CH 87

I wanted to make him relieved since I’d done this much groundwork, but judging from his face, Mayer was far from that. He had that ambiguous look like when I was talking about the special unit going into action. What was it? Wasn’t he troubled over the problem of revealing his power to the corps?

Mayer Knox hesitated to speak for a long time, lips shut tightly, before speaking up. “…Speaking of which, it looks like you have grown quite close to August lately.”

Somehow, it sounded like I shouldn’t be getting close to the priest…? Not knowing the intent behind his question, I replied with an awkward laugh. “Well, since we’ve been training the special unit together… And I did receive a lot of help from him.”

“I mean, closer as in personally.”

It was then that I finally realized his intent. The man had definitely caught wind of that gossip about me and August being together! But that didn’t clear all the questions in my head, though. How had he come upon that rumor? Did he know of the scandalous talk about me and him before that? There was a mountain of things I wanted to ask, so I lined up the questions in my head and cautiously began firing them. “Um… When you say personal, may I ask, how personal do you mean?”

Mayer kept silent, not giving me an answer, but the clear displeasure on his face was enough to tell me. Exasperation rose inside me. Even if he had heard such rumors, there was no need to be so displeased, right?

Maybe there was some code of conduct in the corps that I hadn’t heard of? Like forbidding dating between expedition members… Considering how I had never heard about the off-limits zone before—the room with Mayer’s portrait—there was a good chance I had failed to hear about that sort of rule. If so, then it was natural that Mayer was so irritated. It was a matter of disrupting discipline as the vice-captain, after all. Then again, why didn’t he say anything when rumors were going around about us? I couldn’t understand him. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but… the reverend and I are just good comrades,” I said with caution.

“You would hide the truth, even from me? It is fine, to be honest.”

He said so, but he didn’t look fine in the least. His face was serious! Seeming shocked that I was hiding something from him, Mayer didn’t hide the look of disappointment on his face. At that moment, I thought of how gobsmacked he’d look if he knew what I was actually hiding. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know what rumors you heard, Captain… Besides, if everything was as those gossips told, then you and I would be in ‘that’ kind of relationship.”

I appealed to Mayer’s empathy. He should’ve at least heard about the rumors about us. There was no way he didn’t know, what with how noisy the corps was being. That turned out not to be the case, though, as Mayer asked with a frown, “There are rumors about us?”

“…Did you not know?” I asked in amazement. He nodded, clueless. “But how could you not know about that? The men were being so noisy over it!”

“…It was that bad?”

“The rumor about me and Reverend August can’t even compare. There was a lot of commotion from the moment I joined the Dark Knights.”

Mayer clutched at his head with a groan at finding out this unexpected truth. You didn’t expect such rumors after all the favoritism you showed? At this point, the man could be called shameless. I didn’t hide the sarcasm in my voice as I said, “You shouldn’t have treated me with such favor.”

“I believed doing so would be of help to you.”

“It’s not like it didn’t help. No one bullied me outright, after all.” It did help in that I was free of any childish bullying, such as tripping me over, not telling me assembly points, and so on. “But help aside, those rumors aren’t a positive thing. I was going to speak to you about it anyway. I felt like it’s something that should be dealt with before we go to the performance report meeting.”

“You talk like there is a reason to deal with it before then. Why? Are you afraid of Fabian getting the wrong idea?”

I had spoken without much thought, but Mayer’s tone was sharp. I was taken aback by his aggressive words. “What are you talking about? Why bring up Fabian again all of a sudden?”

“Are you not trying to silence the rumors to prevent Fabian from misunderstanding our relationship?”

“What bull are you… It’s a problem for you, Captain!”

“Me?” Mayer blinked dumbly. That innocent look on his face made him all the more detestable.

“Sure, those rumors won’t have a positive effect on any relationship I’ll have in the future, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’ll be romancing anyone right now.” As he stared at me in silence, I continued. “That’s why I’ve been leaving it alone. I can bear with people talking behind my back. I let it be because it doesn’t bother me. Do you understand?”