Chapter: 03
In the bathroom filled with thick, hazy steam, Cervante washed the wine that had stained his body red at the sink. He had been about to wash up as quickly as possible and leave because he did not want to disturb Dennis’s time.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Dennis’s back reflected through the shower curtain. His gaze soon fixed on Dennis’s shadow.
“Hmm?”
Cervante knew that there wasn’t a trace of muscle on Dennis’s body, but the shadow reflected through the shower curtain was somewhat ambiguous for a man’s body. The unusually slender neck and limbs, along with the graceful curve of the waist… It was closer to a woman’s body.
Cervante’s breath caught, and his eyes darted restlessly.
‘A woman…? No, that can’t be.’
He had suspected it in his shock and confusion, but soon shook his head. Cervante quietly left the bathroom and closed the door.
The curved shadow visible through the rising white steam refused to disappear from his mind. All sorts of suspicions and questions, even conspiracy theories, left him confused.
‘The military isn’t some kind of joke….’
His vision must have been distorted because he had been half-asleep. What father in the world would send his daughter into the military? Above all, the Count Vertir he knew wasn’t that kind of person. No, wait. He could simply ask the person concerned directly.
Cervante stopped acting unlike himself. Brooding alone, harboring suspicions, and letting all sorts of negative imaginings run wild was not like him.
He took a swig straight from the bottle of wine and lay back down on the bed. But he did not fall asleep the moment he lay down. The image of Dennis he had seen in the bathroom still floated before his eyes. He tossed and turned for a long while before finally falling asleep, and when he opened his eyes again, it was the next morning.
“Are you awake?”
As always, Dennis’s voice could be heard.
When Cervante rose from the bed, Dennis was dressed in his perfectly neat military uniform as usual. He had hung up the uniform Cervante would wear today and was ironing out the wrinkled parts.
The neat table and sofa, even the curtains tied up with their folds perfectly aligned. Nothing was different from usual. If anything had changed, it was only Cervante’s suspicious gaze toward Dennis.
“Dennis.”
“Yes.”
Cervante had called Dennis to ask about what happened last night, but the person in question looked at him with an utterly calm expression. There was absolutely no indication that he was hiding some tremendous secret.
“Yesterday, I spilled some wine while drinking, so I went into the bathroom.”
“I had your uniform washed, Commander.”
“What?”
Cervante casually brought up what had happened yesterday, and Dennis’s heart sank. However, he lowered his eyes slightly and barely managed to conceal his trembling pupils. He hid his panic by speaking in as calm a voice as possible.
“Why are you surprised? Washing your clothes is my job.”
He answered in an even more matter-of-fact tone.
“Did you know that I washed the wine off at the sink?”
“Yes.”
No, he hadn’t known at all. He had only roughly guessed after seeing the clothes Cervante had taken off after leaving the bathroom. The sound of his heartbeat thundered in his ears as he anxiously wondered whether Cervante had seen his entire body.
“I see.”
“Is there a problem?”
Dennis asked in return. He knew Cervante’s personality well. Even if it was something trivial, Cervante was not the kind of person who would simply let something go if it bothered him. If he had seen Dennis’s entire body last night, he would certainly have demanded an explanation immediately.
“No, there isn’t.”
The fact that the shadow reflected through the shower curtain looked like a woman’s body wasn’t the issue. Above all, it had only been his back; Cervante hadn’t seen anything more. If he pressed Dennis further, that stubborn Dennis would surely challenge him, asking whether even the Commander refused to accept that people could be different.
“Then, may I report today’s schedule?”
“Go ahead.”
In the end, Cervante gave a hollow laugh, blaming the wine for everything.
It was the day when the final matters had to be settled before returning to the Empire. A meeting was held between the negotiating delegation dispatched by the Imperial Court and the delegation from the Kingdom of Harman. However, upon hearing the unusual news that the Sultan of Harman himself would be sitting at the negotiating table, Cervante decided to attend as well.
Of course, Dennis accompanied him. He stood at a distance with the other adjutants, waiting to protect Cervante. Today, however, he carried a rifle rather than the Lumina long rifle.
At last, the negotiations began, and the Sultan of the Kingdom of Harman appeared with his retainers. Cervante had not expected the Sultan to be so young.
Sultan Palamas appeared wearing a white imamah on his head and a thobe of the same color. There was not the slightest trace of a defeated man’s humiliation about him. Instead, he even wore a relaxed smile, as though he had come to meet an old friend. Yet his deep gray eyes, whose true thoughts were impossible to read, were not entirely peaceful.
“Oh, he’s handsome.”
“He must have at least thirty wives, right?”
“I didn’t expect him to be that young.”
The adjutants seemed surprised as well and whispered quietly among themselves.
At last, the negotiations began, and the adjutants, including Dennis, fell completely silent.
“I wouldn’t particularly mind giving away a piece of Sekari land for free.”
Sultan Palamas spoke the common language extremely fluently.
“Then why didn’t you give it to the Solencia Empire as a gift from the beginning?”
Cervante retorted as though he found the Sultan’s words absurd. How many soldiers had lost their lives during the three years of war?
“Because giving it away for free wouldn’t have been fun….”
“Do you know how many soldiers died for the sake of the Sultan’s amusement?”
The tense confrontation between the two men continued. Soon, the officials began the actual negotiations, and treaty documents were busily exchanged. Meanwhile, the invisible battle of nerves between Cervante and the Sultan continued. Then, it was the Sultan who spoke first.
“Who is the Golden Marksman?”
Sultan Palamas’s gray eyes swept sharply over the adjutants lined up behind Cervante before stopping on Dennis.
“That blond one.”
Palamas pointed at Dennis as he spoke. Cervante’s brow immediately furrowed. The Sultan had identified the Empire’s greatest sniper at a glance.
“Are you certain?”
Cervante asked Palamas with a smile.
“Like smoke lying low over golden sand, he strikes after sensing the slightest opening, and at times he approaches like a beast that does not cry out, showing no hesitation in killing. To do that, one must have a short and agile body….”
At the Sultan’s words, Cervante’s eyes trembled slightly. He had thought the man was full of arrogance, but his ability to observe people was exceptional.
To analyze the enemy’s tactics through intuition and identify exactly who was responsible… It was astonishing that even while living in a harem, he spoke as though he had witnessed the battlefield with his own eyes.
“Captain Dennis, come here.”
“Yes.”
Cervante deliberately smiled proudly. He boldly showed off the fact that such a capable person was his adjutant.
“Pay your respects. He is the master of the Harman soldiers whose lives were taken by the countless bullets you fired, Captain.”
He gestured as though instructing Dennis to follow proper etiquette, and Dennis politely bowed his head toward Sultan Palamas. Dennis was so nervous that he could barely tell what he was doing.
Then, when Dennis raised his head, his eyes met Palamas’s.
At that moment, the Sultan crooked his finger, beckoning Dennis to come closer. Dennis bent one knee slightly and approached the Sultan. Palamas then quietly whispered into his ear.
“These fools don’t know that you’re a woman.”
“……?!”
Dennis’s green eyes widened, and Palamas smiled knowingly before looking toward Cervante.
“Commander, would you sell this man to me?”
Palamas was certainly the Sultan of a defeated nation. And yet, he was so self-assured that he managed to command the attention of everyone present.
“That is an excessive joke.”
Cervante answered with a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m not joking when I say I want to buy the person who killed countless of my soldiers….”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Why would you want to buy someone so dangerous….”
Cervante’s eyes flashed dangerously as he replied.
“I’ll give you as much money or land as you ask. I would like you to sell him to me.”
