“That’s not necessary. So……”

Allen waved his arms in the air, wondering how to push Lea away. He couldn’t grab her waist to drop her. It was awkward to remove his arms from this position. Just when he was about to make up an excuse about the stone to tell Lea she could move away now…

He saw someone walking toward them with a tiny thing dangling.

“Please look at mine!”

Allen muttered a small curse and pulled Lea’s head, which was about to turn around, firmly toward himself. Lea’s eyes grew as big as a bull’s. Her nose was buried in Allen’s chest, causing a stinging sensation. Setting aside her confusion, she rolled her eyes upward to see Allen’s face turning rotten in her view.

“Don’t turn around.”

Allen’s low voice tickled Lea’s ear.

* * *

Just a few minutes earlier, the pervert had been waiting in anticipation after taking off his pants. He had failed in front of the blonde woman before, but he felt he could succeed this time. He panted as he spied on the two women from a distance. To think they would do such things in this alley. Though he didn’t know exactly what they were doing, it was enough to make his heart race.

He was no ordinary pervert. Given his life circumstances, quietly watching them was impossible.

The pervert flared his nostrils, building up his excitement. The thought of the two women reacting to his thing made his body heat up with anticipation. He slowly approached the two with expectations.

And when he got close enough and was about to grab his thing to show it off—

THWACK!

A very loud noise rang out. The pervert staggered. What had happened to him? It was hard to comprehend. His ears were ringing, and something hot was flowing down his head. While shaking his head to regain consciousness, the strange phenomenon of seeing everything in doubles occurred. Only then did the pervert realize that the sound had come from himself.

“You crazy bastard.”

THWACK.

Seeing the scabbard flying toward him, the pervert had no choice but to realize once more that he had chosen the wrong target, terribly wrong.

Allen held Lea with one arm and swung his sword. He didn’t like what was in the pervert’s mind. The man had planned to do something with his g*nitals first, but Allen had the urge to smash his head, so he ended up striking his forehead.

Lea grabbed Allen’s forearm amid the continuing thwacking sounds.

“Commander, he’ll die at this rate.”

“He deserves to die.”

He said while deeply stabbing the pervert’s lower region one last time.

He really didn’t want to understand this kind of person’s way of thinking.

Causing harm to others because of one’s own preferences. If he wanted to expose himself so badly, he should do it in front of monsters. Why target innocent people, desperate to show off his preferences? The more he read the minds of such perverts, the angrier he became.

“You didn’t need to cover me.”

“Seeing such things frequently ruins your eyes…”

Allen poked the pervert’s head with the tip of his sword to check if he was properly unconscious. Then he grimaced and shook off the man’s blood from his sword. The thought that his sword had been dirtied by this scum put him in a bad mood. He felt he should visit the weapon shop soon to clean, sharpen, and repair his sword.

Lea looked up at Allen’s golden eyes. Seen from below, they burned in the sunset. She felt as if she could be pulled into those deep pupils. A strange light flickered in her own eyes.  

“…So you replace it with something beautiful.”

“What?”

When Allen heard the sudden remark, he turned his gaze from the pervert and looked down. Lea was still in his arms, gazing at him intently. Thinking about it, he could have released Lea by now, but he realized only then that he was still holding her. Allen moistened his dry lips and shifted his gaze elsewhere.

He didn’t know when his wig had fallen off. Lea was unconsciously fiddling with his black hair.

“I was just stating a fact.”

Lea threw a stone into his heart with an indifferent tone.

* * *

The square alley pervert had to face an undeniable truth as soon as he opened his eyes. He screamed at the sight of his empty legs, and another criminal who woke up beat him.

“F*ck, I can’t sleep.”

Even among fellow criminals, there was no sympathy for losing that part.

Anyway, they successfully caught the pervert and threw him in jail. Allen secretly burned the wig and dress behind the training grounds. Every time he looked at the dress, Lea’s words from the alley kept repeating in his head.

Beautiful, she had said.

It must have been referring to the dress, but for a moment, he thought she meant him. How embarrassing that misunderstanding was. Allen tore off and threw away the dress as soon as he knocked down the pervert.

