TMWDS Chapter 33

"Oh, Dame Ionna, I hardly need an introduction to guess this. This handsome gentleman must surely be Duke Leroy? Seeing you now, you're the very image of your late father."

"You were acquainted with my father?"

"I had the pleasure of meeting him a few times, caught up among mutual friends in my younger days. Your father was tremendously popular among the ladies back then—and seeing you now, it looks as though the son might carry on that particular fame."

The mild-faced Count and Countess Richter exchanged a few pleasantries with them before soon taking their leave.

With so many guests pressing forward, they couldn't linger long with any one pair.

The Richter daughter arranged only a time to dance with Leroy before following her parents off, but Erich stayed behind at their side.

He strode toward Ionna and asked,

"What brings you here?"

"I was invited."

"That isn't what I'm asking."

Earlier he'd been completely dazed, but now his manner was, if anything, more brusque than usual.

Maybe he was just startled—his chaste, husbandless superior suddenly showing up with a man at her side.

Given that he hadn't so much as glanced at the duke beside her, something about him did seem rather out of his right mind.

Ionna prompted the introduction naturally, as if smoothing over a subordinate's rough edge.

"Your Grace, this is Sir Erich, from my own division."

Only then did Erich, looking distinctly unwilling, offer his hand to Leroy.

"……Pleased to meet you. Erich Richter."

"A pleasure. Same division as Dame Ionna, then?"

"That's right. I work her hard enough."

Erich glanced sidelong at Ionna as she cut into the exchange, then tightened his grip on the clasped hand and said,

"……What a remarkably handsome man you are. Doesn't suit Dame Ionna at all."

"Is that so? I'd thought Dame Ionna herself possessed a rather rare beauty."

Leroy replied evenly and withdrew his hand.

The unexpected movement pulled Erich's body slightly toward him.

Erich bit his lip and steadied himself at once.

"No, you really don't suit each other."

"That's enough, Erich. Insulting your superior only spits in your own face."

Ionna cut in quietly. At that, Leroy smiled, looking rather entertained.

Only then did Erich turn to Ionna with an expression of belated realization.

But before he could even offer an excuse, the Count and Countess Richter called for him from a distance, and he had to leave.

"I'll come back shortly."

He shot Ionna one last blazing look before turning his steps toward his parents.

Being family of the hosts, he seemed to be getting pulled from one obligation to the next.

Well—Erich was the second son, so even if he wasn't under quite the pressure his sister was, marriage was becoming rather urgent for him too.

"Let's hope no woman is fool enough to be taken in by that pretty face and suffer for it……"

Ionna murmured, half lamenting.

It was true that Erich was handsome. But he carried a flaw that couldn't be overlooked.

His personality.

Unlike her own groveling self, Erich had no gift whatsoever for currying favor with his superiors, and advancement was, to him, a distant fairy tale.

That he'd still be unmarried at his age, years from now—that too was probably down to this same personality.

"And what about you?"

"What do you mean, Your Grace?"

"The woman fool enough to be taken in by that pretty face."

Leroy, who had picked up a wine glass in the meantime, extended his middle finger toward Erich.

Ionna asked back, incredulous.

"Did you not just see what he did to me?"

"Is he like that often?"

"Worse, usually."

"He really is young."

Leroy murmured this and opened his right hand, the one Erich had gripped.

Red marks covered the spot where Erich's fingers had pressed.

Leroy showed it to Ionna and said, as if offering a warning,

"A violent man who can't even control his own strength properly. Best avoid him where you can."

"That's true enough, sir…… but he's my colleague."

"More than that, his eyesight's poor. I wonder how a man sees his enemies with eyes like that."

"He placed first in his class."

Ionna diligently corrected the facts as the accusations piled up.

She figured she owed Erich this much, given how he'd complained that she never put her subordinates first—it seemed the least she could do to preserve some standing for him as her officer.

But Leroy, having been contradicted at every turn, appeared none too pleased with her attitude.

He furrowed his fine brow and asked,

"Are you taking another man's side, in front of me?"

"Another man…… seems a bit of an embarrassing way to put it. I've seen that boy sleeping rough, filthy and reeking. Practically watched him grow up."

Ionna answered, a faint flush of discomfiture in her voice.

Even in the Imperial Knights, dispatches to distant provinces often left them scrambling for proper meals or a decent bed.

At times like that, she and her unit became little more than a pack of animals, forced to witness each other's worst.

Of course, even amid all that, Erich's noble-born face had somehow managed to shine on, alone.

"In any case, I apologize if it came across as taking his side and displeased you. Good or bad, he's a man who serves under me…… I'll apologize on my subordinate's behalf."

Ionna bowed her head to him in apology.

He'd made a show of jealousy, playing it as a joke, but she suspected what he'd really meant to point out was that her attitude hadn't been quite appropriate.

Her quick acceptance seemed to smooth things over for him, and he offered his forgiveness readily.

"Don't do that, lift your head. I wasn't particularly displeased."

"Am I forgiven, then?"

"Hmm…… I suppose now I'm starting to feel rather sorry for him."

Leroy watched Erich's retreating back and clicked his tongue as if pitying him.

It was a response she couldn't quite make sense of, but there was no time to press it further.

Others were already pressing forward into the space the Richters had left behind, seizing their chance.

"Your Grace! Do you remember me by any chance? We met once with Baron Remper."

"It's been since the opera performance that I last greeted you, Dame Ionna. And here you are today, with His Grace at your side?"

"Your Grace, my cousin's uncle's friend's wife's cousin's grandfather was apparently close friends with your grandfather—surely that means we're not entirely strangers? So if I might say……"

Strangers. Utter strangers.

Thinking this, Ionna gazed with weary eyes at the man sweating before them.

She'd lost count of how many guests this made already.

At this rate, she was starting to wonder whether they weren't the true hosts of the ball after all.

Not just those with even the faintest acquaintance, but even those with no connection at all whatsoever were lining up for a single word.

There was only one reason Ionna was entertaining every single one of them.

'That way, even those bastards too gutless to approach me on an ordinary day will screw up their courage.'

"Ah, good evening. Dame Ionna."

Sure enough, her expectations soon became reality.

A cluster of young men, dressed with all the swagger money could buy, approached hesitantly.

Ionna casually rested her hand on Leroy's shoulder, exactly as they'd agreed beforehand. It meant the target had arrived.

Leroy glanced sidelong at Ionna's profile and picked up the conversation.

"A friend of Dame Ionna's, I take it. Do introduce us."

"Ah……! I'm Josefine, second son of House Alusi."

"I'm Veit Peter. My f-father runs the Peter Trading House."

"And I'm……"

A string of blond idiots, all cut from the same cloth, finished their introductions one after another.

Ionna studied their faces carefully.

A gathering of chaff.

It was almost impressive, how thoroughly they'd rounded up nothing but husks.

Of course, every one of them came from a perfectly respectable background—but peel that back, and they were all either second sons with no real hope of power, or the sons of moneyed families ranking below true nobility.

'Come to think of it—you couldn't ask for a better lineup for a gambling ring, could you?'

These were the friends Nils had run with since childhood.

Ionna had never taken much interest, so she didn't know the details, but she was aware they'd stuck together for years, watching each other's backs.

Living under the same roof as Nils, she'd crossed paths with them often enough in passing.

"Dame Ionna, come to think of it, wasn't it the count's estate we last saw each other at? You've grown even more beautiful since then, if I may say."