilt child and had no willpower. The few decent members would break free from the lower position soon, so the ones assigned such painful work, which would come up occasionally, were dropouts of good lineage who didn’t even want to make an effort to get out from there, or new apprentices like Dimitar.
Nevertheless, these lazy appearances of theirs were painful to watch. Lucius said that the Crown Prince seemed to be thinking about wanting to change the nature of such a chivalric order; at this rate, the chivalric order of imperial guards that the Crown Prince led would certainly be shameful.
It wasn’t for the sake of guaranteeing the safety of those lazy guys that Dimitar was keeping night watch seriously. Dimitar, who had made his neck produce a “koki koki” sound, decided to leave that place and patrol somewhere else.
Shakira was born in the Selsuru further east of here. It was once a small village, but with the matter of bringing a Dominas into the world as the impetus, it became a town that had a moderate population now. Whenever she returned home, Shakira frequently stopping by the neighbouring towns and villages—though it might be very troublesome for the army and chivalric order that were assigned the role of guards—might be because she wanted to spend money, even if a little, in her birthplace.
—When Dimitar shouldered his spear and walked while thinking about such a thing, he heard the scream of a girl.
「—」
Dimitar sighed softly and walked towards the voice at a quick pace.
Although one might call it a town, west Selsuru was originally a small agricultural village, and cultivated land spread out along the highway. If one left the camping ground, the surroundings were already pitch dark.
In the darkness with just the starlight, a small light was moving in an appearing and disappearing manner. That light, which had become more distant from the camping ground and gone into a cornfield prior to its harvest, was dragging along an intermittent scream that seemed to be muffled. A bottle of wine, of which its cork wasn’t pulled out yet, a lump of big cheese and also an empty basket were lying around nearby.
「…Humph」
Dimitar thrust his spear into that spot and rushed into the cornfield while rolling up the sleeves of his uniform.
「—Oi」
「!?」
Inside the forest of tall corns, four men and women looked back at Dimitar’s voice. Three of them were young men wearing uniforms identical to Dimitar’s—in other words, they were members of the Seal Chivalric Order. And then, the other person was a girl of approximately the same age as Dimitar. Judging from her clothing, she was most likely a girl from this town.
However, the girl’s mouth was covered by the young men, and her cheeks were wet with tears; the clothes she was wearing had been torn here and there with all their strength.
「Ma, it’s obvious at a glance」
Dimitar who had spat out in a whisper, with the force of rushing in, drove a kick into the solar plexus of the man who was covering the girl’s mouth.
「Gubuo—」
The young man who was blown off flashily clutched his stomach and groaned.
「You—!?」
「Richter—」
He also drove his fist into the remaining two young men in succession and tore them off from the girl for the time being. The lantern the young men were holding dropped to the ground, and the surroundings became dark in one breath, but Dimitar’s eyes, which had got used to the darkness, caught the young men’s surprised expressions clearly.
「Your reactions are so bad」
Dimitar protected the girl behind him and looked down at the three people lying down on the ground. Although he didn’t know their names, the three people were all official members, so they were equivalent to seniors to Dimitar.
When Dimitar had looked back over his shoulder at the extremely frightened girl and put his index finger up in front of his lips, telling her to 「be quiet」 with the gesture, he turned round towards the three people again.
「…With all due respect, what on earth are you trying to do on the land related to Babel-geika, Seniors?」
Even though Dimitar asked so, the three people didn’t answer. One person continued to leak out groans while clutching his stomach since just now. Although the remaining two people’s noses were crushed and they had fallen on their bottoms, it didn’t seem that they couldn’t talk. The gazes they were directing at Dimitar were overflowing with intense animosity.
Immediately afterwards, it became a realistic action and erupted.
「This…! Stupid brat!」
The young man whose half of the face was coloured deep red by the nosebleed jumped to his feet and tried to pull out the sword he was carrying on his waist.
