'So cute.'
Lize looked at the newbie with a pleased smile, who was looking around with bleary eyes as if she didn't understand the situation at all. Her index finger poked her cheek.
It was the first time I had seen a rookie so disheveled. He was a man who didn't even blink an eye, as if he had expected everything to happen.
Except when it came to women. He would always show how embarrassed he was when I would thrust my chest or bare skin at him and seduce him.
"That's… … That's, what is… … ."
"Ouch, be careful, rookie. You might fall."
Claudia caught his body as it tried to get up from its seat, but instead stumbled and fell to the side.
Claudia was a human being who had the entire weight of a healthy adult male on one arm, yet could drink an entire oak cask full of wine and easily swing a greatsword larger than her body.
There was no way it couldn't support just one person.
"When, from, when… …?"
"We had already come to an agreement before this banquet, so it hasn't been that long. At first, you didn't really plan on doing something like this? As things went on, you thought it would work out."
"then...."
"It started with the Lord and Iris, then Iris told me, and I told Erica and Claudia. Iris said the Lord was the first to make the offer?"
Aurora nodded, nodding. She had no excuses or anything to say since it was her suggestion.
Claudia carefully placed the newbie on the chair. When the hand that was supporting his shoulder dropped, his body fell back onto the chair with a thud, like a puppet whose strings had snapped.
"Don't be so scared of the prospect of getting your secrets out, Mr. Rookie. That's what it is, the questions will be simple."
Erica opened her mouth cautiously.
"When we first met, Mr. Shin-i said that. He was cursed and lost all his memories. And then something triggered his memories to come back little by little. We even confirmed with the ability confirmation bead that all of Mr. Shin-i's abilities were 1, so there was absolutely no room to doubt that."
The aftermath was the problem. Erica let out a small sigh.
"Of course, we still completely trust you, Mr. Shin. This feeling will never change. However, I keep thinking that there is something you haven't told us. It's not that you lied, but that you hid the truth from the beginning. I think you know very well that these two things are different."
"It may be true that you are cursed. However, that is not what we want to know."
Iris answered. The newbie was still drunk and had hazy eyes. She seemed to be trying to roll her head around, but it seemed like she couldn't do it because of the alcohol.
"Who were you in the past?"
Yes, this question could be said to be the core of this situation. What kind of person was the newcomer in the past?
There were a ton of other questions besides this one, but they all stemmed from this one question. If I could just get an answer to what kind of person the newbie was in the past, I would have achieved my goal.
"What you said ultimately means that you were able to come up with all those solutions because your old memories returned. If so, then the key is what kind of person you were in the past. Do you think it's okay for you to explain it to us now?"
What kind of past do you have that allows you to notice the behavior of monsters you've never heard of before, figure out the internal structure of the Rune Dungeon, and even treat demons so nonchalantly?
If all those actions were really based on past memories, then he must have been a great hero.
But no human being in the empire, not even the Emperor, had ever achieved such a feat. The Emperor had always solved problems by crushing his opponents with overwhelming force.
It was fundamentally different from a rookie who had overcome difficulties with only abilities that were no better than the lowest, let alone overwhelming power.
Especially when it comes to dealing with demons.
I couldn't even imagine what kind of past he had, what kind of things he had experienced in the past, that he could dismiss the descent of the devil as nothing and calmly plan to use it to kill the lord.
The devil was far from being something that could be captured simply by having superior abilities. Even the priests of the Holy Land had to be prepared to make a very serious sacrifice to defeat him.
However, the new recruit was incredibly calm. It was from that time that the knight commanders began to be genuinely curious about his past actions.
"Can't you tell us what you're hiding from us?"
Despite Iris's polite request, the newbie simply kept his mouth shut. His tightly shut lips showed no sign of opening.
There must be something. The Knight Commanders and Aurora exchanged glances. Silence was said to be affirmation. If they chose silence instead of negation, it meant that there must be something they couldn't say.
Aurora, who was right next to me, took a step forward, gently cupped my cheek with her hand, and met my eyes. Her dark eyes, half-open, and her golden eyes, filled with a strong will, exchanged glances.
"Now, listen. I don't know what kind of secret you're trying to keep so tightly hidden, but we're not going to use it against you. We're going to help you."
"...."
"No matter what you did in the past or who you were, we have no intention of finding fault with it. Even if you really did commit a crime and were in prison, it would be the same. It may have been so then, but it's not so now. Just leave it in the past and start over."
"...."
"Look here. This is a place where you can get whatever you want. We have enough money, enough power to use, and… … most importantly, women? If you want them, you can get them right now."
"Excuse me, my lord. What did you just say?"
Lize cut off Aurora's words. Her blue eyes turned towards Aurora with a growl in them. She looked very wary of her opponent.
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Somehow, ever since we first met at the mansion during the demon summoning incident, the way he looked at newcomers seemed unusual. I didn't know he really had such feelings. My level of alertness rose to the max.
If you listen to it at first, you might dismiss it as a word that refers to Lize, something that was said after seeing through Lize's mind.
