“Directly, you say?”

“Yes. The knight likes my cooking the most.”

At the voice mixed with satisfaction and pride, Kenneth, the experienced butler, momentarily swallowed a gasp.

Martha and Kenneth looked at Johnny with bewildered faces. But Johnny just shook his head silently with his lips tightly shut.

Meanwhile, the corners of Alejandro’s lips curled up a bit more.

“The chef’s skills are really good. But to my taste, the food you make is even more delicious.”

The secret words were dizzily sweet.

Better than dishes made by the Empire’s best chef? How could there be such an adorable thing to say in this world?

A piece of deep laughter hung between his alluring red lips. Alejandro’s eyes gleamed narrowly.

It was an inevitable thing.

I’ll just have to keep doing it for him from now on.

* * *

A room where dazzling sunlight filters through the full-length windows.

“And this is a wrist guard made of buffalo leather. If you put it on your wrist in a moment…”

Alejandro stopped his explanation. And looked at his knight sitting on the sofa.

The languid smile he had when entering this room was long gone.

The upper body that had been comfortably leaning on the sofa was now leaning forward, and those aqua eyes were looking beyond the glass display case Alejandro had been pointing at.

What that unwavering concentration was focused on were sets of armor and helmets, gauntlets and connecting plates. Ten sets of armor laid out without boots.

Alejandro slowly raised his red lips.

“…They’re all for you, sir knight.”

Even though he whispered as if surprised, the knight’s eyes widened.

When his own figure was reflected in those round aqua eyes, a strange sensation tickled his nerves. Feeling his back tense up, he blinked his eyes and soon smiled softly.

It seemed he had been eagerly waiting for this moment. Judging by how nervous he felt.

“As expected, you look at the armor first, sir knight. Which one do you like the most?”

A ragged breath tickled his ear, as if he had been holding his breath while looking at the armor.

“The silver-gray one in front is made of steel from the Tizen mine. The gray one next to it is armor made by a craftsman from Seranden. You know how excellent it is, right?”

At those words, the corners of the knight’s mouth lifted.

Besides the armor made by the once most famous craftsman, there were armors imported from the Kingdom of Herdi and others – all different in makers, time periods, and even composition.

But there was also a common point.

That even under that brilliant sunlight, there wasn’t a single glittering spot.

The knight seemed to have noticed the same thing.

As he waited for the excited look in his eyes to settle down, Alejandro clenched his fist.

The pointless anxiety wasn’t just because of the knight’s armor selection.

After a long while, the knight finally parted his lips.

“…You know my armor.”

For a moment, Alejandro’s breath stopped short. There was only one thing the knight would call ‘my armor’.

“…Yes.”

“Both you and I, we didn’t actually like my armor, did we?”

It wasn’t just that we didn’t like it. We hated it.

Alejandro barely pulled up one corner of his mouth. But as if the memory of that time came to mind, the corners of his eyes stretched out with dissatisfaction.

Nerea playfully ruffled his hair. Seeing his face bursting into laughter soon after, old memories suddenly came to mind.

It was twelve years ago, when the shine of the armor that had been gleaming blindingly under the sun started to fade.

Coinciding with Nerea getting hurt more often, Alejandro, who used to put so much effort into armor maintenance that he even got covered in horse urine, didn’t tend to the armor for days.

“The squire has gotten lazy. My lord, the luster of your armor has died lately. Who would think that’s the armor of the Black Knight?”

At the mocking words of a nobleman who wasn’t on good terms with Nerea, she couldn’t think straight. How could she have thought that Alejandro would know the meaning of the armor that even these stupid nobles didn’t understand?

But that night. When she went to check the noisy sound of something scraping against metal, there was Alejandro.

“What are you doing?”

Even though it wasn’t an accusing voice, Alejandro opened his eyes wide like a startled rabbit.

Alejandro’s eyes, who had been earnestly rubbing the armor with sand grains to the point where beads of sweat formed on his round forehead, turned towards Nerea’s injured abdomen. It was just a moment when those pitch-black eyes blurred thinly.

“…Sir knight’s armor is too shiny. Everyone looks at you first. Me, our allies, even the enemy.”

For a moment, Nerea suppressed the surge of breath rising up. How did he know what no one else had thought of?