「…Do you not understand the meaning of me purposely dealing with you barehanded? You’re so stupid」
Extending his right leg lightly, Dimitar pressed the hilt of the other party’s sword down with the sole of his boot. Easily preventing the other party from drawing his sword with that, he casually hit the startled young man, whose movement had stopped, hard on the side of the face.
「Bogu…—gya」
Just when the other party staggered, leaning to the right, he did a follow-up attack with a hook from the opposite side like a counter. With a muttered groan, the young man made one full turn and collapsed.
Without a moment’s delay, Dimitar stared at the other young man.
「Doraaa!」
From Dimitar’s point of view, the movement of the young man who had somehow drawn his sword and was about to cut him down was really clumsy, and perhaps his nose was clogged up by the bleeding, even his shout of fighting spirit sounded strange in some way; Dimitar had more trouble suppressing his laughter than dodging it.
「…You should have run away first」
Dimitar easily dodged the thrust, which the other party didn’t put his back into, lightly drove his left and right fists into the young man’s face and lightly kicked him in the groin from below as the finishing.
「Nga—!?」
Dimitar kicked the young man, who had clutched his groin and sunk down to the ground, hard in the nape of the neck, making him faint completely, took a deep breath greatly and looked around his surroundings.
Among the three ruffians, one person continued to squirm the whole time while vomiting the contents of his stomach. However, as for the degree of his injury, one could say that his was the lightest. The nose of another person was completely broken, and the last person lost a few molars, and they were all suffering from concussion. There was no doubt that their faces would most likely swell up horribly tomorrow morning.
Nevertheless, even though things might appear this way, Dimitar thought this should still be light as punishment for the dishonourable attempted rape that the people of the chivalric order of imperial guards had perpetrated.
「…Though a person of low standing like me saying this is that, we’ve done something inexcusable」
Dimitar looked back at the trembling girl, who was squatting down on that spot, and gently held out his hand to her.
「N, no—」
「Are you from this village?」
「Yes」
「I’ll take you home」
「T, thank you very much. B, but—」
The girl, who had borrowed Dimitar’s hand and stood up, looked at the three young men and faltered. It seemed that the trouble she was involved in had somehow become a serious matter, and she might be feeling uneasy in another sense.
「You don’t need to worry」
Dimitar urged the girl and started to walk.
「—If you don’t feel satisfied even though things may appear this way, I don’t mind if you tell the leader of the chivalric order to that effect. He’ll hand down appropriate punishment to those three people」
「No, I’m not dissatisfied…」
The girl, who had finally regained her composure, showed a small but awkward smile and shook her head.
Dimitar came back to the place where he had stuck his spear upright and picked up the wine and cheese that were lying around.
「I’m really sorry. You intended to deliver food and drink to us, right?」
「Y, yes… my father said to at least deliver sake to the members who couldn’t stay at the inn—」
「Please tell your chichi-ue that we accepted them with thanks」
Brushing the dirt off lightly and biting into the cheese, Dimitar smiled.
The quota of the Seal Chivalric Order was fixed to be eighty-nine people.
Since its establishment, it had neither increased nor decreased. Even if a vacancy appeared, since a great many people wanted to join, the vacancy would be filled immediately. The status of a Seal Chivalric Order member was that valuable to the young noblemen.
All current eighty-three official members and about twenty apprentices, who were aiming for the remaining six quotas, were participating in the mission this time. The rest were the ten or so attendants who took personal care of Shakira. It was a large group of more than one hundred people in all.
Almost all of them were putting up countless tents on the outskirts of the town and encamping at night.
In short, it was also due to that that Dimitar was shouldering the spear, which he wasn’t accustomed to using, and standing up straight near the bonfire.
The Seal Chivalric Order, which was composed of influential nobles’ children, often used military exercise as a pretext for leaving the holy city, but the fact was that it was a mere journey to go on a pleasure trip. After all, the members were merely green young men from well-to-do families who didn’t know hardships, so they absolutely wouldn’t encamp at night. The planned site for the military exercise would always be close to a large town, and all the members would stay at an inn. Rather, places that didn’t have inns at which all the members could stay wouldn’t become the proposed site for the military exercise from the beginning.
