Chapter 08
So, I brought the rest of the food myself. When I pulled out cookies and a molasses cake and placed them on the tray, the tray—already pretty large—looked like it was about to overflow.
Raphael’s eyes froze on the tray and didn’t move at all. His throat moved like he swallowed about two hundred times.
Agnes slid the tray inside and said,
“Eat some and get your energy back. And please, I’m begging you—stop embarrassingly yelling for another bowl of oatmeal.”
Raphael, who had just been folding a soft piece of bread and stuffing it into his mouth, froze mid-bite.
“……”
To make his meal more comfortable, I got up and moved to the side.
When I packed food for Raphael earlier, I had also packed something for Dios—two apple cookies.
I made some noise on purpose as I approached, to give him time to prepare himself. Judging by how he was sitting on his bed with his back to me, he definitely noticed I was coming.
“Wow. Does he really hate Lefevres that much?”
Well, whatever.
I figured he wouldn’t even like it if I gave him the cookies.
So, I took the cookies I had meant for Dios and gave them to Raphael instead.
“He finished everything?”
I mean, I was only gone for like three minutes. Maybe five, tops.
Did he drink the food straight off the tray?
I held out the apple cookies to Raphael.
“Oh? These are for me too? I thought you were going to give these to Dios.”
“You’re the only one who actually likes what I bring.”
“Lady Blandea…!”
The visitation time wasn’t very long. And it seemed Agnes had a few questions for me about the aide work while he delivered the food. Nothing too complicated—he got what he needed.
I told Raphael to take care of his health, even though, honestly, he looked way too healthy for me to even say that seriously. Then I turned to leave—and suddenly flinched.
Dios, who had just been sitting quietly like a monk earlier, was now standing right up against the bars.
And he looked like he wanted to say something to me. For a second, I thought—
“Is he going to complain about me giving the cookies to Raphael?”
I mean, that wouldn’t really be like Dios Izell, but he looked like he was hesitating forever to finally speak.
Still, I couldn’t imagine what else he’d want to say to me.
“Um…”
“……?”
“…Lady Lefevre.”
“HEY!”
Whatever Dios had been about to say got cut off instantly. Raphael shouted so loud it echoed through the whole prison.
Agnes calmly picked up the tray and added,
“Lord Dios? Lord Raphael says you’re not allowed to speak to Lady Blandea.”
“……”
“So please step back now.”
“……”
It seemed like Raphael had cut him off before Dios could say anything strange to me.
“Shall we go, Lady Blandea?”
“Yeah.”
I followed Agnes out of the prison.
****
It had already been two weeks since Agnes started looking more and more worn out. I was planning for another quiet day in this ghost town-like military base.
That was the plan…
“I’m so sorryyy!!”
Bad luck started when a knight accidentally spilled a water bucket all over my uniform.
“Wow… this is literally the typical way noblewomen pick fights at parties.”
But the guy ended up with his head down, getting punished with physical drills before being dragged away.
As expected.
Because I’m the First Commander.
After that, I went back to my room, took a shower, and brought the soaked uniform to the laundry room. Normally, I could just leave it in the room and someone would pick it up, but today it smelled weird—probably from whatever was in that bucket.
Since I didn’t have an aide, I had to take care of it myself. I didn’t even know where the laundry room was, so I wandered around and lost time.
“Wow, the Holy Sword storage is huge.”
When I first joined the military, I’d received a Holy Sword. Now it was time to return it and pick up a new one, so I headed to the storage building.
I handed my sword to the knight in charge and took a look around the massive place.
I expected the shelves to be packed with Holy Swords like an enormous wine cellar—but a lot of them were empty.
“They’re running low on Holy Swords? Maybe there’s a shortage.”
I tried to take one that was stored up high but accidentally bumped into another sword.
As a few started to fall, I reached out to stop them—but someone else’s arm reached out from behind me.
That hand gathered the heavy swords like a bouquet and pushed them back into place… then disappeared.
I turned around.
The person was already walking away.
“Whoa.”
She was a little taller than me, which wasn’t common.
I picked out a sword I liked, finished the paperwork, and left.
