Chapter 212: East, Ishay (7)
Whenever someone drinks alcohol, they tend to lose control of their emotions and become irritable, especially if they drink too much.
Aside from that, their usual reactions are over the top. To be more precise, I think my death traumatized them, causing them to overreact to the smallest things.
Of course, I can accept all their excessive displays of affection, but I don’t want them to live with negative emotions.
“Princess Kimei, I wonder if there’s a florist nearby.”
I asked while looking at the relationship map in the status window.
“…There is a flower shop, but it wouldn’t be open at this time of day. There is a royal garden that is maintained by the royal family, and if you need flowers, that would be quicker.”
“May I ask a favor?”
“Would you like to bring a gift for the lady?”
“Well… yes.”
“I think I know which ones you’re talking about, there were some ladies in the banquet hall earlier who couldn’t take their eyes off you.”
Kimei covers her mouth with her sleeve and laughs softly.
“I could see how much they cared about you, so maybe that’s why they were being a little mean to me.”
“Did they do something to you?”
“Hmph, you don’t need to know.”
“Please don’t be too hard on them. They’re very important to me.”
“…That’s why I was so excited.”
At my next words, Kimei looked away and muttered something small. I don’t think it was meant to be heard, so I didn’t reply.
As I followed her to the flower garden, the nighttime streets of the palace were quiet and deserted, so I brought up the subject of my conversation with Shui.
“From what I’ve heard, Princess Kimei, you’ve been in a lot of danger since you were a child.”
“Well, it couldn’t be helped, did my uncle tell you that?”
“He told me some of Ishay history.”
“It’s all in the past now.”
“Was it hard for you?”
“It was kind of fun, but I got tired of it, besides…Kamaru protected me a lot.”
Kimei turns her head back as she walks down the street, and her escort, samurai Kamaru, who has been following her, bows his head in silence.
“I only apologize for not protecting you more completely.”
“Has your escort net ever been breached?”
I ask, intrigued by what Kamaru has said.
“Not often, but a few times. Poison was especially tricky to stop. There was a time when I was a child and I really wanted to eat something called Cake of the West, but it happened to be poisoned.”
“That must have been upsetting.”
“I cried a lot. Other than that, there was the time I met ‘Inrang’…”
“Inrang?”
“It was years ago, when a little boy with long, silver hair broke through my escort and came to me.”
“Princess, I’ve never heard of this before, but…”
At this, Kamaru’s eyes widened in embarrassment.
“It’s okay, it wasn’t dangerous.”
I think I know who she’s talking about, Inrang, the lycanthrope.
Kimei was once targeted by a “wild dog” but a wild dog would have been no match for the man behind her.
“I still remember it clearly,” she says, “a boy much shorter than me, and he just walked away, like, ‘I can’t kill a child after all.'”
Kimei said that, then leaned in close to my ear and whispered something along the lines of, “Of course, you were the most stealthy.”
“Hmmm…”
As I listened, I remembered one thing I needed to do, so I asked Kimei.
“…Write me a note.”
Kimei tilted her head questioningly at my request.
“Just a simple sentence.”
The ‘wild dog’ will come to me unconditionally but he might be a step behind, because I might’ve left Ishay so if I didn’t do something, he’d be wasting his time in the wrong place.
Dogs are that stupid so this would be a good idea.
“As long as it’s not a note between lovers… I can write it for you.”
Not between lovers.
More like a master-servant relationship in the not-too-distant future.
By the way, given that he has a good nose, he must have something that contains my “body odor,” but what kind of something?
***
Afterward, I went to the flower garden and gathered some flowers, and then I went looking for them with a handwritten note from Kimei in my arms.
‘I don’t think they’re still in their quarters…’
The first person I found was Kaen.
As soon as I stepped out of the palace, her scent reached my senses so I headed straight to where I sensed her, and there was a pink-haired girl squatting with her knees bent.
“…Kaen?”
