“Is that Crow Titus?!”
“What a gallant visage!”
“It’s the mythical Dragonslayer! The hero of our era!”
How had things gotten to this point?
A week after I’d woken up, the entire capital was holding a “public commendation ceremony” or some such thing in my honor.
Both sides of the main street were lined with crowds, gathered around the long-as-fuck red carpet I was walking on. It felt like a parade!
“Sir Crow!”
“Look this way!”
“Eek! He’s so stoic! He must have so much on his mind!”
Yeah, like going home and stuffing my face full of buns.
My heart had been thrumming in my chest the whole time.
Reminder: I was a reclusive country bumpkin! Until very recently, I’d lived in Bumfuck Nowhere with no more than a couple dozen families! How the hell was I supposed to just casually stride along the heart of the empire, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of watchful eyes?
And, of course, there was another little problem.
“MILDLY EVIL SOULS EVERYWHERE! A BANQUET!” gushed the dumb, willful, murderous sword at my hip.
Well, at least Muramasa was eating his boxed dragon soul lunch in my inner world, so its hunger was quelled. Still, it wouldn’t stop twitching.
“You calm down! If you make me draw you here, you’ll cause mass panic! Quit it!”
“Oh, it’s the Dragonslayer!” a knight exclaimed. “Such fighting spirit!”
“Mm-hmm,” another chimed in. “As someone also versed in the art of war, it’s clear to me that he’s always ready to reach for the blade at his waist.”
“How has he refined his skills so much at such a young age?” a third wondered.
Wow, even these knights guarding the parade think highly of me! And they look experienced too!
They were wrong, though! I wasn’t ready to draw my sword if necessary—I was trying to keep it from getting out of control and being drawn at all!
Ugh! The pressure! All the staring! Muramasa not behaving! My stomach couldn’t take this!
“My, but you certainly are dignified, aren’t you, young Crow?” someone whispered from below, to my left.
Next to me walked Eldia von Lemuria, the white-haired loli empress dowager, clutching my arm very, very, very tightly.
But why?! Wasn’t she the emperor’s mama?! She should’ve been with her son, then!
Also, why was she leaning so close to me?!
“Eldia, should you not be at the emperor’s side?” I asked. “Won’t seeing us like this cause confusion?”
She chuckled. “Ah, it’s far too late to worry about that. Rather, I should’ve given up on him long ago. I gave him too many chances, believing he could change, and it nearly cost you your life as a result,” she said as she looked up at me apologetically.
It nearly cost me my life? I echoed in my head. Oh, yeah, the dragon thing. That was the emperor’s fault.
Indeed, because of that, my internal organs were now held together by Muramasa, and I could no longer live as I had before.
Still, she didn’t need to worry about that, I thought.
“I’ll watch over your life from now on, Crow, until the end of your days. This I swear,” the empress said.
Wait, she was going to do what? Watch over me for the rest of my days?! Could she tone down on the sense of responsibility a little?!
I was fine! Fine, I tell you! Also, it was the emperor’s fault, not his mother’s!
“Please, don’t worry about it, Eldia. It’s all on your son’s shoulders. You shouldn’t torment yourself anymore over this. Allow yourself to simply be a woman and find your happiness.”
I mean, she was a really pretty girl!
Sure, yeah, she kinda looked a little too young, but surely someone would want to marry her. Right?
She should find that someone and be happy! I thought.
“Oh, Crow,” Eldia said. “You’re far too kind. I’m already an old lady, you see.”
“Hah, it’s never too late,” I told her, like the considerate man I was.
So considerate, in fact, that I wanted to boost her confidence. I couldn’t just leave her thinking that an old lady like her couldn’t find a new husband!
“You’re quite beautiful. What man wouldn’t count himself lucky to take you as his bride?”
“Huh?!”
Aw, she blushed! She must’ve been really happy!
See, I was shy and tongue-tied, but when it came to women like Iris and Eldia, worlds apart from me, way out of my league, I could be quite smooth! Cheesy, even!
