The Trash Lady Who Stole the Duke's First Night
Chapter 11
Carlos let out a sigh. Instructing Grita to give the squires the departure time, he wiped his face with dry hands and walked toward Elio.
“Did you seriously pay money to learn that? Ha! You ought to get an immediate refund!”
Toby, who had taken up a spot on one side of the hill waiting for the spar, shouted while pointing an accusing finger at Elio.
“I—I said I learned it, not that I was good at it! And the longsword isn’t even my main weapon!”
Elio shouted back at Toby, her arms trembling violently. Carlos came to a halt right before her and rubbed his temples.
More problematic than her opening salute was her posture, which resembled a newborn fawn. Could this even be considered holding a sword? The blade’s tip was pointed straight at the ground.
From her unsheathing technique alone, it was clear she had learned something, but unable to withstand the longsword’s weight, she couldn’t properly raise it.
“A d—dagger! Please give me a dagger!”
“Who spars with a dagger?”
“I—I really can do it with a dagger. With a dagger, I can…”
“Forget it. What do you expect to accomplish with that kind of strength? Even a fawn would beat you to death.”
“I really can…”
“Showing off false bravado when you don’t even know how to handle it is even more dangerous. If you can’t do it, just be honest and say you can’t. Why did you pretend you could?”
At the man’s hardened expression, thick with deep disappointment, Elio’s heart thudded furiously.
It’s not like I’m a knight. Just how good does he expect me to be? A surge of aggrieved resentment welled up inside her. If only I’d inherited the divine power, I’d have smacked you right then and there…!
“Commander, please don’t be angry with the lady. It’s not as if she graduated from the Military Academy. She’s still young, so it’s only natural she doesn’t know swordsmanship.”
Seeing Grita try to dissuade Carlos with an awkward expression only made Elio feel more humiliated, the back of her neck burning hot.
“Just something a little lighter…”
As Elio lowered the blade toward the tips of her feet, Carlos instantly snatched the sword from her hand.
“Are you trying to plunge your own blade into your foot? Where on earth is your head at…”
Carlos snapped sharply as if berating a squire, then swallowed the rest of his words. Resting one hand on his hip, he rubbed the deep crease between his brows.
Her face flushed red, Elio opened and closed her mouth, but at the sight of the man’s furious expression, she clamped her lips tight and spun around. She dashed toward the sycamore tree atop the hill.
Toby clicked his tongue as he watched Elio suddenly sprint away.
“Good grief. Learned the sword, my foot.”
“Eek!”
At the painfully familiar scream, Toby instinctively furrowed his brows.
Realizing that the object flying toward her was just a ball, Elio turned back around and began frantically rummaging through the bag sitting on the grass.
Toby murmured under his breath as he watched the scene unfold.
“…That ball… How did she dodge it?”
“Didn’t you see? She snapped her head to the side and slickly twisted her body to the right to dodge it, sir!”
Smack!
Toby violently clobbered the back of the squire’s head beside him and muttered,
“Dodging a ball thrown from behind… while sprinting…?”
“My Lady! We’re so sorry! Are you hurt?”
The squires, who had been kicking the ball with all their might in the distance, shouted out. The rustling of leaves fluttered restlessly enough to drown out their voices.
The man’s footsteps, standing behind Elio, also approached soundlessly.
Elio frantically searched through the chaotic mess in her bag before finally pulling something out.
The moment she drew the dagger, Carlos’s eyes, watching her, flashed with an eerie gleam.
Elio reflexively rolled across the ground, her blonde hair spilling out. Her breath caught at the sword tip hovering mere millimeters beside her ear, and she looked up at the man casting a massive shadow over her.
“S-Sir?”
Elio blinked rapidly, unable to comprehend what in the world was happening.
Instantly, a massive sheet of steel came crashing down before her eyes.
“Ugh.”
Skrrrk. Along Carlos’s glistening blue blade, the dagger clutched in Elio’s grip slid downward.
Both of her arms trembled violently. The metallic, coppery scent of iron pricked her nostrils.
How many eternity-like seconds had passed? The chilling sound of friction ceased.
The weight pressing down on Elio gradually eased. Pale as a sheet, she fumbled against the ground to push herself up.
Carlos raised his greatsword, his spine-chilling gaze tracking her every move.
The greatsword lowered behind his back gleamed sharply, as if it could strike at any second. Her heart pounded in an erratic, chaotic rhythm like galloping horses gone wild.
Elio thrust the trembling dagger out before her chest.
At that exact moment, he cleaved the air in two with a shrill screech.
Straight toward the center of her throat.
Thud.
A haze of dust rose from the dense, grassy field.
Carlos lowered his blade to the ground, shifting only his chilling gaze sideways. The small blade pressed against the vital point on the nape of his neck vibrated.
One-third of the carotid artery. The precise spot where blood would fountain out if pierced.
The woman—hooking her leg around his thigh and clinging to his shoulder—was aiming precisely at that spot. At a thirty-degree angle designed for the deepest penetration.
Even with her hands trembling violently and her eyes brimming with tears, she had not let go of the blade.
Carlos’s pupils narrowed into bizarre slits.
