Chapter 193: Is This Really a Princess...?
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 193: Is This Really a Princess...?
Her red eyes, tinged with a faint warmth, were fixed on me.
‘...Is she really a princess?’
It was so ridiculous I nearly burst out laughing.
The princess of a nation had made a man she didn't know take off his pants out of sexual curiosity. And now, just because she wanted to see him get an erection, she was revealing her face?
She had to be the weirdest person I’d ever met.
Did she think people didn't know what she looked like?
Of course, not every noble's face is public knowledge. Even among European nobles, there were far more whose faces were unknown.
But she wasn't just a noble; she was royalty.
A princess with red eyes and pink hair, no less.
“Are you sure it's all right to show me your face?”
Nobles are few in number to begin with.
Even if she's never shown her face publicly, with looks as distinctive as hers, figuring out her identity would be no problem at all.
“Why? Are you so stunned by my beauty that you can't control yourself?”
Despite this, the princess maintained a relaxed smile, as if this were nothing out of the ordinary.
Then, a peculiar glint appeared in her eyes as she looked at me.
“Besides, you already know who I am, don't you?”
I remained silent.
Setting aside the fact that she was sharper than she looked, I didn't know what to say.
Should I drop to my knees and bow right now?
‘I'd rather not bow to a girl who acts like a pubescent high school boy.’
Perhaps pleased by my hesitant reaction, the princess chuckled softly.
“So, how about it? Can you get excited now?”
“What?”
“You've seen my face.”
Did she really take off her hood just because I said I couldn't get excited for a woman whose face I didn't know?
“May I say just one thing?”
“Go ahead.”
“I'm genuinely concerned for the future of this country.”
“...Pfft-hah!”
The princess, who had been chuckling softly behind her hand, couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing.
They say a true beauty is one who looks pretty even when she laughs, and as she teared up slightly, she looked like a painting.
Enough to make me stare, momentarily forgetting her rotten personality.
“Do you really know who I am?”
After her fit of laughter, seeming much more refreshed, the princess wiped away a tear with her fingertip.
“You are Her Highness, Princess Elisabeth, are you not?”
“...You even know my name? Are you perhaps a noble from another country?”
Apparently not expecting me to know her name, Elisabeth stared at me, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Hmm... I guess you're not a noble. Your face is too fierce for a nobleman.”
“Hah.”
A dry laugh escaped me.
Who was it that just made that ‘fierce-looking’ man take off his pants to observe his dick?
“Anyway, why is it still limp?”
“Huh?”
Elisabeth pointed a finger at my dick.
“I even showed you my face, but it's still the same. Are you sure you don't have some kind of disease?”
“Isn't that to be expected?”
“What?”
“I know at least three women more beautiful than you, Your Highness. Do you really think seeing your face would be enough to get me hard?”
Of course, I was just saying that.
It was just a matter of taste; the truth was, Elisabeth was a beauty on par with those three.
Of course, my type is Iris.
“...Is that so?”
The moment I finished speaking, her eyes turned cold and fixed on me.
She didn't show it outright, but it seemed my words had soured her mood.
After staring at me for a while, Elisabeth quietly crouched down.
“Can I touch it?”
“You're going to touch it even if I say no, aren't you?”
“Isn't that obvious?”
Elisabeth replied shamelessly and reached out a careful hand.
A moment later, I felt a cold hand wrap around my dick.
“...It's so soft.”
“That's because it doesn't have muscles or bones.”
“Hmm... It's kind of cute, in a way...?”
Elisabeth fiddled with my dick like a child who'd found a new favorite toy.
Although her touch was clumsy, my dick definitely responded.
As she watched it swell in her hand, the look in Elisabeth's eyes changed by the second.
Surprise, shock, bewilderment.
At first, it had been at her eye level, but now she had to tilt her head up slightly to look at it.
Beneath the shadow crossing her face, I could see her pupils trembling faintly.
“Why is it doing this...?”
Her time playing with the limp thing like a toy was short-lived. Elisabeth now stared blankly at the dick, its veins bulging.
Of course, even as she stared, her hand was still diligently stroking it.
“...It's hot.”
She touched my dick as if possessed.
Her initially clumsy touch had gotten considerably better.
Though it was still far from enough to make me cum.
About five minutes passed like that.
“What's wrong with you?”
Elisabeth frowned at me.
“Huh?”
“Why aren't you cumming?”
“...?”
What is this woman talking about?
“I heard that when men are stimulated, they release something called semen. Why aren't you reacting after I've been touching you for so long? Are you really impotent?”
“...Do they teach you that sort of thing in the royal palace?”
“Of course not. I overheard the maids talking about it.”
So that was the source of her unfiltered information.
“Stop treating a perfectly fine man like he's impotent.”
“Then why isn't it coming out?”
“That's because the stimulation isn't enough.”
“What?”
“Did you really think I'd cum just from you fiddling with it a bit?”
“...Men are so troublesome.”
“Are women any different?”
I chuckled and straightened my clothes.
“No! We're not done yet!”
Elisabeth grabbed onto my waist and wouldn't let go.
“...I see now you're not a princess, you're just a pervert. Your sense of propriety, something a princess should have, is rather thin. Maybe I should be the acting princess instead?”
