The Story of a Middle-Aged Knight Who Tried to Live a Relaxed Slow Life in the Countryside, Only for a Duke's Daughter Whose Engagement Was Broken Off to Move in With Him

Pouring Spring Rain and an Uninvited Wife

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A month had passed since I took up my post as magistrate.

I had finally gotten used to the work and built a good relationship with the villagers.

A magistrate's duties revolved mainly around paperwork.

When people think of knights, they usually imagine a job requiring physical exertion.

While that was true to some extent, there were plenty of administrative jobs like the accounting department.

Since my swordsmanship was mediocre at best, I was often roped in to help with administrative work.

Not that I had any complaints about it. In fact, fighting paperwork suited me far better than fighting enemies on a battlefield. I had my village grandma to thank for teaching a commoner like me how to read and write.

(Maybe my boss factored all of that in when he handed this job to me.)

My superior's motto was 'Right man for the right job.'

A retired knight skilled at paperwork with zero ambition was indeed well-suited to be the magistrate here.

Since I was commoner-born, it was easy to build trust with the villagers. And lacking any drive for advancement, there was no risk of me turning bitter later on over being banished to the countryside.

Ascot Village was located at the foot of the mountains.

Across those mountains lay a foreign nation, but because the peaks were so steep, passing troops through them was difficult. In past wars, the established tactic for both countries was to bypass the mountains to either the north or south.

In short, there was virtually no danger of getting dragged into a war. Besides, relations with the neighboring country had apparently been stable for decades now.

When steep mountains were involved, the weather at their base was unpredictable.

Even in early spring like right now, the temperature could plummet suddenly, and whenever it got cold, rain would pour all day long.

Today was one of those rainy days.

Pitch-black clouds had spread across the sky with rolls of thunder since dawn, and rain had been pouring steadily since noon.

「On days like this, there's nothing better than sticking to paperwork.」

With a cup of tea given to me by one of the village women in hand, I tackled the documents.

Then again, it was a tiny village. There weren't many documents that required my attention.

Just as I finished up the paperwork and stood up to grab a bite to eat, a knock echoed from the front door.

The manor couldn't be called impressive by any stretch of the imagination. It was rickety all over, with drafts blowing through the cracks. It was thanks to that dilapidation that the knock at the door reached all the way to my office in the back.

「Coming.」

A visitor on a rainy day like this was a rarity.

The villagers lived according to the rhythms of nature. On rainy days, they usually stayed indoors doing handiwork, or if they didn't even have that, they'd lie around chatting with their families.

I headed downstairs and pulled open the front doors with both hands.

Since it was technically the lord's manor, it was fitted with pointlessly grand double doors.

Still, I didn't have the luxury of hiring servants. I handled basic household chores myself. So once again, the magistrate was personally greeting a guest.

Beyond the double doors I pushed open stood a soaked rat of a person.

A hemp-colored hood was pulled low over their eyes, their body draped in a cloak.

From the opening of the cloak, the collar of an expensive-looking blouse peeked through.

Soaked by the rain, the blouse clung to her skin, making her ample chest see-through.

「W-Who might you be?」

Stunned, I asked, prompting the soaked traveler to pull back her hood.

Even with her hood off, she was still drenched to the bone.

While water-resistant cloaks existed for military generals, they weren't the kind of thing you could easily get your hands on.

If it rains, you get wet. That was simply the natural law of the world.

Looking at her face, I caught my breath.

(This girl...)

Emerging from beneath the hood was a beautiful girl with golden hair and blue eyes.

She looked strong-willed, though not particularly spoiled. If anything, she seemed like the earnest type. The kind of person who, once set on something, would risk her life for it.

If a girl like this fell for a guy, would he feel happy, or would it feel suffocatingly heavy?

(No, calling her a 'girl' might not be accurate for her age. She looks to be around twenty.)

Her soft cheeks, which spoke of a highborn upbringing, were currently pale from the cold.

As her eyes gazed up at me with intense desperation, I felt an odd sense of familiarity, as if I had seen them somewhere before.

「Is something wrong, my lady? Did you get separated from your retainers?」

Drawing on my experience from my days in the knights order, I asked in a reasonably polite tone... while carefully averting my eyes from her wet blouse, which clung to her body and revealed the deep cleavage of her ample bosom.

「...take me, please,」 the young lady murmured.

「Eh? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the rain.」

「Please take me.」

「Take you? Me? ...Take what?」

As I stared back with a giant question mark practically floating above my face, the young lady shouted at the top of her lungs, as if losing her patience.

