Chapter 41. Bedridden Like an Overcooked Sausage While the Plot Moves On Without Me

Chapter 41: 41. Bedridden Like an Overcooked Sausage While the Plot Moves On Without Me

’First, I heal...’

’Second, I find out who’s behind the crystal shipments...’

’And third...’

Alicia’s voice floated up in my memory. ’Don’t you think Lady Sharon would make a really good next candidate?’

I shook my head hard. No... Not yet!

She was Laura’s mentor and an SSS-Rank knight who could probably cut me in half if I said the wrong thing at the wrong moment, and the last thing I should be doing was treating her like the next line on a list.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Roland? It’s me."

I knew that voice... It’s my second girlfriend.

I opened the door and found Laura standing in the hallway with a steaming mug in both hands. She was in her off-duty clothes, a loose gray tunic and plain trousers, and without her armor she looked smaller than she did on the battlefield and a lot more tired.

But what’s not smaller is... her STILL MASSIVE TITS that I fucking love. Let me touch thoseeeee...

Ehem... I have to keep professional now.

"Alicia told me to check that you aren’t working too hard," she said.

I took the mug. It was some kind of spiced tea.

"And you agreed to do it?"

"I wanted to make sure you don’t collapse before Sharon’s training starts."

"Wow... Your motives are actually so touching."

She snorted, but her mouth curved. She stepped past me, sat in the desk chair, and looked at the badge on the table.

"How do you feel after today...?" she asked.

I thought about it for a while. "Like someone who finally got a chance to prove that all his years of practice weren’t wasted."

"I’m proud of you." She nodded. "You earned it."

I looked at her. "Thank you, Laura..."

I put out my hand, and she took it.

For a few minutes we just sat there together in a comfortable silence, listening to the muffled sounds of the yard, a pair of guards joking at the gate, and a horse stamping in the stable.

Eventually she spoke. "Whatever happens next, don’t try to deal with it alone, okay...?"

I squeezed her fingers. "I’ll try."

"Try...?"

"Okay... I promise to ask for help before I do something stupid."

"That’s better."

We both laughed softly. And then we started to kiss on the lips.

For one second...

Two seconds...

And eventually... we kept on kissing for five minutes and stopped to take a breather.

I was about to say something else when the panel flared to life in front of my eyes, uninvited, and I knew from the color of it that it wasn’t good news.

[URGENT INVESTIGATION UPDATE]

[New Energy Crystal shipment detected.]

[Destination: Unknown facility. Site Nine suspected.]

[Shipment authorization: Royal-level clearance.]

[Warning: Unauthorized interception may trigger a hostile response.]

My smile died.

Laura noticed immediately. She’d gotten better at reading me than I was comfortable with.

"What is it?"

I stared at the words for a long moment. ’Royal-level clearance.’

Whoever was behind this wasn’t some crooked quartermaster or a bitter ex-commander with a grudge.

They were somebody who could sign off on shipments at the highest level of the kingdom, and that somebody had just sent another load of crystals into the dark, barely two days after Elarion had nearly fallen.

I lifted my head.

"It looks like we won’t have much time to rest..."

I stood up carefully this time, respecting my ribs, and put on my belt.

"Tomorrow... we find out who’s sending those crystals."

Laura got to her feet beside me. "Then we’ll find out together."

I nodded.

Outside the window, the bells of Elarion rang for the late hour. The city looked calm again, quiet and ordinary under the moon, but I knew better.

Somewhere behind those walls, someone was still moving the pieces.

I wasn’t a nobody anymore now.

I was a Royal Knight of Elarion, with a real sword at my hip and two women at my back, and I was going to make whoever was behind this wish they’d never heard my name.

...

The healer pressed one thumb into my ribs, and I discovered that I could say the word "fuck" without moving my mouth.

"That’s the bruise you said was fine," said Mistress Orla.

She was a short, wide woman somewhere past fifty, with iron gray hair pulled into a bun so tight it seemed to be holding her eyebrows up.

