Free Lunch (4)
I hesitated. What if I turned him down here and he held a grudge? No, that didn’t seem likely. We’d only known each other for a few months, but I could already tell he wasn’t that kind of person. Still, relying solely on that impression to reject him outright felt risky. If this ended here, fine. But if my refusal leaked outside the academy, it would almost certainly spark strange rumors.
Ah, this is what they call a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If I grew too close, people would accuse the royal family and the Church of colluding and launch attacks. If I drew a clear line, they’d assume friction had developed between crown and clergy and come sniffing around for ways to exploit it. Of course, whether it was the royal authority or the divine one that felt slighted, I had more than enough power to handle the fallout. After all, the Church would stand firmly on my side in this matter—especially since I had essentially “converted” the Empire’s princess, Yulia.
Even so, I had to consider the opportunity cost. Would it be more beneficial to stay close to the royal family or to the Church? The answer was obvious.
“All right. Please set a date and let me know.”
“Does that mean you’re available any time?”
“As long as it’s soon. Who knows when this academy might blow up in midair?”
If I was going to get close to anyone, it should be the royal family rather than the nobles. After all, I already had far too many significant connections with the crown. Just look at the gold coin issue alone. From the very beginning, I’d gained momentum thanks to the Brienne royal family’s support. On top of that, securing control and management rights over the Iron Alliance had required their cooperation as well. The royal family held a twenty-percent stake—who in their right mind would let that slip away?
“Is it true? You’re having dinner with Crown Prince Peter?”
“Where did you hear that? From Ziegfried? And why are you speaking so casually?”
“If you don’t like it, you can speak casually too, Lucia. So, are you really having dinner with Crown Prince Peter?”
Ziegfried had apparently caught wind of it somehow and immediately came asking, even dropping the honorifics entirely. Now what was I supposed to do? If I started speaking casually back, it felt like the distance between us would become irreversible. But was I really going to draw a line here? The Saintess and the Hero?
“Fine, Ziegfried. And to answer your question—yes, that’s right. I agreed to have dinner with Crown Prince Peter. Just the two of us, privately, to build some personal rapport.”
There was no way I could convince him that I was mentally thirty years older than him, so when he decided to drop the formal speech, I decided to roll with it. Being the only one spoken to casually felt like a loss.
“Privately? To build rapport? Just the two of you?”
“What, should I invite the entire student body to eat together? What’s with you? I’m already deeply entangled with the Crown Prince and the royal family. Am I supposed to refuse even sharing a meal with him?”
Why was he reacting like this? It almost sounded like he was subtly accusing me of cheating on him with another man. I could swear I had never given him that kind of opening. My body might be female, but my mind was still that of a man. No matter how much the flesh influenced the spirit, my core identity remained male. If I had given anyone leeway, it would have been to Yulia, not to Ziegfried or Peter. I had never shown them any such signs, nor had I intended to.
“Why can’t you?”
“Why can’t I? Look here, Hero. I am the face of the Church, and the Brienne royal family is the Church’s—my—greatest collaborator. Just look at the Iron Alliance shares. We have to hold hands.”
So I decided to be thoroughly calculating here. I hadn’t given Peter any openings either, so trying to persuade him that way would only backfire. Unfortunately, this approach didn’t produce a particularly good result either.
“If that’s the case, then eat with me too.”
“……? What kind of nonsense is that?”
“I also hold ten percent of the Iron Alliance shares. I even entrusted all of them to you, Lucia. Shouldn’t you be taking care of me more than Crown Prince Peter?”
Wait, why did that actually sound logical? It was true. I couldn’t refuse dinner with Peter because I needed to maintain the royal family’s twenty-percent stake as a friendly share. But the one actually wielding that royal stake wasn’t Peter—it was James IV. Ziegfried, however, owned his ten percent outright. How he exercised it was entirely up to him, and since he had entrusted it to me, he wasn’t merely a friendly shareholder. He was a partner, a co-owner, a true collaborator. I couldn’t neglect a fish I had already caught. No matter how I looked at it, he also needed proper management.
Besides, if public sentiment ever turned against me, the one who would take the biggest symbolic hit was none other than the Hero, Ziegfried. Peter might suffer greater material and political damage, but since I had already become a symbolic figure, I couldn’t ignore that kind of symbolic blow.
So? Well… it wasn’t like I couldn’t eat with him.
“All right. Let’s do that.”
“So Peter is allowed but I’m—huh? What?”
“I said let’s eat together. Just you and me, at a nice place. Let’s leave all other feelings aside and meet purely as partners who share Iron Alliance shares.”
When I thought about it calmly, two people of opposite genders eating together didn’t automatically mean a date. There were plenty of purely business relationships. Since I had accepted Peter’s invitation from exactly that perspective, approaching Ziegfried’s the same way was perfectly tolerable.
“Partners… who share the shares?”
