Three evenings later, Fii found herself on a rooftop with Conrad.
“Peeking is badd, okay? Crow-san will be so mad if he finds us,” said Fii.
But despite her words, she still lay on the roof in wait, careful to stay invisible from below.
Not only that, she even had the pair of binoculars in her hand. It was something she had received a long time ago from Galluzzi-san.
“But aren’t you curious?” asked Conrad, “It’s the first time he’s ever gone so far for a girl.”
Conrad hadn’t even pretended that he wasn’t peeking, even bringing a carpet to lay on.
His hands possessed a pair of binoculars as well.
n.o.body with a conscience was around to stop them.
Actually, there was one person with a conscience.
(Princess Fii! I didn’t teach you the skills of a gra.s.s to peek on people like this!)
But although he screamed this in his mind, the situation was still not serious enough for him to appear, and thus the man ended up saying nothing.
When Crow had left the 18th Division’s gathering place, he was wearing the full ceremonial dress for a knight. It was the outfit used for official ceremonies and the like.
A bright blue jacket with gold highlights with the same coloured pants to match. His waist even boasted a ceremonial sabre.
This was Crow, who said he hated ceremonial dress.
It was Fii’s first time seeing him wearing it.
It would be stranger if she wasn’t curious.
So she got on board with Conrad’s idea, and thus here they were now, waiting on a roof near the high cla.s.s shopping district.
“It’s taking a while, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. How boring.”
It was evening now, and Crow had been standing in front of the clocktower the whole time, patiently waiting for his date.
He had hazel eyes and long blonde hair, and in his bright blue ceremonial dress, he attracted the gazes of quite a few pa.s.serbys. Young girls in particular would see him by chance and come to a stop in their daze.
But his date still hadn’t arrived yet.
Having staked out for over thirty minutes now, the bored Fii and Conrad had begun using the chalk used for contact purposes to play tic-tac-toe.
The two of them decided that there was no problem since the chalk came off in the rain.
Another twenty minutes later, a horse carriage stopped in front of Crow in the plaza.
Crow began to walk towards it with an unusually gentle smile on his face. His date was definitely riding it.
Fii and Conrad abandoned their 121st match as they raised just their heads to look.
“We’re here!”
“So we are.”
Now that they weren’t drawing on people’s rooftops any more, Fii and Conrad began silently observing.
When the door to the carriage opened, Crow’s date finally appeared.
Seeing them, the pair suddenly shouted.
“A married womann!?”
“A loliconn!?”
The reason was because it wasn’t just one person who appeared.
There was a girl who looked about ten as well as a young woman who seemed to be her mother. Both of them left the carriage together.
The two females met eyes with Crow.
(Which is it…!? Or could it be both of them…!?) shouted the peeking duo in their minds.
They then came to a conclusion.
(Either one would be a problem…!)
The little girl went without saying.
And as for the young woman, perhaps she was a widower, but if she wasn’t, it would be adultery. Adultery!
(W-W-W-, What do we do? We have to stop Crow-san!)
Seeing Crow dressed like the ideal knight, as he strayed from their ideals…
As Fii was panicking, a voice called out from behind her.
“What are you two doing.”
“HYAAH!”
The shock cause Fii to scream in surprise.
And when she realised who the voice belonged to, she was greeted with another shock.
“C-, Captain!?”
Turning around, Fii was met with York standing behind her, arms crossed.
His blue-grey eyes were tinged with a little doubt behind his usual mask.
“U-U-Umm, Captain, why are you…!?”
“Since n.o.body was in the meeting place, I talked to the gate guards. They told me that you three left the castle. After searching for a little, I found you two moving about suspiciously on this rooftop.”
Searching for a little was enough to find them in their hiding spot? Just how good was his vision? Fii felt sweat running down her cheek.
And next to Fii, Conrad was trying to sneak away.
“Conrad-san! Please don’t run away by yourself!”
“Ah-, hey, Heath-chan!”
Fii was holding on tightly to his sleeves.
‘We all die together!’ or rather, Fii had not the slightest plan of being scolded by herself. After all, the one who invited her was Conrad-san! Well, the one who asked Galluzzi even earlier for the binoculars was her though.
York simply watched the two, a little astounded.
“What on earth are you two… Mn?”
But his words stopped when he saw Crow far into the background.
“That’s Perciore’s wife and daughter, isn’t it…” he muttered as he looked at the smiling young woman talking to Crow.
“Perciore… you say?” asked Fii.
“A knight in the 5th Division. He was heavily injured during a mission, admitted into hospital for treatment. Thankfully it’s nothing permanent and he should be able to work again with rehabilitation, but I heard that his daughter has been depressed.”
Fii looked through her binoculars again and found the little girl with a gloomy expression.
After saying something to the wife, Crow knelt and spoke to the girl.
And then, handing over a plush toy that he had been hiding, he gave a knight’s greatest bow.
『Little Princess, your father’s injuries will definitely heal. So please cheer up. Today, I, Crow, shall keep you company instead.』
Even though he was too far to hear, Fii’s ears heard him without a problem.
Seeing this knight from out of a fairytale, the girl’s face immediately brightened.
After saying goodbye to Perciore’s wife, he gently took the girl’s hand and headed towards the restaurant. The wife bowed to Crow as well, before heading towards the hospital.
“I see…”
(So that’s why he wanted to check the restaurant…)
The places that Crow preferred were not dangerous exactly, but definitely not safe from trouble at night.
The well-lit high cla.s.s shopping street were safe to bring a child to, even at night.
But the stores there were more catered towards adults.
The sauces had wine in them, and they also often had flavourings that children weren’t good with. That’s why he wanted to try the food first.
