Chloe
“What are you looking at?”
Her eyes were full of wariness.
Despite the smudge of dirt on her cheek, she had delicate, rather cute features.
“Well, look at you.”
I let out a small laugh and walked over to the child.
“Pretty fierce glare for a little kid.”
“I’m not a kid, okay? And judging by your clothes, you must be that trash from the capital the others were talking about earlier. Don’t talk to me.”
The girl whipped her head away.
She had an impressively bold attitude.
Amused, I crouched down a short distance beside her.
There was no one else around. Might as well play with her a little.
“Do you even know who I am?”
“No.”
“I may not look it, but I’m the Empire’s Eighth Prince.”
Her eyes widened like saucers.
But a moment later she pursed her lips.
“…So what if you’re a prince? This is a northern orphanage. If you don’t put a single piece of bread in my mouth right now, even the Emperor himself couldn’t do a thing about it.”
“Hmm.”
I stroked my chin and studied her.
That fearless attitude even in front of royalty. I rather liked it.
“You’ve got quite the mouth on you. I like that. What’s your name?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“So we can be friends. A handsome prince is personally asking, after all.”
“The director said good-looking men are the most dangerous. Besides, knowing my name won’t help you anyway.”
“Wow, playing hard to get. Just tell me your name, huh?”
When I kept teasing her with a sly grin, she finally gave in with a reluctant sigh.
“…Chloe.”
“All right, Chloe. Earlier all the kids were playing together in the yard. Why are you sulking here by yourself? Are you being bullied?”
“I’m not playing with them, okay? Rolling around in the dirt like that is childish. I hate that stuff.”
“Oh dear, we have a little old lady here who’s seen it all.”
At my teasing, Chloe puffed her cheeks out.
“It’s true! Making friends is pointless anyway. Once they grow up they’ll either leave to make money or betray you the moment things get hard. Why bother getting attached? You’ll just get stabbed in the back later.”
“Do you happen to have middle-school syndrome… or maybe you’re raising a black dragon or something?”
“What’s that? Anyway, I’m going to get strong all by myself, so it doesn’t matter. Only idiots who can’t stand on their own clump together. It’s just annoying.”
Her whole demeanor suggested a pessimistic view of the world.
Yet even as she said things like “annoying” and “pointless,” she kept subtly leaning toward me and stealing glances.
The vibe radiating from her entire body screamed, Hurry up and agree with me.
What is this tsundere little girl? She’s cute.
“You’re going to get strong by yourself? You?”
I snorted and tapped her thin arms and legs.
“What are you going to do with these toothpick limbs? Swing a sword around?”
“There are things stronger than just waving a sword like an idiot. You’re a prince but that’s all that’s in your head?”
“Oh? Then what is it? Are you saying you can use magic or something?”
It had just been a throwaway comment.
But Chloe’s shoulders flinched hard. She quickly looked away and pretended to be uninterested.
“…Do I have to tell you? I heard a woman with many secrets is attractive.”
Wait a second.
Red hair… and her name is Chloe?
In the original novel, the absolute trash of an eighth prince, Kael.
The one person that irredeemable bastard treated like his own limb and kept as a personal guard knight.
I was pretty sure it had been a red-haired orphan girl from some back-alley orphanage.
And her name… yes, it was Chloe.
Hmm.
Chloe wasn’t an uncommon name in the empire, but every other condition matched too perfectly.
Could it really be her?
When I stared at her intently, Chloe noticed my gaze and her cheeks flushed slightly.
“…Are you even listening to me?”
“Ah, yeah. Go on.”
I spent quite a while listening to Chloe’s complaints.
“Chloe! Time to eat!”
The kind voice of the orphanage director drifted over from the yard.
“…I’m going.”
Chloe brushed the dirt off her pants and stood up.
She turned around coolly and started to walk away, but stopped after only a few steps.
She slowly turned her head and glanced back at me.
“…Will you come again?”
I chuckled and shrugged.
“Who knows? Maybe?”
“Tch.”
Chloe gave a little snort and scampered off toward the yard.
I watched her retreating figure and burst into quiet laughter.
“What were you doing hiding in a place like this?”
A cold voice came from behind me.
It was Giselle.
“Huh? Oh, the kids were being so loud I came over here to rest my ears. That’s all.”
I stood up, giving a vague excuse.
Giselle looked me over with an expression that said I was pathetic, then spoke.
“The estimate confirmation is finished. We’re going back.”
“Yes, yes~ I’m coming.”
I followed behind Giselle and Hexion as they headed toward the carriage, my thoughts lingering on that red-haired little girl from earlier.
—
The next day.
I was on my way to Giselle’s office, lost in thought.
If that girl really is the Chloe I’m thinking of, I need to win her over to my side as quickly as possible.
