The Guardian Knight of Affection-Starved Young Ladies

0 – Kallen (01)

001.

The name ‘Kallen’ was given to him by an old man who was both his benefactor and mentor.

A not-so-great nobleman enjoying a moment of pleasure with a woman who was a prostitute.

The outcome of a b*stard born from such a twisted relationship was easily predictable.

The abandoned ones each wandered in search of a way to survive, and the boy now called Kallen was no different.

A life of hardship day by day. It was fortunate if he managed to get even a piece of decent bread.

The world had a dual nature, being warm yet cold at the same time.

Some people would show a bit of kindness to the shabby-looking boy passing by, while others would cast looks at him as if he were filth.

They say if you want to meet people, go to the city.

The boy, who knew nothing but begging, was surviving in Feltz, one of the largest cities in the Claire Empire, and one day, out of curiosity, he approached a rare gathering of people.

Should it be called eccentric, or peculiar?

There was a strange old man who, despite frowning and squawking, did not turn away those who approached him.

According to the passing words of the people around, the old man was a wizard.

Not just any wizard, but one of the greatest wizards in the world, beyond the Claire Empire.

However, the boy had no interest in such things.

How could he get even a piece of bread, or perhaps receive a bit of sympathy?

Great wizards and such were not what the boy needed at the moment.

As the crowd watching the old man dispersed, the boy approached him.

“Sir… please help me just once…”

The old man, Blamia Dranus, looked at the boy who suddenly appeared before him.

No, the expression ‘suddenly’ was not fitting.

He was an old man who could sense even the king of a neighboring kingdom from where he stood.

It meant he couldn’t have been unaware of the boy lingering around.

What piqued Blamia’s interest was nothing special.

It was the fact that a young boy, who hadn’t even lost his baby fat, stood confidently before him.

Beggars were a common sight.

In a world where magic had emerged, and the gap between the rich and the poor had widened much more than before.

However, no one was as composed as that boy.

His appearance was infinitely pitiful, evoking sympathy naturally.

To the great wizard Blamia, who could grasp the essence of things, it was clear that it was just a mask on the surface.

There was no primal tremor in the voice, and even the pitifully dragging tone was too neat. As if he were acting.

A beggar who knew how to understand and use his situation.

For his age, it was certainly an unnatural appearance.

“Interesting.”

“Yes…?”

“How old are you, kid?”

“Nine…”

“If you lie, I’ll just leave.”

“Eleven years old.”

Eleven years old.

Not bad.

His precious granddaughter, more valuable than anything in the world, had been pestering him with songs about friends, and coincidentally, they were the same age.

Although he was annoyed by the attempt to deceive him,

he decided to overlook it, as it would have been easier to gain sympathy from people the younger he was.

“Good, that rascal has been whining that she doesn’t like any of the other noble children. Serve under me, kid. I’ll make sure you get proper food and sleep.”

Hiring a passing beggar as a servant certainly seemed strange.

But Blamia was not one to care about such things.

Having met all sorts of people, to him, the beggar boy in front of him and a member of the royal family were all the same.

He just hoped that this kid he was taking with him would please his granddaughter.

“Kid. What’s your name?”

“…”

Realizing they hadn’t even introduced themselves, he asked for the name, but there was no answer.

“…I don’t have one.”

“Don’t have one?”

“I think I had one, but I’ve never been called by it. I forgot everything when my mother abandoned me.”

“Hmm…”

At the gesture to follow, the boy hurriedly attached himself to Blamia’s back.

Blamia stroked his graying beard and scratched his chin.

“Kallen.”

He didn’t feel sorry for the boy’s personal circumstances, but he thought at least he should have a name to call him by.

Blamia thought so.

“From now on, I’ll call you Kallen.”

“Yes.”

It was the moment when the boy met his benefactor on the street.

*

The Archmage.

No matter how busy he was trying to survive, Kallen knew the weight that name carried.

His own world was so vast that in countries where wars were frequent, he was sometimes more powerful than a king.

Only three in the whole world.

One of them was shut in, only researching magic, and the other one was nowhere to be found.

Only Blamia was the Archmage familiar to people.

When you think of such a person, you get the feeling that they live in a very splendid and grand house.

With more than a hundred attendants, even a simple breakfast would cost several times more than that of an ordinary household.

Kallen had imagined such a scene too.

Until Blamia took him to a reasonably sturdy cabin in a quiet place, calling it his home.

“Grandfather!”

“Yes.”

A grandfather and his granddaughter living alone in a cabin.

Compared to Blamia’s reputation, it was quite humble.

“Who’s that?”

“You brat. How can you say ‘who’s that’ to a person? This grandfather went to the trouble of bringing a friend.”

“Oh.”

