Chapter 101
Chapter 101
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 101
Chapter Title: His Highness the Prince of the Twin Fairies' Explosive Ice Strike
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Lilia Snow was an item exchange NPC who appeared in the mid-game.
She was a bit of an oddball among the fairies.
Her lore stated that she had memories of hanging out with humans in the past, and as an echo of that time, she'd developed a taste for food.
Having taste buds meant she had nerves and papillae on her tongue or whatever, but who was I to question the lore?
Anyway.
It was impossible to cultivate ingredients in the snowy plains of Paeyoung.
That's why, if you brought her food, she'd exchange it for ingredient items that could be gathered in the Paeyoung snowfields.
Needless to say, the more food you brought, the better the ingredients you'd get.
And just like that, we exchanged exactly five times.
Five snowballs that Lilia herself had handed over were now sitting around me, and in exchange, Lilia had gotten five pieces of black bread slathered in cream.
Sure enough, with low affinity, the exchanges capped at five per day.
"I see. 'Understood. Then let's make a promise.' 'Next time I bring food, you'll hand over whatever you deem fitting in return.'"
"Got it. 'Where should we meet?'"
I clenched my fist tight.
I'd done it. I'd pulled it off again. Yi Young-jin!
Fairies valued promises more than any other race.
And right now, we'd established an 'exchange agreement' and set a 'meeting spot.'
Lilia usually appeared at the campsite in the middle of the Paeyoung snowfields map, but since we'd made the promise at the entrance, that meant I could meet her here from now on.
In the entrance area where no monsters spawned but you still got the map effects!
"Wolfram von Loengrin."
"Mm."
Lilia flew off just like that, and Milmyu and Aila, who had been staring at me in a daze, finally snapped out of it.
"W-Wolfram, you're not even fazed dealing with a fairy?"
"What? Patrasche is a fairy too."
"...Ah. Right. Not a dog that Wolfram owns."
Aila.
It's not a dog.
Despite appearances, that's a wolf.
I nodded as I looked at the red wolf sprawled belly-up inside the open tent, snoring away.
Definitely a wolf, right?
Probably.
The next day.
We packed up camp.
The only trace we left behind in these snowfields was the five-meter-tall giant snowman Aila had built.
Aila gazed at the snowman with sad eyes and nodded.
"Farewell. Great Snow Trista No. 1."
That was its name?
Then she turned to Milmyu, then back to Great Snow Whatever, alternating her gaze between them like that.
"Senior Aila? W-Why are you looking at me like you want to devour me...?"
"If Chirpy pilots the Great Snow Trista... wouldn't that feel super treasonous?"
"Yes!?"
Giant robot pilot, huh.
Anyway, we chatted idly like that as we hurried back home.
A day had passed, so who knew when the map would go berserk again.
"Wolfram."
"What."
On the way back, at the fork between the dorm and the convenience store, Aila asked her question.
"So, when are we coming back here?"
"Not decided."
"You have to call me, okay? I'll design Great Snow Trista No. 2 by then!"
To raise Lilia's affinity, we'd obviously have to come back to these snowfields. Visiting once a day would max it out in a hundred days, but coming every single day for a hundred days wasn't easy.
Even once a week would be a hundred weeks—almost two years, since there are fifty-two weeks in a year.
"I'll think about it later."
"Then next time, I'll make a Great Snow Wolfram too!"
"Got it. I'll contact you soon."
"Yes!"
After seeing the two off, I closed my eyes atop the cart being pulled by Patrasche.
Blue sky, pure white clouds. And even purer white...
Even purer, purer still white...
"...Why are you here?"
"..."
The pure white fairy was fluttering along above the cart, following us eagerly.
The NPC had come to me first.
I hadn't seen that coming.
"How far do you plan to follow?"
"Lilia. You and I have a fair trade relationship. Don't push it."
"Yes. In this world, if there's giving, there must be receiving..."
"Hm?"
Ha.
For real.
Stuff like this makes me think, huh?
"Lilia."
"Follow me wherever."
Whatever.
Just think of her as a talking portable AC.
Come to think of it, she was always great about handing out these little items.
True to her title of Grand Archmage Merchant.
Of course... the problem was that some of them you shouldn't accept.
