Ludger thought of Alex.
With his easygoing attitude toward women—one that matched his outward appearance—he was, in a broad sense, someone who could be called a womanizer.
But that was only what one saw on the surface.
Inside, Alex held only one person in his heart, and he behaved frivolously on purpose because of a love he believed could never come true.
It was a form of self-loathing.
Ludger had known this truth, but he couldn’t give Alex any advice.
When it came to love, Ludger had no right to say anything.
Even if he did have the right, he wouldn’t have given advice anyway.
Presuming to understand and meddle in someone else’s emotional wound was not something Ludger liked to do.
In the end, the only one who could solve this was Alex himself.
“Alex, you...”
Ludger had always believed Alex would resolve it someday, but he never imagined he’d confirm it the moment they met again.
“That ring. Are you really getting married?”
At Ludger’s words, Hans—who had been just as puzzled—finally noticed the ring on Alex’s hand.
“Huh? Wait. That wasn’t there last time.”
Hans was just as bewildered.
Judging by that line, Alex hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring the last time they saw him.
“Well, yeah. That’s how things turned out.”
Alex gave a small laugh and waved the hand wearing the ring.
The ring sparkled every time it moved.
“When’s the wedding?”
“Sometime soon. It has to be.”
“It has to be?”
“Well, how should I put it—Enya says she can’t wait anymore.”
Enya Joinas.
Terrina Lionhowl’s adjutant and a senior knight of the Nightcrawler Knights.
Unlike Alex, who was a commoner, she was born a noble.
The two had once been cadets in the knight academy together but had parted badly due to unfortunate circumstances.
“So in the end, you two met again.”
Ludger murmured with a tone of quiet amazement.
Back then, he had seen it faintly—Enya still held feelings for Alex.
And Alex felt the same.
If he compared the depth of their feelings, Ludger suspected Alex’s emotions were even stronger.
But Alex had suppressed those feelings.
The difference in their origins—noble and commoner.
His own status as someone who had failed to become a full knight.
And the self-loathing born from the wound he had inflicted on Enya.
Even if he had feelings for her, Alex believed he was not allowed to accept them.
Three years.
Yes.
Alex had changed during those three years.
“Judging from your clothes, looks like you’ve been eating well and living well.”
“Haha. What’s with that all of a sudden, Leader? Well, you’re right though. I’ll send you a wedding invitation later.”
“No, but from what I remember, you two were already on decent terms quite a while back. Why suddenly now?”
Hans raised a question.
From what he remembered, after the Holy War ended, Alex had been handed over to the Empire—
to be exact, directly under Lutus Wardot.
“Hmm. I guess I have to start from the beginning because someone here doesn’t know the whole story. That okay?”
Hans shrugged with a look that said Why wouldn’t it be?
He’d have to tell the story eventually anyway.
There was no reason not to tell it now.
“I’m curious. Let’s hear what you’ve been doing these three years.”
At Ludger’s words, Alex opened his mouth as if he had been waiting for the cue.
As though he had prepared for this moment long ago, his voice flowed without hesitation.
“First of all, right after the war ended, everyone else was pardoned as people who technically ‘didn’t exist.’ But me and Phantos weren’t. Makes sense—we both fought openly and directly against other knights on the front lines, so our faces were well known.”
They could have declared him dead and let him vanish as a casualty.
But after everything was over, he couldn’t stay hidden forever.
“Changing identities and disguising myself constantly didn’t suit me. Unlike you, Leader.”
Alex admitted that part honestly.
Ludger had changed identities and names, killing himself metaphorically again and again to survive.
It was something ordinary people could never even attempt.
“So I just went head-on. Figured they wouldn’t kill me.”
“Reckless.”
“Yeah, reckless. But that was my way. Besides... I didn’t want to run away from Enya anymore.”
Alex still remembered that moment.
Enya crying as she tried desperately to save him—
her tears overflowing, sobbing uncontrollably.
If he hadn’t miraculously been healed in time, what would have happened?
It would have left a wound in her heart she could never undo.
Even if she had been manipulated, the one who stabbed Alex had been Enya’s hand and Enya’s sword.
Even if he said he was fine, Enya would never have believed that.
The same way Alex himself had lived with self-loathing despite others’ reassurances.
“So I just confronted it all. I pretended to be confident, but on the inside I was terrified. But what could I do? I’d already messed up, so I figured I should at least try to make the outcome better. I’ve never been good at calculating things the way you do, Leader.”
“The other comrades could have helped.”
“At the time, that wasn’t possible. But then, unexpectedly, help came from Lutus.”
“Lutus Wardot, the Commander?”
“He defended me. Publicly declared me as his personal disciple.”
Lutus Wardot never took disciples.
So for him to say such a thing caused a massive uproar.
Who was Lutus Wardot?
The strongest swordsman on the continent.
A master beyond the master realm.
A one-man army.
Ludger had fought him once, and in the Elf Kingdom the two had even fought side by side.
The strength Ludger had seen then was beyond all rumor.
Terrina, who had reached the master realm, lived bound to the Empire as its Guardian—
but Lutus was different.
His power surpassed the Empire’s laws.
Because of that, he could ignore even the emperor’s commands.
Of course, he didn’t outright ignore them.
Lutus took great pride in the Empire and had sworn loyalty to it.
So on the surface, he respectfully acknowledged the emperor’s words.
But there was a clear difference between “respect” and “obedience.”
In that sense, Lutus was a knight of the Empire while also being the freest man within it.