The Royal Knight Order had sent her to my room first thing in the morning, and she had walked in without knocking, taken my wrist, looked at my tongue like I was a horse she was thinking of buying, and started poking me in places I’d hoped nobody would find.

She kept poking until I stopped saying everything was fine, which took about four seconds.

"It’s a little tender," I admitted.

"It’s cracked, you fool! Two ribs, and one of them is only holding together out of politeness." She moved her thumb a few inches to the left, and I made a noise I’m not proud of. "And this arm should have been resting for a week, not fighting a man with a crystal in his chest."

"Well... In my defense, he started it."

"In my defense, I don’t care."

Yeeshh... she’s even worse than Laura, but Laura... of course better.

She let go of my ribs, and I breathed again.

The room around us was the one the Order had given me after the ceremony, a plain little space on the second floor of the knights’ dormitory with a narrow bed, a desk, a wardrobe that smelled like cedar, and a window that looked down on the practice yard.

Yesterday... it had felt like a place somebody else was letting me borrow. But this morning, it felt like a place where a woman with a bun was about to ruin my life.

"Here are the rules," Mistress Orla said, and counted them off on her fingers. "No heavy training for five days."

"Nothing heavier than a cup of tea."

"No running unless something is chasing you, and I mean something with sharp teeth..."

’And you will not... under any circumstances, become a hero."

"I’m sorry, a hero? I thought that was part of the job as the royal knight."

"Not for the next five days... If I hear that a Royal Knight has thrown himself in front of a wagon, a wall, or a falling child, I will personally break the rest of your ribs and set them wrong just so you can rest in peace."

I shivered hearing that, and how can a healer like be this insane?!

"That seems... unprofessional for a healer."

"I’m very good at my job... Now, hold still."

She wrapped my chest in a long strip of linen and pulled it tight enough that I felt my soul try to leave through my ears.

Then she checked the bandage on my left arm, grunted like it had disappointed her in a personal way, and packed up her bag.

"Five days," she repeated from the doorway. "I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you, and I will know if you lied."

The door shut behind her, and I stared at it for a while.

’Two days,’ I thought. ’I’ve been a Royal Knight for two whole days, and I already have three people who yell at me for a living.’

’Alicia, Laura, and Sharon... Now there’s a fourth, and she has a bun.’

I lifted a hand and pulled up the panel, mostly to see whether anything good had happened overnight.

[STATUS CHECK]

[Lust: 100%]

[Aether Reserve: 61%]

[Physical Condition: Recovering]

[Rest is recommended. Please stop procrastinating on healing.

I read the last line twice.

’I’m not procrastinating,’ I thought at it. ’I’m being forced to sit still by a woman who could crush a walnut with her eyebrows. ’

[Excuses acknowledged.]

I snorted, closed the panel, and lay back down very carefully, because the ceiling was the only thing in the whole kingdom that wasn’t allowed to scold me.

I’d like to say I spent that first hour doing something noble, like planning the investigation or meditating on the mysteries of the crystal trade.

What I actually did was lie there and burn with impatience.

It had been less than a day since the panel had shown me that new shipment, the one with the royal-level clearance, and every part of me wanted to throw on my boots and go find it.

I could picture it so clearly... Some wagon loaded with glowing blue stones was rolling down a road toward Site Nine right now, and while it rolled, I was lying in bed with a bandage around my chest like an overcooked sausage.

I’d made it as far as sitting up and reaching for my boots when somebody knocked on the door.

It wasn’t a healer’s knock. Thank god...

It was polite and a little nervous, the way a person knocks when they’re carrying something they’ve been told is important.

"Sir Ravenshield?"

I opened the door.

And behind that door was a young man in the gray tunic of the garrison’s messengers who stood in the hall with a sealed letter held out in both hands, and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.

I couldn’t blame him. I was standing there half-dressed with a body full of bruises.

"Message from Commander Hallis," he said. "He asked me to wait for a reply."

"I’m not sure I’m allowed to reply to anything... A woman with a bun just banned me from everything."

"I was told that’s what the message is about, sir..."