She continued. “I was twelve when he brought me a marriage proposal from someone. It’s not unheard of for noble girls to get betrothed at that age, but that wasn’t it. He actually wanted me to get married right then to some creep in his forties!”
The more she talked about it, the angrier she got. She was really worked up about this.
“Even as a kid, I knew there was no way I could go through with it, but both he and his wife were all for it. The whole thing seemed suspicious to me, so I sneaked into their room one day to do a little digging. It turned out that he owed a massive amount of debt to that creep and was planning on using me to pay it off! And his wife figured I’d outlive the creep, so she figured she could just swoop in and take over his house through me. That old guy was a viscount, by the way.”
At only twelve years old, Kriss had racked her brain, trying to figure out a way out of marrying the old guy. In the end, she had decided to run away from home. She’d set off for the capital the following day, financing her travels with her parents’ secret stash of money.
Once she’d reached the capital, she had run to a guard station and told them why she’d run away from home. The guards there hadn’t known what to do, so they had sent word to the king’s guard. The guard hadn’t been sure how to deal with it either, so the story had gone straight to the king himself.
The king had been shocked to hear such an outrageous story and decided to personally grant her protection. He’d then sent word to both her family and the viscount and formally approved her request to sever ties with them. After that, he had considered putting her in an orphanage, but her practice test scores for the academy had been so good that she had ended up officially taking its entrance exam the following year. She’d landed a spot in the school via recommendation.
Until then, she had lived off compensation money that had been garnished from her former family since trying to force an underage girl into marriage was legally abuse. When that money had run out, she’d borrowed some from a lender in the capital. One of the knights who had been looking after her at the palace had acted as her guarantor—she’d later told me it had actually been Jean.
“Honestly, I’d completely forgotten that my ex-father even existed until recently. But when he found out I’d won the tournament and still wasn’t married, he came crawling back and offered me another marriage match. He never learns. Doesn’t he realize that since the king personally approved the disownment, I outrank him now? Even approaching me like that is practically defying a royal decree!” Kriss yelled.
Kriss ended up ranting throughout the entire carriage ride. At one point, Gramps and Jeanne pretended to doze off so they wouldn’t get dragged into it.
“Kriss, that’s enough. You are technically back on duty with the king’s guard, remember?” Cruyff said, and only then did she finally shut up.
“There’s the castle gates...”
Even though she’d said it just to get away from that man, she had declared in front of Cruyff and other people that she was returning to her duties, so as soon as we passed through the castle gates, she mentally switched gears.
The carriage passed through and pulled up to the castle’s entrance. Kriss hopped off before we got there, though. Members of the king’s guard weren’t allowed inside the castle without their uniforms except in cases of emergency, so she said she’d go get changed in her quarters first.
Cruyff led us to the room where Queen Maria was waiting. “I’ve brought Master Tenma, Your Majesty.”
The king, Prince Caesar and Princess Isabella, Prince Zane, and Archduke Ernest were all there as well.
“Queen Maria, I completed your request without issue. And I’ll take your souvenirs to the kitchen later,” I said.
“Thank you, Tenma, and welcome home,” she said.
After we exchanged greetings with everyone, I mentioned I had a report to give, so she gestured for us to take a seat. She seemed surprised when Jeanne took a seat too—as my maid, she usually stood behind me. But when I told the queen that this matter also involved Jeanne, she allowed it.
“So, what’s this report?” Queen Maria looked kind of excited as she asked, like she was expecting to hear tales of my travels or something.
“You might have heard already, but we ran into a very troublesome monster in the Elder Forest,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Yes, there was a lich. Leon said he already sent a detailed report through the guild, but I thought it would be good if I gave you a detailed, personal account. The reason I brought Jeanne with me is because she was the only member of my party who didn’t fall into the lich’s trap when we visited Kukuri Village. She can give you a clearer account than I can,” I said. “Um... Is something wrong?”
I noticed everyone’s expressions shift a bit when I said that, which made me a little uneasy. However, they all shook their heads.
Anyway, I continued and recounted the battle against the lich and what we had observed. Jeanne talked about how even though Gramps and I have high magic resistance, we had still fallen into the trap without even realizing it, and how she had been the only one unaffected. We still didn’t know why, but we eventually just guessed the trap had just happened to have been weaker where she’d been.
But, secretly, I had a different theory because of my Identify skill. Jeanne’s title was “Saint,” so I figured it must have had something to do with that. But since my Identify skill was a secret and I wasn’t exactly sure how her title affected things, I just nodded and agreed with the theory that it had just been a coincidence.
“I’ll go and drop off the souvenirs to the kitchen,” I said.
“That’s not necessary, Tenma. Just give them to Cruyff, and he’ll take care of it.”
Just as things came to a good ending point, I stood up to go deliver the wyvern meat to the kitchen, but Queen Maria stopped me. I figured it was because I was technically still a guest in the castle, so it would be inappropriate for me to do it myself. I obeyed and transferred the meat into Cruyff’s magic bag before sitting back down.
“Tenma, don’t you have something else to report to us?” Queen Maria asked.
I thought about it for a moment before replying. “I built a fortress on the border of the margravate using magic,” I said, wondering if she was talking about my having cooperated with the military. That didn’t seem to be what she was looking for. “Okay, are you talking about the spies in the margravate, then?”
“No, Margrave Haust already informed us of that matter. We’re letting him deal with it,” the king replied.
So that wasn’t it either.
“Is this about Kanon? No, wait—is it because I used Goldie’s and Silvie’s thread for Ceruna’s wedding dress?” I asked. I wondered if some noble had brought it up.
The queen shook her head, but she did react a bit when I mentioned the wedding. I guessed it had something to do with that.
“Is it because I officiated the wedding?” I asked.
“That’s it!”
I had finally guessed it, and judging from her reaction, she was quite eager to talk about it.