“Damn it.”

Allen ruffled his hair and used a branch to poke the dress deeper into the fire. The daffodil-shaped embroidery was burning away in the flames.

* * *

The Comtop faction faced a more serious situation than ever before. The vice commander cheating on the commander with a woman! This was a huge problem.

“How unattractive must the commander be……”

The knight was gloomy. Who would have thought the commander, who could capture the hearts of capital ladies with his looks alone, would end up like this? At least the capital knights gathered here had never imagined such a thing.

“Looks aren’t everything after all.”

“There might be a problem with his lower half.”

“When I checked, the commander’s thing was perfectly fine.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

The knights put their heads together. This fact absolutely must not be discovered by the Vicetop faction. It was fortunate that it was the Comtop faction passing through the alley at that time. If Jane had seen it, the Comtop faction would have been assigned night duty without even a bet.

“We need to do something.”

Tom folded his arms. He had joined the Comtop faction to support Allen, his personal hero. Even when many Northern knights criticized him for betrayal, he didn’t bend his will. Allen was the one who had made him want to become a knight. Even if the outcome seemed obvious, he couldn’t turn his back on Allen.

“We need to make him win at night even if he loses during the day.”

“Do you have a good idea?”

“Listen to this.”

The knights began their project to make the commander submissive by day, dominant by night.

* * *

Meanwhile, Lea went to the weapon shop to retrieve the sword she had left last time and ran into Allen. Perhaps because she hadn’t seen him much lately, she felt glad to see him. Whether intentional or not, whenever she visited the office, Allen was always out somewhere, and the knights seemed to be keeping quiet about it.

Lea greeted him with a deliberately bright voice. However, Allen received her greeting lukewarmly and wore an uncomfortable expression.

She tilted her head at his behavior, then thinking it was nothing special, continued with her fantasies.

“Lady Lea! Sorry for the wait!”

“Ah, thank you……”

“W-why are you putting it there!”

Allen suddenly shouted while she was receiving her sword. His face turned red, and he grabbed Lea by the collar. Lea blinked at Allen’s face, which had come closer.

“Ugh…! What’s wrong with you? Why have you been acting strange?”

“Vice Commander, why are YOU acting like this to me!”

“Please explain so I can understand. I really don’t know what you mean.”

“You! You!”

Lea was perplexed. The Allen she was seeing after a long time was somehow different. She wondered why this person, who hadn’t shown his face since catching the pervert, was acting this way toward her.

“Oh my, you shouldn’t do this here.”

A timid employee rushed over to stop him. Allen seemed to realize his mistake and put down his trembling hands. His face looked like it might explode from redness. Lea straightened her crumpled shirt collar.

“You must be suffering from the heat.”

“No, I’m not.”

“G-Grand Duke, your sword maintenance is finished.”

Another employee approached them cautiously. Allen took the sword from the employee, practically threw the money at them, and rushed out of the weapon shop. Lea greeted the employees before following Allen.

Allen still hadn’t escaped from the new position he had learned through Lea.

‘How can she s-suck that……”

He had been deliberately avoiding Lea. The meaningful words she had spoken in the alley kept coming back to him. The ticklish feeling in his chest and the itchy sensation in his body—he wasn’t used to being engulfed in such strange feelings. But today, not only did he meet Lea at the weapon shop, but she was also having even more bizarre fantasies than before. Lea was imagining a woman with a man’s thing in her mouth. While wondering how she could have such an outrageous idea, he was too embarrassed to look at it.

His immunity had decreased after not seeing her for just a few days. The thread of reason he had barely been holding onto finally snapped at the last scene, causing him to create a disturbance at the weapon shop.

“Commander, is something really wrong?”

He didn’t like Lea following him like a puppy. She didn’t even know who was causing him to lose his reason, and unlike him, she continued her fantasies with a normal face. He felt almost resentful.

“Don’t follow me.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“I’m not crazy, so just go home.”

Allen’s steps were fast. Walking ahead with his long legs at such a hurried pace, Lea had to keep up at almost a running speed, wondering where he was going in such a rush.