Chapter 68: CH 66

After bidding farewell to Gazef, Climb wiped off his sweat with a damp towel and headed to a place that was drastically different from the training hall of just now.

The sound of hustle and bustle could be heard from a distance.

It was filled with many long tables and benches, packed with people chatting happily away. A delicious fragrance filled the warm air of the room.

This was the dining hall.

After entering the room, Climb passed through the hubbub of humanity and joined the back of the line.

Much like the people in front of him, Climb had several stacked containers in front of him. A wooden tray, on which stood a wooden stew bowl. Along with a wooden cup.

He collected his meal in the appropriate order.

A large steamed potato and two hard black pieces of bread, and a white stew.

The dishes smelled fragrant on his tray. Climb looked around the dining hall as the smell prickled at his gut.

The noisy soldiers were currently eating. They sat with their friends and as they ate, they talked about what they would do on their next leave, the food, their families, and other light topics. This was standard fare.

Climb spotted an empty seat and wound through the din as he headed for it.

He stepped over the bench and took a seat. There were soldiers on either side of him, chatting heartily with their friends. As Climb sat down, they turned to look at him, but then they immediately lost interest and turned their eyes elsewhere.

An onlooker might think this was quite creepy.

It was as though Climb sat in the eye of the storm.

Though there was cheery conversation all around him, nobody sought out Climb to speak to him. While it was true that nobody would chat up a stranger, they were all soldiers, serving in the same location, and they might need to depend on each other in times of mortal danger. From that point of view, their attitude was quite strange.

It was as though Climb did not exist to them. On his part, Climb did not plan to speak to anyone else, because he clearly understood his position.

The guards in Ro-Lante Keep were not mere soldiers.

The guards of the Kingdom were normally taken from the commoners. However having simple commoners protect the places near royalty and important information was not a good choice.

So the guards protecting Ro-Lante Castle had the recommendations of nobles, and so could be chosen from among the commoners.

If the guard did anything here, the noble who made the recommendation would take responsibility; this was to discourage those from doing harm.

However, this practice led to a certain phenomenon.

That was “factionalization”.

Factionalization would occur naturally when multiple people were here, so of course there would be among the guards. One did not have to think about it to understand it.

All the sponsoring nobles belonged to one faction or another. The troops they recommended would naturally join their masters’ factions. Since anybody who opposed the nobles had no chance of being picked at all, it was hardly a leap to say that all the soldiers here were affiliated with one faction or another.

While it was true that the sponsoring nobles might not belong to a faction, under the current circumstances, the Kingdom was split into the Noble and the Royal Faction. There was no noble who was skilled enough to float between these two sides like a bat.

And so as mentioned earlier, there are almost no exceptions. Yes—Almost.

—There is an existence beyond such factions.

That individual was Climb.

If one thought of Climb’s position, it might be natural to think that he would be part of the Royal Faction. However an act where a guard, no a personal guard of Princess Renner were to be inducted was not allowed.

An existence without strong influence but close to the Crown. In addition without a known background, had eyes at raised by nobles.

An existence that could not be taken into the Royal Faction, but if left alone would still work with them. The opposing Noble Faction could take him in, but it had huge risks associated with it.

From the Royal Faction’s perspective, there might be a strange feeling.

However, even though it was a faction, it was a gathering of countless nobles. So of course not all had the same idea. A faction was a gathering of those who had the same thoughts and merits. So if the Royal Faction had people who refused to accept Climb—A commoner with an unknown background—There would be people in the Noble Faction who would want to take him in.

They could say to work together, but would there be idiots who would go against their faction for the sake of Climb?

So they did not want their opponents to have him, and they themselves did not want them. Climb had such an evaluation from both sides.

Climb ignored their reaction and started eating.

He split the steamed potato in two with a knife. The broken parts had steam rise out from them, and Climb pierced it with a fork and brought it to his mouth.

“Ffffuff, Fffffuff.”

It was just hot enough to be good. While cooling in his mouth, Climb chewed the potato. The added salt might have been too much for some, to Climb who had just sweated a lot, it was perfect.

Filling the spoon with dirty white stew, he picked it up together with the bowl. The thin meat, carrots and cabbage were delicious and was quickly finished. However it was normal for a guard to not drink all the soup.

Breaking the break, he dabbed it in the soup. The hard bread was now softened enough to eat.

Climb placed the softened bread in his mouth as if swallowing it.

His meal ended within 10 minutes.

Since the potato was large, he felt quite filled.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Just as he was about to stand up, he bumped into a passing soldier.