“What? How dare you?!”
Triggered by the hard truth, Elisabeth shot up to her feet and glared at me.
But since she was so short, she didn't seem very threatening.
“You! Do you have any idea what will happen if I don't forgive you—”
“Just duck.”
“Kyaa?!”
I pulled Elisabeth, who was poking my chest repeatedly with her finger, into an embrace.
She struggled in surprise, but I ignored her and immediately ducked.
CRASH!!
The window shattered as figures clad in black burst into the shop.
I'd known for a while that they were surrounding the shop.
For about five minutes now?
‘Five... no, six.’
Six, including the one waiting on the roof.
All of them were top-tier Aura users.
Guys like that wouldn't be here to leisurely buy books. Nine times out of ten, they were assassins targeting the princess.
“...Tsk, you're a handful.”
“What?! What did you just say!”
“I didn't say anything.”
I cast a barrier on Elisabeth, who was still in my arms. This way, she wouldn't get hurt by a stray arrow.
Unless it was a spell of the 3rd Circle or higher.
Meanwhile, the men in black skillfully surrounded us. It wasn't their first time doing this.
Bookshelves and shelves collapsed, decorations were shattered, and the shop became a total mess.
‘The old man... already bolted.’
Just a moment ago he was dozing off at the counter like a sick chicken, and now he's gone.
I guess being old in this rough medieval fantasy world means you're a survivor.
Thanks to him, I could act without worrying about my surroundings.
While I was lost in thought, the man with the most intense presence among the black-clad figures stepped forward.
“Hand over the princess. Do that, and we'll let you go.”
“...Really?”
“Don't fall for it!”
Elisabeth jabbed me in the side.
Her hand packed quite a punch.
She can't even handle mana, so how can a girl's hand be so strong?
I rubbed the spot where she hit me and looked down at her.
“Then what can you offer me, Your Highness?”
“What?”
Looking up at me from my arms with a bewildered expression, she resembled a little chick.
A pink chick, not a yellow one.
“As you can see, I'm a foreigner. The power struggles of royalty are none of my business.”
I was just kidding.
As if I'd be crazy enough to abandon a woman and run.
I wouldn't do that even if it meant blowing up part of the capital.
Of course, if she were a prince instead of a princess, I would've ditched him long ago.
The only reason I'd put up with her nonsense until now was because Elisabeth was an incredible beauty.
“If you have nothing to offer, then I'm afraid our connection ends here...”
“A k-kiss!”
“...What?”
Her voice echoed loudly through the shop.
“I-If you help me, I'll give you a kiss...!”
Beyond her flushed face, which looked like it was about to explode, she was genuinely embarrassed.
I was a little dumbfounded.
She'd just ordered a strange man to take off his pants, complained when he didn't get hard, and even fiddled with his dick, yet now she was getting shy over a kiss.
“...That doesn't seem like a fair trade.”
“It's my first kiss!”
I'll never understand women.
“That's good enough for me.”
A first kiss was more than enough payment.
So much so that I should be giving her change.
“Kill him!”
The moment I finished speaking, the men in black charged at me.
It seemed they'd realized trying to persuade me any further was a waste of time.
“Sorry, but.”
A killing intent that filled the entire shop was directed at me.
Their target was my neck. They knew that if they took care of me, killing the princess would be a piece of cake.
Common sense dictates that a mage would be at an overwhelming disadvantage against five skilled assassins in such a confined space.
Nevertheless, I watched the situation unfold with composure.
“I'm no ordinary mage.”
Because against assassins of this level, it wouldn't matter if there were dozens of them, let alone five.
[Thought Acceleration]
Everything around me, except for myself, slowed to an extreme.
The books falling to the floor, the dust scattering amidst the chaos, even the numerous hidden weapons flying toward me all seemed to hang suspended in mid-air.
Within this expanded time, I calmly drew upon my magic power.
My brain, aided by my mana circle, calculated the spell, and the magic power flowing through my magic circuits deployed it.
Static electricity sparked from the magic circle drawn at my feet.
Immediately after, time resumed its flow.
A 3rd Circle lightning spell.
An intense bolt of lightning engulfed the shop's interior.
[Chain Lightning]
“...Well, there's no way to identify them now.”
I nudged the charred corpse of one of the men in black with my foot and looked around.
The shop's interior was scorched black from top to bottom.
Looking at the magic books that had turned to ash, I felt a bit uneasy.
I hadn't even found any useful magic books yet.
“You'll be compensating for this, Your Highness, right?”
It wasn't that I didn't have the money, but I didn't particularly want to spend my own.
“...You were a high-ranking mage?”
Ignoring my question, Elisabeth just stared at me with wide, surprised eyes.
Being royalty, she didn't seem worried about money.
“I'm not quite at a level to be called a high-ranking mage yet,” I said, brushing the ash from my clothes.
Basically, the limit for a mage's realm is the 8th Circle, and you need to be at least 5th Circle to confidently call yourself a high-ranking mage.
Of course, that's all relative.
But in terms of combat power alone, Iris guaranteed that I was already at the 5th Circle level.
She said it would be difficult for an ordinary 4th Circle mage to produce the kind of output I can.
“So, would it be all right if I collected my promised reward now?”