“What?”
“I said peel the fruit. Oh, and feed me too. My arm hurts.”
Wait, but it was your leg that got injured. Your arm was perfectly fine from the start, so what are you even talking about?
She suddenly sent Pollo home and then started giving me orders. Like telling me to peel fruit and even feed her?
And what exactly is she trying to check?
“Oh? Are you refusing?”
“It’s not about refusing or not… Why should I even do that?”
When I firmly refused, she narrowed her eyes like she’d caught something and gave a sly, nasty smile.
“What… What is it?”
“You. From what I can tell, you don’t want people to find out you’re an Aura Lord, right? Knowing your personality, the moment it gets out, people from all over will start swarming you and pestering you. And above all, it’ll be a total pain, right?”
“Ahem…!”
The noble lady had hit the nail on the head so perfectly that I looked away, feeling awkward for no reason.
“You do know the Emperor and my father are both obsessed with finding you right now, right? The second Aura Lord of the current Empire? They’d probably pay millions just to get their hands on you. And that’s not all; other kingdoms will be all over you too, saying things like, ‘How about letting our daughter meet him?’ ‘What do you think of this offer?’ Can you really handle all that?”
“…What do you want from me?”
“I already told you. I have something to check, so peel the fruit and feed me.”
“And what exactly are you trying to check with that…?”
Is she trying to see how obedient her little pet is or something?
Annoyed by her absurd request, I shot her a suspicious glare, but our dear noble lady had some serious nerve. She just kept smiling innocently.
“I’ll concede a bit and peel it for you, but feeding you? That’s a bit much… I mean, Pollo was here earlier too, so why do I—”
“Owww, the place the kidnapper hurt is aching soooo bad. At this rate, I might just blurt out the identity of the Aura Lord who saved me—”
“I’ll do it. I’ll do it, so please, just be quiet.”
“Hehe.”
The noble lady had a silly grin on her face. She looked all proud of her success.
They said you couldn’t spit on a smiling face, but honestly, in that moment, I felt like I could hock a big one.
I saved her life, and this was how she repaid me. Like demanding a reward from someone who just rescued her?
In the end, defeated by the noble lady’s threats, I picked up one of the neatly stacked fruits beside me and began peeling it with a paring knife.
Slice, slice—
While I quietly went about peeling the fruit, the noble lady was perhaps bored from just watching and threw out a ridiculous question.
“If you’re an Aura Lord, shouldn’t you be able to just toss the fruit and go shing shing and have it perfectly peeled?”
“Have you met any other Aura Lords besides me?”
“Nope.”
“Then don’t talk like you have.”
“So… you can’t do it?”
“…Of course I can.”
Whoosh—
Papapak!!
I tossed a piece of fruit into the air and swiftly sliced away the peel with the knife. I held the prepared plate below and the neatly cut pieces of fruit landed in a perfect circle on the dish just like in an old cartoon.
“Oooh.”
Clap clap clap.
A man must never back down from a challenge. That was a historical truth written even in the Watermelon Sutra of Goguryeo.
“I. Am. A Lord.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now feed me. Hurry.”
How arrogant… Still, since she’d responded to my little performance, I decided to let it slide.
“Here, open wide.”
“Aah~”
Crunch.
I placed a piece of fruit of just the right size into the noble lady’s mouth. She slowly savored the flavor and started chewing with her tiny mouth.
“…It’s sweet.”
“Well, of course it is. Would it be bitter?”
Watching the noble lady enjoy the fruit so deliciously, oblivious to how it made me feel inside, I couldn’t help but speak a little curtly.
But the noble lady ignored my tone and simply continued to relish the sweetness in her mouth.
“Sweet… and tasty.”
“…Is it that good? Now I’m getting curious.”
Driven by curiosity, I popped a piece of the fruit I had been peeling into my own mouth.
“Oh.”
It was an unusual taste.
It didn’t look like an apple, but it tasted like one. Only with a stronger, oddly sweet-and-sour flavor.
Maybe it was because I rarely ate fruit in the first place, but that burst of sweetness after so long struck me as quite fascinating.
As everyone knows, men usually don’t eat fruit unless their mother puts some on a plate and tells them to.
“But rather than just sweet, it’s more like sweet and tangy? Strange, but it goes down really well.”
“You ate it?”
“Huh?”
“My dad personally brought that fruit all the way from the southern region this morning just for me. And you ate it?”
“It was one piece! Just one piece! I mean, I saved your life, and you’re seriously going to scold me over a bite of fruit?!”
“Pfft!!”
The noble lady let out a small laugh at my flustered reaction. It seemed like she was joking.
“I’m kidding. As if I wouldn’t give at least some fruit to the one who saved my life.”
“Then, could you also pretend not to know my identity?”
