MCQN 38

Chapter 38

The stall in front of the store had a broken leg and was tilted, with several boxes sliding off and spilling their contents.

Among the cabbages rolling across the ground, a young man was also sprawled out.

In front of him…

“Isn’t that Sir Ruberi?”

Sage recognized the middle-aged man, who seemed to be the cause of the commotion, standing tall.

I knew him too. The knight from the Valent Order with the biggest build—the one who had warned me about assassins!

└ [Did he catch the assassin?]

No. The other guy looked way too ordinary to be an assassin…

The ordinary-looking young man, lying face-down on the ground, clutched his waist and protested his innocence to Ruberi.

“You, you threw me down out of nowhere!”

“You did something suspicious just now.”

“What?! No way! I didn’t do anything!”

The crash of the collapsing stall had been loud enough that other pedestrians were gathering around, murmuring and keeping their distance.

“What’s going on?”

“Eek. Look at the blood on the ground.”

Looking closely, I saw that it wasn’t Ruberi’s fist… but a bag he was holding. Red liquid was dripping from it.

There were no visible injuries on the young man, but it gave the impression that he’d been beaten to a bloody pulp.

“Your pocket.”

“There’s nothing in my pocket! I don’t have anything!”

“…”

“T-then, can I go now?”

Clutching his waist, the young man showed his empty pockets and quickly fled. Ruberi, left behind, said nothing.

The onlookers, who had witnessed the young man’s innocence, began murmuring even more loudly.

“Did he just pick a fight with some random passerby?”

“Was he trying to shake him down for some kind of toll?”

“Yikes. We might get caught up in this. Let’s go.”

The gathered crowd began to disperse, and Ruberi left a few words with the shopkeeper, who was anxiously tidying up the mess outside the store.

“If you have any issues, come to the Valent Order.”

“Uh, y-yes…”

Soon, Ruberi also disappeared into the alley, and the shopkeeper was left to clean up the stall with a sorrowful expression.

So this is the truth behind those rumors of disturbances.

No, it’s not just a rumor—it’s an actual disturbance.

Once things settled down, Sage, who had been hiding behind the building observing everything, quickly stepped out and started walking again.

“Ugh, this is why I can’t go out in peace! If I had worn my maid uniform from the duke’s mansion, people would’ve looked at me the same way!”

“Has this kind of thing happened a lot?”

“I’ve never seen it in person before, but I’ve heard tons of stories. Like last time…”

She began listing the various rumors about the knights of the ducal mansion.

To summarize, it was mostly stuff like:

Roaming around with threatening expressions as if looking for trouble. Picking fights. Damaging property. Sometimes even assault.

└ [Isn’t it normal for everyone around the protagonist to be nice? I’m confused]
└ [Uh… hmm… just scratching my head here]
└ [But if the knights play well with Damian, they can’t be bad people]
└ [Maybe this is a misunderstandingㅠㅠ]
└ [But what about the shop they trashed..?]

Even I was starting to feel confused, not just the comment fairies.

If the rumors were true, shouldn’t someone be doing something to control them?

Either the knights themselves… or the rumors.

Wait, dealing with rumors is how Tortoka does things.

Anyway, there’s no way Duke Valent can’t control his knights.

He’s someone who led them on life-or-death battlefields. No way they would disobey him.

And even Lady Hestina heard these same rumors at the marketplace before.

└ [Exactly, if it were Hestina, she wouldn’t have let this slide]
└ [If she’s not stepping in, maybe it’s not a big deal lol]

The comment fairies had strong faith in Hestina. Honestly, I felt the same.

Regardless, the knights can’t be mere thugs like the rumors suggest.

If the streets become dangerous, it’ll ruin my Tortoka revival—no, my market revitalization plan!

└ [That’s it. Rose needs to take over the Order]
└ [Is this how she gets the knight commander route? LOL]

Taking over the knights is too much… but maybe I could find a way to deal with the rumors.

While I was pondering that, Sage and I arrived at the fruit shop we were heading to.

“I need to work now, so just sit here or look around.”

“Okay!”

I needed some time to think anyway, so this was perfect.

I sat on the steps in front of the fruit shop and continued pondering.

The best way is probably to pay off the victims to keep them quiet. Or maybe even hire some thugs pretending to be knights so we can shift the blame onto them…

└ [What kind of lessons did you learn from Tortokaㅠㅠ]

I learned that you can’t live life being honest all the time.

