Zylith.

I'm a very forgiving person, I really am, but... there are somethings even I can't digest without a qualm; such as knowing that Fredurd was appointed to be my personal knight not because he was promoted, but because he was demoted.

I could no longer maintain the smile on my face when I heard Fredurd's words.

".......What did you just say?" I asked in a slow foreboding voice.

"I was punished to be the first Queen's personal knight. Whuwaaaaa!" He repeated again and the words almost pierced through my poor heart.

"....It was a punishment?....."

"Yes Your Highness, at first I thought it was ridiculous that I was appointed as your personal sworn knight as my punishment, it seemed more like a promotion to me as well. But after I met you, I finally understood that it really was meant to be a punishment(Sob, sob~)."

I wonder why I had the sudden murderous urge to throttle someone.

"......I see, and what was your grave mistake for such a punishment?" I questioned with gritted teeth.

"I.... I was accommodating my mother and her actions which went against the laws of Reveldron." He said in a sorrowful tone, as though it brought him great shame and hurt to even reminiscence the incident, "I was never really accepted in the house of the Baron Heatcrift even if the Baron brought me back into his mansion. I wasn't even recognized as an illegitimate son of the Baron and nor was I given his last name. Even though I never again saw my mother after I was taken under Baron Heatcrift's wing, I remembered she was a good mother to me. In those quiet moments of my loneliness, she used to come to my dreams, ghost-like, a shadow of who she was. I remembered, when I am calm the spectre was always so kind, she laughed and I recalled the times I felt like she loved me. I dreamt of the times she coddled me and held me tight. So without much thought, I resolved to take my mother's last name 'Vanner' after I got recruited as a royal knight. And as such, I did. I meant to go back for her after I was appointed as a royal knight and established a stable career; hence, after ten long years, I finally returned to those slums of the redlight district to only find my mother selling slave girls to the minor nobility of the country for a living."

His backstory got darker and darker as I kept listening to him. I felt a bit uncomfortable for I deemed I shouldn't be hearing this. This was his personal life, it was as if I was forcefully prying into his life without his permission. It felt wrong at many levels, but I couldn't open my mouth to tell him to stop at this point for the simple reason that I was a very curious individual. If I was gonna be the villain in his life, so be it. It was too late now anyways, I knew when he came to his senses I would be in for a big load of trouble. So I peacefully embraced my fate and decided to satisfy my unsatiated curiosity and let him continue.

"Your Highness must know that slave-trading in Reveldron is strictly prohibited since His Majesty, King Reuben ascended the throne, and to find one's own mother so deeply tangled in such a heinous crime was a blow big enough to leave one wrecked." I knew that slavery and slave-trading was illegal in Reveldron because the slave-traders who caught me back then were foreigners, they were nomad slave-traders who were passing by the borders of Reveldron. Selling and buying of slaves in Reveldron was deemed a crime grave enough to be killed for. And hence, it was hard for you to find slave trades in the shady alleyways of Reveldron. Thus, these kinds of illegal activities became almost extinct under the strict supervision of the royal garrison. Whatever kind of man Reuben may have been, but of one thing I was sure, he was one great monarch to his people of Reveldron.

"When I confronted her, she begged me to not divulge her crimes. She said that she had always loved me and would change her ways for me, that once she had everything in wraps and break off all of her connections to these felonies, she would come with me and be with me forever, and I, like a naive child, believed all of her lies and decided to close my eyes to all her wrongdoings." He snuffled his sobs as he spoke and I felt even guiltier than I already did, "I bought a house with my very first wages so that I could better provide for that woman, I planted her favourite flowers in the yard and decked her room with all the things she used to love, for I remembered everything she used to love. But soon I found all my hopes and expectations shatter into nothingness when she was caught red-handed in the act by one of my colleagues in those same streets of the red-light district."

