Astrion, encampment outside the Outer City.

“One more chicken!”

Joi kept eating at the outdoor table in front of the command tent.

On the table was enough food that even Kyrie—who’d starved for three days—couldn’t have finished it all.

If the Manseong Church clergy had seen it, they would’ve scolded it as the sin of gluttony.

“Eat more. The amount you eat now will strengthen your muscles and bones.”

“For dinner, we’ll prepare a stew simmered for a long time with beef bones. There’s no better tonic for building a strong frame.”

On the contrary, the knights—Feijin, Augusta, and the rest—were all delighted.

After surpassing one’s limits, you had to take in an enormous amount of nutrition.

That was how superhumans were made—starting from muscle density and even the composition of their bones being different.

We did it, sir.

Joi found their warm, approving gazes reassuring, and she felt proud that she could answer them.

As a superhuman knight, she might have found it unpleasant to be ordered around like this by a “mere” Retainer-rank, but only now did things feel comfortable between them.

She even felt a bit guilty toward Feijin.

When Feijin threw themself in that day, the look on their face hadn’t been just the look someone had for a student.

“Kyrie of Astrion Astreos. Where is my adjutant?”

That thought didn’t last long.

“Sir!”

The moment Kyrie’s voice rang out, Joi rinsed her mouth with wine and sprinted out toward the outer edge of the camp.

“Congratulations.”

Kyrie jumped down from his horse and stopped in front of her.

A strong face with a hearty grin.

“Thank you. Congratulations to you as well, sir.”

Joi beamed back at him, just as brightly.

It was a good day.

Swish.

“You’ve arrived? I believed you would still be alive.”

“You sound like you were hoping that belief would be wrong.”

The two of them went into the command tent.

Gabeong, who had been doing paperwork, rose and greeted them with a sour face.

After waving Gabeong back into his seat, Kyrie pulled out a single engraved parchment from inside his clothes.

“Joi. Your Navigator appointment.”

He turned and held it out to her.

Joi read the parchment once, twice, three times.

Thump, thump.

It felt like falling in love.

“May I rejoice crudely, sir?”

“Yes.”

In the next instant, she threw both hands up and sprang in place.

“Fuuuuuck! Shit! Shit! I’m a Navigator, sir! I made Navigator, sirrr!”

While Kyrie and Gabeong’s eyes quaked—clearly not expecting her to rejoice that crudely—Joi ended up cracking her head on the tent ceiling.

Fair enough.

Kyrie didn’t stop her.

From Navigator onward, it was both a biological classification and a social rank.

A Retainer-rank hundred-man captain was only a position.

In backwater regions with few people, sometimes an ordinary senior soldier served as a hundred-man captain.

But from Navigator onward, you were nobility.

Not comparable to Astreos blood relatives or landed knight nobles—but legally, you were no longer a “commoner.”

“I, I, I heard the whole unit is being reorganized into the Mounted Patrol, sir.”

Joi’s words tumbled out.

Her yellow eyes, full of expectation and joy, sparkled.

“That’s right.”

Kyrie nodded with a sly look.

“And if I’m still your adjutant then, sir, I’ll probably become a pretty high-ranking officer, sir.”

“At minimum, I think you’d be a regiment commander on the unit tables. And your pension would come out of the House.”

Once more.

“I am deeply honored! Wait—if I’m commissioned properly and I’m a Navigator, does that mean I can have a surname now?”

“That’s right.”

Once more.

“Uaaaaaah!”

Joi dropped to both knees and slid across the floor, thrusting both hands up toward the sky.

“Congratulations. Navigator Joi.”

Gabeong offered congratulations with a thoroughly twisted expression.

“Thank you. Navigator Gabeong.”

“So you become a Navigator and immediately drop mutual courtesy?”

“I’m the deputy commander of a regiment with thousands of soldiers, and you’re a mere military bureaucrat. Watch your eyes.”

With her chin raised and hands on her hips, Joi laughed loudly.

“That’s unfortunate.”

Gabeong fired back at once.

“Unfortunate?”