“Uh, it’s Cadet Zetto. Heehee…”
“What are you doing in a place like this?”
“I was… looking for Cadet Zetto.”
She hiccups as she speaks, then stands up and grins broadly as she grabs my sleeve.
“Gotcha…”
Her face is flushed, and her breath smells strongly of alcohol.
“Let’s get back to your quarters.”
“Cadet Zetto… You’re back from meeting the princess, right?”
“…Yes.”
“I’m a commoner, not a princess, not a noble, so… Are you saying that you won’t even look at me?”
“I didn’t say anything like that.”
“Cadet Zetto is looking for a chance to rise in status…?!”
Kaen asked, her eyes narrowing.
She didn’t look like she was seriously asking that, and it felt like she was whimpering under the influence of alcohol.
“……”
“It’s okay… Cadet Zetto, don’t be alarmed. My grandfather was… Ugh. Ugh…”
I quickly clamped a hand over her mouth.
[Grandfather?]
Sierra, who was listening at the same time, questioned.
I hadn’t yet told Sierra that she was a disciple of Sword Saint. It was bad enough that they weren’t getting along lately, but I didn’t want Sierra to be set on fire.
“Fuha… I can’t breathe… Cadet Zetto… But this play isn’t so bad…”
Kaen, who had finally gotten free, smiled weakly.
What kind of play is that?
I don’t know such a thing. I’m scared.
Kaen squirms, then wraps her arms around me.
“……”
Kaen promptly falls asleep so naturally it was up to me to pick her up.
Scooping her up, I set out to find the rest of the women.
My next stop was Yuri and she was found in a tavern in the city.
Her long red hair was slightly disheveled, and she was shouting at the top of her lungs as she stumbled through the bar.
“…And he’s still flirting with the princess…!”
Yuri exclaimed in exasperation.
“Leaving such a beautiful woman behind… What a wretch…”
A middle-aged man drinking around her sympathized with her but as soon as she heard him, Yuri stood up and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
“Don’t call him a terrible person…!”
“Why are you suddenly…?”
“Something… It must be because something happened… Zetto is not such a terrible bastard…”
“Until just now, I thought you were……I see. I get it, you’re one tough girl.”
“Hmm…”
It seems she’s made a lot of new drinking buddies in the short time I’ve been gone. Even after the banquet was over, Yuri still wanted to drink more.
“So what does he look like…?”
Another man asks curiously, and Yuri, who has just taken a big gulp of alcohol, puts his glass down and opens his mouth.
“Black hair, same as yours.”
“Hmm…Is he from the East?”
I wondered if the male virgins in the neighborhood were taking advantage of Yuri’s drunkenness, but it turns out they just wanted to hear a funny story.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me much, and he always has a white bandage over his eyes…”
“A white bandage?”
“Oh, he’s blind…”
“And… and… and…”
“…”
“…dirty handsome.”
“Well, for a woman of your stature to be mesmerized by, of course.”
The man who just said that turns to me and makes eye contact.
“Ugh.”
I put a finger to my lips and hissed at him since I wanted to hear more of what she was saying and Yuri, who still hadn’t spotted me, continued to talk.
“What’s the point of being handsome if you can’t get the bug to bite? Zetto doesn’t care about me. I took care of him so much…”
Yuri did take care of me a lot and I’ll always be grateful to her.
“But you said you are best friends, so he must have thought of you…”
The men, noticing my presence, tiled the glass to keep things from escalating.
“If he does…? Then he should get engaged to me…!”
Yuri blurted out as if he couldn’t hear me.
“Engaged…? Do you want to…?”
I asked, gently grabbing her shoulders.
“Zetto…?”
Yuri slowly turned her head, her face turning terrified as if she had seen a ghost.
“Uh……”
Yuri then collapses as if fainting.
Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the surprise.
Whatever happens, she’ll have to deal with the aftermath on her own.
I wonder if they’ll say it’s the alcohol that’s the problem.
