Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter: Volume 9 [Parts 1 to 8] by Riku Nanano

Author:Riku Nanano
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 3

“Hey, have you heard? They finished repairing the tracks from here to the royal capital.”

“You mean the Three Great Dukes can finally get here with their troops?”

“I hear the advance force skipped over the city and headed straight for the eastern border.”

“Hard to believe it’s been ten days since they put down the rebellion. The Algrens are done for. But I bet the council of chieftains will reconvene before anything else happens.”

I was making my way through the eastern capital’s beastfolk districts under the cover of a hooded cloak when I overheard a beastfolk, an elf, a dwarf, and a human chatting about current events under the mana lamps of a major New Town thoroughfare. Clenching my fists, I ducked into a nearby alleyway.

“Are you all right, Konoha? You look ghastly pale,” my companion asked worriedly from beside me. She was a tall southern beauty in a floral kimono, with long black hair and skin as dark as mine—my elder sister Momiji, with whom I had only recently been reunited.

“I’m fine,” I reassured her haltingly. “We should hurry.”

She didn’t reply.

Painfully aware of her concern, I forced myself to repeat more firmly, “I’m fine. Really.”

A royal proclamation issued shortly after the end of the rebellion had commanded all those implicated in it to refrain from setting foot out of doors until their punishments were determined. I wasn’t eager to violate the decree or to start a fight. My lord—His Highness, Lord Gil Algren, fourth son of the old duke—was already in an exceedingly precarious position. I was merely his maid and bodyguard, but even I was tempting fate by venturing out like this.

Naturally, my lord had not been directly complicit in this ridiculous insurrection. He hadn’t been informed of it in advance, and he had been confined to his house’s mansion once it had begun. I had used force to keep him there. Nevertheless...

I gritted my teeth and squeezed the bracelet on my left wrist—a memento of my late mother—painfully tight.

Momiji cut in front of me and seized my shoulders. “Konoha, you should take a rest,” she urged. “My fiancé won’t mind if we’re late.”

“I don’t want to make a bad impression,” I muttered. “I hear your fiancé is a friend of Mr. Allen. I’m prepared to take a few punches.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

Who had emerged from the rebellion with the most glory? The knights of the royal guard, who had joined forces with the beastfolk militia and fought ferociously in defense of the Great Tree, despite their small numbers and the odds stacked overwhelmingly against them? Lord Richard Leinster, who had led their elite troops with indomitable spirit? The legendary Emerald Gale and the other officers of the Shooting Star Brigade, who had arrived from the far-off western capital with a force of hardy veterans at the eleventh hour, fulfilling their Old Pledge to the beastfolk? The people of the eastern capital foresaw a different answer.

I met my sister’s gaze. Her eyes were still as jewellike as I remembered. “Mr.

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