「I-I said, please take me as your wife!」

I paused to contemplate for a moment.

「Um, my lady. Please forgive me if I'm mistaken—well, actually, I'm almost certain I am mistaken... but are you by any chance proposing to me?」

「Y-Yes! That is correct! Why do you sound so unsure of yourself!」

The young lady declared, her cheeks flushing bright red over her cold-paled skin.

My confusion deepened further.

「Um, are you sure you haven't mistaken me for someone else? I'm—」

「Baronet Leonardo Bacchus, correct? Formerly an irregular knight of the Third Knights Order.」

Okay, so she definitely didn't have the wrong guy.

「...Have we met somewhere before?」

「D-Do you not remember?!」

「Eh? Well, no... I'm sorry, but...」

「T-Ten years ago, at the duke's ball, when I was about to be crushed by the crowd and you shielded me with your own body?!」

「Ten years ago, huh. Hmm... Did that happen?」

It was common practice for knights to be drafted as crowd control for noble balls.

Since noble knights had to attend the ball as guests, crowd control duties fell upon commoner-born knights.

While it was a disparity of status, it was actually a popular job among commoner knights because they could take home leftover food. The nobility, after all, always prepared far more food than necessary purely for the sake of showing off.

At any rate, since it happened every year, I didn't remember the details of every single event.

Ten years ago was even less likely. Ten years ago, this girl couldn't have been more than ten years old herself. If you helped a child at a party, it would be weirder to remember it forever.

「T-Then what about the following year, when you smiled and bowed to me at the imperial court dinner...?」

「Erm... That was the year my boss told me, 'If you keep that expressionless face, the noble ladies will be terrified, so smile a little and act friendly.'」

「B-But seven years ago in autumn, when I visited the palace to pay my respects, you served as my guide...」

「Seven years ago... That was the year the regular knights were all deployed for the war effort. Now that you mention it, I do have a vague memory of doing something like that...」

Was this girl among the people I escorted back then?

(To be honest, all young noble ladies look pretty much the same to me.)

Distinguishing one from another didn't change anything anyway.

It was far more important to keep track of who their parents were.

The young ladies were merely an afterthought. As long as I didn't commit a breach of etiquette, that was all that mattered.

「T-Then what about three years ago, when my grandfather passed away and you gently comforted me while I was crying at his funeral...?」

「Three years ago, huh. Ah right, that was the year the former Duke Eldryuse passed away and the title was handed down. The year the next duke got into a dispute with the kingdom over whether tax payment in kind would be permitted for inheritance taxes.」

「W-Why do you remember something like that, but you don't remember ME at allllll?!」

The young lady cried out with tearful eyes.

「I-It can't be helped, can it? A commoner-born knight who offends a noble gets fired on the spot. Of course I became a flounder!」

Incidentally, 'flounder' meant a low-ranking knight whose eyes were only fixed upward—in other words, someone who constantly catered to the whims of their superiors.

「In the first place, a commoner-born knight hitting it off with a noble lady is a story that only exists in a minstrel's saga. If we so much as cast a flirtatious glance at them, and they happen to have a fiancé, all hell breaks loose. We treat noble ladies as beings from a completely different world. It's the same for the nobles, too. To them, commoner-born knights are no different from livestock.」

「T-That's...」

Even a highborn young lady like her seemed grounded enough in reality to recognize that much.

「Now that you understand, stop dreaming impossible dreams and run along home. I won't breathe a word of this to anyone.」

Saying that, I glanced outside.

I thought there might be a carriage waiting, but there was only a single white horse tethered outside the fence.

The white horse stood quietly in place, taking the beating rain.

(Don't tell me she rode here on horseback by herself?)

A noble lady who could ride a horse was a rare sight.

(This is bad. Isn't her family home in an absolute uproar right about now?)

If I were to harbor her, I'd be suspected of adultery, and in the worst-case scenario, I could be beheaded.

She was a stunning beauty, no doubt about it. In my younger days, I might have felt a sudden surge of lust and acted without considering the consequences.

But I was forty now.

It wasn't that my desires had completely withered, but I at least knew how to manage my libido by now.

「This is a real problem. Coming all this way on horseback in this rain... This village doesn't have anything as convenient as a carriage...」

As I began working out how to send her back, the young lady protested vehemently.

