** Kruvan Holy Kingdom, Border Mansion **

「Hah~~~」

A girl sighed. She sat at the lowest seat in a meeting.

「Your Excellency, let my troops handle this. We have gotten a bit dull since last time.」

「What?! Didn’t you subdue wild beasts just last month? Leave this one to my elite troops.」

「What elite troops.. You were the one who refused the subjugation last month.」

「This is my month..」

「We can’t leave it to you.」

「That’s right. Your troop got action just last week.」

「We simply stopped some drunken adventurers from causing trouble last week! You can barely call that action!」

Since a while ago, large grown men have been arguing with each other.

The stone mansion was a tasteless place. It was not carpet that was laid on the floor but monster pelts. It would have fetched a good price if it had been put up for sale in the Holy City, but it was now in tatters due to the rough people who gather here with muddy shoes.

The conference table, which was simply thick and bulky, was continuously being struck by the arguing adults since a while ago, and had started to creak. It was a brand new table which was replaced just last year, but looking at the present situation, it may not live past this year.

「Hah~~~」

The girl sighed once again.

She was the only young girl in a room full of 6 rowdy adults. She was told to attend the meetings as it would be helpful to her in the future, but the meeting was just a quarrel between large, burly adults who wanted to head out and kill monsters.

「Oh, the young lady looks troubled.」

「What happened to her?」

「She’s been like that ever since she returned from the Holy City.」

For the first time in her life, the girl left the border territory where she was born and headed to the Holy City.

What she saw there left a deep impression on the girl’s heart.

Clean and orderly townscape. In particular, the inside of the “3rd Holy District” was exceptionally clean, and not a single trash could be seen on the road. In the border territory where the girl is now, the “City” was lined with crude houses. And if she is not careful, she could step on horse dung on the side of the road while walking.

The food in the Holy City was wonderful. Beautifully cut vegetables, deep artistic-like sauces, tender and sweet meats. Meals in the border territory were simply cut, baked and seasoned.

And above all, a certain someone she met had left a deep impression on her.

「I can’t invite Eva-sama here when it’s like this..」

Mira, the eldest daughter of Border Earl Mule, recalled the girl she met in the Holy City.

Eva, the lady of House Sillys, seemed almost like a painting to Mira’s eyes. And her resolute attitude also moved Mira’s heart.

In a dreamy state of mind, Mira asked Eva to come visit her some time in the border territory, but smelling the horse dung in the streets after returning to the border territory brought her back to her senses.

There was no way she could invite the lovely Eva to such a place.

「Mira, we’re in the middle of a meeting. Pay attention.」

「Meeting!? What about this is a meeting!? You all rejoice when a monster appears, and argue about who gets to defeat it! Just decide it with lottery!」

「That’s what always happens in the end.」her father, the Border Earl, said in an honest tone.

It is never decided through discussion, but a meeting is held just because it doesn’t feel right to throw a lottery without speaking anything.

Right then, Mira heard a cow mooing.

「Father, everyone, if you are free, let’s clean the city alright? We have to at least keep the main street clean!」

「Oh my, young lady. Please don’t joke around. Who would go around cleaning–」

Glared at by Mira, a large man stopped talking mid-sentence. A large, burly man in his 50s with a shiny bald head and thick eyebrows, was being pressured by a 12-year-old girl.

「B-But we already asked the Adventurer’s Guild to put up requests to do the cleaning, right? It would be bad if we steal the requests.」

Said a muscular round man wearing an eyepatch over his right eye sitting next to her. And a tanned muscular man with a crew cut nodded in agreement.

「Not a single adventurer accepted the request!」Mira shouted.

「..That can’t be helped, Mira. I put out the request because you really wanted it, but the adventurers in this town are only hungry for excitement and thrill. Such guys aren’t gonna start picking up shit in the streets.」

「Father. Language!」

The Border Earl just shrugged when pointed out by Mira.

One of the things she learned from meeting various nobles in the Holy City was that “My papa is strange”. First of all, the heads of noble houses do not go out to fight monsters carrying a brutal-looking axe in hand. They do not wear bear pelt on their head. And noble children do not call their father “Papa”.

Upon returning to the border territory, what Mira did was to get a proper noble education and to re-educate her father. Mira points it out every time this happens, but her father’s way of speaking doesn’t seem to be improving.

「Well then, is it time to roll the dice?」A burly, muscular woman asked.

And the muscular men in the room agreed, saying, “That’s right. Let’s get it over with” and “Yeah, the young lady seems to be in a bad mood too”. On a side note, they were all vassals of Border Earl Mule, each commanding a thousand troops.

The meeting this time was about investigating a large-scale earthquake that had occurred at the foot of a mountain and subduing a huge scorpion that seems to have been awoken from a long hibernation due to the earthquake.

「Hah~~」

As Mira sighed once again, looking at the muscular vassals deciding who would go based on dice rolls, her father came next to her.

「Don’t be so dejected. This a good place, you know? Besides, Miss Eva didn’t become your friend because you were a sheltered young lady, right?」

「Yes.. I know. But it still bothers me. Eva-sama and her father went to another country on some important matters, right?」

「Ah, they went with Grenjido..」

The Border Earl also knew about what happened in the Lev Magic Empire. But the armed forces under the Border Earl are to govern and protect the border of the Kruvan Holy Kingdom. He cannot leave the border undefended and join the former Holy King Grenjido’s expedition.

On the other hand, Earl Sillys is a central noble, so he doesn’t have a territory. As such, he accompanied Grenjido to the Lev Magic Empire.

When the Border Earl heard about that, he felt envious of the Earl from the bottom of his heart.

In times of peace, the border is full of excitement and fun compared to the Holy City, but in the event of a national emergency, he will naturally want to go to Grenjido’s side.

「Oh, have you decided?」the Border Earl asked.

As the shiny, bald headed muscular man started celebrating and swinging his fist victoriously–.

「Your Excellency, Your Excellency!」

The meeting room door swung open with a bang, and another muscular man rushed in. By the way, all of the Border Earl’s vassals, including the top commanding officers, are all burly and muscular. Men and women of all ages. Even if they were thin during enlistment, they will put on weight within a few months.

「What’s wrong? Didn’t I say we were deciding important matters in today’s meeting?」

「........」

His daughter looked at him as if asking what “important matter” is decided with a dice roll, but the Border Earl completely ignored her and folded his arms tightly, puffing his chest.

「W-Well, it’s about the huge scorpion that suddenly appeared.. It seems to have been exterminated.」

The people who lost on the dice roll immediately looked at the bald man who won, staring wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open.

「That’s too bad.」

「You ran out of luck this time.」

The people who lost said, with a broad grin.

「..Exterminated? Oi, wasn’t that scorpion supposed to be over 10 meters long? And the case was passed on to us because the adventurers couldn’t subjugate it?」the Border Earl asked.

「Yes, sir.」

「Who on earth beat that thing?」

「About that....」

The muscular messenger gently presented the item in his pocket.

「He came to this mansion. And said that Your Excellency would understand if I showed you this.」

The moment the Border Earl saw the item, his eyes widened.

It was a familiar dagger. However, it has been used extensively.

The Border Earl gave this dagger to him at most two months or so ago.

Even so, just how many battles has this dagger seen in that short span of time?

「Bring him here right away– No, I’m going there! Where is he!?」

The Border Earl shouted, as he tightly grabbed the dagger that he gave as a farewell present.

「That Reiji.. he has gotten stronger again!」

It was a voice of great joy.