Climb’s face was impassive as an elbow struck the place where he had been hurt while sparring with Gazef, but he froze from the pain.

The soldier who had hit him said nothing, just carried on. The soldiers around him kept silent too.

Several people furrowed their brows as they saw this, but nobody said anything.

The pain passed, Climb heaved a sigh as he left holding his utensils.

His face had no expression on it. It was as if he thought nothing of the earlier surprise. No, he was probably not thinking much about it.

This much was par for the course. He was simply glad that there was no hot stew in the bowl at that time.

Nearly being tripped by an extended foot. People running into him under the pretense of an accident.

—So what?

Climb continued forward. They could not do anything more to him — not in a public place like the dining hall.

Climb kept his chin up throughout. His eyes were fixed forward and he would not waver.

If he showed any sign of unseemly behavior, it would cause problems for his mistress Renner. After all, every move Climb made reflected directly on the reputation of Renner, the woman to whom he owed his loyalty.

Dressed in his white full plate armor, his sword by his side, a fully-equipped Climb stepped into the Valencia Palace.

The Valencia Palace was roughly divided into three wings, and he had just entered one of them. This was the largest of the three, where the Royal Family resided.

Different from where Climb was earlier, the brightly designed palace was reflected in Climb’s eyes.

Inside the wide and clean hallways were the figures of the knights in full plate mail. They were the knights of the Palace guard.

The Knights of the Empire were commoners recruited and trained into professional soldiers. In comparison the knights of the kingdom were those that had noble ranks, and had responsibilities as guards. So most had the responsibility for being the leader of the guards.

Incidentally, Gazef’s position as Warrior-Captain was because many people opposed his knighthood, and so the King created a new appointment for him. Since then, the group of elite soldiers that he had picked and trained personally were known as Warriors.

Climb nodded slightly to them. Almost all of them returned the gesture.  Only a few of them did so reluctantly; the vast majority were sincere in their courtesy.

Climb walked along a hallway that was cleaned to a level that one would think that trash nor dust existed. The white full plate rang like a bell with his footsteps, this was as mithril was mixed in during its construction.

He passed by the maids working there, and they cringed every time they saw Climb’s face.

It was not because there was a person making loud sounds within the quiet palace. This was as their gaze had the feeling of having something dirty enter their sights.

Despite having such an attitude directed at by the maids, Climb’s expression did not change.

Unlike regular maids, the maidservants of the Royal Palace were all noblewomen who had come here to raise their own standing. Thus, to some extent, they were of higher status than Climb.

So Climb believed that it was natural for the maids to have that attitude. However when in Renner’s presence, they would still bow to Climb, so when Renner was not around, he believed that it should be fine for them to show some unhappiness.

Therefore Climb completely did not notice that the maids believed him to be snubbing them and becoming even more angry causing a vicious cycle to occur.

Well if Climb could notice, he would have found a better method to handle it.

Rather than focused, Climb could be called simple-minded instead. So if a small handful of the maids performed a perfunctory bow to him, it would be troubling him instead.

This was as to a person of low birth like Climb, returning the greeting to a noble lady would cause him to panic.

Climb position was extremely difficult.

Originally Climb could not work for Renner. This was due to his standing. It was normal that for a person of low birth to find it impossible to be guarding royalty. Those guarding royalty would be at least those with a noble title.

However, the strongest warrior in the Kingdom, Gazef Stronoff, the most elite guard was an exception. Adding on to that, if the Princess Renner strongly insists, those who could publicly oppose were few.

Those of the ranks of prince or king could say their piece, but since the King himself recognised it, there was no merit to sticking their necks out. There was no point for those who were cherished as much as Renner by the King to do so.

The fact that Climb had a private room was part of this.

This was as it was not clear where the existence known as Climb should be located within the palace.

Normal guards could not have their own room. They would be in large rooms in their groups. However Climb was different from them, in that his focus was Renner’s safety and would often receive many orders from her.

And they had to respect the honour of the noble rank, so it was a terrible position to be in, where it was not known where he should be.

This was the reason why most of the maids and knights had irregular reactions to his presence.

Climb arrived at his most frequently-visited room in the palace.

Having a man like him arrive at the rooms of female royalty was an exception among exceptions. If done poorly, even the King would be stopped, and in a sense was the place that was the most difficult to enter within the Kingdom.

Climb casually turned the knob.

Entering without knocking was an exceedingly impolite course of action. However, the owner of this room had asked him to do so. His mistress had refused to listen to his protests, no matter what he said.

