I Only Do What I Want to Do

We delivered Fracton and his cronies to the closest city, Barse. None of

them showed any resistance since they had accepted their fate at this point.

Currently, we're having an early dinner inside an inn.

「U~h, the dinner Master makes is more delicious…」

I patted Faf, who dejectedly ate the meals, on the head.

「You mustn't be picky about food, you know! You have to eat all of it to

show your gratitude to the person who cooks for us. And, make sure to

chew your food properly.」

I coaxed Faf in a gentle tone.

「Yes, nodesu!」

Faf cheerfully raised the fork in her hand and started eating with gusto. I

wanted to warn her for being picky, but Faf was a glutton. She would be

happy as long as she could eat.

「You two really get along like a pair of siblings, don't you?」

Rose, who sat in front of us, expressed her honest impression of our

interaction.

In my opinion, though, we are more like a father and daughter pair. I mean,

I've personally trained Faf from square one; she never knew about human

society.

By the way, although Rose had received some severe scolding from Arnold,

instead of being in a bad mood, she was as lively as before. On the other

hand, Rose's escort knights looked like they were about to face the end of

the world.

I had then stated my conditions to move together with Rose's group.

First, never try to pry too much about me and my group.

Second, never try to interfere with us unless it's an order for us.

Third, I'll only be Rose's acting royal guard. In short, I'm only a temporary

royal guard and will resign as soon as I find a suitable replacement.

Since then, Rose had strictly followed my first and second conditions.

「Are you sure about that? She has become an extremely timid person, you

know!」

The knight called Anna seemed extremely downhearted after Rose denied

her. She was now eating alone, separated from everyone. Honestly, I

couldn't care less about God's blessing, but well, it was just a trivial matter.

I did understand her suffering though.

""

「Don't worry! I know Anna. She's not the kind of girl who will be broken

by a trivial matter like this. I mean, this is just like how we used to quarrel a

long time ago. It'll just take a bit longer this time for her to bounce back.」

I see now! So that's the reason Arnold and the other knights don't seem to

bother with this matter.

「I see! So? Do you have something to talk to me about?」

As long as it wasn't requested, to prevent the other knights from nurturing a

grudge against me, we never ate with Rose. Having a meal together with

Faf or the other happy monsters from the subjugation picture book felt

much better.

Kyuubi and Fen could release their killing intent if Rose's knights showed

their hostility toward me. Therefore, I asked them to live in the subjugation

picture book for the time being. Though I invited Asta to join us for dinner,

he refused; he felt like he wouldn't be able to control his killing intent on

seeing Rose's knights.

Ah, Asta is none other than Astaroth. I shortened his name since it was long

like Fafnir.

「You're my royal guard, right?」

Rose tried to confirm again with a wide grin.

「Temporary royal guard! Don't forget about the "Temporary" part. This

will continue only until I find a more suitable royal guard for you.」

「Yeah! You're my "temporary" royal guard until you find a more suitable

replacement for you.」

""

Rose cheerfully spoke while nodding with a satisfied expression. Did she

really understand that? I felt endless anxiety about that stupid grin on her

face, but my agenda had already been decided. Find a suitable candidate to

become Rose's royal guard, then dump my duty on them. After that, I could

get Rose to dismiss me from my post.

「So?」

I urged Rose to continue since I knew that her question was only the

preamble. Rose coughed once to clear her throat, then looked at me with a

serious expression.

「Since you have become my royal guard, I have to tell you something.」

「What is it? Don't beat around the bush! Make it short and easy to

understand.」

Rose shrugged with a smile. Is this girl becoming more and more

unrestrained around me?

「This is still a rumour, but I think the competition for the throne might

start soon.」

Competition for the throne, huh! If I'm not wrong, it's a competition in a

certain subject held by the Amelia kingdom's government for the princes

and princesses to decide the next ruler.

Hump, I guess I get the gist of the situation.

「Is that why you were almost sold to the empire during this journey?」

「Yeah! It seems the people from Gilbert's faction did this since they feel

anxious about the possibility of me appointing Rena as my royal guard.」

「So they're afraid of the Rosemary faction's growth because of the

addition of the sword saint gift holder. Is that it?」

「No, forget about the Sword saint's gift. Rena herself should be the

biggest threat for them. Right now, she's extremely popular amongst the

kingdom's big-shots and high-rank nobles.」

Rena is extremely popular amongst the kingdom's nobles, huh! Nothing

can be done now since she's way too different compared to the her in the

young Kai Heineman's memories. I mean, she's more like the representative

of commoners than the past me.

However, if Rena is really popular amongst the high-ranking nobles, that

would explain everything.