That it’d become a situation where they had to encamp at night for tonight was simply because there wasn’t an inn that had a capacity of that much in this town. In the first place, if not for the irregular mission to guard the Dominas returning home, this west Selsuru wasn’t a town that the Seal Chivalric Order would come to. In the end, only Shakira, the Crown Prince and Lucius could rest on soft beds; most of the members had to pitch camp outside the town and encamp at night.
However, for Dimitar who wasn’t very particular about the softness of the bed, whether it was the bed of an inn or a mattress of grass, either was fine. If he could be freed from Shakira who would irritatingly play with people, he even thought it was also fine to sleep outdoors without a tent.
「…This is sufficient as long as it doesn’t get colder」
Stifling a yawn, Dimitar stroked his neck.
Figures of members sitting down and dozing near the countless burning bonfires could be seen here and there. Only a very few members besides Dimitar were standing guard seriously.
In a sense, the Seal Chivalric Order, which the Crown Prince led, possessed a nature like that of a squad of imperial guards, but honestly, its quality wasn’t high. Being composed of nobles’ children meant that, roughly speaking, many behaved like a spoilt child and had no willpower. The few decent members would break free from the lower position soon, so the ones assigned such painful work, which would come up occasionally, were dropouts of good lineage who didn’t even want to make an effort to get out from there, or new apprentices like Dimitar.
Nevertheless, these lazy appearances of theirs were painful to watch. Lucius said that the Crown Prince seemed to be thinking about wanting to change the nature of such a chivalric order; at this rate, the chivalric order of imperial guards that the Crown Prince led would certainly be shameful.
It wasn’t for the sake of guaranteeing the safety of those lazy guys that Dimitar was keeping night watch seriously. Dimitar, who had made his neck produce a “koki koki” sound, decided to leave that place and patrol somewhere else.
Shakira was born in the Selsuru further east of here. It was once a small village, but with the matter of bringing a Dominas into the world as the impetus, it became a town that had a moderate population now. Whenever she returned home, Shakira frequently stopping by the neighbouring towns and villages—though it might be very troublesome for the army and chivalric order that were assigned the role of guards—might be because she wanted to spend money, even if a little, in her birthplace.
—When Dimitar shouldered his spear and walked while thinking about such a thing, he heard the scream of a girl.
「—」
Dimitar sighed softly and walked towards the voice at a quick pace.
Although one might call it a town, west Selsuru was originally a small agricultural village, and cultivated land spread out along the highway. If one left the camping ground, the surroundings were already pitch dark.
In the darkness with just the starlight, a small light was moving in an appearing and disappearing manner. That light, which had become more distant from the camping ground and gone into a cornfield prior to its harvest, was dragging along an intermittent scream that seemed to be muffled. A bottle of wine, of which its cork wasn’t pulled out yet, a lump of big cheese and also an empty basket were lying around nearby.
「…Humph」
Dimitar thrust his spear into that spot and rushed into the cornfield while rolling up the sleeves of his uniform.
「—Oi」
「!?」
Inside the forest of tall corns, four men and women looked back at Dimitar’s voice. Three of them were young men wearing uniforms identical to Dimitar’s—in other words, they were members of the Seal Chivalric Order. And then, the other person was a girl of approximately the same age as Dimitar. Judging from her clothing, she was most likely a girl from this town.
However, the girl’s mouth was covered by the young men, and her cheeks were wet with tears; the clothes she was wearing had been torn here and there with all their strength.
「Ma, it’s obvious at a glance」
Dimitar who had spat out in a whisper, with the force of rushing in, drove a kick into the solar plexus of the man who was covering the girl’s mouth.
「Gubuo—」
The young man who was blown off flashily clutched his stomach and groaned.
「You—!?」
「Richter—」
He also drove his fist into the remaining two young men in succession and tore them off from the girl for the time being. The lantern the young men were holding dropped to the ground, and the surroundings became dark in one breath, but Dimitar’s eyes, which had got used to the darkness, caught the young men’s surprised expressions clearly.
