Virgin Knight Who Is the Frontier Lord in the Gender Switched World - Chapter 197

“What do you expect me to do about that?”

Hearing such a bewildered response from Lady Valiere, I, Marina von Wesperman, pressed my forehead to the floor.

“Please! Please!! Save the Wesperman family!!”

There was no other option left.

Her Highness Anastasia had refused to grant me an audience and had decided on the non-participation of the Wesperman family in the plot to assassinate the Pope.

“Don’t come to see me until everything is over. I will secure your personal title, but that will be as my personal herald officer only. I have no intention whatsoever of covering the costs to maintain the Wesperman family as an intelligence agency.”

Having been dismissed through Duchess Astarte, there was no other recourse.

Lately, the relationship between the sisters, led by Lady Valiere, had improved, leaving me no choice but to cling to her.

I implored her, begging for her to mediate once more with Her Highness Anastasia.

I knelt down, rubbing my forehead against the floor, begging like a four-legged beast.

“If things continue like this, the Wesperman family, which has served the royal family as an intelligence agency for years, will collapse! My bloodline will be completely scattered!”

“Well… even if you say that. If Sister already said it’s no good, then it’s all over, right? Even if I speak up, it won’t change anything. I don’t know what you did to be disliked so much, but if it’s not about your personal abilities, Marina, maybe you should just give up on your family.”

“That’s so cruel!”

The one who seemed least likely to abandon her subordinates just told me that my family was honestly done for.

Honestly, I, too, felt that might be the case, but I didn’t want to hear it from her.

Lady Valiere, always so kind to her subordinates, tilted her head slightly, troubled, looking sideways at Lord Berlichingen and Lady Pretihya.

“Amelia. What do you think about this matter?”

“Lady Valiere, I’m at a loss even if you look at me. I know nothing of the affairs of Anhalt’s royal palace. As a knight who has signed a master-servant contract only with the Emperor, I have no interest or advice to offer regarding the internal affairs of the Anhalt electorate.”

“Well, my allegiance to the Emperor is but a temporary alliance, and my true lord for life is none but you.”

Lord Berlichingen muttered dismissively and then smiled like a blooming rose, gazing only at Lady Valiere.

“Lady Pretihya?”

“Unlike Lord Berlichingen, I am a knight in service to the Anhalt electorate, albeit newly risen and not well-versed in these matters. I have formed a friendship with Lady Sabine von Wesperman…”

Honestly, Lady Sabine had said that it would be a loss to involve oneself with the Wesperman family and advised ignoring them.

She too seemed to have left that home behind, chuckling about it.

The novice knight murmured and looked at me perplexedly.

The situation was dire, and there were no allies.

Ultimately, it seemed they were only interested in Lady Valiere’s cost-benefit considerations.

They simply gave me cold looks as if to say, “If you’re a nuisance to Lady Valiere, we’ll kick you out.”

“Lady Valiere, Second Princess. I will speak of our worth. The Wesperman family has always been loyal to the royal family, serving since the founder of the Anhalt electorate. We have extracted information from other countries and protected our own. We have served as the royal family’s poison and dagger, eliminating enemies. The recent failures are indeed shameful, but we will prove our worth in the Pope assassination plot. If you could speak for us, we would never forget the debt, even after you become the lord of Polidoro. Please, mediate our participation in the assassination plot with Her Highness Anastasia.”

I had no choice but to plead our case.

If I couldn’t manage to secure our participation, the Wesperman family would indeed disappear.

With Queen Liesenlotte absent and Her Highness Anastasia refusing an audience, my only recourse was Lady Valiere.

“Well, even if you say that… I am busy. It would be problematic if I did something strange and incurred Sister’s disfavor. Recently, she has been kinder, not because her personality has changed, but because I have begun to fulfill my duties as a royal, earning her appropriate treatment…”

Lady Valiere scratched her left hand with the index finger of her right while speaking.

To be honest, it seemed like she couldn’t care less about my family’s fate and muttered as if it was all a bother.

She stopped scratching and opened her right hand, raising three fingers.

“No, I know it sounds like an excuse, but I really am busy. I’ve finished paying everyone for their service in the march to the capital, but that doesn’t mean we’re disbanding. I need to prepare a list of those wishing to migrate to Polidoro, and if they are migrating, I need to ensure they don’t spend all the money they’ve earned until they are settled. It seems the Ingtritt Merchant Company, a sutler, is getting into banking, and a lot of people want me to guarantee their deposit contracts…”

“Well, I just need to check the contents of the created deposit certificates and stamp them.”

As if to indicate this was her first point, Lady Valiere bent her index finger.