“What else would we be? That’s what my dinner with Peter is about. Do you think you’re somehow special, Ziegfried?”
Oops. Verbal slip. But I still wasn’t used to men targeting me like this, and I doubted I ever would be. That was why my words kept coming out so sharply. My stress had already shot straight up to its limit. I hadn’t noticed while it was approaching, but now that it was right in front of me, I understood. I wasn’t made of iron, after all.
“Yeah… you’re right. I’m not special.”
“Sigh. Ziegfried, I have no intention right now of getting involved with either the ridiculously handsome Crown Prince with the wonderful voice, or the Hero with the intense curly hair, the eyes full of curiosity no matter where they look, and that strangely cute charm.”
“Crown Prince Peter is that ridiculously handsome with such a great voice?”
“Yes. Now I understand perfectly why His Holiness the Pope told me not to waver. I usually don’t have those kinds of thoughts when I look at men, but he’s on another level entirely.”
There was no need to elaborate. I was confident that if I took that face and voice back to the world I came from, he could easily make a living with them alone. And quite successfully at that. That was exactly why I was even more worried.
Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt the same thing—this body was beautiful to an almost excessive degree. In the beginning, I had actually been slightly enchanted by my own smiling reflection. If two people like us were seen dining alone, there was no way a scandal wouldn’t erupt. Still, it was far better than the news leaking that I had refused him, so I had given my permission.
“……Then, am I really that intense and cute?”
This guy. That was the real main point all along.
“Yes. So have a little confidence. When you meet a girl you like, approach her boldly. Of course, excluding me.”
I had deliberately said it with exactly this outcome in mind. No matter how you looked at it, I had first praised the Peter he was wary of, then praised him right after, making it twice as hard to dismiss. The effect? Perfect. The focus of the conversation had completely shifted.
“What about… other men?”
Was he really hoping for an answer to that too? I hadn’t felt particularly reassured before, but now I was even more anxious. Other men, huh. Truthfully, no one came to mind, but I deliberately pretended to search my memory. If I answered too quickly, it would feel insincere.
“Hmm… not really?”
Still, I didn’t drag it out too long. If I hesitated and then said no one, that would also invite suspicion. The truth was exactly what I had said. There simply weren’t any other men who stood out to me. After living past thirty in a world of makeup, skincare, plastic surgery, and all kinds of correction and enhancement, my standards were extremely, absurdly high. There couldn’t be many people who met them. That didn’t mean I couldn’t recall any young nobles at all, but not a single one had left as deep an impression on me as Peter or Ziegfried in terms of appearance. There were far more women who did.
“……Fine. I’ll let it slide since it’s only one.”
“Let it slide? What are you, my dad? Or my older—older brother? Huh?”
The word “oppa” had almost slipped out reflexively but got caught in my throat. It would have been the correct term for a woman’s body to use, but after coming to this world, it was apparently the first time I had ever said it. Thanks to that, even as I slapped his back hard enough to make a loud smack, I could feel my face burning hot.
Whatever. There was no point wasting time arguing here. I’d only be the one losing out.
“Lucia, you just now……”
“Never mind! Just decide on a dinner date already! Once this academy ends in its half-baked, ambiguous way, it’ll be hard to see each other often after that.”
Would that make it hard to see Yulia too? That was quite disappointing.
With that thought in mind, I quickly left the area.
After that, what could possibly change? I still attended lectures and pretended to listen diligently. I was just beginning to adapt to the completely different treatment I was receiving from everyone around me—
“Shall we go, Lucia?”
“With pleasure.”
—without even a moment’s gap, my dinner with Peter was scheduled for the very next day. This guy… he really combined decisiveness with action. It was secretly reassuring that someone like him was the Crown Prince. And since he clearly held affection for me, I needed to maintain an appropriate level of closeness at least until I found a way to return home and made proper preparations.
“How is it? I did my best to prepare.”
“The atmosphere is quite romantic.”
He hadn’t been rude enough to rent out an entire high-end restaurant. He had simply reserved our table and the surrounding area to secure some privacy. In that space, a beautiful violet sweet wine and an appropriately light cheese appetizer added both fragrance and flavor to the mood. Any ordinary woman would have been fairly enchanted by it alone.
“I’m relieved. I was worried you might not feel that way about me.”
Oh, so you prefer to strike directly like that. Or perhaps you’ve grown a little impatient because the academy’s social and political collapse might make it difficult to see each other afterward.
“It showed that obviously, did it?”
So I struck back at him just as directly. There were moments when simply not denying something became an admission in itself.
“That’s why I intend to try even harder. Since it looks like I’ll be at the academy for two more years, we still have time.”
Doesn’t the Crown Prince know? I had been thinking that, but then I suddenly realized that my assumption about the academy’s early service termination was nothing more than speculation. Could it be that I was the only one who hadn’t yet received the related news?