A little princess was being escorted by hand by a knight as they headed towards a sparkling and gorgeous restaurant.
The girl’s expression was bright as she looked up at the gently speaking Crow.
“Hmmm, it’s a bit different to what I expected.”
Conrad had a complex expression on. It was kind of a let-down to him, but not something bad either.
“Crow-san really is cool.”
As for Fii, her expression was filled with respect for him.
She was once again sure that Crow-san was like the ideal knight. Since he did nothing but pick up women all day, she had gotten a little disappointed in him, but now his impression had shot up again.
“He’s good with sorting these things out. He’s helped me too. By the way, what were you two doing exactly?”
Once the focus returned to them, they averted their eyes in silence.
“Ah-!”
But by coincidence, Fii noticed a certain thing.
“What is it, what is it?”
And Conrad got on board.
Fii was pointing at a group of roughly 15 hooligans, watching Crow from the shadows.
You would never see their sort in a place like this, so they were particularly out of place.
“Those guys are the ones that picked a fight with us during my training! It’s definitely them!”
Fii spotted the three men from that night.
“Three people weren’t enough against you two, so they went and gathered more?” mused Conrad, “Sounds like something a hooligan would do. Well, what are we going to do?”
Crow would be fine even against those fifteen. He even had a sabre this time, so this group was no match for him. But right now there was the little princess next to him.
It would spoil the princess’ date with her knight.
Would it be fine to let her be frightened? The three of them were knights.
Thus, Fii’s answer was natural.
“The three of us will take care of them!”
The thugs had gathered their buddies for revenge before searching for the target.
It was some pretty boy with long hair.
It didn’t take long to find him. They were scared when they saw him in his knight’s outfit, but it wasn’t a problem.
After all, there were fifteen of them.
They found an alleyway nearby to hide in and waited for their revenge. Although they stood out quite a bit, none of that mattered as long as the guy himself didn’t see.
He ended up bringing a little girl along, but that was convenient too. As long as they could hold her hostage, they had as good as won.
“When are we doing it?”
“Soon. I’ll give the signal, and we’ll do it.”
Once that guy pa.s.sed by their alleyway, all fifteen of them would rush him at once.
With their numbers he’d have the s.h.i.t beaten out of him no matter how strong he was.
“He he he, I dunno if you’re a knight or whatever, but I’ll teach you to regret going against I, the great Kidda-sama.”
“My. Who’s going to be regretting, exactly?”
“What a funny thing to say.”
“None of you lot look strong enough to deal with a knight.”
Three people suddenly jumped down from the rooftops.
One was a peerless, enchanting beauty. One was a tiny boy dressed as an apprentice knight. One was a masked man dressed as a knight.
The three of them were standing around their group in some kind of encirclement.
“W-, Who the f.u.c.k are you guys!” shouted Gidda in agitation.
“We’re from the 5th Knight Division,” began the man.
“Boorish guys who interrupted dates,” continued the woman.
“Will all be eliminated by us!” finished the boy.
Since the 18th Division wasn’t exactly official, they just used some other name.
York’s expression was even as usual, but Fii and Conrad were grinning daringly.
“K-Knight Division!?”
“Even if they’re telling the truth, it’s only three people! Get em!”
“Only the guy looks any strong. After we beat the s.h.i.t out of him, it’s over.”
At Gidda’s signal, all of them rushed at York together.
It only took one swing of York’s sheathed sword, and five grown men had already tumbled to the ground.
The hooligans began to fear.
“T-, This guy… Strong…”
“We gotta run!”
“Get the woman! Take out the woman!”
The men began running towards the side they thought was easiest.
But the woman was nowhere to be seen.
“Eh? She’s gone?”
“Where’d she go?”
By the time they said that, Conrad was already behind them.
Cornad reached out and grabbed one of the unsuspecting men.
With his slender arms, it looked like a joke when he lifted the man up and smacked him along with two others towards a wall. Not content to stop there, his two arms curved like snakes to constrict around two other necks and stole their consciousness in an instant.
Seeing that, three other men tried to run away, but Conrad promptly dispatched them with a knife hand, a punch, and a palm strike.
In but a moment, another eight men were lying on the ground.
It was only Gidda and one other left.
“Hii…! M-Monster!”
“The brat! We can break past the brat!”
Fii pulled out some kind of rope. At its centre it split into three, each one with some kind of heavy rubber ball attached. It was a throwing weapon known as bolas.
When Fii noticed the men running towards her, she began swinging the bolas above her head. Even the feeble Fii could grant them incredible kinetic energy by doing this.
And once they were powerful enough, she released them towards their legs.
The three-p.r.o.nged weight rope spread midair and wrapped tightly, depriving the thugs of their movements.
“Iii!?”
“Uwah!”
The ropes wrapped around them, the weights smacked into their bodies, and the thugs ended up falling to the ground.
And like a boxer countering an incoming straight, as the men fell towards her…
“EI!”
She exploded into a merciless kick to the face. Falling to the ground with the whites of his eyes showing was the leader of these thugs.
After that, the three of them handed the thugs to the knights.
Crow’s date with the girl ended without incident, and apparently the girl had cheered up.
It seemed that Perciore was giving his best in rehabilitation as well so that he could make a comeback as a knight.
Finally―――
“I’m so hungry. This is your fault, Conrad-san.”
“I’m hungry too. But it’s not good to blame others for your problems.”
Fii and Conrad had their food taken as punishment.
Watching over Crow’s date had just barely been acceptable, but graffitiing on people’s rooftops was a no go. Well, that really should have been obvious though.
Since sweets and tea were forbidden as well, for a while, the two of them simply spent the time at the gathering place, slouching over a table.