“The second thing is, I need to teach the newly appointed knights of the Anhalt electorate about etiquette and behavior in the royal capital. It would be unpleasant if, after finally becoming knights, they were ridiculed as unsophisticated country folk or ended up embarrassing themselves. Since the Second Princess’s personal guard is also somewhat lacking in this area and not in a position to teach others, I’ll need to borrow a herald from my sister and figure it out.”

Muttering to herself, she bent her middle finger.

“The third, and most important matter, is business. I’ve purchased a large amount of trade goods during our march, and I plan to have them all bought up by the trading guilds in the imperial capital. With the funds from these sales, I intend to make the settlement in Polidoro successful. Both my sister and Duchess Astarte have promised to help, but it’s still not enough. I was thinking of handling the negotiations with the threat of force, but it’s become a bit complicated.”

“I have heard about it.”

Though the Wesperman family was decaying, it remained an intelligence agency, and we were aware of the circumstances in the imperial capital.

The trading guild in the imperial capital, intimidated by the army led by Lady Valiere, had hired a large number of Landsknechte as a countermeasure.

While the Landsknechte are employed by the Emperor and connected to the Vilendorf Reckenberg family, they are not exclusively contracted to the Emperor.

As long as they don’t turn their blades against the Emperor or the Reckenberg family, they are free to engage in combat elsewhere.

“Just to check, if you say the Wesperman family can handle the Landsknechte, I might be willing to help. Can you be of any use?”

…

Lady Valiere dangled her ring finger in the air, silent.

It was impossible, and Lady Valiere knew it.

Essentially, she was voicing an impossible demand to end the conversation.

The only ones capable of opposing the army she led, which had not yet disbanded, were the Landsknechte.

It was a challenging issue, even for an Elector, let alone the Wesperman family.

“If it’s intelligence cooperation, leave it to me. Even assassinations of key figures on the other side…”

I muttered in agony.

My stomach felt heavy, my chest tight.

Because I was lying.

The Wesperman family no longer had that capability.

“Sorry, but as for intelligence, Sabine alone is enough for me. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear about the assassination. Anyway, I can’t intercede with my sister for you.”

“Lady Valiere! Our family will do anything we can!!”

“Fundamentally, if you want to participate in the assassination plan, asking me is wrong. My duty as a member of the Anhalt royal family ended when I delivered Sabine to the capital. If you must ask someone, it should be—”

She was about to say something I didn’t want to hear.

I wanted to cover my ears, but I couldn’t.

Doing so would surely incur Her Highness’s displeasure.

“Ask Sabine, the field commander of the Pope assassination plan. She’s your sister, after all.”

Yes, what Lady Valiere said was correct.

That would be the proper course of action.

“…My sister won’t listen to me anymore, at least not regarding our family.”

She truly despises our family, the Wesperman family, from the bottom of her heart.

She wouldn’t intentionally obstruct anything, but she genuinely hoped we would fail and disappear.

“So there’s no reason for me to listen, nor any benefit in responding. As I said at the beginning, interceding with my sister is a futile effort. I’ll ask Sabine to listen to you a little. That’s all I can do. So—”

Lady Valiere fully folded her ring finger and caressed it with her left hand.

Then, with a look of exasperation, she sighed and muttered.

“I’m asking you now, what do you think? Sabine?”

“My sister has made an embarrassing display. First, she should apologize.”

Chills ran down my spine, and I turned around.

There stood my sister, Sabine von Wesperman, directly behind me.

She bowed formally, showing respect to Lady Valiere.

“Sabine!?”

“You’re too slow. I’ve been standing behind you since the middle of the conversation, and you didn’t notice at all. That’s not good.”

I hadn’t sensed her presence at all, not even her footsteps!

I wanted to make excuses, but I bit my lip to hold back.

Though I wasn’t trained as an assassin like Sabine, I had been educated as part of the intelligence agency.

My face reddened with shame.

I was indeed a fool, and my sister was a superhuman.

Other than lacking a human heart, she had no flaws.

“Then, if that’s Lady Valiere’s command, I must obey. I will take my sister with me. Lord Berlichingen, Lady Pretihya, I’m sorry, but please look after Lady Valiere until the Pope assassination plan is completed.”

She grabbed me by the collar and forcibly pulled me up.

Sabine waved her hand flippantly to Lady Valiere and her two attendants, then smiled brightly before saying:

“Bring all the assassins employed by the Wesperman family. Whether the Wesperman family barely survives, is completely used up, or even lacks any value at all. We’ll see after that.”

Without even trying to hide her disdain, she glared at me with cold eyes.