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[Translator - Tangrine ]
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Chapter 23 - Private Attack! (4)
“Oh my, aren’t you the young master of the Duke’s house? What brings you to a shabby place like this?”
“Hmph! I have no business with the likes of you! Where is Lady Lydis?”
“She’s in her office at the moment.”
“Hmph, take me to her!”
“I’ll escort you. But before that, there’s somewhere we need to stop.”
“Where?”
Clyden stretched his right hand back.
Rex, now used to the routine quickly handed him his helmet.
“Where do you think, punk? Hell, that’s where!”
Clyden hurled the helmet straight at Kaysis.
Caught off guard, Kaysis took the hit square in the face and screamed.
Clyden kicked Kaysis and then began stomping him mercilessly.
“I’ve been keeping quiet lately, and now even a damn private thinks he can mess with me?
“Huh?!”
“Urgh… how dare you!”
Kaysis had trained in mana since childhood, he wasn’t weak enough to just sit and take a beating.
The unexpected strike and the first real beating of his life had him completely disoriented.
He couldn’t do anything but take it.
“‘How dare I?’ You mean hitting a private is out of line? Is that what you’re whining about? You think you’re somebody now just cause you earned a stripe and started your long, miserable military career?”
“A punk like you trying to square up to an NCO, someone even seasoned soldiers steer clear of? What, your life’s so bleak you think you’ve got nothing to lose?”
“Gah! Do you want to die?! You’re a commoner, how dare you strike a noble?!”
Kaysis shouted as he glared at Clyden.
That only made Clyden more angry.
“A noble, huh? That’s right, the precious little heir of a grand duke!”
“To raise your hand against me, this is treason! You’ll be executed!”
“Let’s do the math, shall we? You’re a duke’s son which puts you at a count level. I’m a baron and a sergeant. You’re a count-level private. I’m still higher than you, you snot-nosed brat!”
Clyden resumed his merciless beating.
Even as he was being pummeled, Kaysis yelled.
“That makes no sense! That’s not how nobility or rank works!”
“Doesn’t make sense? Makes perfect sense right here, punk! In the army, nothing’s impossible! If you do it, it works! You keep acting like you’ve got a death wish—I gotta say, A+ for effort. Did you leave all your common sense at home when you signed up?”
“I’m warning you if you don’t kill me now, you’ll regret it. I’ll make sure you pay for laying hands on a direct heir of the Duke’s house!”
His face swollen and bruised, Kaysis glared at Clyden.
Clyden smirked and told a squadmate to bring him a pen and paper.
“Hmph! It’s too late for apologies now!”
Assuming Clyden was about to write a letter of apology, Kaysis puffed up with arrogance.
“Even your noble tantrum has a weirdly refined flair to it, you know that?”
Clyden threw a kick at him but Kaysis managed to dodge it.
“Oh? Dodging, are we? Let’s see how long you can keep that up.”
Clyden swung the helmet at Kaysis without mercy.
Kaysis evaded his attacks.
“I’ll see you executed for murdering a noble! You dare—ugh!”
While dodging Clyden’s strikes, Kaysis stumbled.
His footing was thrown off by Eres's subtly tripping him.
In that instant, the helmet in Clyden’s hand struck him hard on the head.
With a dull thud, Kaysis clutched his skull and groaned in pain.
Clyden grinned darkly and walked toward him.
“I just love guys who train in mana. Know why? Their bones are so damn sturdy that I can hit
them as hard as I want without worrying.”
The platoon members didn’t dare step in to stop the unhinged Clyden.
Instead, they sent desperate glances toward Eres hoping he’d intervene.
Eres, who’d always had the worst relationship with Kaysis felt oddly satisfied watching him get beaten to a pulp.
He muttered something about the nice weather and pretended not to see.
A soldier returned from office with paper and a pen.
Clyden handed them to Eres with a smirk.
“Write this down exactly as I say.”
“What am I writing?”
“I, Private Kaysis, who enlisted today, disregarded my superior officer—”
Thud!