"I realized everything was just my wishful thinking, I craved her care so much so that I chose to shove everything wrong with me, all my troubles and flaws, everything I carry, deep in my pockets, just to be good enough for her, and hoped that she would see my efforts and love me like the stars love the moon. Hah(scoff)! Pathetic! And to finally fathom the fact that she never really cared about anything besides herself. At that moment, I remembered that cold stare amidst the salty breeze that afternoon ten years ago, how she gave me away like I was something she was glad to be free of, not caring how my story unfolded. And that was when I knew, she never really loved me. If you feel it you can't hide it, but if you don't you can't fake it. Perhaps some can, or think they can, but there are always tells aren't there? Not that I needed to look hard." He scoffed yet again and I bit my lips in desolation.

"How could I forget her face that was so passive and untroubled at our parting? ...I wonder how I forgot that face of hers? Maybe I was yearning too much for recognition? Or was it affection?" He mumbled to himself.

This stern man, who seemed like a man without any emotions was actually a simpleton who just craved for a mother's love. At this moment, he no longer looked like the invincible stoic knight Fredurd Vanner, but a boy, merely twenty of bone-age, who had grown up in an adverse environment without knowing what love really is. I knew he was a guy who didn't want anyone's pity, I mean who in his shoes would want a random passer-by's pity. I know I wouldn't, but still I, a person who had grown up in the warmth of her elders and friends, couldn't help myself from pitying him.

I had seen many atrocities since I came to this medieval world, though I could never get used to watching such mindless inhuman cruelty I still somehow was able to bear to stomach those barbarities as I was merely just a powerless individual in this vast nation; but there was one kind of cruelty I could never swallow down silently, and that was a parent abandoning their own child, not just abandoning, but selling their child off just for a mere piece of bread. I had always felt that parental love was the most basic kind of necessity that a child should be provided along with food, clothes, and shelter. It is the center of a child's being, if they never knew love, how would they ever know kindness? How would they feel their existence is welcome in this world?

The shaded corner of the inn where Fredurd sat sobbing, looked as though muted colors had stained the air in blues. This corner, compared to the rest of the hall that glittered with every spark of light while looking like a summer ball of the jolly fairies, evoked the feeling of a gloomy melancholy on a rainy day.

"I knew I was wrong, but I still could not watch the woman who gave birth to me die silently from the background. And hence, I decided to shoulder all her crimes as turning a blind eye to a wrongdoing was in itself a crime. But my superiors were generous enough to not expel me from the royal knight's Order and I was sentenced to vow my eternal loyalty to Your Highness in turn." He concluded in a despondent tone.

"....I see." I didn't say much for I felt any words would come short of how I felt right now, I just let him put the weight off his heart as he silently cried and I quietly patted his back to comfort him in silence.

A minute passed, and then two, and all of a sudden, Fredurd snapped his head up and grabbed onto the bottle of golden colored Beronet wine that I had ordered for myself.

"What! Wait, that's my....." But before my words were even finished, the man drained the entire bottle of Beronet wine in about a minute.

I watched with open jaws as he guzzled the entire bottle in a flash, and then slammed the empty bottle onto the wooden table with another big bang.

"Your Highness!!!" He gurgled, "Since that incident, I chose to do my duty as diligently as possible and decided to close myself off to any unnecessary feelings or emotions. But... but, I never imagined that Lady Liana's underwear could get me this riled up." He looked aggressively pitiful at this moment.

'You dumb knight. It's not her underwear but she herself is the one riling you up.'

But I chose not to voice out my speculations as he was being a bit too noisy and seemed out of his mind at the moment.

"I get it, I get it." I tried to placate the man with consoling words, but I guess I in turn succeeded in aggravating him more.