“With someone like that calling me his disciple and saying he’d been secretly training me—who would dare object?”
“Huh. Sounds like things got interesting.”
“There was still some backlash, of course. People questioned why the Commander’s disciple had sided with the Demon King, or whether I was truly his disciple at all. I mean, I’m just some no-name swordsman, right?”
But that wasn’t difficult to disprove.
Alex had long since succeeded in mimicking Lutus’s swordsmanship.
By showing Lutus’s techniques exactly—and with ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) equal power—he silenced all suspicion.
They couldn’t argue.
It wasn’t imitation; it was at the same level.
As for him siding with the Demon King, they simply lied that it had been to act as a double agent.
One would think people wouldn’t be foolish enough to believe it—
but surprisingly, they did.
Because Alex’s display of Lutus’s swordsmanship was even more unbelievable than the double-agent excuse.
The return of Lutus.
Only younger.
No one could underestimate how significant that was.
“But people are persistent, you know. They were desperate to drag me down. Because I’m a commoner.”
Nobles had long tried to make their children Lutus’s disciples.
Just the title Disciple of Lutus would give their family immense prestige and influence.
And yet, that invaluable position had gone to a commoner with no lineage or pedigree?
The people who had invested time and money for the opportunity went mad.
“It was chaos. It was annoying at the time, but thinking back... it was hilarious. Nobles jealous of a commoner? The roles were completely reversed!”
Lutus Wardot was famous for refusing disciples.
Even prodigies from across the continent couldn’t satisfy him.
His response to all who came, full of confidence, was always the same:
—With that level, you might be fit to plow fields.
It was the greatest insult a swordsman could receive, yet no one could refute him.
Some had thrown tantrums, demanding what he meant.
And Lutus’s response was simple:
—Since you made it all the way here, I suppose I can show you my swordsmanship as a parting gift.
And after seeing it, the so-called prodigies always returned with hollow, broken expressions.
Even the three master-level Imperial Knight Commanders had only received a few teachings from Lutus.
And such a man had taken a commoner as his disciple.
“They were completely provoked. Most nobles couldn’t accept reality, but a few quick thinkers changed targets.”
Lutus was now like a fruit in the heavens—completely out of reach.
But his disciple?
That was different.
The title of Lutus’s disciple was amazing, but Alex himself was a commoner.
And young.
And strikingly handsome for a commoner.
Nobles with daughters immediately shifted their aim toward Alex.
They tried to marry their daughters to him—to pull him into their families.
“I always had some popularity with women, but I’ve never received that many love letters in my life. I didn’t even know the Empire had that many nobles. Half the names I’d never even heard of! And I didn’t understand why noble ladies I’d never met were acting like that.”
“That’s the life of nobles. They marry without love—for alliances. That’s their culture.”
“Ugh, I hate it. Even Lutus couldn’t help with that. He’s a monster who’s above politics only because he’s strong enough not to get dragged in. But this isn’t something strength can solve.”
And with Lutus’s personality, he wouldn’t handle such annoyances anyway.
In truth, he told Alex to resolve that on his own.
It sounded irresponsible, but Lutus had done everything he needed to by pulling Alex out of that battlefield alive.
“That’s when the other Knight Commanders stepped in.”
Nightcrawler.
Stella Siren.
Cold Steel.
The commanders of each knight order helped Alex in various ways.
The one who stepped up the most, of course, was Enya Joinas.
Enya intercepted every love letter sent to Alex before they could reach him.
The Joinas family had more than enough influence to do that.
But even the Joinas family couldn’t completely block the deluge of proposals from countless noble houses.
In fact, her interference gave other families a justification to unite and criticize the Joinas family.
“So what happened then?”
“So then, well...”
Alex hesitated slightly, as if embarrassed.
But the ending was obvious.
The ring on his finger proved it.
“I told her—why don’t we just publicly announce we’re engaged?”
Enya, who had been tearing her hair out over the situation, apparently froze like an idiot the moment she heard that.
Alex had said it as carefully as possible, but it was essentially a confession.
“Oh.”
“Kya.”
Slightly tipsy, Ludger and Hans exclaimed with pure admiration.
“He says all sorts of sweet words to women normally, but at the decisive moment he turns into a shy mess.”
“Boss, this is true love, you know.”
Watching the two grin mischievously, Alex wondered if he shouldn’t have said anything.
“Anyway yeah... that’s how it went.”
He ended the explanation casually, but things hadn’t gone casually at all.
Afterward, he had been bombarded with all sorts of complicated Imperial noble procedures.
For a commoner like Alex, it was a life he had never experienced before.
And as he got dragged around here and there, time passed quickly.
Looking back, he could barely remember what he had actually done.
But there was one thing he remembered vividly.
Enya’s expression when he made that half-confession.
Her tears streaming down—
and her smile, happier than that of anyone in the world.
He could never forget it.
Yeah.
You really are the prettiest when you smile.
Alex softly stroked the ring on his left ring finger with a content expression.
“So yeah, that’s why I’m a married man now. I even had to get permission to come here today.”
“Already getting whipped, huh.”
“Ugh, that’s disgusting, Boss. Can you check if I turned into a chicken just now?”
Hans burst into giggles while teasing him.
Alex fired back almost immediately.
“You say that about me, but you’re not exactly in a position to talk, are you?”
“...Hm?”
Ludger didn’t understand why Alex suddenly said that.
But the moment he saw Hans’s expression—changed for just a split second—
he realized something.
Hans, you bastard.
There’s something going on, isn’t there?