I didn’t want to operate that way either, but now that I was part of the ducal household, I couldn’t just ignore things.

As I tried to calm my uneasy thoughts and return to my planning…

From the narrow gap between two buildings next to the shop—too tight to even call it an alley—I heard hushed voices.

“Shit. That was a close one. How’d he even see it?”

“I told you. He’s not someone who survived the battlefield for nothing. Anyway, how’d you get away?”

“I threw the wallet into a corner before he caught me. Can’t grab it right away or it’ll look suspicious. Gotta wait for a chance.”

Wait a minute—aren’t they talking about what just happened?

I moved closer, pretending to doodle in the dirt, and listened carefully.

“Still, I think I’ve got the hang of it now. Just wait until they pass, then snatch it from a blind spot.”

Judging from what they said…

That guy from earlier wasn’t just an innocent passerby—he was a pickpocket!

Plan revised.

Forget controlling rumors about the knights—the top priority now is clearing the name of an innocent knight!

└ [Innocent… But what about the shop he wrecked?]
└ [The store owner is crying…]

T-that part… I don’t know why he did that, but we can still smooth it over with money.

First, I should probably find the wallet that the pickpocket hid. But will I be able to handle it alone?

As I thought things through, I stuck to the schedule and went with Sage to a café on the edge of the shopping district.

“Sigh… Dessert time during working hours! This still counts as work, right?”

“Yes. Lady Hestina asked us to do market research before opening a cake shop.”

“Cake sounds great. Doesn’t the ducal household ever hold tea parties? I want to do something pretty like serving tea and cake too.”

That kind of job would probably go to the maids, Sage said, licking her lips.

But without Hestina around, there’s no one in the ducal mansion who seems like the tea party type.

Maybe if Sir Damian gets married someday?

I imagined the grown-up Damian—who avoided social gatherings like a wild animal—throwing a tea party.

Yeah… that doesn’t suit him at all. But who knows? He might change in the future.

As I gazed aimlessly out the window toward that distant future, I noticed a large figure entering the alley.

“Oh, right. I need to send a letter.”

“A letter? To who? Your boyfriend?”

“No…!”

└ [Yes she is 💌]

“They just brought out the pancakes. Eat first before you go.”

“I can go by myself. The post place is right next door, and I might have to wait if it’s crowded.”

Sage looked back and forth between the direction I pointed and the hot pancakes just served. After a brief pause, she said:

“Fine, but if you don’t come back fast, I’m eating them all.”

“Okay!”

└ [Did she just let a five-year-old go off alone..?]

I had to prove I could move around freely if I wanted to go out on my own in the future.

If she’d tried to stop me, I would’ve just said I needed to use the bathroom and sneaked out. So this was better.

└ [LOL she really did do that when she went looking for Leon’s dad. No comeback for that one.]
└ [Master of sidetracking 🤣]

Naturally slipping out of the café, I ran toward the alley I’d seen earlier.

I should clean up today’s incident first.

The longer rumors go on, the blurrier the truth becomes and the more negativity they gather.

I should find Ruberi, hear the full story, and clear up whatever I can.

That was my plan when I entered the alley—

“Woof! Woof!”

“Eek?!”

W-what?! A stray dog?!

Just as I turned into the alley, a fierce dog barked at me and I fell on my butt.

Wait, this wasn’t part of the plan…

A child’s body has one big flaw:

Things in front of you feel a lot bigger than they really are!

I instinctively shut my eyes tight. A huge shadow loomed over me—

“Don’t worry.”

“Ah, Sir Ruberi!”

At the low voice, I opened my eyes to see a bear-sized man—no, Ruberi from the ducal knights—standing protectively in front of me.

He crouched down and reached for something at his waist…

└ [Nooo!!!! Don’t hurt the dog!!1!!]

He… passed over his sword and instead opened a pouch attached to his belt.

“It’s just trying to protect its pup.”

“Huh?”

Looking carefully, I noticed a little tail wiggling from behind an abandoned wooden box in the alley.

Ruberi pulled out some jerky from the pouch and waved it. The aggressive dog quickly calmed down and wagged its tail as it approached.

└ [Phew, if he had hurt the dog, public opinion would’ve turned fast]
└ [Animals like him? He must be a good guy ^^]

…Yeah. Looks like he is.