Chapter 48, A Day at the Fortress – Nighttime

Translator: Lizz

After Sylvia finished her meal, Gina suddenly became curious and asked Calogero.

“…Come to think of it, Edward said that your name, Calogero, was a fake. …But you still go by Calogero, right?”

Calogero responded,

“Yes”,

nodding as if he had just remembered, and answered with a smile.

“Now that you mention it, I guess I hadn’t told you. I changed my name. I felt sorry for the parents who named me, but I had spent too many years under a false name. I explained the situation and re-registered at the church as a priest under the name Calogero. My father and acquaintances from the neighboring country still call me by my old name, but Calogero is now my official name.”

Gina was surprised.

But she also thought it couldn’t be helped, since he had lived under that name for so long.

She understood that he first used a false name to protect the people here from pursuers.

Even though the pursuers were now gone, he hadn’t returned to his original name but instead officially changed it to the false one. Gina realized it was because he had chosen to sever ties with his noble past and made up his mind to live out his life here, serving Sylvia until the end.

“…I think it’s a really good name.”

“Thank you.”

Gina said with a smile, and Calogero smiled back at her.

When Sylvia was finally about to go to bed—

“Edward!”

She shouted in a high-pitched voice.

After a short while, Edward came rushing in, flustered.

“Yes! Lady Sylvia, did you call for me!?”

Edward answered briskly, as if trying to cover something up, and Sylvia yelled at him.

“Why weren’t you here! Don’t just leave me like that! You’re my knight!”

Edward scratched his head and began to make excuses with a grin that looked exactly like a con artist’s fake smile.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I abandoned my duty as a knight escort and didn’t accompany the inspection, which put Lady Sylvia in danger—”

“Not that!”

Sylvia cut him off and scolded Edward angrily, puffing with frustration.

“That was easy! Weaker than a monster! So why are you still fussing over him!?”

“Yes! I’m sorry!”

Edward had been interrogating the man they had captured earlier, claiming it was to ‘gather information’.

Because of that, he hadn’t shown up before Sylvia at bedtime, which made her quite upset.

At one point, when Edward was emotionally unstable, he had slept on the sofa in Sylvia’s bedroom. But now that he had calmed down, he had returned to waiting in the adjacent room.

…And yet, even though it was already bedtime, he was still fussing over that man and hadn’t shown up.

“You’re my knight!”

“I’m sorry!”

Edward bowed deeply, and Gina struggled to hold back her laughter.

“Edward really is like that, isn’t he?”

Gina murmured as she brushed Sylvia’s hair, and Edward caught the comment.

“Huh? What do you mean, ‘like that’?”

“You say it’s for Lady Sylvia, but then you leave her alone. You’re certainly a man of deep thought and strategy, but that thug was clearly a small fry, and Lady Sylvia just happened to be there. Honestly, no matter how much you interrogated him, you didn’t get anything more out of it, did you?”

“…………”

Edward fell silent.

He was painfully aware that, despite calling himself a knight escort, he hadn’t accompanied Sylvia and had taken out his frustration over failing to protect her. So he couldn’t say anything.

“Everyone knows Edward is busy, and that’s why I stay by Lady Sylvia’s side. Since nothing happened, the right thing to do is to deal with that man quickly and return to Lady Sylvia’s side, don’t you think?”

“…Yes.”

Pressed by the two women, Edward shrank back and apologized.

Before bedtime, Edward reported on the day’s events.

As Sylvia listened with nods and hums, her eyes began to grow heavy, so Gina gently put her to bed.

“Are you sure she didn’t mistake it for a lullaby?”

“If a subordinate’s report works as a lullaby, that’s elite training, isn’t it?”

Watching Sylvia sleep soundly, the two of them laughed.