The girl with the indigo hair neatly braided to one side was startled and pointed behind Blamia.

Kallen stood still, feeling awkward for no reason.

The girl cautiously approached Kallen and apologized.

“I’m sorry…”

“…It’s okay.”

“Huh? Haha! Friends don’t use formal speech with each other. Silly.”

Then she covered her mouth and laughed exaggeratedly again.

The scene felt somewhat detached from reality, a bit alien.

“Ugh… the smell…”

It was the girl’s words that broke Kallen’s reverie.

Seeing her pinch her nose and shake her head, Kallen finally took a look at himself.

“First, take a bath. The bathroom is over there.”

Blamia also pointed to the bathroom with her finger, suggesting Kallen take a bath.

A pretty girl of the same age he had never seen before.

Kallen, who had never felt ashamed of his appearance in his life, lowered his head a little and hurried to the bathroom.

*

Since he was taken in as a servant, he naturally had to do the work of a servant.

However, Kallen was not someone who had received professional servant training.

Making the bed, doing laundry, various miscellaneous tasks, and so on.

In fact, he often learned some tasks from Blamia’s granddaughter.

Still, Kallen was quick-witted, so once he learned something, he picked it up quickly.

As Kallen became more accustomed to the servant’s work, he also had the leisure to look around.

“So… it’s like, wham! from there.”

“Grandfather…”

“Ah, so frustrating!”

Blamia was teaching magic to his granddaughter, Sinat.

Listening quietly, incomprehensible words flew back and forth, and colorful illusions bloomed from their hands.

But it seemed it wasn’t going as smoothly as they wanted.

Sinat seemed to be working hard, but Blamia often pounded his chest in frustration at her efforts.

“I didn’t ask you to create an image, and yet you can’t do basic magic for months! And you’re my bloodline!”

“Ugh… Grandfather, your explanations are too difficult! You always say wham! wham! boom~! with such abstract words!”

“That’s the accurate expression…”

“I don’t care! I’m going to play with Kallen!”

It was always like this.

Sinat, tired of Blamia’s magic lessons, would leave and head towards Kallen, and Blamia would click his tongue in disapproval, bringing the lesson to an end.

Watching this, Kallen naturally thought to himself.

Teaching magic and being skilled at it are separate matters.

Indeed, even Kalen, who had no knowledge of magic, felt that Blamia’s teachings were somewhat abstract.

It was even more difficult for Blamia to realize that herself.

“Kal~!”

“…Yes, Miss.”

“Oh, really. I told you to stop using formal language. How long are you going to be so stiff…?”

“I will… try to fix it later.”

‘Kal’ was a nickname that Sinat used to call Kalen.

According to Sinat, having a nickname helps to bond faster.

Maybe because of that, Sinat seemed to have gotten close to Kalen very quickly.

Of course.

That was only from Sinat’s perspective.

Since being taken in by Blamia, Kalen treated Blamia as a benefactor.

It was only natural, as she had picked up a beggar with nothing, fed him, and gave him a place to sleep.

Sinat was the granddaughter of such a benefactor, so it was only natural to call her ‘Miss’ when addressing her.

Thanks to that, Kalen always felt troubled when Sinat approached him without any reservations.

Since he had no name to begin with, it didn’t matter what he was called,

But still, he couldn’t help but wonder sometimes, how could there be such a lack of distance between them when they hadn’t known each other for long?

“Huh… She says she hates all the nobles I bring, but why does she like that guy so much?”

Blamia’s words were said in passing, but Sinat responded as if she had been waiting.

“I hate kids who act like nobles. Every single one of them is the same. They brag about how great their parents are, and they try to get close to me calculatingly, wondering if they can somehow get involved with my grandfather.”

Kalen quietly listened to Sinat speaking beside him.

“I hate it all. Talking about that stuff to someone like me who has no parents, I don’t care. If they want to be friends with me, they should focus on me. Not my grandfather.”

Sinat lived alone with Blamia.

It could be seen as a sign of her special love for her grandfather, but Kalen had already been staying here for a week.

It means that an eleven-year-old girl couldn’t help but miss her parents.

Even if Blamia played the role of a parent very well, a grandfather is still a grandfather.

He could never be exactly the same as the parents who gave birth to her.

Kalen was quick-witted and learned things well.

It wasn’t much different in human relationships.

By now, he could fully guess why Sinat hated the nobles who bragged about their parents.

“Like a knife.”

As Kallen solemnly guessed the tragedy of the Sinat family, the fresh scent of a young girl tickled his nose.

“Isn’t that right?”

“…Yes.”

“Ugh, boring!”

Every time he opened his mouth, he spoke formally, and he didn’t even respond with a nod.

He was just there to listen to her complaints.

Kallen couldn’t understand what was right.