DZN Ch 4

“If you have nothing else to say, shouldn’t you be going?”

Ruan asked with a sarcastic tone, adding, “I need to see the Captain,” prompting the other knight to quickly speak up.

“Um, about today’s incident, to the Captain…”

“Not yet. If I report every single one of these incidents, there won’t be any knights left in our division.”

The Second Knights Division, responsible for the Crown Prince’s protection, was particularly notorious for its focus on appearances, due to Calix’s obsession with looks. Knights were chosen solely for their faces.

The same went for the servants, so Calix’s residence, Esche Castle, was commonly referred to as “the flower garden” or “the flowerbed.” Both knights and servants were all delicate, pretty boys. It was a derogatory nickname, implying that while they were pleasing to the eye, they were utterly useless at their jobs.

Because of this, Ruan knew of at least twenty knights who had been dismissed after Calix, out of boredom, had made advances on them.

Forming a personal relationship with a member of the royal family they were assigned to protect was a violation of protocol. However, at this rate, the division would perpetually suffer from a shortage of personnel, spending all their time training new recruits. So Ruan usually turned a blind eye, pretending not to know what he knew.

Especially during periods like this, coinciding with personnel transfers, he couldn’t afford to send the knights he’d painstakingly trained to other divisions.

If he did, they’d die from overwork soon enough.

“I’ll let it slide this time, but there won’t be a second chance. Next time, you’ll be demoted and transferred without a chance to explain yourself. Keep that in mind.”

Having briefly summarized the situation and delivered his final warning, Ruan turned away from the knight and started walking down the hallway. The knight called out to him again.

“Lieutenant.”

“What is it now?”

Ruan turned around, annoyance evident on his face. The knight, with a serious expression, cautiously addressed him.

“Um…are you and His Highness…in that kind of relationship?”

“…What?”

“…I apologize. It won’t happen again. There’s nothing more painful than witnessing your lover’s infidelity…”

At the bizarre nonsense, Ruan stared at him as if to say, “What in the world is this crazy guy talking about?” The knight smiled shyly.

“I fully support you both. You look good together.”

Perhaps because he hadn’t been a trainee for long, he still had a boyish, innocent charm, and his not-at-all-comforting words were met with Ruan’s silence.

It wasn’t even worth responding to.

But, true to form for a naive, pampered pretty boy from a noble family, he continued to ramble on, oblivious.

“If you need someone to talk to, I’m always here for you. I may be younger, but I have plenty of relationship experience…”

He winked, implying he was also experienced in the bedroom. Ruan silently stared at the idiot.

He’d intended to be lenient with the burgeoning young sprout, but unfortunately, this sprout, whose thoughts seemed transparent, had managed to irritate Ruan’s already short temper.

So, without hesitation, he snapped,

“Shut up.”

He didn’t even feel the need to argue about how they looked like a couple or why he’d be jealous of that guy.

Since he was a new recruit, unfamiliar with the relationship between Calix and himself, he had obviously heard rumors. Ruan sternly warned him never to mention it again, but his consideration was completely lost on the knight.

Seeing the knight’s gaze soften with sympathy, Ruan decided he needed to punch Calix, the root of all this trouble.

It was his biggest regret that, due to his insistence on hiring knights based on looks, they hadn’t checked their intelligence.

Next time, regardless of what Calix said, he would only hire based on intelligence, not looks. With this resolution, Ruan quickly headed towards the Captain’s office.

He could feel the knight’s sympathetic gaze from afar, but he desperately pretended not to notice.

If he acknowledged it, he might actually hit him. Suppressing his rising temper, he went straight to the Captain’s office and knocked. A deep voice boomed from inside.

“Enter.”

At the familiar voice, Ruan opened the door, entered, and politely greeted the Captain, Matthias.

“I heard you called for me.”

He stood at attention with his hands behind his back. After finishing signing a document, Matthias looked up and asked,

“Where is His Highness the Crown Prince?”

“I saw him off as Count Langrock escorted him to Vierke Castle.”

“It seems his bad habits are resurfacing now that you haven’t been able to attend him personally for a while…”

Matthias’s sigh, which made him look ten years older than he was, filled Ruan with complicated emotions. He had personally witnessed Calix’s wild, delinquent phase, then left the Royal Guard in search of freedom shortly after Ruan joined. Though only in his early thirties, Matthias already had gray hair.

I need to get out of here before I end up like that, Ruan thought, taking Matthias as a cautionary tale. Matthias sighed again and leaned back in his chair, asking,

“So, other knights are currently attending him?”

“Yes. I’ve entrusted His Highness’s protection to other knights due to personnel transfers and new recruit training.”

“Yes, of course. With the transfers and training…”

Due to the Emperor’s request, Ruan had been almost constantly by Calix’s side until last year. But with his promotion to Lieutenant earlier this year, his administrative duties had increased, reducing his direct involvement in Calix’s protection.

Actually, that was normal. Typically, first and second-year knights were responsible for standing guard at the bedroom door or nearby, while third and fourth-year knights followed him within the castle walls. Lieutenants and above only directly escorted him outside the palace grounds. It wasn’t strange that Ruan wasn’t personally escorting him now.

It was only because Calix’s erratic behavior increased in Ruan’s absence that Ruan had to stay by his side. Normally, Ruan would have been phasing out of fieldwork by this point.

At least at the Lieutenant level.

“His Highness has been leaving the castle grounds more frequently lately.”

“And venturing further afield.”

Calix usually resided at Esche Castle in the western district, so even when he ran off, he tended to stay within the vicinity. But today, he had extended his reach to Lavender Castle in the east.

Just like a cat.

And that meant he could venture outside the castle walls.

After shaking off his escort knights. If he was unlucky, completely alone.

Just the thought of that dreadful scenario made Ruan clench his jaw, forcing a smile.

He felt a strong sense of duty to escape this place as soon as possible.

Otherwise, he too would soon have gray hair. Or possibly go bald.

“Can you delegate some of your work to other knights? Reports or administrative tasks, perhaps?”

“There’s no one competent enough.”

The reason the Second Knights Division, responsible for protecting the Crown Prince, the future Emperor, was perpetually short-staffed and overworked was simple.

While they boasted the largest number of knights after the Emperor and Empress, the problem was retention.

At most, they stayed for six months; at the least, three. They either requested transfers or were forcibly reassigned, meaning the most senior knight in the Second Division, besides Ruan, had only six months of experience.

Typically, the most competent knights were those with three to seven years of experience, but such individuals were nowhere to be found in the Second Division.

This naturally meant there was a lack of competent personnel, resulting in the work piling up on the few who could actually handle it.

Ruan was the one bearing the brunt of that workload, on the verge of collapse.

Consequently, no competent knights wanted to serve in the division, despite the prestigious title of protecting the Crown Prince. Even the few they managed to recruit were returned to their previous divisions after the dreadful Crown Prince deemed them unattractive. Ruan felt bad about requesting more personnel from other divisions.

This resulted in a bizarre situation where the division was composed solely of inexperienced recruits, chosen for their looks rather than their competence, leading to an increase in Ruan’s workload with every new addition.

“That is certainly a problem. We can’t pull personnel from other divisions either.”

“I know. That’s why I want you to transfer me.”