「I see now! So the most dangerous factor is "Rena" herself, not her gift!」

「Maybe.」

Just as I thought that Rose looked away.

Rose did say before that she was Rena's best friend. She had also never lied

to the past Kai Heineman. Even though I had felt some uneasiness when I

had heard that she wanted to appoint Rena as her royal guard, considering

the nature of the majority of nobles in this kingdom, Rose might have done

so to protect Rena.

Since Rose is treated as a dangerous object in this kingdom by that idiot

Gilbert, Rena won't be safe as long as Rose is still in this kingdom. This is

no mere speculation as Rose getting along really well with Rena seems to

be common knowledge in the royal capital. I mean, the faster Rose appoints

Rena as her royal guard, the safer Rena will be. At the same time, this

would decrease the chances of another ambush like this one happening at

Rose.

""

In short, by appointing me as her royal guard, Rose can at least keep the

opposite faction's plan to assassinate Rena at bay. And it will continue as

long as I stay by Rose's side as her royal guard.

The effect has been at least doubled since the gift of the person she chose,

me, is literally at the bottom of the barrel.

「Do you know the true mastermind behind the incident in the forest, who

gave the orders to Fracton?」

Rose bit her lips and shook her head in frustration.

「Fracton is the culprit now. Let's keep aside the matter of the competition

for the throne. Fracton most probably knows next to nothing about

important information. The chances of using him to prove Gilbert and the

other nobles' involvement in this plan are next to none.」

As I had expected, the answer was negative.

「Right.」

Even though they were a joke, they were trash who had managed to

negotiate with the empire; they were just one step away from successfully

selling Rose to the empire. Rose had survived this crisis by sheer luck. I

mean, there were simply too many coincidences in that incident. In short,

those pieces of trash were cunning foxes. They were not foolish enough to

leave any evidence that could be traced to them.

「Anyhow, there's no need to do anything as long as the competition for

the throne hasn't started, right?」

「Exactly! Exactly! My current focus is to increase my influence before the

competition starts.」

「Understood.」

Since Rose's peaceful means to increase her sphere of influence was

offering cooperation to the merchants or nobles, she kept reminding me that

the time wasn't ripe yet.

「Then, I guess it's time to go back.」

I carried Faf, who had already dozed off after she had her fill with food,

toward our room,

「Kai!」

I looked around from over my shoulder toward the speaker.

「Uhm? What is it?」

Rose had stood up. She bowed to me, then…

「Thank you for accepting to be my royal guard.」

She spoke a sentence that I thought would never come out from the mouth

of a royalty.

I went toward my room, laid Faf in the bed, and patted her small head. Faf

fell asleep as soon as I did that.

After that, I went toward a small, deserted plaza behind the inn. I wanted to

have some time alone for myself.

I was no longer a youngster who had no idea about right or left. I should've

refused Rose and stopped her from appointing me as her royal guard no

matter what kind of reason she used, especially since it involved an

extremely troublesome situation called competition for the throne. No

matter how dangerous or immature Rose was, the current me shouldn't have

agreed to help her that easily. Yet, I had accepted her offer to become her

royal guard, albeit with some conditions attached to it. No matter how much

I think about it, it was a strange turn of events for the current me.

The same happened with Rena's matter. If Rena's life was in danger, the

problem could be solved with ease as long as Rena was sent to a foreign

country along with Rose and the nobles who get along with Rena. The

current me should be able to do at least that much, yet…

The reason I didn't do all of that was most likely that…

「I have a lot of attachment to that girl. Is that it?」

This was most likely what the past Kai Heineman felt. Although his

feelings had changed, I had properly received his memories. I thought that

my current actions were due to a pure and strong impulse born from my

wealth of experience and memories.

Assisting Rose in achieving her goal might be the future the past Kai

Heineman wished for.

It's like I'm doing my homework right now. Well, anyhow, I'm Kai

Heineman. That will never change.

「I have nothing to do anyway. Let's just get along with this farce until I

find a suitable royal guard candidate for Rose.」

When I repeated my promise to her, I could easily understand more about

myself.

I was a selfish person. Now that I understood this, the rest was like walking

in a park.

『Master!』

Suddenly, I felt a small mass appear on top of my head. When I caught this

mass, I found a young, adorable wolf puppy looking at me with big-round

puppy eyes and swinging his tail.

「Uhm, bored already, Fen?」

I asked him while patting his head.

「Hubby!」

A beautiful, silver-haired fox woman appeared before me and put me in her

embrace. The slimes also surrounded my feet.

「Sorry to make you guys worry about me.」

Yeah! Even if I've regained my old memories, I'm still me. I shall live my

life in this world along with these fellows. Anyone who dares to block my

path will meet their doom. That's all there is to it.