Chapter 119
“Everyone’s talking about you.”
As soon as training ended, while Ares was sitting on the ground wiping his sweat with a towel, a fellow knight approached him with a water bottle.
Though he wasn’t particularly curious, seeing they clearly wanted him to ask, Ares reluctantly spoke up.
“What are they saying?”
“You got a woman!”
When they raised their voice excitedly, Ares could feel the other knights glancing over. It was obvious they’d all been wanting to ask but couldn’t, and now they were all straining to hear.
“So what?”
“Is it true?”
Despite their eager looks urging him to answer, Ares just looked up at them calmly and took a sip of water.
“Hey, this isn’t the time to be drinking water!”
“Is it that interesting to you?”
“Of course it is!”
Seeing their expression that seemed to say ‘how can you even ask that?’, Ares remained silent.
As the silence continued, knights began gathering two or three at a time.
“So is that rumor true?”
“There’s actually a woman willing to date someone with such a terrible personality like you?”
“Did you really get a lover?”
“Who is it? Who could it possibly be!”
Now they were even shaking Ares’s shoulders as he sat there. As he was being shaken back and forth limply, Ares laughed in disbelief.
“Who are you calling terrible?”
Most of the knights had personalities as bad as his. The only difference was whether they hid it or not.
It was absurd that they would openly call him terrible.
“Who would date you when you have nothing going for you except your face?”
“Well, no one can criticize his looks though.”
“See, looks really are everything in this world.”
Ares frowned as they openly looked him up and down.
“You sure have a lot to say when you keep staring at me.”
But he wasn’t particularly offended. As he wiped the sweat from his neck with the towel, the pestering continued.
“So do you have a lover or not?”
Their determination to get an answer was palpable.
Ares stood up, casually draping the towel over his shoulder and dusting off his clothes.
“Rumors don’t come from nothing.”
“What? So you do have someone?”
“Wow, how did someone who only ever trains find time to meet a woman?”
“We’re dying from being busy while you’ve been dating?”
“So who is it?”
“Yeah, who could it be?”
Now they were persistently trying to find out who his partner was.
Then one of the knights looked at Ares with a thoughtful expression.
“No way… Could it be that magician you’re always fighting with?”
“…”
Ares found himself suddenly speechless. He hadn’t expected anyone to mention Kirine.
But since he didn’t want to deny it, he remained silent. The other knights jumped in to dismiss the idea.
“Are you crazy?”
“I guarantee it’s definitely not that magician. Don’t you remember how viciously they fought?”
“Seriously. You’re so clueless. Learn to read the room.”
“Ah… sorry.”
The knight who had been scolded for being clueless hung their head in embarrassment as the others clicked their tongues.
‘You’re actually the most perceptive one.’
Unable to reveal the truth, Ares just patted that knight’s shoulder before leaving. But the others still followed him.
“At least tell us when you started dating!”
“Yeah, when did it start?”
Ares ignored their continued questions.
Just as he was about to snap at them in annoyance to stop:
“Is she pretty?”
“Yeah, she’s pretty.”
That’s quite the thing to ask.
When Ares looked at them as if to say ‘what kind of question is that?’, his colleague laughed incredulously and giggled with the other knights. Then something caught their eye.
“Wow, you’re already wearing matching rings?”
Ares usually never wore any accessories. For someone who found even the knight’s uniform uncomfortable, the obviously expensive ring on his finger stood out.
“A ruby ring?”
“Those stones must be hard to get.”
“Let us see the ring.”
As they swarmed around like a pack of dogs to stare at his hand, Ares felt uncomfortable and hid his hand while pushing them away.
“Back off, you’re disgusting.”
The knights grumbled at his harsh expression and pushing.
“Wow, that woman needs to know about this personality of yours.”
“Don’t you act like this with her?”
“She knows. She likes me anyway.”
“Ugh, how annoying.”
Irritably telling them to stop clinging to him, Ares went to wash up.
‘I wonder if she’s preparing for the festival now or doing experiments.’
He was particularly unhappy about them making her help with festival preparations when she was already so busy. He especially disliked Vincent being the main cause of it.
As he was about to remove his outer clothes in irritation, one knight lingered nearby.
“Something to say?”
When Ares looked at them as if to say ‘hurry up if you do’, the knight frowned slightly.
“I’m just here to wash up too.”
“Right.”
Though Ares didn’t spare them another glance, the knight edged closer.
“By the way, there are rumors about that magician too.”
“What rumors?”
Though he had planned to show no reaction to anything they said, Ares blurted out the question before he could stop himself.
This was about Kirine, after all. Worried there might be strange rumors about her, he asked, and the knight replied with curiosity:
“They say that magician got a lover too.”
“…”
“You know how popular she is, right?”
Except for being a commoner, she was both strikingly beautiful and exceptionally talented, with many secret admirers. However, she was hard to approach since she was rarely seen outside the laboratory and training grounds.
“I guess good-looking people manage to date even when they’re busy.”
Ares suppressed a smile as the knight muttered enviously, responding with a noncommittal “Is that so?”
The interesting thing was that it applied to Ares as well.
It was both amusing and thought-provoking that despite the same rumors circulating about both of them, no one thought they might be each other’s partners—perhaps they really had fought that viciously.
‘Since rumors are already spreading…’
He started thinking about maybe spreading them a bit more.
“I think I’m getting married. No, I am getting married.”
“What?”
When the knight looked at him in confusion at this sudden announcement, Ares smiled more brightly than ever before.
“Probably next spring.”
“Getting married?”
“Yes.”
“To the person you’re dating now?”
“Yes.”
“…”
The knight stared blankly, seemingly unable to believe Ares’s matter-of-fact nodding. Seeing their expression, Ares smirked before heading off to wash up. All he wanted was to quickly finish and go see Kirine.
He had thought it would be fine, but…
“What are you doing?”
The moment he saw Kirine and Vincent together, he quickly approached without hesitation.
As he moved to block Vincent, who appeared to be nearly choking her, a bitter smile crossed his face when he saw the ring in Vincent’s hand.