Ciela's Pavilion.
Essentially a dorm reserved for the children of the Ciela family.
For this term, it was used solely by Regina Cielra, and it was the epitome of luxury.
It didn't pale in comparison to Jefrin's finest dorm, Glasstheim—even if it was just one floor shorter.
The interior was similarly opulent, but Regina Cielra didn't like this place.
The Student Council President—more precisely, no building could surpass the imperial family's in height, and that sense of despair made this dorm a curse in her eyes.
This lavish dorm could crumble at a single word from Loengrin at any moment, crushing her heart. To her, this space prepared just for her was a curse incarnate.
However, lately, she'd started to like it just a tiny bit.
It was spacious.
That single fact appealed to her.
"...Ahh."
Naturally, bigger walls meant more space to hang things.
A room no one but Regina could enter.
Its walls were covered in paintings.
Paintings of herself and the one person she wanted to bring in.
To be precise, paintings of the two of them.
99 in total, covering all four walls and the ceiling.
Every single one depicted her and one man.
"To think a living space gains value simply from being spacious... I feel enlightened thanks to him."
She smiled as she caressed each painting with her fingertips.
In front of the largest one mounted in the center of the room, she even let out a small gasp.
"As expected, this one I commissioned from the Atelier District is my favorite."
It depicted her sitting in a bathtub overflowing with rose petals, a blond man strangling her neck.
The man's eyes were chillingly cold, his lips devoid of any affection, yet his slender hand gripped her throat without mercy.
Just like their relationship, wasn't it?
On paper, his stats were weaker than hers.
Yet he stood in a position to strangle her at any moment.
Simply by bloodline, he could kill her whenever he wanted.
But that wasn't all.
By bloodline,
by skill,
by spirit,
even by ambition,
he was the only one who could crush her.
"You had an interest in art too. If you ever fill the hundredth spot on my wall someday... I'd probably die happy."
As she admired the paintings, the watch on Regina's wrist began to chime.
"You called this a defective item. Hehe."
This watch had been entered in the Jefrin Magic Craft Competition.
The man had warned her that if she supplied it to the imperial family, a major crisis would come someday.
He was right.
This watch was seriously flawed.
The magic ink smeared when displaying the time, leaving stains over time.
Powered by the wearer's mana, prolonged use would eventually make the numbers illegible.
Only the alarm chime proved it had once worked properly.
The numbers on Regina's watch were already pitch black.
Ever since the day he pointed it out, she'd worn it every day. And every time her eyes drifted to her wrist, she thought of him.
And without fail, she gazed at her wrist daily, tirelessly.
For the eldest daughter of the Ciela Merchant Group, which dealt only in perfection, discarding it would be standard.
But Regina felt like this watch connected her to him, so she'd kept wearing it ever since.
A defective item. Just like herself, wasn't it?
And he was the only one who could point it out.
No one around her had noticed. He was the only useful one.
So, did he have no weaknesses?
Regina began investigating the prince's background purely out of curiosity.
It was a situation that could land her with treason charges. Yet that thrill started to enrapture her.
And what she uncovered was something utterly mundane, yet somehow convincing.
In summer or winter, the man never left his dorm with its climate control.
His stamina stat was so abysmally low that he couldn't.
"Hehe. To think you had such a cute weakness."
If she gifted him a portable cooling accessory, maybe he'd see her differently.
With that thought, Regina Cielra rose from her seat.
"I hope receiving this makes me loom larger in his heart."
But would you, who stand so overwhelmingly above me, even like such a trivial gift?
No, what if you refuse? Claiming you'd already overcome that weakness, scorning me... and if you did...
"That would be even more ecstatic."
Thinking that, Regina felt she was truly a tiresome person.
"You could trample and ravage this tiresomeness anytime. Hehe, ah. Ahahaha..."
She really was a tiresome person.
The next day, I showed up to class for the first time in ages.
Thinking about it, I had to meet the minimum attendance for next semester's scholarship, so no choice.
And trailing behind me were Patrasche and Lilia, scampering along.
The two got along well.
Fairies generally didn't care much about each other. They had some territorial spats, but since they both saw this as my territory, no fights broke out.
Truth be told, I couldn't focus on the lecture.
Everyone's stares were no joke.
