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Chapter 4
The next day, I was out on the training grounds, feeling even more exhausted because I hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and was doing around my two-thousandth horizontal slash when Sir Hugo called me.
“Chloe Evergreen!”
After a week, I had become fairly accustomed to being called Chloe Evergreen, so I answered immediately.
“Yes! I’m here!”
I instinctively raised my right hand high as I answered, but then hurriedly put down my wooden sword and raised only my hand.
Judging by the unusual tone of the voice calling me—
Sir Hugo approached me with an expression that looked as though he might have a nightmare if I appeared in his dreams.
Then he smacked me hard across the back.
“Ow!”
His palm was so painful that tears welled up in my eyes.
“W-why did you do that?!”
I shouted indignantly.
“What did you just say ‘why’ for?”
Sir Hugo looked around before gesturing for me to come outside.
I silently followed him, and sure enough—
“Hey, parachute recruit. I thought you were finally starting to get your head on straight. Do you know how embarrassed I was in front of Sir Catherine?”
Sir Catherine apparently wasn’t the type to put off what needed to be done.
Judging by the fact that Sir Hugo already knew about the trouble I had caused.
“If you want to pick fights whenever you feel like it, why didn’t you become a mercenary?!”
I silently listened to Sir Hugo’s scolding, resolving never again to fall for provocation so easily.
After venting his anger for quite some time, Sir Hugo seemed to have calmed down a little. He sighed and spoke.
“What are you planning to do, kid? The captain knows about it too.”
I was secretly relieved, thinking that perhaps things were finally over, but I was startled when he said Elias knew as well.
“Elias, the captain knows too?”
“Yeah. Sir Catherine was only planning to tell the senior knights……”
I could guess the omitted part.
Elias must have happened to hear about it while passing by.
“So, the captain wants you to come see him.”
After Sir Hugo, now it was Elias.
“Yes.”
I answered with a miserable expression.
There were two main images of Elias in my mind.
‘A friend of my brother who looks cold enough to hate children, but is surprisingly kind and gentle—and an incredibly strict stickler for rules.’
Since I was born, I had hardly ever been scolded by anyone.
‘Elias was seriously prickly yesterday.’
Hoping that he had simply been in a bad mood that day, I headed toward the captain’s office with every nerve in my body tense.
I walked along creakily, wishing with all my heart that I would never reach the captain’s office, but unfortunately, the training grounds and the captain’s office were quite close to each other.
After knocking, I opened the door when I heard him tell me to come in.
The moment I entered, my eyes met Elias’s.
He must have been waiting for me the entire time.
“Sir Chloe Evergreen.”
Elias called my name with a troubled frown.
He had immediately recognized Chloe Evergreen, whom he had only seen once yesterday.
Of course, that wasn’t a good thing for me.
“Yes, Captain.”
I politely lowered my eyes.
After what had happened yesterday, I had resolved to take my coming-of-age ceremony seriously, if only for the sake of my family.
From that moment on, I was nothing but the trainee knight Chloe Evergreen.
Seeing me standing there in an attitude of profound remorse, Elias sighed.
“What on earth were you thinking……”
His subordinate had caused trouble the moment he became captain. Of course his head must have been hurting.
“Sir Chloe, are you a mercenary?”
Apparently, that line was standard among knight order captains.
I secretly pouted my lips at Elias and firmly denied it.
“No, sir!”
If I had been a mercenary, at least I could have spent a year simply refusing missions.
Perhaps because he didn’t sense enough remorse from me, Elias lectured me with a stern expression.
“Then do you think military discipline is a joke?”
Unlike moments ago, when I could still let my mind wander, his voice was as cold as a raging snowstorm.
“No, sir!”
I answered with perfect discipline.
“I was thoughtless.”
Only after I put on my most convincing remorseful expression did the chill in Elias’s voice finally ease somewhat.
“It’s good that you understand that. Since this has reached my ears, I assume you’re prepared for the consequences?”
I’m not.
But there was only one answer.
“……Yes. I am.”
Only then did Elias’s gaze leave me.
I secretly let out a sigh of relief.
