Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga

My brain froze for once since the time my neck stiffened at Asileye curses.

Lagnis, whom I'd thought was just a countryside noble in the borderlands, was in fact an incredible noble?

"I thought you were a countryside noble."

"…I thought you obviously knew it."

Unexpectedly, Lagnis flustered rather a bit at my answer and spoke. Seeing that, it looked like it was a famous enough noble house and event for me to be strange not to know them.

"I'm so shocked right now that my heart's jumping."

"Pff. What's up with that?"

"No, this isn't a laughing matter, you know? You wanna try touching it?"

"I, I, I'm not talking about that!"

No wait, I said my poor heart was jumping like it would croak, so why was she raising her voice? Anyway, this felt like the difficulty suddenly jumped a ton. One by one I pulled up and checked over the variables I had considered not needing even a single bit of worry until now, then brought up the most serious problem onto my mouth.

"Would the noble faction have a drake knight?"

"…uuuhmn."

Lagnis's face, having instantly understood what I was worried of, hardened and went into thought.

Drakes seated two at most. Putting everything else aside, there wasn't a place to seat more than that. And if so, just in case of anything unexpected, wouldn't they have no choice but to hire someone who could fight and also pilot a drake?

People called that kind of person a drake knight. Naturally they were knights who rode around on drakes instead of horses, and were professional soldiers who were basically war machines that specialized not in lances but in magic and aura in order to maximize their advantage in the air. Their skills couldn't be called truly special since there was a limit to perfectly achieving both skills like Asileye had said in the past, but that was something that mattered only between knights at most.

I'd lose 100% if I fought them now.

"…no. No. I heard it from my father before. That the drake knights are direct subordinates of the royal family. Because of that significance, they should all definitely be of the king faction besides the one or two that the noble faction forcibly elects in and uses for public events. There shouldn't be anyone that they could casually use for something like this."

"Couldn't they privately train one in secret?"

"Without the king's permission, those who learned drake piloting can't learn any fighting technique. If you break this order, then 3 generations are beheaded for treason."

"Eh? Really?"

"Yeah. Really."

It was quite a scary law, but I felt a big relief at Lagnis's confidence and exhaled a sigh. Scary or not, right now it was a law that incredibly helped us.

"I really wouldn't even have a clue what to do if we had to face a drake knight. That's a relief."

"…isn't there no other way except running?"

"Unless they're stronger than a Demon King Army commander, no can do."

In the first place, it was a creed violation if I ran alone, and we would get caught even if we ran together. I tapped Lagnis's shoulder and spoke.

"Even if we ran, what other end can there be besides getting caught if they even drag a drake here? Rather than that, it's better to try giving them a poke hoping they'll be careless. Anyway, it's fine since we avoided that kind of a worst case scenario."

"…hehe."

"What are you smiling silly for? We merely avoided the worst case scenario, so don't relax and lower your guard."

Even if they really had dragged a drake here, the danger greatly decreased merely by the fact that, unless it was a large-size drake, the one piloting the drake could only be a noncombatant. For now, we decided to take heart in that fact and continued our steps.

🔷

Meeting the strength calculators with added numbers was exactly two days later.

"Oi, we heard you've taken good care of our friends."

Uniformly rough-looking guys appeared near the adventurer's guild district. It was an area not very far from where I'd beaten up the two of them last time.

I'd thought it was unexpected at first, but thinking again, it did give off the smell of a show of waiting for us with fire in their eyes for revenge, so I understood. Eight guys who seemed to be adventurers. It was more than expected, and they also gave off a different feel than the first two guys.

But even so, they didn't feel strong. In the first place, the ones who took up this kind of work wouldn't have real skills. The cutoff line for hiring probably was at most being stronger than a village thug.

"Yeah, I did. Take good care of your friends next time. See ya!"

"Uwaa?!"

Immediately I picked up Lagnis in my arms and raced into an alleyway at our side.

"That, that! That fucking! Catch that fucker!"

As if you could catch us. At the very least, I had on my side a history of living here while going back and forth between home and Ogwen. Even just by following the route forming in my head, from the halfway point there wasn't even a need to carry Lagnis and run. As I ran like that, Lagnis, who had been simply being hugged in my arms, came to her senses.

"You, you surprised me!"

"Are you getting surprised at just this much, miss marquis? I have to carry you and run a bit right now, so just hold on tight. I'll explain things later."

That shouldn't even count as being surprised compared to how surprised I was. Well, that was my fault for jumping to the conclusion without asking, so I couldn't say anything about it to Lagnis, though.

The chase was more stubborn than expected, but they ultimately seemed to have given up after running all over the twisted and turning streets and jumping across several rooftops. Lagnis, who only then could relax, barely calmed down her breath and asked.

"Those people, were they strong?"

"Not really?"

"Then why did we run?"

"'Cause I'm curious how many times we'll have to repeat this for them to directly come to the inn."

