In a World of Reversed Chastity, I Strive to Become an Honorable Male Knight, but Lustful Women Keep Targeting My Body - 298

Chapter 298: The Kukkoro Male Knight and a Nap

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“Honestly, those old ladies are something else…”

While stepping into a tent set up in a corner of the forest, I let out a sigh. The negotiations had gone in an unexpected direction, but I had somehow managed to get most of our demands through. It meant that, just like the “Legitimate” group, the “New” group would also be relocating to the Liseben territory.

Well, the relocation itself had been accepted more easily than expected. It seemed the elves were a race that didn’t feel much resistance to changing bases. For an agricultural people, that was rather unusual, but they were a long-lived race after all. Their fundamental sense of things was probably different from ours, the short-lived races.

“Haah… I’m sleepy…”

Perhaps because I had finally relaxed, I let out an involuntary yawn. I had been fighting almost nonstop through the night yesterday, so I was pretty exhausted physically. The situation was still far from stable, but I decided to use the gaps in time to take a short nap. If I got too tense and my head stopped working at a crucial moment, it would defeat the purpose.

“Good work.”

Like a guardian spirit standing right behind me, Sonia smiled as she said that. Her face showed no sign of fatigue at all. As expected of a dragonkin, her base physical endurance was on a different level. I couldn’t help but envy her. Well… she probably wasn’t completely unaffected either. She was an officer too. Acting tough was part of the job.

“You too, Sonia. …Since Josette went out of her way to help us, let’s rest when we can. Both of us.”

After lightly patting Sonia on the shoulder, I sat down on the bedding. Calling it “bedding” was generous. It was just a very simple straw bundle. Still, in a battlefield, it wasn’t rare to sleep directly on the ground. Compared to that, this was far better than nothing.

For the record, both Sonia and I had changed out of our armor into casual clothes. We had been drenched by a passing rainstorm just before dawn, after all. Since armor was made of iron, it would rust quickly without proper care. Neither of us had the energy to deal with it ourselves, so we left it to the attendants.

“I suppose so.”

Sonia nodded lightly and stretched, raising both arms. Her generously proportioned chest, matching her over-190-centimeter frame, became even more noticeable. It was painfully distracting.

“Still… haa… Josette really is thoughtful when she wants to be. I never thought she’d volunteer for a position of responsibility like that…”

“Yeah…”

I gave a light laugh. Josette was one of our childhood knight comrades. She had excellent officer potential, but she stubbornly insisted on staying at the bottom ranks. I understood the feeling. Promotion only meant more responsibility without much reward.

That Josette had unusually volunteered today to act as commander while I rested. Normally, she would rotate breaks with Sonia in such situations, but according to her: “If either Al-sama or Sonia collapses, I’ll be the one stuck dealing with it anyway. So please just rest together.”

“…”

That part was fine. In fact, I was grateful. But why had it naturally turned into us taking a nap in the same tent? We were childhood friends, sure, but I was a man and Sonia was a woman. And yet Sonia had entered my tent without the slightest hesitation. Truly unbecoming conduct for a Galea knight, whose code supposedly protected gentlemen so carefully.

“Still… changing the subject, this feels nostalgic. Back in the knight cadet days, we used to sleep in the same tent like this all the time.”

The knight cadet corps, a rite of passage for Galea knights, was essentially a boot camp that gathered knight apprentices and drilled them in group life and combat skills. Of course, it wasn’t a place where a man would normally be placed. Since I couldn’t be treated as a special exception, I ended up living and sleeping among groups of girls for a while. …Yeah, that period was hell in many ways.

Of course, once my body started developing, we were separated. If anything had happened, it would’ve been a disaster. …Still, thinking about my current “late marriage” situation, maybe it would’ve been better if something had actually happened back then…

“What a nostalgic story. …Sometimes I even feel like going back to those days.”

Saying that, Sonia sat down right next to me. Our shoulders were pressed tightly together. She was usually an unusually close person, but today she was even more so than usual. But thinking about it, Sonia had always been like this during the cadet days. She only stopped so abruptly once she became an adult, at around fifteen. At the time, I had made the embarrassing mistake of thinking she might actually like me.

Because of that misunderstanding, I had wasted a valuable pre-adulthood matchmaking period. Well, I couldn’t blame her. It was entirely my fault. From what I could tell by looking at people like Chancellor Adelaide and Margrave Suolahti, it seemed normal for women in this world to act this close with men they were familiar with.

“True. Those were good times.”

I nodded, and Sonia chuckled softly before resting her head on my shoulder. She then leaned her weight into me, making her extremely heavy. This adjutant of mine was almost twenty centimeters taller than me, and probably about fifty percent heavier overall.

Well, I endured it. It was a perk, after all. Still, Sonia was acting strange today. She didn’t usually behave this affectionately. …Probably because of the “Legitimate” group’s flamethrower incident. Even though they were enemies (and there was a chance some allies were mixed in), watching people burn alive had been shocking. Even someone like me, accustomed to battlefields, had felt like lead had been poured into my stomach.

“Should we go back to being kids for just a little while?”

“…Yes.”

As I pulled her closer by the head, she didn’t resist and pressed her face into my chest. Then we both collapsed onto the straw bed. Hugging her large body tightly, I felt her slowly relax. It really was a nostalgic feeling. Back when Sonia was a child, she would always cling to me like this when something painful happened. She had lost her father at a young age. Maybe she had been filling that emptiness with me.

“Sonia, you’re my best adjutant. But you don’t have to always be the best adjutant. When it’s just the two of us, it’s fine to just be Sonia and Al.”

“…Yeah.”

Dropping her formal speech, Sonia hugged me back. Honestly, it was extremely hard to breathe. She was huge, heavy, and incredibly strong. It felt like being hugged by a large wild animal. And her massive chest pressed against me with unbearable force. Was this some kind of test of my sanity?

Still, of course, I didn’t push her away. My father had said that sometimes a man’s role was to accept a woman’s vulnerability.

Sonia was still young. When I think about it, at her age I had been messing around at the naval academy. I had never witnessed anything like last night’s horrific scene. Thinking about it that way, I felt a bit guilty. I had made her experience something too harsh…

“You’re doing well, Sonia. You really are amazing. I’m lucky to have a friend like you.”

As I patted her back, she rubbed her cheek against my chest like a child. She had completely returned to her childhood self. No matter how strong a person was, staying in high-stress environments like battlefields would eventually break them. So it was necessary to properly relax them like this. I wanted Sonia, my dear friend, to stay healthy. If that meant acting like a father or even a body pillow, I would do it.

“You were really cool last night. I was impressed. Thank you, Sonia. I’m glad you were there…”

Whispering gently into her ear, I let her hear my heartbeat. Sonia let out a small breath and clung to me like a child. 

…Good, this is working well. As expected of a childhood friend, I know all her weak points.

Of course, Sonia wasn’t the only one who needed care. I had also exposed the younger ones like Karina to a terrible battlefield. It was probably going to become a trauma. I knew I had messed up, but it couldn’t be helped now. I would have to deal with the aftermath properly later…

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