Clyden punctuated the line with a brutal kick.
“And committed insubordination!”
Thud! Thud!
Kaysis couldn’t even stay upright.
“In my inability to control myself, resorted to violence—!”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Repeatedly struck the head, torso, and lower body with a helmet.”
Kaysis wobbled, barely conscious.
“I acknowledge that I assaulted my superior using both hands and feet!”
Clyden glared down at the groaning, twitching Kaysis sprawled on the floor.
He tossed the helmet to Eres.
“You hate this bastard too, right?”
“Well… yes, but this could be a problem. Kaysis is notorious, even within the Deviron
duchy. What are you planning to do about this…?”
“Relax. I’ve got it all figured out. You’ve been holding back too, haven’t you? Go on.”
“…Can I?”
“C’mon. He’s already a pile of mush. A few more hits won’t even show. Just let it out. And hand me that paper.”
Eres passed Clyden the paper, then hesitantly nudged Kaysis with his foot.
After a moment, he gave him a few solid kicks, stopping short of using the helmet then looked immensely satisfied.
“Feel better?”
“Yeah.”
Eres smiled at Clyden, who smiled back.
Clyden’s smile made Eres uneasy.
His voice trembled slightly.
“Vice commander?”
“Tsk tsk… Eres, come on. I know you hate the guy, but now look at this mess. You didn’t have to go this far, did you? You should’ve shown some restraint.”
“What?! What are you talking about?!”
Eres stared at Clyden in disbelief.
Clyden looking entirely shameless walked over to Kaysis and nudged him lightly with his foot.
“I may not have been here, but how could you do this to the third son of a duke? Do you have any idea how you're going to explain this later?”
“What are you talking about?!”
“What do you mean, acting all innocent after beating him to this state?”
“When did I do that?!”
Eres was on the verge of losing his mind from frustration at Clyden’s performance.
“You’re the one who beat him to a pulp!”
“You didn’t hit him? Not even once?”
“Well, I did hit him but—”
“There! You even wrote this confession yourself, holding that bloodied helmet. Damn, you went to town on the guy. You’ve got to work on that temper.”
Clyden waved the written statement mockingly while glancing at Kaysis with faux sympathy.
The other soldiers watching could only think one thing as they stared at Clyden clucking his tongue, a devil.
“What’s all this commotion?”
Drawn by the noise, Lydis stepped out.
She saw a familiar-looking man collapsed on the floor, Eres standing beside him red-faced and seething.
Clyden nearby sighing in fake concern.
As Eres opened his mouth to explain, Clyden cut in first.
“Lieutenant, we've got a case of soldier-on-soldier assault here. Eres lost his temper and turned the recruit into a punching bag. Just couldn’t hold it in.”
Lydis looked at Eres with a surprised expression.
Her eyes then dropped to the blood-stained helmet in his hands and her expression hardened.
“Eres. I never thought you were this kind of person.”
“Wha—Sister! This isn’t!”
“Sister? It’s Lieutenant. And you did this under my command? I trusted you. I’m truly disappointed in you, Eres.”
Lydis’s harsh words hit Eres like a spear to the chest.
She approached with a serious expression and turned to Clyden.
“This the recruit?”
“Yes, ma’am. Some guy named Kaysis, from the House of Deviron.”
Freeze.
Lydis stopped in her tracks.
“What did you say?”
“He’s a noble like Eres, one of the young masters of House Deviron.”
Lydis looked between Clyden and the battered man on the ground.
Conflict flickered in her eyes.
She slowly raised her gaze to the sky.
“The weather’s lovely today.”
“…Huh?”
“On days like this, it’s best to enjoy a quiet tea time. Care to join me, Sergeant?”
Her gentle, silky voice sent chills down Clyden’s spine.
He instinctively trembled and shook his head.
Lydis gave a small nod and calmly returned to her office.
As Clyden was trying to process what just happened.
Eres marched up to him, grinding his teeth.
“Vice commander.”
