Chapter 49. The Most Dangerous Clumsy Girl Entered Through the Front Gate (Loudly)

Chapter 49: 49. The Most Dangerous Clumsy Girl Entered Through the Front Gate (Loudly)

I should have known something was about to happen...

The morning had been going too well.

It started with a noise, a kind of distant clatter, like someone dropping a tray of cutlery down a long flight of stairs.

It came from the direction of the main gate, and for a few seconds it kept getting louder... and so I stopped mid-stance.

Sharon froze with her sword half raised, and her face went through a quick, tragic series of expressions that I’ve seen on parents when they hear their child shouting in another room.

"Oh no..." she said. "Not today."

"What is that...?" I asked.

"That’s trouble."

"What kind...?"

"The worst kind... The kind that apologizes."

What does she mean by that...?

The gate to the training yard burst open, and a figure came flying through it at a speed no sane person ought to be running.

She was a young woman in a neat military uniform, and she had one hand clamped on her cap and the other waving wildly in the air, and she was shouting something that sounded like "SORRY! SORRY! EXCUSE ME! SORRY!" at nobody in particular.

She made it about twenty feet.

Then her boot caught the strap of her own sword belt, which had come loose, and she pitched forward with both arms flailing, hit the weapon rack, and brought the entire thing down in a clattering avalanche of wooden swords, practice shields, and a bucket that apparently had been left there for reasons known only to the gods.

The bucket shot into the air, did a full somersault, and came down upside down on her head.

TUNG!

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then the bucket rose slowly off the ground on its own, and from underneath it came a small, muffled voice.

"I’m... I’m okay~!"

Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose.

’What kind of a knight is she...?’ I looked at her with a confused face.

The bucket tilted up, and a face peeked out from underneath it, flushed pink to the tips of her ears. And to my surprise... Her ears, as it turned out, were also very visible, because they were long and furry and stuck straight up from her head, each one lined on the inside with soft rose-colored fur.

N-No way...! They exist here, too?!

They were the ears of a rabbit.

I stared... and yes, I couldn’t help it. This is the real vibe of a fantasy world!

A woman with human ears like cat ears or maybe dog ears, but here... she’s a rabbit.

She got to her feet with the bucket still rattling around her shoulders, and she tossed it aside and straightened her jacket and snapped to attention in front of me so quickly that I took a step back.

She was tall and slim and radiantly embarrassed. Her golden hair fell loose past her waist in a thick, wavy curtain, and her eyes were a bright, warm orange, almost amber, wide with the particular alarm of a person who knows exactly how much trouble she’s in.

She was wearing a dark brown military jacket with gold epaulettes that hung in little fringes, a white blouse with a neat blue tie edged in gold, and a gold brooch with an amber stone at her throat.

Her skirt was white and layered, trimmed with silver plates and blue cords, and behind her, a fluffy white tail stuck out from under the hem and quivered with nervousness.

And who would’ve thought that her tits... they are massive, almost the same level as Laura, but Laura is still bigger.

"Good morning!" she said, in a voice that was just a bit too loud. "I mean, good morning, sirs and ladies!"

"I’m very sorry for the noise... I’m Eveline Whitehare, Knight of the House of Whitehare, reporting for duty!"

"I mean, returning! I mean, I just got back from the north, and I was told you’d be here, Lady Sanford, and I ran, and the strap was..." She trailed off, looked down at her belt, and made a small, wounded sound. "It’s a very bad strap!"

"The strap’s fine," said Sharon. "You’re just a disaster."

"Yes, ma’am! I mean... no, ma’am! I mean..."

"Eveline."

"Yes?"

"Breathe."

Eveline took an enormous breath and let it out, and her ears drooped a little. She looked at me, and her whole face lit up with a warm, uncomplicated smile that I wasn’t ready for.

"Aha! You must be Sir Ravenshold!" she said.

"Ravenshield."

"Ravenshield! Sorry! Sir Ravenshield, it’s an honor to meet you!" She bowed her head many times and looked back at me. "I heard everything!"

"Everyone in the northern camp has been talking about how you fought Garrick Voss without a rank and held the barrier while--"

She leaned forward to bow again... but this time, her boot hit the bucket.