He tilted his neck toward the woman’s blade. The moment his skin touched it, the small blade—trembling on its own without even the nerve to fake a thrust—dropped from her hand.
A curved, double-edged blade barely twenty centimeters long, bending inward.
Engraved with ancient Northern Continent script from hundreds of years ago…
Whoosh. As she slid down his back, he caught her by the scruff of her neck and scooped her up into his arms.
His solid forearm supported her waist, and his large, vein-ridged hand firmly gripped her rounded shoulder.
Elio began to tremble all over, like a herbivore stripped bare before a wild beast.
Nuzzling the bridge of his nose against her slender nape, which could be snapped with a single hand, he whispered:
“…Who taught you?”
As the man’s hot breath and gravelly voice brushed against her, Elio’s wet eyelashes fluttered.
“Assassination techniques. Who taught them to you? Hmm?”
❖ ❖ ❖
The Lobitan knights had all witnessed it.
The Commander throwing the first strike at a slumped lady. And the lady clinging to the Commander’s back, holding a blade to the nape of his neck.
They had clearly beheld with their own astonished eyes a sparring match unheard of anywhere in the world. It was sheer catastrophe.
“If you ask me, that’s love…!”
Glancing at the senior knights on the inn’s first floor, who sat packed together with their heads down, focused solely on eating, the youngest knight lowered his voice even further.
“Didn’t the Commander swing his sword slowly on purpose? And considering he let the lady cling to his back like that… from where I stand, isn’t it a slightly twisted… lovers’ quarrel meant to initiate physical contact?”
The knight seated next to him let out a heavy sigh.
“No, you dimwit. Weren’t you paying attention during the ogre incident? It’s obvious the two of them really did spend the night together, and the Commander, having gotten unexpectedly hooked by the Lady of Desire, is just venting his frustration by messing with her. It’s not a lovers’ quarrel, it’s the tragic fallout of a one-night stand…”
“Won’t the lady despise the Commander now? Who would like a man who throws the first strike at them?”
“Exactly. The lady must be utterly terrified and miserable right now…”
Would the future of Schuppenhardt—the future of Lobitan—be all right like this?
The young knights’ gloomy gazes darted toward the partition wall, beyond which the Commander and the lady were dining alone.
Beyond the partition on the inn’s first floor.
With the rims of her eyes and her pupils still flushed red, Elio busily moved her fork.
Shoveling warm steak into her mouth until her cheeks were about to burst…
“……You look excited.”
“Of course I am! This is my first proper meal in two whole days!”
A bright, radiant smile bloomed around her reddened eyes.
Carlos couldn’t fathom what went on inside that tiny head of hers.
“Aren’t you going to call me a bad person this time?”
“We sparred by mutual agreement. It’s not like you were really going to stab me.”
“…I was the one who attacked first out of nowhere.”
“Aren’t attacks supposed to be surprise attacks anyway? Unnie used to attack me out of nowhere every day too! She told me a blade strikes without warning, so I had to know how to dodge no matter the situation.”
Carlos’s dark eyebrows twitched. Just how had that crazy woman taught her swordsmanship?
“If it happened every day, why were you trembling and crying?”
“Just because it happens every day doesn’t make it any less scary! I’m telling you, scary things stay scary!”
Between the relief of having finished the spar unharmed and the excitement of a feast before her, her voice kept rising in pitch.
Only after devouring all the beef did Elio open wide with an enthusiastic bite and stuff the greens into her mouth.
Chewing thoroughly to avoid indigestion, she paused and looked up at the man’s silence.
“Now you see, right? Breasts and athletic ability have nothing to do with each other. I’m just lacking a bit in muscular strength; I’m not sluggish. And having fair skin doesn’t mean my flesh is weak, either.”
Carlos raised an eyebrow, mulling over what he had just heard.
Chest workouts…
Pectoralis major…?
Pulling out a napkin, he wiped away the yuzu sauce smudged on the woman’s flushed cheek.
He quickly gave up trying to follow her train of thought.
“Can’t you even aim your fork? Why do you keep getting food all over yourself?”
“S-Sir. Seriously, please don’t just touch me so carelessly.”
Elio frowned, trying to dodge the man’s rough touch, but with an impassive face, he ended up wiping her entire cheek clean.
Glaring at the man—whose demeanor was far too blunt and almost fastidiously neat to be driven by lust—Elio whispered,
“Won’t Sir Grita be angry?”
The man raised his eyebrow even higher.
“At you?”
“At you, Sir!”
“……At me?”
The man furrowed his brows. He looked back and forth between the crumpled napkin in his hand and the pouting young woman, then let out a sigh.
“Is that some sort of etiquette for noble ladies? I know nothing of such things.”
Carlos silently crumpled and discarded the napkin in his hand, then swept back his thick black hair. The July midday sun cast long shadows across their table.
Watching his expression, Elio rolled her eyes and bit her lip. She fiddled with her earlobe as if she were about to rip it off.
“…Is Sir Grita not your lover?”
“Lover? She’s a junior from the Military Academy. Just like the rest of them.”
“You two seemed close. Closer than with the others.”