“Gah! You scared me!”
“I’d like to know why you threw me under the bus.”
“Huh? What?”
“You dumped everything you did on me.”
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
Clyden wagged a finger right in front of Eres’s face.
“Everything has a cause. The key is to solve the problem at its root.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“Who put you in this situation?”
“You did!”
“Nope. Cause and effect, my friend. There’s always a cause before a result. All I did
was offer a gentle lesson to a clueless private stepping out of line.”
“Then who’s the cause?!”
Clyden casually pointed at the collapsed Kaysis.
“Him.”
“…How?!”
“He mouthed off to me, so I gave him a light reality check. But knowing things could get
tricky if I laid into a well-connected recruit myself. I warned you to handle it first.”
“The brat ignored you and in your fury you lashed out. So in the end, it’s his fault.”
“That doesn’t make it right! You’re just pinning everything you did on me. How am I supposed to sit back and let that happen?!”
Clyden with a sudden shrug.
“Let’s say I did it.”
“Really?”
Eres blinked suspiciously.
Clyden changing his tune that easily didn’t smell right.
“I’ll just get dishonorably discharged. Bye-bye army, no job. Guess I’ll head to my brother’s place. He’ll find something for his dear sworn brother. Which means I’ll be spending the rest of my life with you.”
The thought of facing Clyden for life made Eres physically shudder.
Darkness clouded his vision.
“Who did this to the recruit?”
“I did.”
A fleeting hell or a lifetime of it. The choice was obvious.
Clyden grinned and patted Eres on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry! People can hit when they’re emotional! You just have to regret it and never make that mistake again!”
“Ugh…Yes.”
Eres couldn’t contain the injustice, the rage, the sheer agony boiling inside.
It felt like if he didn’t let it out, he’d explode.
Clyden offered him a way.
“Don’t get so worked up. You’re the real power in this platoon! The one who makes the calls around here.”
“What are you going to do if a private who leaves his concept at home? You gonna go fetch it for him or carve a new one and hammer it straight into his skull?”
“I’ll carve it into his bones.”
Drawn into Clyden’s twisted logic, Eres glared at Kaysis with a murderous look.
Even unconscious, Kaysis flinched under that gaze.
Thus, a new disciplinary enforcer was born.
“Maybe I ruined a good, innocent soul.”
Clyden confidently reported the assault to headquarters, complete with a handwritten statement.
The command center erupted in chaos.
Rumors spread like wildfire, some said he'd smashed Kaysis’s legs, others claimed he’d turned him into a half-cripple.
As the story grew more sensational, reactions followed suit.
The southerners responded with delight, saying, ‘Well done.’
The northerners were furious saying, ‘An ignorant man did something ignorant.’
The social elite, once enamored with Eres’s gentlemanly demeanor were thoroughly disappointed.
His popularity plummeted overnight.
“Sergeant Clyden reporting, sir.”
He was summoned to the senior warrant officer's office.
Clyden had already decided to face this head-on.
“Why is it that every time you show up somewhere, chaos follows?”
“Well, this time, Eres—”
“Eres is a softie. I bet he got dragged into this mess just doing whatever dumb thing you
told him to.”
“You’re sharp as ever, sir.”
Sigarus smirked, then pulled a document out of his drawer and handed it to Clyden.
“What’s this?”
“Read it.”
Clyden scanned the paper cautiously.
“A… pledge? ‘By enlisting in the military, I hereby swear to uphold all regulations, maintain strict discipline, and unconditionally obey my superiors. Should I violate any of these, I will accept any punishment without protest or appeal and renounce all rights to my family’s noble status.’ Sir… what is this?”
“Have Kaysis sign it.”
“I mean, this is clever and all but won’t people start saying we’re giving special treatment to
The Iron Duke’s family?”
“Don’t worry. Everyone else coming in later is signing it too.”
“Oh, I see. What?! Sir, what do you mean by that?!”
“You haven’t heard the rumors?”
“Rumors?”
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[Translator - Tangrine ]
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