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

There’s probably mud in my hair.

I’ve never combed it.

I don’t even own a comb.

So, if they laugh and call me “Mud-Streaked Baumann,” I have no words to retort.

It’s probably true, after all.

There was just one person who first said otherwise—Lord.

I don’t know if referring to them as Lord is right.

It’s just my way of showing the utmost respect. If it were a herald, they’d probably come up with some more refined or decorated phrase.

That’s what I think.

I don’t have an education.

I’m a bumpkin from the mountains who can neither read nor write.

I can’t even use the magic that writes one’s name.

So, I’m just Mud-Streaked Baumann.

No, I wasn’t even Baumann.

Mud-Streaked was my name.

I was a parentless serf, and when I became a tenant farmer, that name still clung to me.

I wonder when that name changed.

Perhaps it was when I saw the dirt caked under my fingernails.

Was there something that made me reborn?

If so, was it when I sold my flesh, my body—everything that made me human—to the Landsknecht?

No, even then, I was just some nameless Mud-Streaked.

It wasn’t even a proper name or surname.

It was during the inspection at the enlistment ceremony when my name truly changed.

I can hardly remember much from before then.

There was nothing good, so my memories are clouded and murky with mud.

I’m not smart, so I can’t remember much of the past anyway.

“You’re quite large. I’ve never seen a woman bigger than myself, even throughout all of Virendorf.”

That’s what Lord said to me during the inspection.

Lord didn’t just speak to me; they addressed every person with a word or two.

It didn’t matter if they were once a serf or a former noble—there was no distinction.

Flat, unbiased.

When inspecting soldiers, her gaze was utterly impartial.

She’d listen to grand claims like, “I’m from this city” or “I was born into nobility,” or how someone deserves double the pay, or how they can read, write, or do sums—even if it was all lies and bluster.

She listened, but Lord saw through it all.

Everything was evaluated in one sweeping judgment.

Whether you were fit to serve as a soldier, or not—that’s all that mattered.

With eyes so narrow, you could barely see the pupils, Lord would cast a few words, seeing through us completely.

Two or three words.

That’s all it took for everyone to fall silent, bowing their heads.

If they’d been lying, their faces would flush crimson.

I didn’t have the brains to lie, so I answered everything honestly.

There’s nothing in my life I can be proud of, but there’s one thing I was told I excelled at more than anyone.

Killing people.

So, I allowed myself the courage to speak that truth.

“Are you really fine with ‘Mud-Streaked’ as your name? Can you read or write? Your birth?”

“My name’s Mud-Streaked, that’s fine. No, I can’t read or write. I was born a serf, and… I killed to become a tenant farmer.”

“Oh?”

It was a voice tinged with interest.

Lord opened her narrow eyes ever so slightly, nodding in understanding.

“You’ve had military experience, then.”

“I was forced to work as a serf during a conflict between villages over river water. They made me fight in that war, and I killed many. I killed over a dozen people.”

“After all that, you only got promoted from serf to tenant farmer, huh? What a stingy lord. If I were the lord, I’d have made you a soldier right then and there. Though maybe your lord feared setting you free as a soldier?”

She chuckled lightly.

Without doubting my words, without thinking I had lied even once, she looked at some papers.

“Mud-Streaked, a former tenant farmer, eh?”

She muttered, about to write my name on the document.

Then, with a moment of hesitation, she stopped.

“Being ‘Mud-Streaked, a former tenant farmer’ won’t earn you much prestige. For now, you’ll work as a double-paid soldier. But soon enough, you’ll achieve more without me doing a thing.”

Was she speaking to me?

Or just talking to herself?

I wasn’t sure, so I replied vaguely with, “Yes.”

“I’m not stingy, and I’m not foolish enough to invest in anything that won’t return with interest. I intend to equip you with better gear and personally teach you how to wield a spear.”

I don’t know what moved Lord‘s heart, but she followed through on her words.

She prepared special armor and weapons for me, and taught me how to use a sword and spear, personally.

The fact that she taught me herself was probably to show everyone that I was under her protection, a warning not to meddle with me.