She had an expression that simply didn't understand what I'd meant, so I decided to sit down for a second and give a supplementary explanation. It was slowly getting dark, so those guys should also decide on their course of action for today and take a different action if we passed the time.

I merely and sincerely hope that it wouldn't be the disappointing decision of waiting in front of the inn today.

"I'm only saying this confidently because they're still moving within the range of my expectations, but I bet those guys just now were also basically lab rats to ultimately tell what kind of guy I am and what my skills are like. I could've beaten them all down had I lured them into the alleyways and fought, but… if I do that, then their guards will shoot right up.

"Is that why you didn't use aura?"

"Yeah. That's…hmn? How do you know about that?"

"You used it when you killed the chief in the past."

Chief. I could tell she meant the guy I straight up kicked and killed because he showed a dirty desire to touch Asileye 3 years ago, but…

How did this kid notice what even Asileye felt not as aura but merely as a buff? When I stood dumbfounded with my expression out of my control, Lagnis instead opened her mouth with a puzzled expression.

"I can tell because I saw our fief's knights duel with aura. I've seen movements that can't be done without aua a lot, you see. That thing back then wasn't a speed that's possible without aura, right?"

Seeing how she was tilting her head asking 'wasn't it', it looked like she hadn't noticed it by sensing something, but instead had taken a guess by purely categorizing it into the possible and the impossible based on the movements she had remembered. I'd basically shot myself in the foot and confessed for nothing, but I couldn't deny it after having reflexively reacted to it already, so I simply nodded my head.

"Yeah. You're right. I just thought you knew how to sense aura for a second."

"That's… not everyone can just learn it like that. You wouldn't understand it, though."

I hadn't actually learned it either, but I simply nodded my head and pretended to be a genius. Anyway, we had to get back on topic.

"Either way, time is on our side. Just by them sending those kinds of guys even after two days have passed since then, I can say that our guys are absolutely cautious. Unless those guys are the result of going through all their caution, it's definite that they'll be delirious trying to dig up information. 6 days have already passed, so is it 9 days left now? They'll be feeling really anxious just by us running away like this and not openly fighting. I honestly would like to eat up about 3 days like this, but I doubt that'll happen.

The best was to end everything without fighting. After all, unpredictable variables arose the moment people fought. Of course, something like that would be impossible given what the occasion was, but there was nothing wrong with merely hoping for it, no?

"…I thought you were sort of acting as things came, but you were really thinking a lot as we moved, huh?"

The sincerity in her eyes was simply insulting, so I knocked a knuckle right back at her.

When the evening came like that and we passed the darkened streets back to the inn, a really disappointing result was awaiting me.

"Now, think you can run again?"

It looked like the result of our chasers going through their caution and patience was those guys.

I'd wondered why they had given up rather quickly, but those guys were all in front of Alisha's Inn without a single one missing. And not just simply standing, but while clearly blocking the door across.

"It's nice that I can really feel that you guys are running short and tight on time, but… did you perhaps touch our madam Alisha or other little brats?"

"Huh. We will be if you run again."

"Eldmiaaa!! Get these fucking sons of bitches out of my inn!!"

Had she locked the door? It looked like there wasn't any problem, so I felt relieved. Although the guy leaning on the door slammed and punched the door at that shout and tried making threats, madam Alisha merely returned with her eternally-constant curses.

"Can you really handle it? It'll be an instant before the guards come at the noise, you know?"

In truth, I'd noticed even as I spoke. Just as expected, the bastards answered my question with sneers.

There was no way those bastards had come and waited for us while matching the timing of us coming here. The moment they lost us, they probably went to their hirer to explain the situation, then came to the inn and waited. I knew that the night patrol began patrolling after 6 o'clock, but there wasn't even a single presence nearby.

I nearly felt silly at the reality that they had bribed the city patrol first without any concern. Well yeah, thinking again, that too was a thought bastards with money would think up.

"You little shit is none of our concern. We're actually interested in your girlfriend, you see."

"I know, retard."

"So… what?"

"I said I know. Would I really not know when you're making it that obvious?"

It wasn't all bad.

After all, we found out that they didn't have much time, had lots of money, and not only had a cozy relationship with the city but had really lowered their guards and were careless enough to think they could take Lagnis with them after taking me down or making me run. Would they be watching us from somewhere nearby? Maybe in a building? If our theory that they planned to run on a drake was correct, then they might simply have given the orders and were waiting outside the city.

That was something I could find out from now on, so I decided not to mind it a lot.

"I'm called Eldmia Egga."

I drew my sword and gave the greeting for the creed installation. Perhaps having expected me to draw my sword, their sneers were unchanged. The bastards confidently took out their weapons one by one.

That was very excellent.

"First, let's nicely get a poke of a sword in all of your thighs since you bothered madam Alisha's mood, then start the education."

The true creed installation was after that.

TL note: You know, I originally planned to regularly release chapters on Sundays, but then moved to Mondays because the editing took longer than expected… I think I may have messed up the calculation somewhere.