「Your reactions are so bad」
Dimitar protected the girl behind him and looked down at the three people lying down on the ground. Although he didn’t know their names, the three people were all official members, so they were equivalent to seniors to Dimitar.
When Dimitar had looked back over his shoulder at the extremely frightened girl and put his index finger up in front of his lips, telling her to 「be quiet」 with the gesture, he turned round towards the three people again.
「…With all due respect, what on earth are you trying to do on the land related to Babel-geika, Seniors?」
Even though Dimitar asked so, the three people didn’t answer. One person continued to leak out groans while clutching his stomach since just now. Although the remaining two people’s noses were crushed and they had fallen on their bottoms, it didn’t seem that they couldn’t talk. The gazes they were directing at Dimitar were overflowing with intense animosity.
Immediately afterwards, it became a realistic action and erupted.
「This…! Stupid brat!」
The young man whose half of the face was coloured deep red by the nosebleed jumped to his feet and tried to pull out the sword he was carrying on his waist.
「…Do you not understand the meaning of me purposely dealing with you barehanded? You’re so stupid」
Extending his right leg lightly, Dimitar pressed the hilt of the other party’s sword down with the sole of his boot. Easily preventing the other party from drawing his sword with that, he casually hit the startled young man, whose movement had stopped, hard on the side of the face.
「Bogu…—gya」
Just when the other party staggered, leaning to the right, he did a follow-up attack with a hook from the opposite side like a counter. With a muttered groan, the young man made one full turn and collapsed.
Without a moment’s delay, Dimitar stared at the other young man.
「Doraaa!」
From Dimitar’s point of view, the movement of the young man who had somehow drawn his sword and was about to cut him down was really clumsy, and perhaps his nose was clogged up by the bleeding, even his shout of fighting spirit sounded strange in some way; Dimitar had more trouble suppressing his laughter than dodging it.
「…You should have run away first」
Dimitar easily dodged the thrust, which the other party didn’t put his back into, lightly drove his left and right fists into the young man’s face and lightly kicked him in the groin from below as the finishing.
「Nga—!?」
Dimitar kicked the young man, who had clutched his groin and sunk down to the ground, hard in the nape of the neck, making him faint completely, took a deep breath greatly and looked around his surroundings.
Among the three ruffians, one person continued to squirm the whole time while vomiting the contents of his stomach. However, as for the degree of his injury, one could say that his was the lightest. The nose of another person was completely broken, and the last person lost a few molars, and they were all suffering from concussion. There was no doubt that their faces would most likely swell up horribly tomorrow morning.
Nevertheless, even though things might appear this way, Dimitar thought this should still be light as punishment for the dishonourable attempted rape that the people of the chivalric order of imperial guards had perpetrated.
「…Though a person of low standing like me saying this is that, we’ve done something inexcusable」
Dimitar looked back at the trembling girl, who was squatting down on that spot, and gently held out his hand to her.
「N, no—」
「Are you from this village?」
「Yes」
「I’ll take you home」
「T, thank you very much. B, but—」
The girl, who had borrowed Dimitar’s hand and stood up, looked at the three young men and faltered. It seemed that the trouble she was involved in had somehow become a serious matter, and she might be feeling uneasy in another sense.
「You don’t need to worry」
Dimitar urged the girl and started to walk.
「—If you don’t feel satisfied even though things may appear this way, I don’t mind if you tell the leader of the chivalric order to that effect. He’ll hand down appropriate punishment to those three people」
「No, I’m not dissatisfied…」
The girl, who had finally regained her composure, showed a small but awkward smile and shook her head.
Dimitar came back to the place where he had stuck his spear upright and picked up the wine and cheese that were lying around.
「I’m really sorry. You intended to deliver food and drink to us, right?」
「Y, yes… my father said to at least deliver sake to the members who couldn’t stay at the inn—」
「Please tell your chichi-ue that we accepted them with thanks」
Brushing the dirt off lightly and biting into the cheese, Dimitar smiled.
