Virgin Knight Who Is the Frontier Lord in the Gender Switched World

Faust von Polydoro and Caroline, on the battlefield where the main characters had left.

The Second Princess’s Royal Guard began to rack up their kill scores individually.

The militia pulled back by Faust took a rest in the rear, while 20 of Polydoro’s subjects led by Helga, along with 15 of the royal guards, stood at the front.

About 20 of Caroline’s elite subjects remained, despite being elites, they were forced into situations where one had to take on two opponents.

Under Helga’s command, the subjects of Polydoro were maneuvering well as the royal guard’s support.

Frankly, the battlefield was beginning to wrap up.

However, despite understanding the situation, those who were fighting were desperate.

“Killed one! Next!”

“Quickly, move to support from the flank! My royal guard, let not a single one of you die!”

Sabine, the leader of the royal guard, yelled out. After scoring a single kill, Sabine then moved to the rear to command the royal guard.

Beside me was a royal guard who, after earning their own kill score, remained as my escort.

“Princess, you seem to be feeling unwell,”

The remaining royal guard member, Hanna, muttered while looking at my complexion.

“…Many militiamen have died. It might exceed ten. Despite Faust’s efforts,”

“It can’t be helped,”

Hanna muttered with a voice that could be taken as cold.

“This is a battlefield, after all.”

“Battlefield…”

Yes, this is a battlefield.

I understand that.

Ever since seeing the decapitated corpses brutally tormented in that small village directly controlled by the lord, I’ve understood.

What I didn’t understand was the strength of Faust, known as the Knight of Wrath, which seemed to be detached from this world, and

my inability to get used to the death screams, the victory cries, and the battlefield music where the sound of clashing swords echoed.

To be honest, I was scared.

This thin veil covering my cowardly self, even now on the battlefield, has not peeled off.

Could someone be targeting me?

Could someone be coming to take my life?

Even staying somewhat back from the front lines, that fear did not clear.

“My royal guard… None of you will die, right?”

“Our royal guard is not that weak. We are of noble blood, our skill and armament far surpass those of commoners,”

Hanna whispered, as if to calm me down.

Indeed, not a single one was missing yet.

The Second Princess’s Royal Guard was far stronger than Valiere had imagined.

Though they struggled at first due to it being their debut, after securing kill scores, they had regained their usual training movements.

I wished it could just end like this.

At that moment, a woman emerged from the enemy lines surrounded by the royal guard and Polydoro’s subjects.

In her hands was a crossbow.

That immensely powerful weapon Faust used, ignoring complaints from the church.

“――Found you! You’re the commander, aren’t you!”

The woman holding the crossbow, possibly severely injured on her head, was bleeding.

Her eyes were filled with madness.

Frozen in fear, I could do nothing but stand still.

“Even when in the supposedly safe rear, suddenly, the enemy’s elite could attack.”

The advice for one’s first battle from my older sister.

Those words flashed through my mind.

“I’ll take your life with me!!”

The line of fire of the crossbow.

I was in it.

I was going to be killed.

I couldn’t even flinch.

“Valiere-sama!!”

Hanna, who was beside me, stood in the line of fire of the crossbow in my place.

The sound of the heavy trigger being pulled was heard.

The sound of Hanna’s equipped chainmail being pierced twice, both front and back.

Hanna’s body was pierced by the arrow of the crossbow.

Hanna then fell to the ground.

“Hanna!”

My scream.

I ran to Hanna immediately, but there was no response.

She had completely lost consciousness.

“You monster!”

I glared at the woman holding the crossbow.

With a disgusting smile creeping across her face, she spread her arms wide and whispered.

“This is it. Kill her!”

“As if I needed to be told!!”

Drawing my sword, I charged at the woman with the crossbow, filled with rage for having my royal guard—Hanna—struck down.

It was a fury.

“You. You did this to Hanna!!”

It was the first time in Valieres, the Second Princess’s life, that she had ever been so enraged.

The cowardly thin veil was forgotten, as if peeled away.

First, I gouged out her eyes.

With the next strike, I severed her ears.

Standing over the woman who had fallen, I stomped on her face, shattering her teeth.

Eventually, the woman ceased to move at all.

I thrust my sword vigorously into her chest, delivering the final blow.

“You――you did this to Hanna.”

Eventually, as Valiere regained her composure, she realized that she had just killed someone.

Kill score, 1.

That didn’t matter at all.

“Hanna!”

With her sword stained in blood, Valiere ran back to where Hanna lay fallen, her legs trembling as if they had only just awakened from the fury of having taken a life.

※

She was dreaming.

A dream from her childhood.

“I wanted a boy,” she was told over and over again.

By her father, her mother, her sisters.

Even though it was not a world where boys were born.

Only one in ten children born was a boy.

She was the fourth child born into a family of hereditary nobles of decent blue blood—meaning, she was an unwanted child.

A spare of a spare of a spare.

Unwanted and unanticipated by anyone.

Therefore, she was treated roughly.

She received knight training, but any mistake was met with ridicule, quickly leading to her giving up.

Thus, her knight training remained incomplete.

However, she was mysteriously good at swordsmanship and spearmanship.

Better than any of her sisters, even overcoming the difference in age.

This, in turn, earned her their jealousy.

At the dining table, her portion was always one dish less than her sisters.

Well, that was fine.

There were no good memories from her childhood.

Eventually, at the age of 14, she was cast out from her home as if being exiled.

“From now on, you will be part of the personal guard of the Second Princess Valiere.”

It was a welcome development.

This way, she could avoid seeing her detestable family.

She had no love left for her family.

