Chapter 30
Chapter 30
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: The Alchemist's Wandering (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shakla didn't head straight back to her workshop. Instead, she wandered the capital, trying to shake off her irritation and frustration.
How the hell did that insolent brat get backing from her main family? Of all places, the Levius house?
'Damn it...!'
The new material Dian had developed had endless applications.
If she patented it and put it on the market, she could rake in a fortune.
It was an opportunity.
A chance unlike any Shakla had seen in her lifetime so far—and maybe never would again—purely in terms of money.
And now it had slipped away.
Shakla was an alchemist running her own workshop, but she couldn't go up against the magical powerhouse that was the Levius family.
That powerlessness only fueled her rage even more.
"Hoo..."
Shakla pulled a cigarette from her pocket in the alley. Not mana grass, but a real one.
Then, from deeper in the alley, another smoker called out to her.
"Master Shakla, it's been a while."
He was a refined middle-aged man in a neat coat and hat.
"Archibald? What brings you to the capital?"
"I've heard there've been some interesting happenings around here lately. But enough about me—what's got you so pissed off?"
Archibald's voice was smooth, and the way he elegantly lit Shakla's cigarette with his lighter was graceful.
The kind of guy who attracted women who liked their men in their late thirties. Even so, Shakla glanced warily left and right down the alley before taking a deep drag.
"...Hoo."
Shakla explained.
"Well, you see, one of my disciples from the workshop..."
It was a one-sided tale where Shakla was entirely in the right and Diana was the villain. Even the boldest historical revisionism wouldn't dare flip the facts that brazenly.
"I see... Hmm, uh-huh... That's rough."
Archibald nodded, listening attentively.
Truthfully, what mattered to him wasn't who was right or wrong.
Only whether he could take it or not.
That was the only thing that counted.
"In that case... how about we try something like this?"
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The word "knight" has a strict definition and a looser one.
Strictly speaking, a knight is 1. someone who rides a horse, 2. armed with a lance and armor, 3. and a noble.
In the looser sense, it's just someone with a horse and a weapon.
The benefactor in Diana's memory fit the latter.
Five years ago.
Diana had been traveling with her family when they were attacked by a dragon awakened in the nearby mountains.
Right as the dragon's massive foreclaw came crashing down toward her.
"The knight appeared and saved me. He blocked the dragon's strike with his huge lance..."
Diana's voice grew dreamy as she recalled the past.
"He looked so cool."
She had fallen for the knight who saved her as a child.
A straightforward story.
Cynthia, who had her own experience falling for an archer who saved her as a kid, could empathize deeply.
But.
"How did you know he liked big-breasted women...?"
Cynthia had a question there.
Because logically, saving a kid wouldn't involve revealing personal tastes.
No way he'd pull her out and go, "Tch, what a letdown—flat as a board!" Even if Diana's figure was disappointingly boyish for a girl, that'd be too much, right?
"Huh? He said it himself."
"...Pardon?"
"Not directly to me, of course."
"Siiiigh..."
"...Your sigh feels a bit too heavy."
"Just your imagination?"
"..."
Diana shot her a suspicious look, but digging deeper would only hurt Cynthia.
Anyway.
"I overheard it as they were leaving. His companion asked, and the knight said, 'If I had to pick, bigger is better.'"
"Ahh...? That companion must've been quite the character."
Asking about breast preferences right after a knight saves someone from a dragon.
Definitely an eccentric.
"Not a person—an elf."
"E-Eh, an elf?"
"Yeah."
Diana's eyes drifted into the past.
"About this tall, and being an elf, her face was stunning... and her chest was like this."
Diana gave a wry smile.
"They seemed really close, so they must've been in a deep relationship. And it matched his type, too."
Suddenly, Cynthia recalled the "unique elf" she'd met before.
'Huh? Wait a sec...'
Cynthia mentally overlaid Eleonora's figure with the one Diana had gestured at.
'It actually matches Ellen's build pretty well...?'
If so.
No way?
Cynthia's gaze shifted to the only man in the group, but right then, Arthur spoke up.
"So, Miss Diana, that's why you started studying alchemy—to appeal to that knight's tastes?"
