Please Vote for Your Knight! – Chapter 50

Author: Asternkm

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“I heard you were sick.”

“I’m all better, thanks to everyone worrying about me.”

Raphael Laurent had come to visit Dmitri at the hospital rather late.

Dmitri flashed him a grin, as if to say there was nothing to worry about.

Raphael lowered his head.

“Actually, I only found out just now, so I didn’t even get a chance to worry…”

“Ah…”

“Sorry.”

Why were these knights so brutally honest?

Dmitri couldn’t understand it.

Then he heard a muffled chuckle from beside him.

It was David, sitting there elegantly with a teacup in one hand.

‘That bastard never misses a chance to laugh at me.’

After living together for a while, David had somehow gone from Duke David to simply ‘that bastard’ in Dmitri’s mind.

Beside him, Kusto was also bowing his head, doing his absolute best to suppress his laughter.

‘And that guy… well, what can I even say?’

“Oh, right. Did you hear about this?”

Perhaps he wanted to change the subject.

Raphael spoke as if he had some shocking news.

“There are some strange carriages going around outside.”

“Strange carriages?”

“Yeah. Maurice’s face is painted all over the front of the carriages and even on the horses’ saddles.”

“And they say, [Please vote for ‘Legendary Three Seconds’ Maurice Arnaud!], right?”

Kusto asked.

Raphael’s eyes widened.

“How did you know?”

“Nowadays, anyone in the capital—or even the Empire—has seen those carriages.”

“They pass by all the time.”

David chimed in.

“It was probably the work of some very wealthy young lady.”

“Cartamen must really be popular if things like this are happening.”

Dmitri murmured.

And it wasn’t just the carriages.

Banners urging people to vote for their favorite knights had appeared all over the walls of large estates.

Even people who didn’t own large houses had started hanging little banners outside their windows.

Cartamen was causing a massive sensation throughout the Empire.

“Um, and…”

Raphael shyly held something out.

It was the Daily Justice and Truth.

At the bottom of the front page—

one of the most valuable advertising spots—

was a picture of Raphael with the children from his orphanage.

And beneath it—

Vote for the Angel of the Orphanage, Raphael Laurent!

The words were printed in huge letters.

“Apparently, there are people supporting me and the children, too.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Congratulations.”

“What are you congratulating me for? There are plenty of banners for His Grace David and everyone else, too.”

Raphael said.

One banner in particular had been especially memorable.

The Mad Whip Man! Only your vote can soothe his madness.

Against a pitch-black background was the shadowed face of Pierre.

It suited his image perfectly.

“Maurice probably wouldn’t have just sat still if he saw carriages with his face on them going around.”

At Kusto’s words, Raphael nodded.

“He seems to ride every carriage with his picture on it. There are tons of sightings of him riding the same carriages.”

“He really is something else.”

David snickered.

“Have you happened to see any carriages for me?”

Kusto asked cautiously.

Dmitri shrugged.

“Of course there must be plenty. Aren’t you the one whose ranking has risen the most since the last broadcast?”

He was right.

For the most part, everyone on Dmitri and Deni’s teams had climbed significantly in the rankings.

But Kusto’s rise was particularly noticeable.

His momentum had been incredible lately, and his interim ranking had been hovering around fifth place.

The only person who hadn’t benefited from the team competition was Joan.

Joan’s name, which had previously been absent because she had been fighting for first and second place, had started appearing on the screens these days.

She was still within the top five, but if things continued like this, she was in danger of being overtaken by the competitors climbing up behind her.

Because of that, Joan’s fans had put up banners with a slightly different message from everyone else.

We condemn the one-sided malicious editing of Joan!

Just then—

“AAAH!”

A scream came from outside.

And it wasn’t just one scream.

David had a training ground outside his estate.

And on that training ground, Killian and Olivier were in the middle of an intense training session.

“What on earth is that noise?”

They all jumped to their feet and rushed outside.

What they saw happening in the training ground was beyond imagination.

“Training! That! Easily! Is! Unacceptable!”

Pierre was wildly swinging a whip.

Killian and Olivier were frantically dodging it.

“W-W-W-When did Pierre get here?”

David, who almost never stuttered, cried out in shock.

Raphael scratched his head.

“I came with him, but somehow I forgot to mention it.”

“Even so, you should have told us about an incident like this right away…”

Pierre was, in fact, a living, breathing incident.

David stopped mid-sentence.

Kusto grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Look carefully at Killian’s legs.”

As Kusto said, David looked at Killian’s legs.

Pierre’s whip was primarily targeting the lower body.

And Killian’s legs were dancing like crazy.

Anything to avoid the fiery sting of the whip.

As though he had never been injured in the first place!

“Oh…”

“Wow…”

“Could this actually be a pretty effective training method…?”

In the end, Killian couldn’t dodge forever and was struck once, sending him skidding across the ground.

But the results were incredible.

Seeing everyone finally come rushing out, Killian cried out as though he had spotted his savior.

“Please, help me! That bastard suddenly showed up and is trying to kill us!”

“What excellent training.”

“I didn’t realize it would be this effective.”

At David and Dmitri’s comments, Killian’s face fell as though his entire country had been destroyed.

Pierre grinned and turned around.

“Long time no see, everyone. It would be proper to greet you first, but I simply couldn’t stand watching these two trains like this, so I decided to sacrifice myself and lend them a hand.”

He lovingly stroked his whip.

“My master would never have stood by if he saw them training like this. With a whip, he would have…”

“Exactly what kind of person was this master of yours?”

Olivier, sprawled on the ground and panting heavily, asked.

He had finally reached his limit and shouted out.

At that, Pierre’s eyes instantly filled with tears.

He gazed wistfully up at the sky.

“He took me in after I lost my parents when I was young. When I complained that being a coachman was boring, he even had me trained as a butler. He even taught me how to be a squire. And this whip was a gift from him.”

“Wait.”

Kusto raised his hand.

“Didn’t you say your master used to whip you?”

“That was because I set the stables on fire while fooling around as a child. He only pretended to whip me.”

“What?”

“I also broke some of my master’s two-hundred-year-old antiques from time to time. And once, I rolled around in his fields and came back covered head to toe in manure.”

“……”

“Hah. Happy memories.”

Everyone fell silent.

In an instant, the image of Pierre’s master as a cruel man who mercilessly wielded a whip had transformed into that of a living angel.

“Anyway, we’ve rested enough. Shall we resume training?”

Pierre raised his whip high.

“W-Wait!”

“Somebody stop him!”

Killian and Olivier panicked.

But everyone else merely crossed their arms or nodded as they watched.

No one seemed inclined to stop him.

The person who unexpectedly put a halt to Pierre’s mad whipping was—