After Renato's blunt words exposed Andrei's identity, his face flushed crimson in an instant, the color spreading from his ears down to his neck.
The young noble abruptly pushed himself up from the deck and brushed the black dust from his robes, seemingly ready to argue.
Yet he soon realized that neither of the other two present seemed particularly surprised. Instead, their gazes rested on each other, paying no attention to Andrei's reaction.
Captain De Leon stood to one side with his arms folded across his chest, wearing an expression that said this had nothing to do with him.
Lectus calmly bent down and began gathering the cables scattered across the deck, coiling the thick hemp ropes again.
Facing the tall Swordsman watching him, the Tyr Paladin showed neither hostility nor any excessive reaction. The gray-haired old warrior merely wound the cable neatly over the crook of his elbow, then raised his head and asked Andrei in a calm voice:
"Seeing into people's hearts, discerning good and evil... Sir Andrei, do you really think judging a stranger solely by appearances, based on nothing but your own experience and assumptions, counts as seeing into someone's heart?"
The young noble clearly had not expected such words from this Tyr Paladin. Finding all three men's gazes now fixed on her, Andrei felt so uncomfortable that she instinctively argued back:
"Aren't you supposed to be able to cast some kind of spell? Something like 'Detect Evil and Good'? People say Paladins can tell a person's true nature at a glance, so why don't you just cast it on Renato and see what he really is? Whether he's evil..."
At this, Lectus shook his head with still greater resignation. He set the coiled cable on a nearby gun carriage and turned to face Andrei, his