****
The next day, I got unexpected news.
Just after I sent a letter to Enrico, Agnes came looking for me.
“Lady Blandea! Your aides have arrived!”
“Finally?”
Agnes smiled with a worn-out face.
“I’m sorry it took so long. The staffing shortages aren’t just in the leadership department.”
“Even the number of aides has gone down?”
“Half or more of the senior-level aides are gone.”
“Wow, that’s serious.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m being worked to death like this.”
Still, he said that thanks to my aides arriving, Schloitz gave him a short break.
How could he be so positive? It probably wasn’t even 10 minutes of free time.
The aides were already waiting.
“Two women and one man.”
Considering most knights here were male, it was probably intentional that I was assigned two women—maybe to match my gender.
Since aides basically act as close personal assistants, it was more comfortable that way.
I looked over each one, and when I got to the last woman, I tilted my head.
She was doing the same.
“Isn’t she the one from yesterday?”
The knight who helped me when I almost dropped the sword and then vanished.
“Is her eye injured?”
I hadn’t noticed yesterday since I only saw her from the back, but today I could see she was wearing an eyepatch on her right eye.
She seemed to recognize me too. She looked a bit flustered… maybe even shy. She couldn’t make eye contact with me—though I guess that makes sense with the eyepatch. Still, if she was chosen as an aide, she must be skilled…
Then, a weird sense of dread crept up my spine.
A female aide, with an eyepatch, assigned to a commander.
That’s… very rare.
“What’s your name?”
“Five years ago—! Ah!”
“……?”
She gasped and shut her mouth. I blinked and asked,
“Five years ago what?”
“Sorry! I thought you were going to ask how I lost my eye…”
“Oh. Then tell me that, too.”
“I lost it during the official monster subjugation five years ago.”
“Really?”
She added nervously,
“But I’m still confident in my abilities!”
“I’m sure you are.”
If she chose to stay in the military even with one eye, and actually survived that long, she must be pretty strong.
But that wasn’t what concerned me.
I’d had a bad feeling since earlier.
A female aide. An eyepatch. Assigned to a commander.
That combination wasn’t common.
“And your name?”
“Junior Aide Laura Renin!”
****
“Where’s Lady Blandea? Did she leave already?”
Agnes asked, looking confused. One of the aides answered,
“Commander Lefevre went back to her room a little while ago.”
“Already?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s still bright out?”
She’d never returned that early before. Maybe the Lefevre estate sent her an urgent message about Oparts?
****
“I was so happy about getting aides…”
Apparently, I resembled Enrico a bit too much.
A punishment for taking his place?
In the original story, I remembered that I’d end up stepping on all the landmines Enrico had.
I didn’t recognize the other aides, but that eyepatch-wearing woman named Laura Renin—I definitely remembered her.
“Didn’t she get sentenced to life imprisonment?”
In the story, Enrico was a somewhat important supporting character—either because of his family or his face. So he had a few notable incidents.
Most were just mentioned in flashbacks, like the time when his younger sister Blandea died young.
There were also flashbacks from when Enrico had just joined the military.
One of them described a female aide with one eye who tried to poison Enrico and got sentenced to life in prison.
If you think Enrico had it rough for a side character, it was actually not that bad. Others in that crazy novel had it worse.
“At least I’m a commander, so I won’t lose teammates to monsters.”
The heroine lost several comrades when she first joined.
And now that I think about it, all the other commanders I was familiar with had already been dismissed during the Madros operation.
I didn’t know why Laura Renin tried to poison Enrico.
She might’ve had her reasons. Sure, maybe.
“But I should just ask to replace her.”
So I went to find Agnes with that plan in mind. I came back to my room an hour later.
“They really don’t have enough people, huh?”
Well…
Schloitz had been so strict that he cut out anyone with even the slightest tie to Madros.
There was a reason I’d been working so hard chasing after him all this time.
“But I can’t just ask to replace one specific person.”
It would look like I was discriminating because she had one eye. That would make me look like a terrible person. I didn’t want to damage my reputation.
Agnes told me that if I wanted to swap out all the aides, it would take at least a month. Then he made a surprising offer…
