An Unbelievable Misconception

The knights who had been watching the entire situation from behind were horrified.

Our commander has finally gone completely out of his mind!

To kiss the hand of a man he’s seeing for the first time!

Whether the knights were muttering things or not, Calix spoke gently.

His expression was even sorrowful.

“You have no idea how long I have looked around for you.”

He couldn’t endure it any longer.

Lien struck the man’s hand away with all his might.

As his hand slipped away, the face of Calix, who had been wearing a faint smile, crumbled and his eyes widened.

The knights, who were about to approach again while clenching their teeth thinking he might attack a civilian, flinched upon seeing his expression.

It wasn’t a face that was going to hit someone, but looked more like a person who had been thoroughly beaten up.

“Guest.”

Unlike him who was approaching with a pleading voice, Lien replied in a freezing cold voice.

“It seems you have the wrong person.”

“There is no way, Erha.”

Damn it.

As the name he thought he would never hear again was mentioned, his body almost reacted.

Suppressing the urge to be shaken up without realizing it, Lien furrowed his brow.

Even after seeing that expression, the man spoke in a very affectionate voice.

“There is no way I wouldn’t recognize you.”

At that attitude, Lien’s gaze became even more icy.

He shouldn’t call his name so affectionately.

A person who approached solely for his own advancement inside a controlled world like a locked cage.

He was the person who pulled out emotions from him that he shouldn’t know, and made him realize clearly that it was an illusion.

Along with the person who was once precious but gifted him a cold betrayal.

Thinking of the relationship with that person, perhaps he too might have betrayed him.

The possibility of that was high.

Why is such a person trying to pull out his past self so abominably.

Lien stepped backward as if on guard.

“I don’t know who you are looking for, guest.”

“Prin……”

“But at least I must let you know that I cannot be a princess.”

Lien spoke firmly.

At the words denying himself, the man’s eyes distorted, but Lien had to cut him off coldly.

He had to inform him of the fact that the man and he were people who had no relationship whatsoever.

“Because I am a man.”

At Lien’s answer, the man’s hand that was being stretched toward him faltered and its movement stopped.

The eyes of the man who had been scanning only his face obsessively shook rapidly.

It seemed he hadn’t been listening at all to the conversation he shared with the other knight earlier.

‘Damn it.’

A flustered gaze that couldn’t believe it.

He didn’t know why that felt so dirty until this extent.

Contrary to his boiling insides, Lien’s expression sank calmly yet coldly.

There is no way he wouldn’t recognize him.

What a ridiculous statement.

He knew absolutely nothing about him from the very beginning.

“S-Something seems to be a misconception.”

Cutting through the freezing cold atmosphere, the tall knight quickly squeezed between the two.

As if apologizing for his commander committing an absurd rudeness to a civilian, it was a face that couldn’t hide its sorry feeling.

But even so, Lien could not suppress his resentment.

Lien, who glared intently at Calix, spat out coldly as the man just stood still like an ice statue.

“It seems so.”

“We are truly sorry.”

“Forget it.”

Calix did not grab him as he headed to the kitchen with his back turned in a freezing cold expression.

The knights let out a sigh of relief.

They didn’t know what he was thinking to insist that a man he saw for the first time was his wife, but it was a relief that no civilian was hurt.

Because if this bad-tempered commander had things go wrong, Lien might have been heavily injured.

Thinking it was a relief that he went inside without arguing further, they sat stiffly in their seats.

“Haa.”

The anxiety had hit the mark.

Petrick had been anxious ever since the commander, Calix, said he would accompany them this time.

Of course, it wasn’t that this business trip had nothing to do with the commander.

Rather, it could be said that they came here because of that, but they absolutely didn’t wish for his company.

Where would there be a person who wishes for a business trip with their boss, but the members of the Elhardt Knights didn’t wish for it even more.

At the words that it was Bent’s hometown, those who were preparing for the search without much word felt like they were going crazy with the burden of their commander suddenly joining right before departure.

As expected, throughout the trip, he wore his hood deep down and radiated an atmosphere that made people uncomfortable, so it was burdensome even to turn their heads toward the commander’s side.

Eventually, trouble had broken out.

How surprised were they thinking he was suddenly attacking a civilian while eating at the inn?

Whether they should call it a relief, it didn’t seem to be an attack(?).

But they soon had to be surprised in a different sense.

Has the commander finally gone crazy?

It’s not that he came down with some sickness, right?

How do we clear this up?

Looking at the slender back fleeing toward the kitchen away from the commander, those who were caught up in their respective worries turned their heads thoughtlessly and froze just like that.

He was making an expression they had never seen even once until now.

Light seeped into the eyes full of boredom that always looked only at a distant place.

As if seeing something amazing, as if he couldn’t believe it, the person who repeatedly closed and opened his eyes slowly stared blankly at his own hand, then let out a faint breath.

A flush rose on the pale cheeks of the person who was staring blankly at his hand to an odd extent, and in the end, the lips that were always tightly shut formed an arc, reaching the point of making an expression full of rapture.

It was a natural thing for the knights who watched this process to freeze up instead.

Looking back and forth between the kitchen where Lien had vanished and him, they felt their heads becoming complicated.

Could it be, could it be…….

N-No way.

This horrifying imagination would at least not become mutual.

Because the atmosphere just now was past freezing cold and rather bloodcurdling.

At least, it failed to become a romantic scene where someone falls in love.

But seeing that the commander did not take his eyes off the kitchen where Lien had disappeared, Derek ended up saying a word.

“Commander. That person is……”

He too couldn’t understand the commander’s action.

How could he mistake an employee of a countryside inn for his wife.

Of course, Lien was a beautiful person rare to see in the countryside despite being a man.

To the extent that every single one of them mistook him for a woman when they first saw him.

Since his large eyes in a small face and nice-looking red lips gave an impression of being pretty rather than manly.

The fact that he tied his slightly long hair tightly back to fix it was also enough to misidentify him as a short-haired woman.

But that was a story only when looking at a glance, and if one looked properly, one could know that he was pretty but clearly a man.

Although he was on the thin side, the revealed body line was definitely a man’s.

They couldn’t know what on earth made the commander mistake him for his wife.

Would they know if they looked again? Derek, who turned his head toward the kitchen, was grabbed by a powerful force and almost tumbled straight down below.

“Commander!”

“Commander!”

Looking at Calix who tried to cast him down to the floor, Derek showed a bewildered expression.

Calix spoke while clenching his teeth as if growling.

“Take your eyes off.”

Derek, whose head was pressed hard to lock eyes with the floor, could only now know what on earth had happened.

He is doing this just because he saw the edge of the employee’s clothes slightly visible from the kitchen.

Derek glanced at his colleagues to check if what he thought was right.

Fortunately(?), his colleagues also had similar expressions to his.

The commander has finally gone completely out of his mind!

It was unmistakable that Calix, who had been searching around for his wife throughout five years, had finally lost his mind!

Otherwise, no matter how pretty he is, he couldn’t talk nonsense about a princess or whatever in that kind of voice to a person who is unmistakably a man to anyone who looks.

“Phew.”

The knights stiffened their bodies at a breathing sound closer to taking a deep breath rather than a sigh.

He was still with his knees bent.

The knights scanned Calix’s countenance.

The expression of looking blankly down at his own hand with a tightly hardened face looked extraordinary.

Petrick, whose eyes met with Calix for an instant, quietly turned his head away.

Truly, it looked as if he would kill someone.

In times like this, keeping one’s mouth shut is the best policy.

The tact they had built up unintentionally over many years was finally functioning.