“I swear to you, my beautiful lady, that I will protect you for as long as I draw breath.” Yes, I would protect her as her knight!
“Hwah?!”
“So please, smile. I, Crow, shall be by your side always,” I said, in a voice loud enough for the surrounding crowd to hear. Yes, I would be by her side as her knight!
“Wha-huh?!”
Everyone around us was like, “Wow!”
Hah! A perfect strategy to cheer Eldia up while winning the people’s favor! Look at them, all happy with me. I mean, for now, anyway.
The second some nobody like me started talking shit about the emperor, they’d all definitely be like, “Ugh!”
And that, you see, was why I wanted to get people to like me, even if just a little bit. I could upgrade my image from “some nobody” to “some gentleman-nobody who respects women” and do some damage control that way! Hah!
“Oh, what sweet words Crow just said!” someone in the crowd remarked. “Why, if I were a maiden at heart, in a position where I had failed at raising a child after a loveless marriage and had been suffering alone, those words would’ve been super effective! My ovaries might’ve exploded!”
“Hey, isn’t that beautiful girl he’s smooth-talking Eldia, the empress dowager? She might look like that, but she’s the emperor’s mother!” someone else chimed in. “See, medically, a woman’s brain is wired to increase sexual desire with age right up until menopause, right? So by that same token, the empress, whose age kept increasing without ever hitting menopause, should have the greatest libido in all of human history! Being flirted with like that by a young man would turn her brain into a uterus!”
“He’s not even being subtle!” a third person exclaimed. “He’s straight-up establishing his dominance in front of everyone! What a chad!”
What the hell were they all going on about? “Is this a measure to increase the birthrate?” “Look at Her Majesty’s face! That’s a writ of summons if I’ve ever seen one!” “They’re about to get some international exchange going, if you catch my drift.” Like, what?
Hrm. Guess they must’ve misunderstood me.
I was just being nice to her! She was a royal, and I was a knight! There was nothing romantic to it!
Ugh. Seriously. Why did extroverts have to turn anything and everything under the sun into a love story? It made me want to inject some of my shy genes into their spines.
“Goodness, these bystanders are getting on my nerves,” I grumbled. “I’m not comfortable with the idea of them taking our relationship as something superficial.”
“Oh, yes, that’s rather a problem, isn’t it? ♡ Our relationship is certainly not so superficial anymore, is it? ♡” Eldia cooed.
She leaned further into me. Okay, but why, though?
Also, her body was burning up! She wasn’t a little red, she was bright pink! The skirt of her dress was dripping with sweat! Did she have a fever?!
She’d come with me to the ceremony in that state, just to offer me moral support?!
Wow! I could see why she was my angel Iris’s mentor! The purity in her heart was overflowing!
She got 100 Crow points! At 500, she could exchange them for my underpants! (Not that she’d want to.)
“I see,” I said. “In that case...”
The woman next to me, despite her illness, had my best interests at heart. There was only one thing I could do to curry favor with the people! I stopped right where we were, and—
“Here you go,” I said, sliding an arm under her legs and another around her back, lifting her up to my chest.
There we go! Now she doesn’t need to walk around while sick!
“E-Eeeeeep?!” she squeaked. “Y-You’re carrying me bridal-style?! In front of everyone?! Crow!”
Bridal-style? What? I’d never heard of that. Must be a city thing.
Pushing that thought aside, I kept walking with her in my arms.
“Crow! Everyone’s watching!” she exclaimed.
“Heh, there’s no need to be shy, Eldia. It’s my duty to support you whenever you’re in distress or in pain.” Yes, it was my duty as a knight!
“Ohhhhh! ♡”
The empress made a noise for some reason. The crowd squealed for some reason.
It was only natural to care for a sick girl, no? Was there really a need to kick up a fuss over it?
Anyway, this was bound to make people like me!
Off to the emperor we go! Hardy har har! “Let us go,” I said. “We have a child to scold.” Meaning the emperor, naturally.
“Yesh! ♡”