Especially that Regina Cielra's gaze—it was burning like she wanted to devour me.
What the hell. Did something happen at the last social that left a grudge?
Soon as class ended, I bolted.
"Heading back. Patrasche. Lilia."
"Too late for that, it seems."
"Greetings, Your Highness Prince Wolfram von Loengrin. Have you been well since the last social?"
"...Lady of the Ciela family, is it? What business?"
Damn it.
Why start talking to me of all people?
"Nothing grand."
"Then may I go?"
"Before that... I boldly risk rudeness to present something to Your Highness."
"Present?"
A gift?
From you?
Why?
"Yes. This."
With that, Regina held out an item.
A gold ring with a red border.
I knew this.
One of Regina Cielra's 99 gifts.
"An accessory. Its effect is..."
"A minor fire resistance accessory."
"As expected. You see right through it."
"Why hand this to me?"
"I worried that Your Highness, who will achieve great things ahead, might tire in summer's heat."
"Mm."
A gift from Regina.
This was...
Another unpleasant thing incoming.
In the main story, you couldn't accept Regina's gifts.
If you said you'd take it, she'd treat you as 'someone who overcomes adversity with my goodwill.'
And with the barrage of gifts that followed, she'd bind you.
According to the cafe affinity named 【CallHerLadyCiela】, it was her way of expressing superiority: 'I helped them. I'm above them!' And apparently, that was cute.
You call that cute? Seriously? Aren't you insane?
Whatever. Point was, rejecting all of Regina's gifts was the correct play.
"No. I won't accept."
"Pardon? W-Why not?"
Conversely, rejecting made her genuinely happy.
Because you'd seem like someone who overcame trials without her help.
But rejection needed a valid reason.
"If there's no reason... may I assume it's pure hatred for me?"
"..."
Otherwise, she'd take the rejection hard.
Like, you're refusing because you hate me, right? Right?
Ughhhh... so damn annoying...
That's why I've only seen her ending like ten times max.
"See this child? Here."
I pointed to Lilia behind me, and Regina tilted her head.
"Oh, such a pure white one. An attendant?"
"A snow fairy."
"...Pardon?"
"When I ventured to those northern snowfields. We made a promise. She's granting me her blessing."
Regina's eyes widened.
"...I-Impossible. You're saying you set foot on those northern lands no one's visited in three hundred years?"
Regina's body shivered at the voice like falling snowflakes.
She had a pretty voice, but her childish speech was the problem.
Pair her with some kid gamer, and they'd probably hit it off.
"...Indeed, not a human voice. I sense overwhelming mana."
"Do you understand now?"
"Yes. A true fairy. A successful expedition after three hundred years..."
Honestly, if not for my Imperial Bloodline skill maxed out to mental interference immunity, any normal person would fall under a mental status ailment from a single fairy word.
Even Regina Cielra furrowed her brow slightly, realizing the interference.
"That's right. Are you saying this clumsy toy is more effective than a snow fairy's blessing?"
"Of course not. What I brought is trash. Yes, utter trash."
Regina hesitated, then asked,
"Then, one question, Your Highness."
"Permission granted."
"Is that red wolf also a fairy?"
"Indeed. That one is a fairy of flame and pyrokinesis."
As expected of the genius right behind Eve.
She memorized Lilia's wavelength once and immediately questioned if Patrasche was kin.
"Then, neither heat nor cold is a weakness for Your Highness anymore?"
"Naturally. I've already overcome such frailties. Begone, Ciela. I have no time for your pathetic toy."
At my scornful words, Regina's eyes glazed over, her body trembling.
"Ah, aah. Aaaaaaah. That contempt. Truly His Highness the Prince of the Twin Fairies' Explosive Ice Strike!"
What.
What the hell kind of title is that.
"My defeat. Forgive my impudent attempt to offer such crude rudeness."
"Forgiven."
"...Then, farewell."
With a radiant smile, Regina withdrew.
Wait a sec.
Hold on.
If that gift she'd meant for me...
If this was a contest of 'ranks' between me and Regina,
Does this count as fulfilling the '3 wins against Regina Cielra' condition?
Unlocking the Regina route?
"..."
No.
It can't be.
It has to not be.
For real.