The Eldest Daughter Walks Down The Flower Path - Chapter 68 - Belle Reservoir

5-6 minutes

※ This novel’s chapters have been split into halves, but they’re numbered normally to make things simple. Moving forward, the TL will be posting as often as she can to compensate for the length. You can read more about this on the TL's note at the end of chapter 1~

Chapter 68

Translator: Yonnee

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“M’not doing it. Won’t do it. Can’t do it.”

Lux, the captain of the Russell Marquisate’s subjugation team, jerked his head fwick, fwick, fwick, three times as he said no.

“If you’re not doing it, how come you’re not. If you won’t do it, how come you won’t. If you can’t do it, how are you going to handle the repercussions?”

Marcel, Marquis Russell’s aide, retorted quickly, tapping the thick red oak table three times in succession.

Lux shouted indisputably.

“Do you know how wide the Marquisate is? In winter, the subjugation squad is divided into three groups and we all have to go around the wide domain! But what now? You want us to go until the borders?”

“That’s why you should’ve recruited more people last summer.”

“I did! Marcel, listen to me. Even if 100 people get recruited, barely 50 of them could be deployed. And I’m telling you, come winter, 20 out of those 50 would quit and say they can’t do it anymore. Then, 30 people will be left. After a month, 15 of them get injured or get poisoned by miasma. And then at the end of winter? Everyone disappears! It’s a cycle that repeats every year!”

“Then you should’ve recruited 200 people.”

“I was going to! But that Ardon—that good friend—took away all the men I was going to pick!”

Ardon was the head of the Order of the Black Lion under the Marquis himself. The Black Lion Knights were the marquis’ regular knights.

Naturally, that knight order’s treatment was different from the subjugation team, which hunted monsters.

Therefore, if they opened recruitments at the same time, the inevitable result was that the talented young people would flock to the other knight order.

With a depressed tone, Lux spoke.

“Anyway, it’s going to be too much to head even to the borders.”

Marcel became annoyed.

“Then come up with an alternative. Unless you’re asking me to tell the Marquis that you can’t do it, are you?”

“Alternative?”

Lux looked at Marcel with a face that was saying, ‘What alternative?’

With that dubious expression, Marcel opened and closed his mouth as though he was a goldfish, trying to suppress the rising anger within him.

“Right now…”

At that moment, the door to the office opened right then.

Marcel rubbed their eyes as cloudy fog had come in through the door.

As they opened their hazy eyes and squinted at the door, who they saw standing there was…

Demon Lord.

“What are you going to tell me?”

No, it was Marquis Russell.

His voice sounded as if it came from the depths of the earth itself.

“I think I heard something about it being too much to go to the borders.”

Yves Russell’s tangled hair made it look like he had horns sticking out of his head, and the black cloak over his shoulders were like the wings of a demon lord.

Marcel thought it was fortunate enough that Marquis Russell covered his eyes with his long fringe.

No one had ever seen Marquis Russell’s eyes, but some testify that his pupils were vertical slits, others say they were horizontal.

The most terrible rumor was that there allegedly was a person who looked into the marquis’ eyes and was turned into stone.

That’s why sponsorships on stones were increasing without him knowing.

Lux exclaimed.

“I shall do a poem for the first letters of ‘Border Lands, Impossible’!”

“B.”

“Border subjugation expedition!”

“L.”

“Lying and pretending. That’s the enemy!”

“I.”

“I… I shall work harder than ever before…!”

Marcel sighed as he watched Lux shouting while his eyes gradually gathered tears.

‘That’s why I’m telling you. If you don’t think you can do it, just come up with an alternative. You won’t be able to say anything in front of His Excellency…’

After Lux left the office—in tears—Yves sat on a chair with a relaxed expression as though nothing had happened. Then, he opened his lips to speak.

“If there’s a shortage of manpower in the subjugation squad, then assign the squad to the farther areas and entrust the nearby areas to the knight order. There’s nothing for them to do during winter anyway.”

“Winter is an important period for training the knights, as far as I know.”

“Is extra training for the knights of the Marquisate more important than them going out there and protecting the land? This could be considered training, too, anyway. Send a command to the knightage.”

“I understand.”

While Marcel was writing the order, Yves looked at a list of weapons in the arsenal, then after he skimmed through them, he spoke once more.

“Is the novel 〈 Dame Angela 〉 that famous?”