Chapter 3: A Small Fraying (1)

　—Damn it… This is sickening.

　Standing silently at the back of the group with his head bowed and his face twisted in disgust, Kevin, a low-ranking knight, cursed inwardly.

　—What did Flora ever do? This is too cruel…

　Through a gap between his companions, he glared hard enough to bore a hole in the back of Elliot’s head. Elliot, once his colleague, had risen through the ranks as a Holy Knight. Kevin wanted to shout at him and punch him in the face, but his inferiority complex and instinct for self-preservation bound him. Pathetically, as nothing more than a low-ranking knight, he couldn’t even raise his voice.

　A group of formally dressed knights could hardly avoid attracting attention outside a modest tenement in the capital’s commoners’ quarter. Worse, the Holy Knight and Saint who had become the talk of the kingdom were among them.

　All Kevin could do was repeatedly bow to an acquaintance who served as a court mage, borrow an orb of concealment magic, and use it to keep the other residents from noticing what was happening.

　Kevin’s girlfriend, who lived in the nearby lower town, had told him that Elliot’s fame had exposed Flora to malice entirely unrelated to anything she had done.

　He couldn’t bear the thought of her drawing still more unwanted attention.

　—No matter how you look at it, he cheated on her. And yet…

　A large group had descended on one woman’s home and pressured her into a divorce. It was little different from intimidation, Kevin thought. Of course, he knew he had no right to criticize them while accompanying the group as a fellow knight.

　Before the campaign against the undead beasts, Kevin and Elliot had shared a modest friendship as low-ranking knights who had joined the Order at the same time.

　To Kevin, Elliot had been quiet, painfully serious, and rather dull. Still, he was one of the few colleagues who never looked down on Kevin for being an uneducated commoner, and Kevin had trusted him.

　Before Elliot and Flora married, the couple had even gone out for a meal with Kevin and his girlfriend, Chelsea. Elliot had never been sociable, so the two men weren’t especially close, but Kevin had thought they knew each other well enough to be called friends.

　Kevin hadn’t simply watched in silence as Elliot, newly made a Holy Knight on the battlefield, and Saint Emily grew closer by the day.

　At every opportunity, he had reminded Elliot of Flora waiting in the royal capital. Sometimes, he had admonished the man in complete seriousness.

“I know.”

　—I warned you again and again, and every time, you said, “I know.” In the end, you didn’t understand a damn thing.

　Kevin kept his head down, suppressing the disappointment, anger, and despair churning within him.

　As he stared downward, a lock of fluffy golden hair brushed the edge of his vision.

　—And this woman… How could she have the nerve to follow him here? Is she really that stupid?

　She had insisted on accompanying a man who was going to divorce his wife, followed him all the way here, and even tried to stand at Elliot’s side.

　Kevin had hurriedly caught Emily by the arm and pulled her behind the other knights, keeping her out of Flora’s sight as much as possible. A glare and an order to remain silent had subdued her, but the way she kept stretching up to peer into the room still grated on him.

“I only want to apologize…”

　Emily had repeated those words many times on the way there.

“An apology meant only to make you feel forgiven will do nothing but trouble her.”

　Kevin had finally muttered the words when he could bear no more, and they seemed to wound Emily more deeply than he expected.

　His fellow knights defended and comforted Emily when the barbed remark made her lower her head, but their behavior only struck Kevin as foolish and irritated him further. Some were furious that a low-ranking knight had reproached the Saint, but for once, he ignored them.

　Many knights revered their beloved Saint, but Kevin had come to feel outright disgust toward Emily.

　He had told her again and again on the battlefield that Elliot had a wife waiting for him in the royal capital.

　—Don’t you dare claim you didn’t know.

　She had approached Elliot despite knowing about his wife. What could she possibly apologize for now?

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