“Yes, that’s correct! In Fackt’s case, it was a public relations initiative, but this time, the knight brigade is the only target. The king was hesitant to permit anything that would expose Princess Serafina to the public eye.”
“That was an uncommonly wise decision on his part,” Sirius muttered quietly as he eyed me still straining to grab the pen. He reached over and picked me up again, lifting me from the chair.
“Since you’ll be doing my work today, let’s call off the administrative tasks and head outside. Being cooped up in an office all day would be boring, don’t you think?”
“Sure, okay!” I readily agreed. I had put in all that effort but hadn’t even managed to grab a single pen, so I probably wasn’t cut out for desk work. I’m sure I’ll do a much better job working outside. With that in mind, I headed to the training grounds with Sirius and the other knights by my side.
There were a lot of knights mulling around the training grounds. As soon as they noticed me with Sirius, they stopped whatever training they were doing and looked our way. But when they caught sight of the sash I was wearing, they cautiously moved away from us. I was really impressed by how far they managed to get from us without ever interrupting their training. They must’ve been really afraid of Vice-Commander Serafina (Sirius) to try and distance themselves so much.
I broke out into a grin. I couldn’t let them run away anymore, so I trotted after the escaping knights and called out, “I’m happy to spar with you! Does anyone want to go toe to toe with the vice-commander?”
You could almost hear a pin drop in the silence that flooded the entire training grounds.
Maybe they hadn’t heard me? Not a single one of them stopped their training to take up my offer. Well, that was strange.
Sirius called out and issued a similar challenge, which got all the knights to immediately line up in front of him. I tilted my head to the side in confusion. But before I could figure out what was going on, Sirius heavily stomped on the ground. This seemed to startle the knights, because they flinched for a moment before starting to walk toward me with resigned expressions.
“…That’s an adorable knight uniform you’re wearing, Princess. You really did become Sirius, just as you said. You’re certainly capable of taking matters into your own hands! We were hoping it would turn out to be a joke, but it seems things never go the way you want them to.”
“Ha…ha ha. I used to wish the vice-commander was kinder, but now that I see our gentle princess in his place, I realize how shallow that wish was.”
Scheat and Fackt slumped disappointedly while Miaplacidus aimed to dial back some of what they’d said.
“There’s no doubt that if the mini vice-commander gets hurt, the wrath of the real vice-commander will be one hundred times that. Instead of using the sword you’ve brought, how about I gather some wooden sticks from over there for us to play with?”
“You don’t have an eye for detail, do you, Miaplacidus? Ta-daaa! This isn’t a real sword—it’s candy!”
I drew the candy sword from its scabbard and immediately started licking it, causing Miaplacidus to gape in horror.
Silly Miaplacidus, I giggled to myself. He’s still so naive and unaware that the world is full of surprises!
Seeing as Miaplacidus seemed incapable of speech, Mirach spoke up in his place. “I’m glad to see you so content, Mini Vice-Commander. But you wouldn’t want to get that important candy of yours dirty, now would you? For now, why don’t you use this instead?” He reached out and offered me a long piece of paper that was rolled up like a stick.
“Way to go, Mirach! You really come through when it counts!”
“Now the princess won’t get hurt!”
I glowered at the knights as they cheered.
“Even if I’m only Sirius for a day, I’m still plenty strong! You shouldn’t be worried about hurting me, you should be worried about me hurting you!” I declared as I began swatting at the knights with my rolled-up piece of paper.
After working up a good sweat, I remembered the actual purpose of today and decided to praise the knights in Sirius’s place.
“That was so much fun. Ah, I mean, you’re all incredibly strong! I wouldn’t expect any less from the royal knights!”
“Thank you very much!” the knights all said with a smile, which in turn caused my face to light up with a grin.
“Even though I’m praising you instead of the real Sirius, the truth is, he thinks you’re all wonderful knights too! Isn’t that right?” I said, turning to Sirius for confirmation.
“If I didn’t, you wouldn’t have been assigned to the Royal Red Shield,” he reluctantly said with a small shrug.
“Vice-Commander Sirius!!” all the knights cried out.
Since Sirius wasn’t the type to offer much praise, the knights were almost moved to tears when he said that, which made me happy. Even if it was just a little, it seemed that the knights were able to truly understand just how much Sirius relied on them.
After training, we went around to inspect the castle. Apparently, it was an important task to check for areas intruders could easily sneak in and places in the castle that might be dangerous for the residents.
“Oh! I’ve never seen a butterfly like that before!”
“The sunlight in this spot is perfect! I bet taking a nap here would feel like heaven!”
“Whoa! This place has so many suits of armor! I can’t think of a better spot to play hide-and-seek!”
The inspection proved to be very useful because I discovered so many new things about the castle grounds.
We also inspected the food at the canteen.
“Serafina, over here you’ll find the knight’s canteen.”
“Hmm, I’ve always wanted to try the food there.”
My goal in becoming ‘Sirius for a day’ was to focus as much attention on him as possible so I could reaffirm to everyone just how amazing he was. With that in mind, visiting the knight’s personal canteen, where I knew many of them would be, was a must.
When Sirius and I stepped inside, the raucous buzz we’d been hearing lowered to a hush. With all eyes on us, I couldn’t help but grin widely and proclaim, “We’ve come to eat at the canteen!”
Fackt and Scheat were standing near the entrance, apparently having just finished loading their trays with food, which they quickly offered to us.
“We’ve just prepared meals for the two of you!”
“Would you like to take a seat over here?”
Well, that was quite a smooth move, wasn’t it? I was pretty sure they’d gotten those trays for themselves. Still, the meat they’d selected looked delicious, so I was happy to accept it.
“Our apologies, but we’ll be eating at a separate table,” Fackt and Scheat tried to be considerate, but at the urging of the other knights, they ended up sitting with us.
“Damn them! I won’t forget this!”
“Who do they think they are, offering us up as human sacrifices?!”
The two of them were muttering about something or other, but I decided not to pay them much mind. Besides, enjoying the delicious food was the most important task at hand.
Today’s meat offering wasn’t a dish you ate with a fork and knife, but one where you held the bone with your hands. I thought that was pretty interesting, but when I tried it, the meat wouldn’t fit in my mouth properly, and my cheeks ended up sticky and covered in sauce.
“Hmm?”
But while I was still considering how to tackle this meal, Sirius cut the meat into small pieces and plopped one in my mouth. Then, he wiped my messy cheeks with a napkin.
All the knights were watching us with startled expressions, so I took it as a sign to loudly emphasize just how kind Sirius was being.
“Thanks, Sirius! You’re being super, super, super nice, just like you always are!!”
While it’s true that my goal was for everyone to see how amazing Sirius was, it wouldn’t hurt to have them know that he was a kind soul as well.
Despite a hush falling over the canteen when we first walked in, a smattering of conversations was starting up again, and fewer and fewer knights were glancing in Sirius’s direction. Perhaps they’d already gotten the message that Sirius was nice? I couldn’t help but feel a rush of happiness if that was the case.