“At first, I liked that I could find you quickly. But if that’s hurting you, it shouldn’t be.”

As her lungs ached, tears seeped into the end of the tiny voice that seemed about to disappear.

After sniffling for a long time, Alejandro looked up at Nerea with puffy eyes.

“…Don’t get hurt.”

The only thing she could say to that face was a single word. Telling him to blow his nose.

Even at those words, Alejandro smiled broadly with a flushed face, and now, as time passed, he was displaying ten sets of armor before him.

He must have hated it that much.

But sorry to say.

Nerea smiled gently and parted her lips.

“But when I took off that exact armor in front of Gauwe’s royal castle, my back felt really chilly.”

On the day of the final battle. What Nerea discovered in front of the impregnable Gauwe royal castle was just a small gap.

It was too narrow for even Nerea to enter while wearing armor, so she eventually had to completely remove it.

Thud, thud. With each piece falling off her body, she recalled the cold wind she felt.

It really was.

“It felt like everything protecting me was completely gone.”

As the slow voice continued, her gaze fixed squarely on Alejandro. Alejandro knew those eyes.

“I want that armor back. So…”

A frozen lake under the quietly rising mist. The overwhelming majesty underlying it commanded him.

“Bring me that armor.”

“…Actually.”

At the lowered voice, Nerea instinctively looked at Alejandro. She expected him to be worried, but Alejandro was smiling.

“Your armor, sir knight… I’ve been keeping it.”

As if he knew Nerea would say that.

Many thoughts flashed through her mind. The last whereabouts of the armor she saw in the newspaper was definitely the Esteban estate, so how did you get it, and such things.

But what came out abruptly was one thing.

“It must have been very well maintained.”

After all, Alejandro was always sincere about armor maintenance.

Alejandro blinked. Soon, amidst the beautifully spreading laughter, he said,

“Of course. This time I used real good protective cream, not horse urine.”

“…The shine?”

“What should we do?”

Compared to the careful question, the answer was quite simple.

Nerea felt mischievous at the docile face that seemed to leave all decisions to her. Feeling annoyed, she immediately raised her hand.

Should have done this earlier. Acting all grown up and making people worry.

She grabbed the firm, high nose tip and twisted it slightly. Soon, ow-, Alejandro whined. But he didn’t pull his face away. Rather, his curved eyes were gently smiling.

Nerea spoke sternly while putting strength into her fingertips.

“You. Are you going to ask me everything like this from now on, or not?”

“Of course, a decent squire should naturally sense the inner thoughts and act before being told… It hurts! Sir knight…”

“Stop playing with words. Alejandro.”

Alejandro, who had been speaking slickly, grinned.

“…You have to forgive the unintentional ones.”

“What?”

“I honestly can’t tell what you know and how much you’ve figured out.”

Despite his nose being grabbed, there wasn’t a hint of nasality in his voice. At the straightforward gaze without any unnecessary additions, Nerea lowered her hand.

“I was surprised when you talked about Heather, but I was really shocked about my brother. How did you know about that? There wasn’t even a single line of news about the second son of the Jenax family disappearing because there was so much gossip at that time.”

Ah-. Alejandro’s eyes slowly narrowed as he continued speaking. The sharp eyes like an awl smiled slyly.

“…Come to think of it, I forgot about the existence of an excellent informant. I thought I hid everything well except what Heather needed to know during the interview. That child, she had better ears than I thought.”

A new nickname was added for Heather. Nerea put on airs.

“My informant is indeed excellent. But besides that, I don’t know anything. There were more inaccurate newspaper articles. Ten years ago, and even now.”

“It seems she prepared a lot.”

Nerea immediately realized that the unmentioned subject in the casual words was her father. So she wanted to ask.

“Then let me ask one thing to this excellent squire.”

“I’ll tell you anything.”

“How much time…”

Her lips went dry.

“How much time do I have left to reclaim the title of count?”

Until she found the perfect method, Nerea chose to remain as a ‘nobody’. The good thing about that was that she could secretly glimpse roughly what moves the acting Count Esteban would make.

All the media was buzzing about ‘when the new owner of the ownerless Esteban would be decided’. It seemed there was a way for the acting count to succeed the title.

The emergence of an outdated law that had never actually been enforced was clearly due to the acting count’s behind-the-scenes work.