「I-I told you that I want you to take me as your wife! Were you not listening to me, Baronet Leonardo Bacchus?!」

「I heard you. But there's no way that's happening. Please stop teasing a retired middle-aged knight.」

「I am not teasing you! I am completely serious!」

「It's probably just that you didn't like your fiancé or something like that. Marrying a humble commoner-born guy like me would certainly make for a great spiteful gesture, wouldn't it?」

「I would never... I would never propose marriage for such a petty reason!」

The young lady thrust her hand into her rain-soaked cloak and pulled something out from her chest.

It was a knife.

An ornate knife bearing the coat of arms of Duke Eldryuse's house.

It didn't look particularly practical for combat, but it was more than enough for a noble daughter to take her own life.

Rather, that was precisely why she was made to carry it.

Unsheathing the blade, the girl pressed it against her own throat.

「S-Stop that!」

「I have no home to return to anymore! If you will not take me, I will end my life right here!」

「A-Alright, I get it. Just calm down.」

「I AM calm! I am deadly serious! You don't understand at all!」

If I had the swordsmanship skills of my former boss, I might have been able to draw my sword faster than the eye could follow and knock the knife away without causing her a scratch.

Unfortunately, my swordsmanship was pathetic.

「I will ask you one last time! Baronet Leonardo Bacchus! Please marry me!」

Glaring at me as if declaring she wouldn't allow me to escape, the young lady made her demand.

Looking at her earnest, resolute face, I involuntarily thought to myself... (she's actually pretty charming.)

「W-Wait. I can't give you an answer so recklessly! In the first place, I don't know the first thing about you...」

「You can get to know me from now on! That's how noble marriages usually work anyway!」

「But I'm commoner-born...」

「You were conferred the rank of Baronet when you became a magistrate! You are a noble right now!」

「T-That's just a title in name only! No actual noble is going to treat me like real nobility! There's no way in hell I could ever become the marriage partner of a duke's daughter!」

「Then I will sever ties with my family!」

「Don't say such reckless things! This isn't a minstrel's saga! How could a city-bred duke's daughter possibly live in a rural backwater like this?!」

「Then all I have to do is prove that I CAN live here, right?!」

「No, it's NOT right! I'm telling you it's fundamentally impossible! Don't ruin my modest, peaceful retirement!」

「I heard that Baronet Leonardo Bacchus has no wife! Nor is there any sign that you've ever had a lover! I heard that if a magistrate isn't even married, the villagers will look down on him!」

「Shut it! The villagers here are all good people, so it's fine!」

「If you don't have anyone, then why shouldn't it be me?!」

「Because it's NOT fine! If Duke Eldryuse, the most powerful noble in the kingdom, sets his sights on me, I won't be able to survive in this country!」

「I will persuade my father!」

「It's impossible and you know it!」

「Even if it is, I will do it! If I conceive your child before my father's pursuers arrive, there will be nothing my father can do about it!」

「That's just forcing a 'fait accompli'! That doesn't count as persuading him! Besides, in that case, I wouldn't even have the right to complain if the duke sliced me to pieces!」

「My father is a civil official, so his swordsmanship is negligible at best! Plus, he's fat from indulging in gourmet food! In a duel, you, a former knight, would definitely have the advantage!」

「Damn it, you've got an answer for everything...! Look, I'm sorry, but I don't remember a single thing about you! How could I possibly stake my life on a woman I have zero feelings for?!」

「...Uuugh, no way. Maryse told me that if I pushed hard enough, almost any man would fall for me in a heartbeat...」

The young lady looked down, tears welling in her eyes.

(Well, sure, there isn't a man alive who'd dislike being hit on by a girl like her...)

Even for me, it was troublesome, but not unpleasant.

However, if I showed even half-hearted interest, she'd only push even harder.

「I... I... u-waaah...」

Large tears welled up in her eyes.

With a look of frustration, she glared up at me.

(That crying face... have I seen it somewhere...?)

Just as she said, had I really met this girl before?

「H-Hey, calm down...」

As I panicked, the girl leaned back slightly with her mouth half open in front of me.

And then—

「Achoo!」

She let out an adorable sneeze.

The force of the sneeze sent her swaying unsteadily.

「A-Ah... anyway, I... want to be... Master Leonardo's... wife...」

Before I realized it, her face was bright red.

I had assumed she was just worked up, but—

「H-Hey!」

As she tottered and began to collapse, I caught her in my arms.

Flustered, I pressed my hand against her forehead.

「Whoa, you're burning up!」

「Hafu... You finally... held me...」

「H-Hey, stay with me!」

In my arms, the uninvited duke's daughter lost consciousness.

「Ah, damn it! Don't tell me this was calculated, too?!」

*****

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