In the end, Climb had given in. There was no way he could win when women’s tears flowed.

That said, entering without knocking was very stressful on Climb. People who do that ought to be punished. It was only natural for him to feel stressed out when he thought about that as he opened the door.

Just as Climb was about to push it open, he heard the sounds of a heated discussion through the half-opened door.

There were two voices. Both were women, and he knew the two well.

One of them belonged to his mistress. Climb was still standing outside the door but she had not noticed him. That was probably because she was too excited about the discussion. That being the case, Climb did not wish to dampen her ardor. Climb stood still, listening to the discussion within the room. He felt guilty about eavesdropping, but he would feel worse if he interrupted their conversation.

“—I told you, didn’t I? People have always focused on immediate gains.”

“Hm…”

“…The crop rotation plan you were talking about, Theiere… I have no idea how that will increase yields… but how long will it take to show results?”

“About six years or so.”

“And how much money will be lost in planting other crops during these six years?”

“That would depend on the crops in question. However, assuming a normal yield is 1, I think the yield would go down to 0.8… in other words, it’s a 20% loss of revenue. However, after the sixth year, the yield will go up by 0.3 forever. I’m sure the figure will be higher if we add pastures for livestock into the mix.”

“…That does sound quite tempting, but can farmers really take a loss of 20% of their income for six whole years?”

“…I think we could have the country extend interest-free loans to compensate for the 20% loss and then ask for repayment after the yields return to normal… If the yields don’t go up, then it won’t have to be repaid, or there could be some other way. The important thing is that once the yields go up, the loans can be paid off in four years.”

“That might be hard.”

“Why is that?”

“I told you, didn’t I? People prefer to focus on immediate gains, and many people want stability. A lot of people will hesitate even if you tell them they’ll be able to get 130% of their original crops in six years.”

“I… don’t get it. It worked really well on the test field…”

“Maybe the experiment went well, but you still can’t guarantee that it’ll succeed.”

“…Well, it’s true that we didn’t foresee every possible condition while conducting the experiment, so we can’t be absolutely certain of the results. If we had to consider soil quality and the weather as well, the experiment would have become too big…:”

“That’s troubling. I don’t know if that 30% increase is a minimum figure or an average amount. Either way, it’s not very convincing. You need to guarantee profits, and that they won’t lose out in the short term.”

“How about subsidizing the 20% shortfall for the six-year period?”

“The Noble Faction would love that, because it would weaken the King’s power.”

“But, if we can guarantee a big return after six years, the Kingdom will grow stronger too, right?”

“That also means that the opposing Noble Faction will become stronger as well, while the King’s side will have 20% lower yields. The nobles of the Royal Faction won’t stand for it.”

“Then how about asking the merchants…”

“Those big traders? They have their own politics among them. If they help the Royals too readily, it might ruin their relationship with the Nobles.”

“There sure are a lot of problems… Alvein.”

“…And they all come up because you’re not good at forward planning. Well… I do understand it’s hard to get a proposal passed when there are two huge blocs within the country… What about just implementing it under Crown territory?”

“My brothers won’t approve.”

“Ah, you mean those ret… those gentlemen who left their wisdom in their mothers’ bellies for your sake.”

“………..But we don’t have the same mother.”

“Ahhhh, then they left it in the King! Still, it’s pretty bad when even the Royal Family isn’t united…”

The room returned to silence, and the tiny sound of porcelain hitting each other could be heard by Climb.

“—-Ah, you can come in.”

“Hm?”

Climb’s heart lurched as he heard those words. He was surprised that she had sensed his presence, but at the same time, he had been somewhat expecting that.

“—Pardon me.”

After bowing his head, the scene that entered Climb’s vision was a familiar one.

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Apart from its owner, the one who knew the most about the room of Princess Renner was Climb. Some parts were extravagant, but not over the top. In that room, was a table near the window where there were two women.

Sitting there were two blonde ladies. Both of them were beautiful young ladies in complementary dresses.

One was the owner of this room, Renner.

Sitting opposite her, was a woman with blonde hair that was bound up in a weird fashion, as if she were using a wig. Her purple eyes made one think of amethysts, and her healthy pink lips glistened in the light.

While her looks fell short of Renner, she exuded a charm of her own. If Renner sparkled like a gemstone, then she glowed with vitality.

Her name was Lakyus Alvein Dale Aindra.