But Aurora's eyes told me otherwise.
Those were the eyes that held the same female emotions as when Lize herself looked at the new recruit. At the same time, they were also eyes that felt sexual desire for the man in front of her.
So, it was obvious who the word 'woman' in Aurora's mouth was referring to.
"Oh my, why is that? I didn't say anything wrong."
"I think you said something very wrong. 'We'? This person is a member of the Knights of the Silver Dawn. You shouldn't say that so carelessly."
"You must ultimately obey my orders. Then your subordinates will soon become my subordinates."
"Are you using the same logic as that pig?"
"It's only natural since His Majesty the Emperor has been like that since the palace. That piglet and I used to live in the palace. Or are you saying that you won't follow the Emperor?"
Liz hesitated at the mention of that. Disobeying the Emperor was something that could not happen to the Knights of the Silver Dawn. In contrast, Aurora smiled triumphantly.
Lize hesitated for a moment, then glanced at Aurora's chest as if she had found a clue to counterattack, then snickered and made a gesture of taking a step back, as if she had no choice.
This time it was Aurora's turn to snap. She immediately understood what the gaze meant.
Aurora was by no means small in size, but it was in fact nothing compared to Lize, who had an absurdly large breast that was almost as big as her own head.
The newbie also started to get drunk and kept looking at Lize's chest, so it was not hard to guess what kind of taste she had.
"Okay, okay. My lord, let's do that. You too, Lize, do that."
Before things could get any more heated, Claudia quickly intervened. This was a place to uncover the new recruits' secrets, not to fight each other.
Both of them knew that very well, so it didn't lead to a second round. They knew that even if they fought each other here, in the end, it wasn't them who had the final say.
"The conversation has gone off on a tangent for a moment, but what we're trying to say is this. Who on earth were you back then?"
"If I say that… … then it won't… … work… ."
"I can't say anything? Then you're saying there's something?"
"...."
His mouth closed again, perhaps thinking, "Oh no!" But it was already too late. The gazes of the Knight Commanders and Aurora changed.
What you just said was tantamount to saying that there was something that you couldn't tell anyone. And it had to do with the newbie's actions.
Figuring that out was the task at hand.
The next day, I woke up with a start from somewhere I didn't know.
'It's ridiculous, really.'
Memories of last night immediately came to mind. I had expected that you would be curious about my past, but I never imagined that you would go to such lengths to find out.
I had intended to reveal it someday, but that date almost came much sooner.
Rather than being angry, I felt dumbfounded. If we're going to judge who's right and who's wrong, I was the one who was the one who lied to them. They were just trying to figure out what my lies were.
That's because the means were absurd.
I wondered if this was what the knight commanders felt when they heard that I had used the devil to kill the lord.
'Did I answer the question?'
My head was already spinning because of the alcohol, but I vividly remembered the situation where I had been fooled by Claudia's pun and openly admitted that I had a secret.
But I had no memory of what happened after that.
It was unclear whether I had answered the question or barely managed to keep my mouth shut. The film had blown clean off.
'Wait a minute. Where am I?'
I looked around hurriedly. There was old-fashioned wallpaper and a carpet on the floor. A bed big enough to easily accommodate four or five people. It seemed like one of the rooms in the lord's mansion.
I checked next to me with a faint sense of urgency. Fortunately, there was no one next to me. The bed was also clean, and there were no signs of my clothes being torn or ripped.
'… … Surely you didn't get into something like that.'
I was even more worried because it seemed like it was entirely possible. Either she had seduced me while I was out of film and made me pounce on her, or she had pounced on me instead.
Neither of these two statements was entirely unreasonable.
'What happened after that… … .'
"What the heck, did that really happen? How did he know about this?"
As I was desperately trying to remember, the door opened wide and Lize walked in with a bright smile on her face, carrying a tray.
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Instead of a banquet-style see-through dress, she was wearing her usual white sleeveless top and blue dolphin pants.
"Hey, you made me drink to interrogate me? And all five of you did it together?"
"I remembered. What a shame. I can't use it twice."
I thought I should say something sharp even if I wasn't angry, but seeing that calm look made me speechless in shock. I owe you a debt of gratitude in many ways.
'Is this why Lize came among so many people?'
Lize walked calmly over and sat down next to the bed, putting down a tray. On top of it was a plate of steaming soup.
I wasn't particularly upset or anything, but I was past the point of getting angry and felt like I needed to eat something, so I reached for the soup bowl.
Lize slapped my hand with a cold expression.
As I looked up with a question mark floating above my head, Lize picked up her plate of soup, scooped it up with a spoon, and held it out to me.
"...."
The appeal that I could eat it alone didn't work at all.
When I gave up resisting and quietly took the soup, Lize finally smiled brightly, put the spoon down on the tray, and opened her mouth.
"How much of what happened yesterday do you remember?"
"How much do you think I remember?"
He returned the favor to me in the beginning of the banquet. For a moment, I thought that I had hit him, but then I saw Lize looking at me with a very meaningful smile.
What kind of face is that?