Kate was indeed an adventurer, but in order to enrich her resume and make it easier for her to advance to S-rank in the future, she had applied to join the Duke’s direct knight order.
At that time, Kate was already a top-tier A-rank adventurer with a great reputation. The Duke didn’t even think twice before letting her pass the assessment and assigning her to be the personal knight of his eldest daughter, Cassandra, tasked with protecting her safety at all times.
But this single decision had dragged out a melodramatic mess.
Although Cassandra, as a noble daughter, appeared glorious on the surface, within noble circles she was viewed only as a tool for political marriage. She had been engaged at a very young age.
Her fiancé was Wesley Carlyle, the youngest son of Aaron Carlyle, the Duke known as the “Blood Duke.”
During the marriage negotiations between the two sides, Wesley happened to glance at Kate, who had taken off her helmet to cool down in a corner.
“That day I seemed to see a golden-armored blonde angel descend upon the mortal world. Cupid’s arrow struck my heart with perfect precision at that moment, causing me to completely sink into that golden **.”
That was the original text from the game.
In short, Wesley had fallen in love with Kate at first sight.
Afterward, he found countless excuses to approach her. Although Cassandra had no real feelings for him, her fiancé ignoring her and constantly running off to find her personal knight made her feel like she was losing face. So she began frequently making things difficult for Kate behind the scenes. This also laid the groundwork for Eileen later raging at Cassandra in order to raise Kate’s affection.
“Eileen, are you hot?”
Kate noticed the cold sweat on Eileen’s forehead and found it strange.
Crisel was backed by the snow mountain range that ran across the entire Navora Principality. The temperature here stayed within the most comfortable range for humans year-round.
They hadn’t done any intense exercise on the way to the inn either. Why would she be sweating?
Eileen’s delicate body trembled slightly as she answered guiltily, “Y-yes, a little. Maybe my magic power still hasn’t stabilized yet.”
Kate didn’t suspect anything. After all, a mage’s magic power flow speed would fluctuate depending on the spells they cast, which could cause their entire body to heat up.
Eileen must have pushed her magic power to the limit when facing the Minotauros. She was only now recovering.
“Lord Kate, do you need me to open a separate room for this young lady?”
The waitress who had followed them upstairs asked.
The moment she finished speaking, Kate shot her a cold glare and said word by word, “No need. She’ll be staying in the same room as me.”
The waitress was startled and quickly apologized.
“I’m sorry, Lord Kate. I spoke out of turn.”
Leah’s miserable fate was still fresh in her mind. She had no desire to follow in Leah’s footsteps…
“Kate, don’t make things difficult for her.”
Eileen was starting to feel a little bad for the waitress.
Aside from people like Leah who looked down on others, weren’t the rest of them just ordinary workers?
There was no need to make things hard for them.
“Ah? Sorry, sorry. It’s a habit. Those annoying nobles I usually deal with also like to bow and scrape like this. I hate that kind of behavior the most.”
However, the short exchange between the two gave the waitress a deep shock.
What had she just heard?
Kate Connor, the S-rank adventurer whom even the Duke treated with great respect, had actually apologized to a shabby-looking E-rank adventurer—and her attitude was so gentle?
Could this girl be some noble young lady experiencing common life in disguise?
But no matter what, this piece of gossip wasn’t something someone like her could afford to get involved in. One wrong move and she might lose her life.
“Then, Lord Kate, I won’t disturb you any further. There is a voice transmission magic array connected to the front desk on the bedside table. If you need anything, just inject some magic power into it to contact the front desk.”
Kate nodded, and the waitress fled downstairs as if escaping for her life.
Watching the waitress’s pathetic fleeing figure, Eileen couldn’t help but recall an amusing incident from her first playthrough while she was romancing Kate.
“I remember when you threatened Wesley and told him not to come looking for you anymore, he seemed to run even faster than this…”
Thud!
However, before Eileen could finish speaking, Kate suddenly turned around and pinned her against the wall. Her breathing echoed continuously beside Eileen’s ear.
“Eileen, compared to that pathetic man, don’t we have more important things to do?”
Eileen’s heart trembled. She looked up and realized that at some point, Kate’s pupils had turned into little hearts…
“Um… Kate, I think this kind of thing is still a bit too early…”
“Too early?”
Kate lifted Eileen’s chin with one hand, forcing her to look straight at her. “But I’ve been waiting for this day for five years. This is something you promised me.”
“D-did I promise that?”
Eileen immediately started playing dumb.
When she had maxed out Kate’s affection in the game, there had indeed been a prompt that after “being honest with each other” with Kate, it would directly unlock the marriage storyline.
But what had Eileen’s goal been?
To conquer every single female character she could, sweep up all the rare item rewards. Since this was originally a proper game, there definitely wouldn’t be any explicit content or scenes. It would probably just fade to black like in other games and jump straight to the next day. So she had zero interest in that kind of thing.
Usually, whenever the other party actively invited her, she would verbally agree, claim the rare item reward for max affection, then immediately find an excuse to break up and run far away.
“Don’t play dumb. I won’t let you sleep tonight.”
Kate princess-carried Eileen straight into the room and threw her onto the bed. Her usually cold and beautiful face now carried a very feminine blush.
It was hard to imagine that the person before her was the idol worshipped by countless adventurers—the strongest adventurer in the entire Principality, Kate Connor.
“Th-that… please be gentle. It’s my first time…”
…
Atia lay on the soft, large bed, staring at the ceiling painted in noble gold. She felt a sense of unreality.
Just last night she had been sleeping under a bridge, keeping company with rats and mosquitoes. Today she was staying in a luxurious inn she had never even dared to look at before.
The ups and downs of life were nothing more than this.
But she knew very clearly that this didn’t belong to her.
She could only stay here because of Eileen.
If she didn’t know Kate, and if their relationship didn’t seem quite good, she would never have been able to set foot in a place like this in her entire life.
However, right now, compared to this sense of unreality, she cared more about another question.
What exactly was the relationship between Eileen and Kate?
Her intuition told her that Eileen and Kate were definitely not just friends.
But this didn’t seem like something she should be worrying about.
She had only known Eileen for about a week, and Kate was someone she admired.
But why…
Whenever she saw Kate and Eileen walking together, she always felt stuffy in her chest, like she couldn’t breathe…
“Mm… ah…”
At that moment, faint, sweet moans drifted through the air.
Atia, who realized that someone in another room was doing that, immediately blushed bright red.
This was the best inn in Crisel. The rooms were all soundproofed. Just how intense were they going at it for the sounds to be loud enough to leak through even the soundproofing?
Atia directly buried her head into the pillow.
“A group of uncivilized monkeys!”