It was hard to tell given the sheer pink dress she wore, but this woman was the leader of one of the two adamantite-ranked adventurer teams in the Kingdom, and Lakyus’ closest friend.

She was 19. Despite her young age, she had accomplished many great exploits, and the reason why she could reach the realm of A+ was due to her overwhelming talent.

Climb felt the stirring of jealousy in the depths of his soul. However he immediately suppressed that disgusting emotion.

“Good morning, Renner-sama, Aindra-sama.”

“Good morning, Climb.”

“Morning.”

After greeting them, Climb made to move to his designated location — Behind and to the right fo Renner. But he was stopped.

“Climb, not there. Here.”

Renner indicated the chair to her right.

Climb found this very strange. There were five chairs arranged around the circular table. That much was normal. However, three cups of tea had been poured.

One was in front of Renner, another was before Lakyus, and one more was in front of the seat beside Lakyus — not the one Renner had indicated.

Since steam was still rising from it, it was just poured. Was that for Climb? Then the reason it was placed there was to tell him to sit next to Lakyus. Or was it just there due to chance.

He heard that his guests only included Lakyus, so had the King visited? Various possible answers appeared in his head, and Climb had a rough guess.

“But…”

“Ah, I don;t mind. I would prefer for Theiere to return to her old way of speaking.”

“Aindra-sama….”

“I told you before, didn’t I? Call me Lakyus.” Lakyus looked to Renner. “Climb’s special.”

“…Meanie.”

Lakyus appended what sounded like a heart to the end of her sentence in sickly-sweet tones, to which Renner replied with a note of mock complaint and a smile. Of course, that was if a curl of the lips which was not matched by her eyes counted as a smile.

“…Aindra-sama, please don’t tease me.”

“Yes yes.”

“Eh? Teasing?”

Faced with Renner’s look of surprise, Lakyus froze in an incredibly fake way before exhaling with exaggerated intensity.

“Of course. Well, Climb is special, but that’s because he’s yours.”

“Mine? Ufufufu”

Climb moved his uncomfortable gaze away from the chuckling Renner and then widened his eyes.

That was because there was someone seated in the shadows in the corner of the room, hugging their knees to themselves.  Her black hair hid half of her face, and her tight fitting clothes were black as well.

A woman’s whose appearance did not match that of the room.

“Wha-!”

Shocked, Climb grabbed at the sword at his waist.

He was confused at the fact that while someone like Lakyus was here, her presence was undetected, but he thought of the possibility that she was an assassin, and he shifted into a battle stance.

Dropping his waist, Climb moved to protect Renner just as his gaze met the sighing Lakyus.

“Now you’ve gone and scared Climb by taking on that appearance.”

There was no caution or awareness of danger in Lakyus’s cool voice. Climb realized what that meant and let the strength drain from his shoulders.

“Understood, boss.”

Replying with an unexpectedly low voice, the woman crouching in the darkness jumped up from her position with an unnatural body strength.

“Ah, you probably don’t know her, Climb. She’s a member of my team—”

“—It’s Tina-san.”

Following after Lakyus’ words was Renner’s.

Among the members of the adventurer party Blue Rose, he had not met the women Tia and Tina. He had heard that they had rogue-type skills, and so after seeing that appearance, he understood.

Given her long limbs and her tight-fitting clothes, she looked the part of someone versed in thief-type techniques.

…Forgive me.”

Climb bowed deeply to Tina. She was an acquaintance of Lakyus, and on top of knowing Renner, she was a guest. He had shown a battle stance to her, and this might cause a problem that a bow could not solve.

“Huh? Don’t worry about it.”

She waved casually to Climb, and then she silently stalked towards the table with the fluid grace of a savage beast. Then, she took a seat on the chair beside Lakyus. It would seem the tea from just now was hers.

Climb carefully surveyed his surroundings to check for another unseen female. There were only three cups of tea on the table, so it seemed unlikely, but he did so anyway.

Lakyus sensed the reason behind Climb’s gawking and said.

“Tia’s not here.”

“—That girl should be gathering intelligence today. It’s all our Oni leader’s fault.”

A frightening smile came over Lakyus’ face as she heard the words “Oni”. Climb tore his eyes away and said.

“I see… I hope I’ll be able to see her sometime.”

“Climb, Tina-san and Tia-san are twins. Even their hairstyles are almost identical.”

“So once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen the other.”

“I see.”

Climb understood it. Still, Tina stared unabashedly at Climb, making him feel uncomfortable.His original plan was just to bear with it, but then he realised that she might have noticed something about him, and so he made up his mind to ask her.