It skittered across the dirt, and she lunged for it, tripped on her own sword belt again, and came down on both knees directly in front of me, with both hands braced on my chest to stop herself from falling on her face.

There was a long... terrible silence.

My ribs were at precisely the angle where her palms landed. It wasn’t a hard hit... but I made a noise like a dying duck.

"Oh no..." Eveline whispered.

"It’s okay..." I wheezed.

"I’m SO sorry...!"

"I’m fine..." I shook my head. "I’m absolutely fine."

"You have ribs! I forgot you have ribs!!!"

"Everyone has ribs... it’s a standard feature."

"Eveline!" said Sharon, and the way she said it made the whole yard go still.

She walked across the field in four unhurried strides, reached down, took hold of one furry ear, and pulled.

"Ow! Ow, ow, ow! Lady Sanford!"

"I told you to walk! At a normal speed! Like a normal person!"

"I was trying—"

"You came in like a barrel rolling down a hill."

"That’s an exaggeration!"

"You’ve destroyed my weapon rack!"

"It was already damaged!"

"It was already damaged because you broke it last year!"

I heard a muffled sound behind me. Alicia had both hands pressed over her mouth, and her shoulders were shaking so hard that her braid was bouncing.

Laura had gone rigid on the bench, and her expression was a perfectly neutral mask, except that the corners of her eyes were crinkling and she was clearly fighting for her life.

"This," said Sharon, hauling the rabbit knight upright by one ear, "is Eveline Whitehare!"

"Knight of a minor noble house, the Whitehare family, up north!"

"She became a full knight twelve months ago, and she’s just returned with the relief squad that pulled back from the northern front."

That made sense. Ever since Dunmore... there’d been talk about a surge of monsters in the north, which was why most of the Order’s knights had been away when the black-armored soldiers hit Elarion.

Hallis had been up on that wall himself. It was a nice, clean explanation, and for once I felt a small pleasure at the way the pieces fit.

"She’s also SSS-Rank," Sharon added.

Wait a minute... what now?

I looked at Eveline, who was rubbing her ear and blinking away tears of embarrassment.

"SSS?" I said. "Her...?"

"She’s the most dangerous clumsy girl I’ve ever trained."

"Thank you, ma’am," said Eveline, in a very small voice.

"It wasn’t a compliment."

"It sounded like one."

"It’s not." Sharon let go of the ear with a sigh. "She has an awakening that I’d call... unusual, and I’d tell you what it does, but you’d only believe it if you saw it."

"She’s fast, she’s accurate, and when she’s in a fight, she has the best focus I’ve ever seen on a knight her age."

"Every bit of her clumsiness vanishes the second she picks up a weapon."

"It’s true," said Eveline. "I’m much better with a sword!"

"The problem is everything that happens before and after."

"I’m working on it!"

"You’ve been working on it for six years!"

"I’m working on it... slowly."

I laughed, and then I regretted it because my ribs filed a complaint. But I couldn’t help it.

She was so earnest and so helpless and so entirely without malice that it was impossible to dislike her.

She looked like a person who’d been born with all the talent in the world and a permanent slight fault in the connection between her brain and her feet.

I should’ve known... I really should’ve.

That’s the thing about life, especially mine. The moment you start to relax, it taps you on the shoulder.

A faint blue glow bloomed at the edge of my vision.

[NEW FEMALE KNIGHT DETECTED]

[Name: Eveline Whitehare]

[Class Rank: SSS]

[Compatibility Analysis: Complete]

[Compatibility: SSS-Compatible]

[Trust Level: Neutral]

[Romantic Affinity: None]

[Notice: Mutual consent required.]

And right underneath it, in that same smug bracketed font:

[Congratulations. Another one! Go get ’em, tiger!

I kept my face as flat as a plank.

’That’s not funny,’ I thought at it.

[It is a little funny.]

’I hate you.’

[Noted.]

Who would’ve thought that I could get my hands on a woman with animal ears? Yes, I have interest, but it’s the usual, like cats and dogs.

But a rabbit...? I’ll try and see it for myself then.