I didn’t realize it back then, but a noncommissioned officer explained it to me later.

“Yes, I think in time, you might even become a knight. I expect great things from your future efforts.”

Kneeling before her.

Like a prophecy, Lord spoke, tapping my shoulder with a sword.

That was the moment.

Ah, yes, that moment.

“Your name is Baumann. From now on, you may call yourself Baumann of the Gospel for a while. Though once you step onto the battlefield, your epithet will likely change into something more heroic soon enough. To me, however, meeting you was a stroke of fortune. Therefore, Gospel seems fitting. When you search through the empire’s vast lands, you sometimes find unexpected treasures.”

Nodding to herself, she spoke as if in a monologue.

As though she knew everything about me without needing to ask, sounding thoroughly satisfied.

She called me Baumann of the Gospel as if it were a name to be celebrated.

For someone like Lord, who inspected thousands of people, to acknowledge me—this former serf-turned-tenant farmer…

It was the first time I had ever been praised in my life—not even my parents had done that.

And since then…

What was it again?

“Get up, Baumann.”

I was being shaken.

What’s going on?

I must’ve been drunk, lost in a dream—a far better one than reality.

A dream where a nameless, mud-streaked brat of a serf was acknowledged by Lord, rising to become a knight.

But that dream no longer exists.

So, staying drunk and sleeping would’ve been better.

“It’s time to kill. Something you’re good at.”

Enough already.

I’m tired of killing. I never liked it to begin with.

I only killed hundreds on the battlefield because that was all I was good at.

Killing was the only thing I excelled at.

Because I wanted Lord to praise me.

I’ve already been paid for my achievements, and I’ve secured enough wealth through contracts with the Emperor.

I have enough to drink and sleep for the rest of my life, drowning in alcohol.

So, isn’t that enough?

I don’t need to do anything more.

“I don’t want to do anything. I don’t need any money.”

“It’s just one person you have to kill. As payment, you can have all our wealth after we die in battle. The honor you’ll gain from killing him will also be yours.”

I’m not listening. I don’t need money.

Nor honor.

I could serve anywhere as a knight if I used the numerous commendations Lord gave me—well, I could have, but…

I threw them all into the fireplace the day Lord died.

They burned beautifully.

I burned them all.

But not everything was lost.

The custom armor and sword she gave me still remain, though the title of Gospel has faded.

All that’s left is the name Baumann of the Seven Marks.

But that alone isn’t enough.

It doesn’t drive me.

I can’t do anything anymore.

“I don’t need money. I don’t need rank. I don’t need honor. I need nothing.”

That’s all I could say.

I didn’t need anything anymore.

Just…

“Faust von Polydoro.”

Someone mentioned that name.

Whose name was that?

It lingered in my mind until I finally remembered.

Yes, it was the one who killed Lord Claudia von Reckenber.

It seemed like a bad joke.

A male knight killed her, Lord…

But it must be true.

If the knight of Virendorf, who resides in the Imperial Capital, said it, it cannot be a lie.

“If we don’t kill him, we’re no longer Landsknechts. We’ll be nothing more than vagabond mercenaries.”

I almost said, Aren’t we already?

That’s what I thought we were.

That’s why drinking wine and sleeping seemed perfectly fine to me.

But the wine bottle I reached for was snatched away and smashed to the floor.

A fellow double-paid soldier, someone with barely a tenth of my strength, was grabbing me by the collar.

I didn’t resist.

“Everyone says it. They mock us, saying there’s no pride in us as warriors. That we call ourselves brave soldiers because no one acknowledges us as such. That we insist on being brave because no one else believes it. Yes, it’s true. I won’t deny it.”

My body was being shaken.

“But if we leave him alive, if we don’t challenge him, we won’t even be able to say that about ourselves anymore!”

I let them do as they pleased, my collar pulled, forcing me to stand.

“Let’s kill Polydoro. Help us, Baumann.”

“……”

I remained silent.

But I was starting to think that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

After all, there’s no reward in killing him.

It’s nothing more than taking out some frustration, but that’s enough.

I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do.

But…

Even if I were to ask Lord Reckenber whether my actions were right, no answer would come.