“That won’t do. The date I was looking forward to got ruined~ I know it’s not your fault, but since you were the one who made the plans, you can’t say you’re completely off the hook, right?”
A person who’d blame a store clerk for selling knives and lump them in with murderers.
“Haah… So what? What exactly do you want me to do?”
“You know the Harim Festival is coming up in a few days, right?”
“Oh, now that you mention it, yeah.”
The Harim Festival was kind of like a public holiday. If I had to compare it, maybe Buddha’s Birthday?
It was a holiday that commemorated the day this world’s main deity came down to the mortal realm. People gathered at temples or holy sites and prayed for only good things to happen in the coming year.
“As you know, I’m a noble lady. My older sister will probably take over as the actual head of the family, but as a member of the house, I still need to make an appearance.”
“Ah, right. You were a noble lady, huh.”
“…So I want you to be my escort this time.”
“Huh? Isn’t the Duke going to assign you a bodyguard? I’m sure those people are way more reliable than someone like me.”
“Hehe, seriously, who in the world uses an Aura Lord as a bodyguard?”
Well, true.
No one would be foolish enough to assign someone powerful enough to take on an entire country as a mere escort for a noble lady.
They should be sent straight to the frontlines if anything.
“But after what happened, I’m surprised the Duke gave his permission?”
“Hmm? Oh, no? He hasn’t given it yet. But even if Dad doesn’t approve, it’s not like he can stop me from going.”
Our noble lady, as fiery and bold as her fire magic.
They said no parent could win against their child, and it seemed even the archmage duke was no exception. He was reduced to a frog before a snake when it came to his daughter.
“Would the Duke really allow me to escort you? Officially, I’m just an ordinary guy with no abilities at all. And if someone were to see a strange man hanging around you, young lady…”
“That’s fine. I’ll just introduce you as someone I saw potential in and decided to invest in. Dad probably won’t care too much about you anyway. And don’t worry. No one’s going to suspect anything between you and me.”
…She had a point. She was absolutely right, and yet…
Why did I feel like crying…?
***
“Has there been any progress with the investigation?”
“My deepest apologies, Your Majesty. There’s so little evidence, and the culprits have gone deep underground. Tracking them has proven extremely difficult.”
The Emperor’s closest confidant, Prime Minister Philemon.
He had served the emperor since his youth, and even in his old age, he remained a steadfast guardian by the emperor’s side.
Their bond was so close that the emperor was said to show his true emotions only to him, aside from his blood relatives. But recently, Philemon had been troubled by a single concern.
“…That will be enough. We cannot afford to waste any more valuable resources. What we’ve shown should suffice.”
“Y-Yes, but…”
“It’s an imperial command.”
A middle-aged man whose hair had begun to turn white in patches.
Outwardly, he appeared no more than a worn-out tiger. His once-overflowing vigor had long faded, and one might even wonder whether he could still bare his claws.
However, the deep commanding presence in his eyes made it clear. He still had sharp fangs left.
“…As you command.”
“Hmm. …What is that child doing now?”
“If you mean… that person…”
“….…”
“Ah, if you’re referring to the princess, she is currently serving as the student council president at the academy. Despite her busy council duties, she recently wrote a thesis on a new magical theory framework, which has been receiving constant praise from the professors—”
“I’ve decided on her marriage.”
“H-Huh?!”
“The Kingdom of Cretia. I hear its first prince is seeking a bride.”
Taurus Cretia, the first prince of King Minos of the Kingdom of Cretia.
Though not a particularly powerful kingdom, its location by the sea grants it strong naval forces and thriving maritime trade.
Taurus, the first prince of the Kingdom of Cretia which occasionally interacted with the Empire.
A natural-born warrior. He was a hulking figure with a towering height and massive build, and by his mid-twenties, he had already reached the threshold of becoming an Aura Master. A monster of a man.
However, his temperament was rather violent and eccentric, so not all the rumors surrounding him were favorable.
He hadn’t caused any major scandals. At least not enough to become a public issue…. but his tendency to rely on brute force and look down on those weaker than himself made him the source of about 80% of King Cretia’s sighs.
“But Your Highness, the princess—!”
“Enough. I will hear no objections. The decision is already made.”
“…Your Majesty.”
“A year and a half should’ve been enough time to build some decent memories. That should suffice.”
“……”
“Summon her to the imperial palace as soon as the Harim Festival ends.”
“…Yes, understood.”
After the audience ended, Philemon who had withdrawn let out a sigh as he recalled the little girl who used to tearfully cry out for her father.
“Princess… please forgive me for not being able to go against His Majesty’s will…”
Philemon was not a particularly devout man.
But at that moment, he couldn’t help but hope that a messenger of god would appear and save the pitiful girl who yearned so deeply for her father’s love.
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