“Is something the matter?”

“You’re too big.”

“…Huh?”

He heard, but he did not understand. After seeing the question marks popping up over Climb’s head, Lakyus cut in and apologized.

“Its nothing; just an in-joke. Don’t take it to heart, okay, CLimb? No, don’t worry about it. Really.”

“Yes…”

“…What’s the matter, Alvein?”

Climb told himself not to be a busybody, but Renner could not seem to accept that and interjected. Lakyus had a sour look on her face as she looked at Renner.

“Really, whenever we start talking about Climb…”

“Ah, I—”

“—Quiet. I didn’t bring Tia along because she’d fill Theiere’s head with nonsense. So could you please understand that and not blabber on so much?”

“Yes, Oni Boss.”

“…Alvein. What’s all this about?”

Lakyus’ face began to twitch once Renner began asking, and her expression turned depressed.

She shifted her line of sight to Climb just as he was about to butt in.

“Hm… Climb, it looks like you really favor this suit of armor.”

“Yes. This armor is exquisite. Thank you very much.”

This was about an awkward of a topic change as there could be, but Climb did not want to embarrass a guest.

After going with it, he idly stroked the suit of snow-white full plate armor which his mistress had gifted him. A quarter was mithril, and the armour had body enhancement magic in it, which made it light, hard and easy to move in.

[Blue Rose] had supplied the mithril for its construction at no charge. Climb could not thank them enough for that, however low he bowed.

Lakyus stopped Climb who was about to bow.

“Don’t worry about it. We simply gave you the leftover materials from making our mithril armor.”

While she called them leftovers, the fact was that mithril was an extremely expensive material. Those who could become A Class had that cash, and B Classes might had weapons made of mithril. Those who could give it out for free would only be those of A+ strength.

“Besides, Theiere asked me. How could I refuse?”

“—You refused to take my money. I had some pocket money saved up…”

“…It’s not right for a princess to spend her allowance, don’t you think?”

“That’s separate from my domain’s income. I just wanted to use my own money to make Climb’s armor.”

“I figured you wanted to use your own money to make a shiny new set of full plate for Climb—”

“…If you knew, then why did you give it to me for free? Alvein, you dummy.”

“Given the circumstances, should you really be calling me a dummy…”

Thus did the fuming Renner and the giggling Lakyus go back and forth, in an argument that hardly qualified as an argument.

As he saw this Climb’s face stiffened into an emotionless mask.

The fact that he could witness a heartwarming scene like this was all thanks to being rescued by his mistress. However, he could not allow himself to express his feelings.

Showing his gratitude was one thing, but behind that gratitude was a powerful emotion that could never be displayed.

That was his love for her.

Climb forcibly crushed that feeling and hid it away within himself. In its place, he repeated the lines he had repeated several times now.

“Thank you very much, Renner-sama.”

For just a bit— Such that only someone who saw her everyday like Climb could notice, Renner smile had a hint of loneliness in it.

“It’s fine. Let’s get back to the previous discussion.”

“—Since Climb is here that would be boring! Shall we do something different?”

“Eh? I think that he should hear it together with him?”

“….You should focus. I’m not always free you know.”

“You are quite busy.”

“Eh. A+ jobs are quite rare, but I have various other things to do.”

Climb recalled his job of protecting Renner, and frowned slightly, but was still mostly expressionless nevertheless.

However together with two A+ adventurers, his protecting was simply a bother. And it would be rude to interrupt the time between friends. Female friends of Renner were restricted to only her after all.

“I agree. Interrupting the precious time between friends is….”

“I don’t mind at a—”

“—Thank you. Speaking of which do you have anything to do?”

“No, if Renner-sama has nothing, neither to I.”

“I would….With Climb….”

“I see. Then can I ask it of you?”

“If it can please Renner-sama”

“So, how about it? Can I borrow Climb?”

Looking at Lakyus and Climb, Renner was having her head being rubbed by Tina.

“The two of you are ignoring me….”

“It’s ok, it’s ok. Pitiful, pitiful.”

“….What are you doing?”

Lakyus was looking at Renner with cold and half closed eyes, as she had expanded her cheeks like a squirrel.

“The two of you are ignoring me.”

“….Really, when it comes to Climb you turn into a child. Well it’s fine, I’ll borrow Climb for a bit.”

“Eh? ….Eeeh.”

“It’s fine. I want to have a proper discussion with you today. So I want him to send a message to my comrades.”

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