Sepakai (GXG) (GIRLXGIRL) (GL)

127

Chapter 13
Section 5: Eleonora Academy
Whatever amount of displeasure I could muster was piled squarely on Lapris’s head, but she couldn’t understand what she had done to make me so angry.

But since I can’t stay angry forever, I had to move on, and after a quick change of outfits, we were headed to the academy as per Litzreich’s request.

Noelia-san is holding the reins at the coachman’s seat in front, and right now we’re……um, I think this is the sixth gate we’re passing through.

It was completely different from the bustling Sanz Wanz street. As a district reserved solely for the nobility, it was very rare to see anybody walking past us. If anyone had anywhere they needed to go here, they would usually do so while riding in a carriage like we are now.

[Toslin]: “Nevertheless, they’re all talking about us. We stand out.”

A neatly laid cobblestone road without a speck of dust or trash to be found. The occasional streetside trees with thick, lush foliage pass us by.

All the noble mansions are surrounded by huge, long fences completely destroying any kind of ‘neighborly’ notion between their residents.

In a place like this, carriages are a necessity more to keep up appearances and pretensions rather than any utilitarian purpose.

[Rose]: “There is nothing we can do about it. Iris-san is a national hero and regarded as someone very important to the church.”

But even in a noble district as prestigious as this, not a single noble has ten mounted knights protecting the carriage they’re riding in.

Rose-san and I were seen as nobles by the people we passed by because we were traveling by carriage before, but now I’m attracting a whole bunch of attention in another way.

[Toslin]: “Iris is meant to be treated as a marquis-level state guest. I can only imagine how many knights they would’ve insisted on if we weren’t going with her.”

Just as Toslin says, originally there were meant to be a hundred Shirayuri Knights who were to be acting as my guards. I respectfully declined the offer to have a hundred knights following me around wherever I go during my stay in the capital, but it was only thanks to me having Saluena, the others, and the Goddess’s Knights that I was able to talk them down.

Of course after that a couple members of the Goddess’s Knights heard we were leaving and wanted to come along with as well.

Grimm Lanselva-sama and Milius Luotung-sama. The both of them were already mounted up, reins in hand, and waiting by the carriage when we walked out of the castle.

There was no reason to turn them down when they’re already ready to go. I’m meant to be the owner of the Goddess’s Knights, so if some of my knights are coming forward to offer me their protection, it doesn’t make any sense for me to decline.

[Lapris]: “Things could’ve been so much easier if that uncle and auntie hadn’t said nothing during the audience.”

And that brings us back to now and the peaceful trip we’re taking through the noble district with ten of the Goddess’s Knights acting as our escort.

I’m truly grateful for their kindness. However the resulting scene is just so outside my realm of understanding that neither my mind nor my emotions can keep up, and I’ve been left a cast-off empty shell in the meantime.

[Carol]: “I know that uncle was supposed to be the prime minister, but who was that auntie? Was she really someone that great?”

[Rose]: “In this country, the progression of peerage goes from barons, to burgraves, to viscounts, to earls, to marquises, and finally the family members of the king including the dukes and prince. That is to say that a marquis is the most powerful of all the non-royal nobles.”