They were her hated enemies.

She headed to the royal palace to undergo the rites of a knight.

The first time she met the 10-year-old Second Princess Valiere, who was four years her junior.

But she was a 14-year-old with only incomplete knight training.

She wondered if she could perform well in the knighting ceremony.

Honestly, she was anxious.

“To serve as the protector and guardian of all those who oppose the tyranny of the church, widowers, orphans, or pagans, and serve God.”

The blessing words of the Second Princess Valiere.

And then, she was tapped on the shoulder with a sword.

“……”

I couldn’t find the words.

Honestly, I couldn’t remember.

What was I supposed to answer?

Honestly, my intelligence was that of a chimpanzee.

When I remained silent, the Second Princess Valiere-sama chuckled softly.

“It’s fine, you can stay silent. I’m a spare, you’re a spare. Let’s do our best together from now on.”

Valiere-sama quietly smiled at me, who couldn’t even properly fulfill a knight’s vow.

After that— it was fun.

There was no other word for it but fun.

It made the indescribable, almost nightmarish last 14 years seem to fade away.

The royal guards were all fools.

The royal guards were a comforting bunch of fools.

For the first time, I recognized comrades and friends in the Second Princess’s royal guard.

At the same time, I felt a complex emotion realizing there were so many fools like me.

The captain of the guard, Sabine, was terrible.

Especially terrible.

We were the same, the lowest rank of knights of one generation.

Yet, she insisted she should be the captain because she was the best at giving speeches and wouldn’t listen to reason.

What kind of logic is that?

She was so stubborn, and when you tried to argue, she’d throw a tantrum, so Valiere-sama reluctantly gave in.

“I really wanted to make you, Hanna, the captain of the royal guard.”

Valiere-sama’s words were a joy to hear.

I had never been praised at home.

Ah, Sabine was truly terrible.

Once, she came up with a plan to peek at the squire’s changing clothes.

I thought about opposing it.

But I couldn’t.

At that time, as a 16-year-old girl, it wasn’t that I had no interest in the male body.

Through knowledge—listening to the lewd stories Sabine, the captain of the guard, somehow obtained, I was excited.

But I had never actually seen a man’s naked body.

“You’re interested too, aren’t you, Hanna?”

To say I wasn’t interested would be a lie.

Eventually, all 15 of us from the Second Princess’s royal guard went together in a group to peek at the squires changing.

Of course, we were found out.

After all, a group of 15 trying to sneak a peek was bound to fail.

Why didn’t anyone stop us?

Were our intelligences really on par with chimpanzees?

I even doubted myself to that extent.

But even after causing such an incident, Valiere-sama didn’t strip us of our royal guard positions.

“I bowed my head to mother. I wanted to say that with this, the matter would be closed, but”

“Can’t you let it end with that?”

“How could it end here? You fools. Chimpanzees! All of you kneel down right there!!”

All 15 members of the royal guard were made to kneel on the floor and were scolded.

That was a good memory.

It was different from when I was a child.

Being scolded by the beloved Valiere-sama felt like a reward, a fond memory.

The fun days in the royal guard.

Hanna was dreaming.

Surely, Valiere-sama could never become queen.

Firstly, someone as kind as her didn’t fit the role of a queen.

And that was fine.

Valiere-sama was our master, and that was enough.

No one else was needed. She was our master alone.

We, all members of the Second Princess’s royal guard, were now poor knights of the lowest rank of one generation knights.

But someday, we’d rise to the rank of hereditary knights.

Collect money together as a guard, and buy a whole barrel at our usual cheap tavern.

All marry someone of somewhat noble blood.

Have children.

And have them succeed us.

And then, and then.

Hanna was dreaming.

But the time to awaken from that dream arrived.

It was a man’s voice that roused me.

“There are other severely injured people. I will take charge of their treatment and lead the villagers. Princess, please, stay by her side. I will take over the duty from here.”

“Hanna is! This child is the most severely injured! Please, Faust. This child!”

“Princess Valiere the Second.”

Ah, Valiere-sama was crying.

Why was she crying?

Lord Polydoro looked at me with a pained expression, as if holding back something, and muttered.

“The duty of witnessing the death of a retainer is solely the lord’s burden.”

With only those words, Lord Polydoro turned his back and rode away on his horse.

What, am I going to die?

Is this dream going to end?

I understood that reality from the conversation between Lord Polydoro and Valiere-sama.

“Did you wake up? You woke up, right? You can live, right, Hanna?”

“The royal guards—protecting the princess is, of course, our duty.”

My speech was slurred.

For some reason, I was extremely sleepy.

I felt like closing my eyes and falling asleep again right then and there.

But I had to stay awake.

I had to somehow stop Valiere-sama from crying.

“Valiere-sama.”

“What? Hanna. You’re really foolish, becoming my shield. There’s nothing good about it.”

I’m sleepy.

Why won’t Valiere-sama stop crying?

“No, but this is an honor. An honorable wound. Even if it means bowing to your mother, I’m sure your rank will be raised, and you’ll have a better life. And then, and then…”

I might not be able to bear it any longer.

I’m sorry, Valiere-sama, for always making you angry.

Perhaps, if I fall asleep now, you will be angry again.

So, before that, just one thing—

“I… I really loved you, Valiere-sama.”

I wanted to convey at least this feeling.

My loyalty was not to the royal family as such.

Embarrassing as it might be for a knight of noble blood, I had none of that.

It was because I personally loved Valiere-sama that I swore my loyalty.

Ah, I’m sleepy.

I close my eyes.

“Hanna! Keep your eyes open!!”