"No, you don't get it!" Fredurd shouted, slamming his fist on the table now. My miserable cup of barely-touched liquor in the wooden goblet wobbled dangerously due to his abrupt actions. "I've been doing just fin- fine by myself! I never cared what people really thought about me or how they viewed me after that incident, but.... but, I-I... I do not know why and how I care so much about if Lady Liana thinks I'm an underwear thief. Argghhh! Your Highness, I swear that I'm not. Now that I-I th-think about it, people have called me many names, Traitor Bastard; The lawless knight, and so on, but never a perverse knight!!! I-I, My Liege, I think I finally get why I care so much. 'Cause this time, it's a question regarding my dignity! Dig-Dignity! I care, I really do!" He bellowed at the top of his voice. In his drunken fanatism, Fredurd became so muddled that he even forgot that we were under a disguise.

I couldn't keep watching my knight wasting away like this anymore, nor could I let myself get discovered due to his drunken antics, so I pulled him down to his seat once again and said, "Alright alright, settle down now. We cannot have you making a big scene out here."

Reluctantly so, he obeyed my words nevertheless. It seemed following orders from superiors was literally etched into his very bones. No matter how muddled he was, he still knew to remember that I was his superior and he had to follow my orders.

It was precisely because of this bull-headed nature of his that I couldn't find it in myself to fully trust him at the very beginning. When I realized he was not like Liana, I decided to take action against him and brought him out here to uncover his unspeakable secrets.(Sigh!)

"YOUR HIGHNESS..." He shouted into my ears, his hollers loud enough for the entire street to be heard. I just prayed my poor ears didn't fall off due to his abrupt roars. Currently, he was no longer addressing me as Zeth. I realized that this knight of mine was too far gone to actually comprehend anything at this point, so I didn't bother to correct him either.

"....You are a very reckless and scary master." He mumbled, but it seemed he was muttering more to himself rather than to me. But I still nodded my head in understanding while trying to hush him to lower his tone.

"Master, oh master, why? Why oh why did you poison me with slumber dust back then? Do you know that I have scary nightmares every day since then due to that transpiring? Why are you such a scary master..... why are you so stupid?" He slurred out the 'Stupid' at the end, but it still didn't make me feel good when I realized I was a fool in my simpleton knight's eyes. It seemed as though both of us, master and servant were eyeing each other as a fool. HAH!(Sigh) The irony!

Let's move on Zylith, let's move on! You can't get angry at a drunkard's words. Remember peace rules the world.

"....How am I a fool?" While grounding my teeth, I asked.

"You seem to not care for your life at times and like to provoke people you mustn't. Your teachings could kill a person if put to literal use, Oh! How I fear for Lady Liana. I beseech you to spare her Sire! You know you will wreak a havoc in the castle if you carelessly dabble with dangerous magic, but you still carelessly dabble with it because you find it fun! You find it fun!?" He was screeching by the end of it all.

"How is that the actions of a wise person? Master is an oddball amongst oddballs, and I had the misfortune of sticking around to be the pitiful guineapig that I am. Why oh why? Why did the Goddess Alzyreil had to be so cruel to me? Why am I a perverse knight when I didn't even know it was actually a lady's underwear? Why am I unlucky enough to be assigned the personal knight of a reckless master? WHY WHY WHY?" With that, the big tall stoic man called Fredurd Vanner started howling like a starved infant. All his stoicism gone with the whiff of the truth serum mixed in with alcohol.

I didn't think that just the essence of Salventus root mixed in with alcohol would give out such an effect, but now I kind of regretted my actions a little as I watched my blindly drunk knight wailing and sniffing like a baby. But only just a little, for he dared to call me an ignorant fool!

"Now now," I tried to desperately calm him down as he was attracting too much attention with his wails. "We can talk this through, can't we? Why don't you calm down a bit and sit down by me, hmm?"

"No, I shall not. I shall howl like a jackal and moan like an owl, who is courageous enough to stop me, let me see! WHUAAAAAAA!" Okay, remember when I said I've totally got this? Erm... I've not got this.

I bit my lower lips as I wondered, 'Did I use too much Salventus essence on him?'

To be Continued.........