“From Navigator onward, commissioning is possible regardless of sex.”

“…….”

“If you become a knight, you can even be absolved of the fact you deceived people at first. But among Navigators, those who become knights are far fewer than Retainers who become Navigators. You’ll be living as ‘Joi’ for decades more. What a pity. If you hadn’t committed the great crime of hiding your identity to get commissioned and deceiving the Manseong Church and His Highness the Patriarch, you could’ve been standing there now under your real name.”

It was a pretty lethal counterattack.

She might draw a sword.

Kyrie even briefly wondered if he should throw something—anything—to shut that mouth.

“That could be.”

But at Joi’s answer, Kyrie left the metal canteen on his belt alone.

“But I won’t talk about possibilities. If I’d lived as a mercenary Retainer, if I hadn’t met Sir Feijin and Sir Kyrie, I never would’ve made it here.”

Gabeong’s strike didn’t land on Joi anymore.

With a bold, dangerous smile on her bronze face, she bared white teeth.

“Dreams aren’t for dreaming—they’re for making real. That’s what Sir Kyrie and Sir Feijin taught me. If I hadn’t become a hundred-man captain back then, I wouldn’t have become a Navigator now, either.”

It was the smile of someone who, even amid instinctive fear and learned guilt, refused to abandon their dream—and tasted fruit for the first time at the end of that march.

“Thank you, sir.”

Joi thanked Kyrie once more.

“You taught me, sir.”

The Blue Knight she had every reason to revere—

The lord who, with only one eye, saw what even people with two had never seen.

“That even someone like me—someone like this—was allowed to dream.”

I stayed in the encampment and handled a few more tasks.

First, I told Joi to investigate the knight mercenary captains who wanted to keep their contracts with us.

They were people who’d originally operated around Spiramentaon, so many of them would have ties that meant they’d have to return soon.

Just because their affiliation changed on paper didn’t mean they would stay.

Probably more than 70% would go back, and we’d have to recruit again around here and fully reorganize.

I also distributed the awards Andromeda had given to the knights who fought in the last battle, and informed them of the official date and place for the medal ceremony.

I comforted the wounded and checked whether any of the issued holy water was being siphoned off somewhere it shouldn’t.

And I brought Feijin a bottle of Elixir of Thundercloud.

It was something that didn’t help me much anymore, but for someone who’d only just become a lightning arts user, it would be an elixir more precious than anything.

“Kyrie. Please come this way for a moment.”

“Sir Feijin?”

Then I received an unexpected gift.

Evening, with the sun sinking low.

Feijin called me into the inner part of their tent.

On the table sat an empty Elixir of Thundercloud bottle.

“Do you remember that day? Adjutant Joi and I joined the Inner City Defense Force and received treatment.”

“I do.”

“I was beside them when they arrested Senior Adopted Heir Traysan.”

“You were injured—…then again, if you’re a knight, even injured you’re worth two or three Navigators.”

Uncharacteristically, they were long-winded.

“They stripped his armor and took him away, but no one collected the armor. When I asked, they said the engravings were probably already ruined.”

“Sir?”

“But when I looked, it seemed like there were parts that were still fine, so I brought everything anyway.”

Feijin pulled out a box from under the cot.

I sucked in a breath.

I thought only their swordsmanship was meticulous—but their looting was meticulous too.

No wonder their unit always turned up so many magi-device spoils.

“Sir. Traysan is a criminal I still want to take the head off, no matter how I think about it—but isn’t this an act that goes against chivalry?”

At first, I was uncomfortable.

No matter how great Traysan’s crimes were, looting like this wasn’t proper conduct between nobles.

And if the adopted heirs—still alive, eyes wide open—saw me wearing his armor, how they’d react was obvious.

“He is an enemy you brought down. By chivalry, everything he possesses belongs to you.”

But listening to Feijin, I found it oddly convincing.

If you took a prisoner, you were supposed to collect ransom.

But Traysan had been frugal.

He lived only within the budget he received as Senior Adopted Heir, and everything else went into maintaining and expanding his faction.

