The atmosphere in the dining hall had become downright bizarre.
On one side stood Alexei, the saintly noble overflowing with justice and trying to save a fallen maiden. On the other stood her devilish companions, faces twisted into fake villainy and words dripping with malice. And at the center of the storm was Darkness, who had entered a state of bliss so intense she looked ready to ascend.
"Stop! Alexei-sama, please take back that noble pity of yours!" Darkness suddenly pushed herself upright on the dining table. Her normally gallant face was flushed all over, and her eyes burned with a fanatic light that made people instinctively back away. "Kōichi and Kazuma weren't lying! Every word they said, every insulting phrase, is the highest form of praise to me! I love it when they look at me like roadside trash! I love it when they shove me into hordes of monsters and leave me to fend for myself! Your gentle care is the cruelest poison of all!"
Alexei's outstretched hand froze in midair.
He looked at Darkness, whose face had grown radiant from being insulted, somehow a hundred times more captivating than when she had been pretending to be a proper lady. At last, something inside him completely broke.
His well-educated, chivalrous mind let out a violent roar of overload.
"...So that's how it is?" Alexei took a deep breath. The anger gradually faded from his face, replaced by a calmness that made him look as though he had seen through all worldly things.
He slowly sat back down and shook his head with a bitter smile. "I always believed that loving someone meant giving her the best life and treating her with the greatest tenderness. But I never imagined that there truly existed in this world... a soul that seeks pain and humiliation."
He raised his head and looked at Darkness with a gaze full of complicated emotions. Admiration, sympathy, and above all, helplessness. "Miss Lalatina, I cannot understand your values at all, but as a noble, I respect every warrior's right to choose how they live. If this is the happiness you seek, then forcing you into my gentle world would indeed be selfish of me."
Alexei stood and gave Darkness an elegant farewell bow. "Please rest assured. I will return and tell my father that, since our personalities and aspirations exist on completely different planes, this marriage is unsuitable. I will take full responsibility and will not allow House Dustiness to be shamed. I sincerely hope... that on your path filled with insults and hordes of monsters, you will find true satisfaction."
With that, the flawless young man, who could practically be called a saint reborn, cast one last look at Kōichi and Kazuma. His voice carried an indescribable heaviness. "Though I cannot approve of your behavior, if Miss Lalatina needs scum like you... then please continue playing that role well. Until we meet again."
As Alexei's tall, lonely figure disappeared beyond the dining hall doors, the entire mansion seemed to fall silent.
Kōichi and Kazuma Satou exchanged a glance, and both saw the same faint pang of conscience in each other's eyes.
"Hey, Kōichi..." Kazuma spat out his toothpick, his voice dropping low. "Don't you feel like, even though we succeeded, the way we look right now... really makes us seem like supervillains bullying an honest guy?"
"...Don't say it." Kōichi covered his face and let out a deep sigh. "That guy is a giant of character. In front of him, the way I was sneering just now feels more disgusting than a Slime in the sewer."
"That was amazing! Kōichi! Kazuma! Did you hear that? He called us scum!" Darkness let out a blissful cheer, jumped down from the table, and hugged both their arms at once. "Being despised by someone so noble and treated like filth by my own companions... Ah, I'll never forget this day as long as I live!"
"Shut up! You're the whole reason our consciences are hurting!"
Kōichi and Kazuma roared in grief and anger at the same time.
...
Not long after Alexei's lonely figure disappeared at the end of the corridor, the heavy oak doors of the dining hall opened again.
Lord Dustiness, who had vanished earlier under the pretext of handling documents, now strolled in with his hands clasped behind his back.
He looked over the ruined dining table. The tea-stained tablecloth, the silver fork fallen to the floor, and his precious daughter sprawled blissfully in a chair as if she had died happy. Yet the old noble did not show the expected rage. Instead, he let out a long sigh, his eyes carrying the weary look of a man who had known this would happen all along.
"It seems this farce has finally come to an end." The lord walked to the seat of honor and sat down, his deep gaze falling on Kōichi and Kazuma Satou, who were so embarrassed they wanted to claw open a crack in the floor and crawl into it.
"Um... Your Lordship, what we did just now was actually..." Kōichi tried to explain. After all, if this overprotective father had heard the things he said to Darkness earlier, Axel's moat might have an unidentified male corpse floating in it by tomorrow.
"No need to say more, Kōichi, and Kazuma Satou." The lord raised a hand, stopping Kōichi, and a faint smile even appeared at the corner of his mouth. "In fact, before you came to the mansion, I had already sent people to look into your backgrounds discreetly. Rumor says one of you is a strange captain who constantly brings trouble, while the other is Axel's most devilish Thief, but I have also heard about your performance in subjugating the cabbages and protecting the town."
He paused, and his tone softened. "Your behavior is certainly... rather theatrical, even quite rude at times. But I can see that you truly care about Lalatina. In a world where everyone covets the prestige of House Dustiness, young people willing to play the part of scum for the sake of a companion are rare indeed. At heart... you are gentle, good people."
"Guh-cough!" Kazuma Satou coughed violently as though he had choked on something, staring at the lord in disbelief. "G-good people? Are you talking about me? Um... Your Lordship, do you maybe misunderstand what the word 'good' means?"
Kōichi also felt his face grow hot. Getting handed a good-person card by the victim's father right after playing the villain was even more uncomfortable than being pestered by Darkness.
"In that case, I will not stop Lalatina from continuing to Party up with you." The lord stood, walked over to Kōichi, and patted him firmly on the shoulder. His voice carried the weight of entrusting him with a serious duty. "However, in exchange, I have a long-term quest for you. As you have seen, among the noble youths I know, there is likely not a single one who could endure Lalatina's... unique personality. So I will leave the task of finding Lalatina a boyfriend who can satisfy her to you. There is no need to rush. As long as this old man can see her married before he breathes his last, that will be enough."
"W-wait! Father!" Darkness, who had been in a state of bliss moments earlier, leaped up, her face bright red as she protested. "What are you saying?! How can you leave something like that to Kōichi and Kazuma, those two scumbags... no, those two reliable companions!"
"It's decided." The lord completely ignored his daughter's protest and turned to Kōichi with a crafty smile. "Then I leave my daughter in your care. Oh, and Aqua-san, I would be even happier if you put that bottle of Romanée-Conti worth 1.5 million Eris back where it belongs."
"Wah! I've been caught!" Aqua, who had been trying to slip away quietly, let out a scream and hurriedly stuffed the wine bottle back under the table.
Kōichi looked at this family, then at the group of problem children beside him, and sighed deeply.
The matchmaking crisis had been resolved, but somehow, he felt as if the weight on his shoulders had grown even heavier.