Elias furrowed his brow, apparently considering an appropriate punishment.
I quietly watched his expression.
‘All this because I got into one fight.’
After learning that causing trouble only took a moment while cleaning it up took much longer, I sighed inwardly again.
Now it was time for my punishment.
After thinking for a moment, Elias finally spoke.
“For the next month, come to the captain’s office after evening training and assist with miscellaneous tasks.”
My free time would be drastically reduced, but this was much lighter than the punishment I had expected.
“Yes, understood, Captain!”
I immediately answered before he could change his mind, prompting Elias to lower his voice and warn me.
“This is the only time I’ll let this go. If you cause trouble again, I will dismiss you using my authority as captain of the knight order.”
His tone was almost threatening, but I wasn’t particularly frightened.
His words were harsh, but from Elias’s expression as he had considered an appropriate punishment just moments ago, I had caught a glimpse of the Elias from my childhood—the boy who had indulged me in playing house and pretended to drink milk from tiny toy teacups.
‘And won’t this year be over before I have time to cause any more trouble?’
I also had quite a lot of faith in myself.
“Yep, understood!”
I answered brightly, completely forgetting that I had been pretending to be intimidated only moments ago.
The one-month punishment Elias had mentioned started that very day.
After finishing my training, I visited the captain’s office again.
Elias was reading documents necessary for the handover of his duties.
With his platinum-blond hair, blue eyes, and neat facial features, he looked like he could easily pass for the young head of some prestigious noble family.
I waited quietly so as not to interrupt Elias’s concentration.
A few seconds later, Elias noticed my presence, acknowledged me, and immediately gave me an instruction.
“Organize the documents on that desk.”
The desk Elias pointed to was normally used by the captain’s adjutant.
But right now, it was completely empty.
As I headed toward the desk as instructed, an ominous thought suddenly occurred to me, so I cautiously asked,
“Captain, when will your adjutant start coming to the knight order?”
But Elias didn’t answer.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t heard me.
The slight movement of his lips was a habit he had whenever he didn’t have a suitable answer.
‘Don’t tell me…… there’s no adjutant?’
Nah, that couldn’t be it.
“You do have someone in mind for the position of adjutant, right? The transfer procedure from their original post just hasn’t been completed yet?”
I stared at him persistently, as though urging him to answer, and Elias replied reluctantly.
“Not particularly……”
It didn’t make sense.
And yet, because it was Elias, somehow it did.
Normally, a knight captain would appoint someone they had known before their promotion as their adjutant.
But in Elias’s case, he had been promoted so quickly that appointing someone he already knew from the knight order would have been awkward.
This was a place with a strict hierarchy, so he couldn’t exactly appoint knights who were senior to him as his adjutant.
But if he chose someone around his own age, that person would also have to have received an absurdly rapid promotion.
‘But that doesn’t mean you can just not have an adjutant.’
Elias, who hated unnecessary commotion, might have decided that rather than causing trouble, he would simply handle everything himself for the time being.
‘There’s no way he can manage it alone.’
My older sister and brother each had more than ten aides.
And they were still constantly busy.
No matter how light the administrative workload of a knight order might be, it had to be difficult without an adjutant.
‘He’s making things difficult for himself.’
For a moment, I looked at Elias with an expression of such pity that it was almost insulting.
Elias’s brow furrowed.
‘Oops. I’m not the Princess anymore, am I?’
I quickly corrected my disrespectful gaze and smiled.
But Elias’s frown showed no sign of disappearing.
‘That smile always worked on my parents, sister, and brother. Is it because my face is different now?’
I was feeling awkward when, fortunately, Elias didn’t seem offended.
“I intend to take my time finding the right person.”
Elias explained with an expression that suggested he himself was wondering why he was telling me all this.
‘I want to tell him that he won’t have the luxury of taking his time.’
But right now, I was merely Chloe Evergreen.
“Yes!”
‘Don’t forget.’
Instead of giving Elias advice, I decided to help with the mountain of work that was bound to pile up.
The documents on the desk appeared to be handover documents that Elias had already read.
I began organizing the huge stack of papers.
