In a World of Reversed Chastity, I Strive to Become an Honorable Male Knight, but Lustful Women Keep Targeting My Body - 264

Chapter 264: The Saintly Bishop and the Barbarians

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I, Fiorenza Chiarugi, felt relieved. That was because a provisional course of action had been decided. The elves’ accents were so thick that their minds were extremely hard to read, the seasickness had been awful, and I had even been made to eat insects but despite all that, I truly thought it was good that I had accompanied them on this journey.

While drinking an alcohol that smelled of potatoes, apparently called elf liquor, I casually shifted my gaze toward the corner of the Senate (a ramshackle hut calling itself one). There, the elf elder called Vanka was sitting cross-legged on a straw mat, silently drinking wine. Several attendants surrounded her and spoke to her about various things, but… Vanka paid them no attention at all.

“What do you think? About that woman?”

I spoke to Sonia, who was beside me poking at caterpillars in a soup bowl with her fork. Like me, Sonia seemed unwilling to eat caterpillars. Well, of course. Bugs weren’t human food… though Papa Albert seemed perfectly fine with it.

“……”

(Do I really need to convey my thoughts to this trash woman? No… But when it comes to diplomatic battles, even this gnat is useful in her own way. For Al-sama’s sake, maybe I should endure it here…)

Sonia remained silent, but thanks to my magic eye, her thoughts were completely exposed. Honestly, she really hated me, didn’t she? Well, whatever. I didn’t care how anyone other than Papa thought of me anyway….

“She’s a creepy one. We’ll need to be extremely cautious of her.” 

In the end, Sonia answered my question honestly. It seemed that the clash between her disgust toward me and her loyalty to Papa ended with the latter winning. That was fine, perfectly fine. We both wanted to be of use to Papa, so in areas where we could cooperate, she should cooperate with me.

“Indeed, she does give off the impression that she won’t be easy to deal with.” 

I said quietly, careful not to let those around us hear. However, the truth was that I had already lowered my level of caution toward Vanka by one notch. After confirming things through mind-reading, I had realized that she wasn’t all that harmful to Papa.

In fact, if handled well, she might even become beneficial to Papa. Of course, if we made a mistake in dealing with her, we could get badly burned, so caution was still necessary. That woman bore no hostile intent toward Papa at all, but that didn’t change the fact that she was dangerous in her own way.

“Still, if I may offer my personal assessment… it seems to me that the people around her are more dangerous than she herself.”

As an elder, Vanka seemed to be thinking about various things, but her entourage were a matched set of thoughtless incompetents. That wasn’t because Vanka lacked discernment. If anything, it seemed she deliberately chose fools to make allies.

Personally, I found impulsive idiots more frightening than half-baked schemers. Scheming types would at least play the game seriously, but idiots would thoughtlessly smash the game board itself. …Was that me during the incident in the capital? Wow, now I was getting so disgusted with myself I wanted to die on the spot. But it was still too early to die. There were plenty of things left to do. There would still be chances to clear my name and reclaim my honor. 

Well then, let’s do our best, me.

“Indeed. There’s nothing more terrifying than a uselessly hardworking incompetent.” 

Sonia said. Stop throwing perfectly timed insults like that! Even though I knew she wasn’t talking about me, my heart still skipped a beat!

“Judging from the way the attack was carried out, they seem like the type who act without much thought. We shouldn’t indulge in the arrogance of thinking, ‘Surely they wouldn’t do something that foolish.’”

“Agreed. At the very least, until we return to Carrera City, we shouldn’t let our guard down. This place is practically a battlefield.”

In fact, some of the so-called clan heads looked like they might cut us down at any moment. The attack from this morning probably wouldn’t be the last… right?

“It’s rare that we agree. …I’ll focus solely on protecting Al-sama. You’re a woman too, so you should protect yourself.”

“…I understand. I certainly won’t do something like hiding behind a man.”

I had brought my own personal guards along on this journey, but I was still worried… Setting aside those so-called komusō elf soldiers, the individual combat power of the elves was something even Papa treated with extreme caution. It would be nice if he protected me too, even if it was just as a bonus…

“…However, if you insist that much, I won’t say I won’t protect you. Naturally, I’ll demand compensation.”

As if seeing straight through my inner thoughts, Sonia said that while sliding her wooden bowl toward me. Inside the brown broth, several caterpillars floated. Ugh… My seasickness had finally started to subside, and now I felt like I was going to throw up again.

“…Are you telling me to eat this?”

“……”

(That kind of thing is not food for dragonewts. You should feed it to a chicken or something.)

Sonia nodded silently. 

…Who are you calling a chicken!? That’s even worse than a pigeon!

“Very well then…”

But I didn’t really have a choice. Reluctantly, I accepted the wooden bowl. Uuuu—! I had just worked so hard to finish my own share of caterpillars! I ate them too, so you should eat yours as well! Forcing food you were served onto someone else was rude to the host! Were you trying to smear mud on Papa’s face!?

“Ugh…”

Complaining endlessly in my mind, I let out a sigh. Sonia turned her face away with a snort and didn’t even look at me. With no other option, I squeezed my eyes shut and brought a caterpillar to my mouth. The texture was unpleasant, like biting into an unnaturally soft sausage. The taste itself wasn’t that bad, but the visceral disgust was overwhelming. I felt like throwing up.

“Kuh…”

I gulped down elf liquor to cleanse my palate and exhaled a potato-scented breath. This was truly awful… seriously, why did it have to come to this… Improving the elves’ food situation was an urgent task. Being made to eat things like this every time we were treated to hospitality was unbearable. I’d have to propose soup kitchens to that old woman named Dalaiya. I’d also need to ask nearby churches for cooperation… ugh, such a hassle. But it wasn’t something I could avoid doing.

“I’d like to urgently establish a trade route between Carrera City and this town. For that, securing safety is essential…” 

Dalaiya said. That grandma Dalaiya was having some kind of difficult discussion together with Papa. Even though I called her a grandma, she looked like a child. Long-lived races were really amazing. If I were reborn, I’d rather be an elf than a winged person.

(Haaah, why is Albert-dono so erotic when he’s been drinking… I want to somehow sweet-talk him and drag him into bed…)

By the way, it wasn’t just her appearance that was childlike. Her thoughts were too. She’d been thinking about nothing but lewd things for a while now. She was on par with Sonia at around fourteen or fifteen… No, maybe this grandma was still better than that. Even so, the reputation of her being quite sharp seemed to be true. She was another one who required caution. If I didn’t maneuver carefully, there was a chance she might notice the existence of my magic eye.

I had brought a special eyepatch to seal my magic eye for emergencies, but when speaking directly with this grandma, it might be better to put it on. Sigh, what a pain…

“……”

As I drank my alcohol with an indescribable feeling, a sparrow beastwoman entered from the entrance. She rushed over to Grandma Dalaiya and whispered something into her ear. For a moment I worried that some trouble had occurred, but it seemed that fear was unfounded. Grandma broke into a smile and stood up from the straw mat she had been using as a cushion.

“It seems the ‘legitimate’ faction has arrived. Let us all go and welcome them.”

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