"Spot on, but please don't spread it around. It's embarrassing."
She popped another butter cookie into her mouth and chewed.
Good thing the cookies suited her taste.
Really, that was a relief.
'...It was me, wasn't it?'
He'd ridden a horse before.
And since he'd been on horseback, he'd wielded a lance as a weapon. There was that time he'd traveled with a certain elf, accidentally awakened a dragon, and gone through hell saving a grubby mother-daughter pair.
And afterward, that elf had asked about his preferences.
This time too, because of me?
He felt unjustly accused.
In Cynthia's case, he'd unintentionally caused it himself by smashing her awakening event.
But Diana's? Wasn't this all sparked by something so trivial?
What if he hadn't answered Eleonora's question right there? Would Diana never have gotten into alchemy?
Who knows.
Hence, the injustice. He felt like a butterfly being sued for tornado damage.
'No, actually.'
Wasn't Diana the real issue here, obsessing over her figure to match some guy's taste and derailing her life?
Why flip her entire path over one casual comment?
Shouldn't he resent her instead? Not that he could, of course.
"Miss Diana, you have incredible drive."
"You think so?"
But if that was the case, it made something else even more puzzling.
Why hadn't someone with such freakish determination ditched the male disguise yet?
If she wanted to seduce that knight, cross-dressing would only get in the way.
There was only one group with that kind of hold over her.
'Something tied to her main family.'
If so, now wasn't the time to bring it up.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Even after wrapping up Tiona's alchemy lesson and heading home, my thoughts kept drifting back to Diana.
How could I steer her back onto the proper path of a mage?
The most straightforward way to end her fixation on her figure was for me to tell her directly.
I imagined it.
—Miss Diana, truth is, I was the knight that day. And I think you're plenty attractive even without big breasts, so how about dropping the weird research and enrolling in the academy?
'Yeah, that's the ravings of a madman.'
Act like a lunatic, and you'd be treated as one. Quite the paradox.
But... wasn't this a scene where I had to go full lunatic? Expression aside, of course.
And even if Diana learned the knight she'd crushed on was me, she probably wouldn't come charging in for romance.
High chance she'd just reiterate old thanks from years ago and call it a day.
Barring some twist where my rural parents turned out to be foster ones, I, Arthur Jarvis, was a commoner.
In stories, nobles and commoners marry all the time.
Listen to enough tales, and you'd think most couples in this world were noble-commoner.
But that's just stories.
In reality, most romances and marriages happen within the same class.
Even in my old world, chaebols married chaebols, and the upper crust like prosecutors or entrepreneurs stuck to their own.
Middle class wasn't different. Imagine the backlash for a family with a 1.5 billion won net worth marrying one with 50 million.
This world was the same.
Nobles wed nobles, commoners wed commoners.
Likewise, if Diana learned her knight wasn't nobility but just some boy on a horse with a lance, her feelings would fade fast.
Not because she was heartless or shallow.
That's just how the world worked.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
For the first time in ages, people had crowded in and then left, making the empty workshop feel especially hollow to Diana.
A sudden question popped into her mind.
Why was that man named Arthur serving Duke Tiona's daughter?
Whether butler or tutor didn't matter.
A guy that capable could've aimed higher. So why stick with that... admittedly cute but not-too-bright young lady?
'...He fallen for her?'
A plausible theory.
If Arthur heard it, it'd give him stress headaches, toothaches, stomachaches—the works.
And.
'He resembles him, that man.'
His vibe, maybe.
Arthur's vibe matched the knight Diana harbored in her heart.
Diana pictured the white horse knight she'd faced that day.
The commoner boy not much older than her at the time.
At first, she'd assumed he was noble.
But later reflection: nobles engraved their house crests on gear. Nothing like that on him.
Even knowing he was a commoner, the spark in Diana's heart hadn't dimmed.
Since that day, Diana had plotted step by step.
What to do if she met that commoner knight again.
How to make him fall for her.
And after confirming feelings—what next.
Diana's gaze drifted to a file folder deeper in the workshop.
Untouched amid the mess, it held a paper she'd carried for years.
A marriage registration, awaiting only the groom's info and signature.