There was only one reason.
Chloe was a mage.
This world was overrun with magic beasts that produced energy crystals called mana stones from within their bodies.
Among humans, an extremely tiny fraction were born with the ability to hold that mana-stone energy or natural mana inside them.
But their numbers were so few that even across the entire empire they were incredibly rare.
A single mage’s destructive power on the battlefield was comparable to an entire knight company.
Just because the Kael in the original story used her as a guard doesn’t mean I can’t do the same.
But first I would need to visit the orphanage again and meet her.
I really hoped it was her.
I was still trying to come up with some plausible excuse to go back when I reached the vicinity of Giselle’s office.
“Your Highness! It’s an emergency!”
An urgent voice rang out from inside the office.
“What is it?!”
“They say thieves have broken into the District 3 Orphanage!”
“What?!”
Bang!!
Giselle burst out of the office, slamming the door open with a furious expression.
The soldier who had been reporting hurried after her in a panic.
“Y-Your Highness! Please listen to the rest…!”
But Giselle was already calling for Hexion and racing down the corridor like lightning.
Thieves, not magic beasts, targeting a northern orphanage?
My eyes sharpened instantly.
Wait, what about Chloe?!
I ran after Giselle and shouted.
“Hey! I’m coming too!”
“Get lost. Don’t follow me!”
Giselle coldly rebuffed me, but I stubbornly insisted.
“Don’t be ridiculous! I personally visited that orphanage yesterday! Thieves attacking it is an insult to the imperial family’s dignity! I have to go!”
It was a ridiculous claim about imperial dignity, but Giselle didn’t have time to shake me off.
In the end we galloped at full speed toward the District 3 Orphanage.
“Everyone arm yourselves! Make sure the children aren’t hurt…!”
Giselle yanked on the reins and urgently rode into the orphanage yard.
But.
“…Huh?”
Something was off.
An orphanage attacked by thieves should have been filled with screams, flames, and the stench of blood.
Yet the orphanage was eerily quiet.
In the middle of the yard, four or five vicious-looking thieves lay on the ground, tightly bound with ropes and groaning in pain.
The messenger soldier who arrived late, panting, finally caught his breath and spoke.
“Haa… haa… Your Highness, what I was trying to tell you earlier… the thieves did break in, but the situation has already been resolved…”
“…What a letdown.”
I let out a sigh of relief and dismounted.
Giselle frowned and approached the bound thieves.
“You bastards. Not satisfied with sucking the blood of the territory’s people, you dare target an orphanage? What exactly were you thinking?”
At Giselle’s murderous interrogation, one of the captured thieves shouted as if wronged.
“W-We’re the ones who feel wronged! We heard that the Empire’s Eighth Prince or whatever, that scumbag, had visited this place yesterday!”
Instantly, both Giselle’s and Hexion’s gazes snapped toward me.
The thief continued, spitting as he made his excuse.
“That prince’s reputation is complete garbage, so we figured even if we stole the relief supplies he left at the orphanage, the castle wouldn’t care! Would the Grand Ducal Castle even pay attention to that piece of trash?!”
These bastards?
So this is what it feels like to get punched in the gut. I never imagined my trash reputation would snowball like this.
Giselle spoke.
“Regardless of your reasons, threatening children is a crime that will be punished by law. Hand these men over to the military police immediately!”
After the thieves were dragged away.
Giselle approached the orphanage director and the sturdy-looking guard standing beside her.
“It’s fortunate none of the children were hurt. So, you two were the ones who subdued them?”
Given the guard’s size, it seemed plausible he had done it.
But for some reason both the director and the guard looked deathly pale.
“T-That is, my lord…”
The guard who had been on night duty last night opened his mouth, cold sweat dripping down his face.
“It wasn’t me who caught them. We didn’t even know thieves had broken in.”
“What do you mean? Then who—”
The guard pointed a trembling finger toward a corner of the orphanage building.
“Th-That child… Chloe caught them.”
At the end of his finger.
The red-haired little girl I had met yesterday, Chloe, was squatting on the stairs sucking on a piece of candy and staring at us indifferently.
“That little girl took down five grown men?”
When Giselle asked in disbelief, the guard began to explain what he had witnessed in a shaking voice.
“I saw it clearly with my own two eyes. From the tips of that child’s fingers… thin, nearly invisible threads shot out like a spider’s web.”
“Threads?”
“Yes! The thieves were walking down an empty hallway when suddenly they were lifted into the air without warning. Their limbs were bound, their flesh was sliced open, and they collapsed covered in blood! The child was just sitting in the corner, only moving her fingers slightly…!”
After hearing the guard’s bizarre explanation, the expressions of the Grand Ducal Castle’s knights and Giselle hardened like stone.
They began to stare at Chloe with eyes full of caution.