“…Miss, we’ll pay for your drink.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind, if it’s money…”
“I’m fine. She didn’t drink that much, and the conversation was interesting…”
“…Thank you.”
I dipped my head to thank Yuri’s overnight drinking buddies, then picked her up.
“It might be a bit much to carry two people at once, though…
I thought about carrying her on my shoulder, but I didn’t want to be covered in any vomit.
After safely retrieving Yuri, I decided to make a quick stop at the hostel before heading out to find Aizel.
The good news was that I could feel Aizel’s vibration inside the hostel.
The bad news is that it was my room where I could sense her.
I opened the door to find Aizel in the room with her arms wrapped around her knees.
“Ms. Aizel… Isn’t this my room?”
She didn’t have a key, so how did she get in?
“Do you want me to leave if you’re uncomfortable…?”
“No, no. I think I’m going to have to put these ladies to bed here anyway, so…”
I said, carefully laying Kaen and Yuri down on the bed.
Aizel was quiet and gentle.
She wasn’t rowdy or foolish or anything because her emotion on the relationship chart was ‘depressed’.
I didn’t know how she became depressed but I knew how to fix it.
I took the flower from my bosom and held it out to her.
“This is… What is it…?”
“A gift. I thought of you, Miss Aizel.”
“A gift…”
“It’s a flower called moonflower. It’s called that because you can smell its scent from a thousand miles away, just as you can see the moon from anywhere if you look at the night sky.”
Aizel takes the moonflower and stares at it for a moment, then pulls out her notebook as if suddenly remembering something.
“…Thank you.”
After scribbling something in her notebook, Aizel turns away from me and smiles faintly.
Receiving flowers from Zetto.
She checks off the sentence on her list.
***
“Ugh… My head…”
“You look like you’ve been drinking too much…”
“Where’s Zetto again, anyway?”
Yuri, who was holding the ice from Orphele to her forehead, looked around for Zetto.
“…He hasn’t left yet, has he?”
Zetto, who has arrived just in time, breathes heavily and wipes away the sweat.
Ishay’s short but long trip is over, and I’m about to leave for my next destination, Hwaseong.
The station was packed with cadets who were once again traveling by train.
“We haven’t left yet… Cadet Zetto, where’s your coat?”
Zetto’s jet-black coat was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s… I think I lost it.”
Zetto scratched his head as if he had lost something.
“Wasn’t it an expensive coat? Should I tell the instructor?”
“No, it’s okay, I can’t let one thing hold up the cadets’ schedule, it’s a coat…I’ll find it again.”
“What do you mean you’ll find it when you don’t even know when you’ll be back in Ishay…?”
Yuri scratched her head in confusion, but Zetto merely smiled as if he didn’t care.
“Well, when we get back… I’ll give you a coat that you can wear.”
“Oh, so the coat is a gift?”
Zetto whispered to Yuri with a mischievous grin.
“Pretend I didn’t hear that…”
***
Later, as the cadets of the Innocence Academy were leaving on the train bound for Hwaseong, a silver-haired boy arrives in Ishay just in time.
Behind the silver-haired boy’s back is a red coffin that doesn’t match his size.
The boy, carrying the coffin without a trace of effort, sniffs the air.
He drops the coffin to the ground, opens the empty coffin, and sniffs the inside.
“…I smell him.”
The boy flashes a sinister grin.
“Hmph… I see 50,000 gold in front of me.”
The boy was delighted until he followed the target’s scent and found a coat and a note inside.
“…Come to Hwaseong…?”
The boy reads the note and sniffs the coat in his hand once more.
“I’m pretty sure it’s his…”
The scent of the target’s body wafting from the coffin and the scent lingering on the coat were identical.
A normal human wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, but the boy was different.
“Did I miss him?”
The boy scratched his head in annoyance as he tossed his coat roughly inside the coffin.
“…So where’s Hwaseong?”