The Talentless Wicked Prince Wants To Survive ~ The Only Way For Me, Reincarnated As The Punching Bag Third Prince In A Romance Smartphone RPG, To Live Is To Not Break Off My Engagement With The Duke’s Yandere Daughter Who’s Stronger Than The Heroine~ - Chapter 67: The Holy Knight heroine was enraged by the unjust result

“…This match is over. The victor is Lady Carla Delminio.”

“Huh!?”

Cardis, acting as referee, grimaced and declared the match’s end, his voice mercilessly cutting through what had been the perfect fight.

“W-why!? My duel with His Highness Harold isn’t finished yet!”

“She’s right! And what do you mean by my loss, exactly?”

Unable to accept the verdict, Carla pressed both Cardis and the other judge, Lorenzo, for an explanation. Naturally, I joined in too.

“What nonsense. Harold couldn’t do a thing against Lady Delminio’s attacks. He just hid behind his shield and clung to defense. The outcome was obvious, so it was best to call it here.”

“Indeed. This was meant to be a friendly exhibition between the Kingdom of Dehaubarz and the Holy Kingdom of Baltian. It was never intended to injure His Highness Harold.”

Lorenzo quickly backed up Cardis’s reasoning. Not that either I or Carla, the actual participants, had wanted it to end like this.

“B-but still!”

“Haah… Carla, that’s enough.”

As Carla tried to argue further, Christia cut her off sharply with a weary sigh.

“In any case, this is over. Continuing would only humiliate His Highness Harold. As a holy knight, you should refrain from bullying the weak—”

“Shut up!”

Finally unable to hold it in any longer, Carla bared her fangs and shouted, cutting Christia off mid-sentence.

As a loyal knight, she uttered words that should never have been spoken to her master.

“His Highness Harold blocked every single one of my full-powered strikes! Not once did he falter! How could you possibly call that bullying the weak!?”

“Carla… you will hold your tongue.”

“No, I will not! His Highness Harold is without question a strong warrior, a man worthy of respect! It is you who should watch your words, belittling and insulting him as though he were some helpless fool!”

Even as Christia’s tone dropped into cold command, Carla continued shouting back.

Ah, geez… how stupid. If she kept this up, she could end up punished for insubordination.

“Lady Carla, thank you. I truly enjoyed fighting with you.”

“! Y-your Highness Harold! …I see…”

To stop her from saying anything she’d regret, I forced my best smile and offered her my right hand. She still looked like she had more to say, but after a moment she seemed to understand.

Her shoulders slumped, and she weakly took my hand.

“…Next time, let’s fight again with no one interfering.”

“It’s a promise…”

We slowly released our hands, and Carla turned her back on Christia and the rest of the envoy, leaving the training grounds alone.

I exhaled once, turned, and faced Sandra and the others.

“Well done, Haru-sama.”

“Haha… thank you.”

Yeah. I didn’t care what those people thought of me. After all, I had these precious women who truly understood me.

“Come on, let’s go too.”

“Yes.”

Taking Sandra’s hand, I led us past the dumbstruck onlookers and out of the training grounds.

And then…

…Chuckle.

Ugh… Christia had just laughed at me. I had a really bad feeling about this.

◇

“Excuse me. His Eminence Salvatori requests an audience with His Highness Harold. Might I ask you to accompany me?”

After everything that had happened, I’d been relaxing in my room with Sandra and the others, finally calming down over tea when one of the priests from the envoy had abruptly showed up and said that.

I was technically the host for their delegation, so I couldn’t exactly refuse… But honestly, couldn’t they take this request to Wilfred instead?

“I must decline. Considering that you, and everyone else, saw fit to laugh so rudely at Haru-sama earlier, isn’t this rather shameless of you?”

Oh, wow. Before I could even respond, Sandra shut him down first.

Yeah, she was definitely still upset about the match. I couldn’t blame her.

“Huh?! Uh, well… Your anger is entirely justified, but I beg of you, please, would you grant us just a moment of His Highness’s time?”

The priest, clearly not expecting that kind of pushback, panicked and bowed his head.

Hmm… honestly, a summons from one of the “bigwigs” never led to anything good.

I really didn’t want to go.

But if ignoring it somehow triggered a bad ending flag for me, or worse, something that endangered Sandra, that’d be even worse.

And besides… I’d been asked directly…

“Haa… fine. But I’m only going to hear what this is about, understand?”

“Oh! Th-thank you so much!”

The priest lifted his head with almost desperate gratitude, bowing again and again.

Wasn’t that a bit too desperate? Who knew.

“Haru-sama, are you sure about this?”

“Haha… well, I’ll at least listen to what he has to say.”

If this turned out to be the start of some bad-ending scenario, especially one that might put Sandra in danger, I’d crush it before it could happen.

I’d rather keep my distance, but with that possibility hanging over me, I didn’t really have a choice.

Sandra and I therefore followed the priest out of the room.

And then…

“Ah, welcome.”

Lorenzo greeted us with a cool, composed smile as we entered.