Andromeda was wringing out the servants of the Senior Adopted Heir’s Palace, but it really did seem like Traysan had no personal vault or assets to speak of.

Maybe it was fine if I took the armor.

“I’ll just check it first.”

With hands full of greedy intent to strip it all, I opened the box.

Creeeak.

I didn’t expect much.

No matter how precious Traysan’s armor was, if it had taken Pillar Cloud charged past 600%, the engravings likely would’ve shattered and it would’ve become nothing more than sheet metal.

“Better than I thought.”

“Better than you thought?”

“It’s usable.”

I might’ve been allowed to hope.

The cuirass was done for.

The shoulder and upper-arm parts were beyond saving.

But the gauntlet parts—from below the elbow to the fingertips—were almost intact.

And there were quite a few parts around the waist and thighs that could be salvaged.

I checked the engravings on the inside.

Unbelievable.

It had “Sturdiness,” “Impact Sharing,” “Reflection,” “Insulation,” and even “Heat Resistance.”

Even if it was no longer full-body armor, “Impact Sharing” was an incredible engraving—and honestly, “Insulation” and “Sturdiness” alone were enough to make me dance.

Every time a Blue Knight used Physical Reinforcement, they wore down the engravings on their magi-devices.

Without an “Insulation” engraving, even the most expensive magi-device would break after only a few uses.

That was how my “Boots of Muscle Reinforcement” had gone in the last battle.

They’d had a decent elemental resistance engraving—something like “Toughness,” maybe—but they still broke in the end.

But armor engraved with “Impact Sharing” and “Insulation.”

Even if Traysan were alive and well, it would’ve been treasure worth scheming to take.

“Thank you, Sir.”

I took the entire box.

Then I unfastened the “Coward’s Grip” gauntlets I’d been wearing and handed them to Feijin.

“Kyrie?”

“It’s awkward because they’re used, but take them.”

This was still a magi-device worth more than 3,000 gold coins.

“With your Authority of electromagnetic amplification, it’ll help you practice Bio-radar. I’ll get you another bottle of Elixir of Thundercloud, too.”

That should be enough hush money.

I took the box and headed up to the Main Fortress.

First thing tonight, I should repaint it.

Feijin watched Kyrie recede, feeling dazed.

He’s giving me this?

They stared at the “Coward’s Grip” gauntlets on the table.

If this also had an Insulation engraving, it would easily be worth several thousand gold coins.

Even for a famous knight like them, it wasn’t a price you could say lightly.

Feijin had a reason they’d hurriedly brought over the armor.

If things went wrong, it was the perfect setup for someone to accuse me of stealing the armor.

It hadn’t been theirs to begin with.

They’d wanted to return it before it turned into an atmosphere of them having touched Kyrie’s property.

But Kyrie, because they’d returned armor that “obviously should be his,” promised them gauntlets worth thousands of gold coins and an elixir.

If they hadn’t known the reason, they might have just taken it as a favor and accepted happily.

Earlier today, he told Adjutant Joi—no, Navigator Joi—to check whether the mercenary captains would renew their contracts.

Feijin understood.

I’m also a knight who operated in the south of Astreos. By ties alone, I should be going back.

Kyrie was trying to keep them.

He was telling them their valor, and their unit, were worth thousands of gold coins and an Elixir of Thundercloud.

In the most Blue Knight way possible.

If it were a favor with no reason, you could wipe your mouth and pretend you never saw it.

But a knight was someone who knew how to die for the one who recognized them.

Feijin decided to keep following Kyrie.

“Adjutant.”

“Yes.”

“Call the other captains.”

If possible, bring the other captains along too.

It hadn’t taken Kyrie even five years to go from a mere Blue Knight to the strongest among the adopted heirs.

Feijin was curious what would happen next.

A knight was someone who always dreamed of a higher realm.

If you could abandon your ties and resolve yourself to start life over, objectively, these were the best conditions imaginable.

And I’d get to stay with Joi longer, too.

Feijin smiled, satisfied.

A smile like a beautiful moon.

Chapter 128

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