Ventorino Kingdom - Collapse or Fall (2)
Unexpectedly, what Mari wanted came to pass almost at once.
It happened that very day.
By chance, Alfonso happened to come looking for Mari. Or rather, calling it mere chance was a little generous; the boy had been visiting her day after day lately. Aside from the close maidservants brought from Ulsro, the others were genuine servants of the Ventorino royal family, and though it annoyed Mari to no end, they had taken careful note of her movements in order to curry favor with Alfonso. So whenever he came by, they answered his questions without hesitation.
"Hey, maid."
"Yes, Prince."
"Where did Princess Mari go?"
"Princess Mari went to visit her elder sister, Princess Mercede, today."
"Oh, really? Thanks for telling me."
"Of course."
It went like that. Since they had already seen him ask about Mari more than once, the maids did not panic in the least; they simply told him, calmly, where she had gone.
Having gotten what he wanted from the maid, Alfonso strode off with a sparkling look in his eyes, his steps full of boyish energy. His destination was, naturally, Mercede’s room—the one the maid had pointed out.
The sisters’ rooms were not adjacent. In fact, they were fairly far apart. There was no particularly meaningful reason for that; it was simply because they were princesses. If guest rooms fit for such high-ranking royal ladies had been placed side by side, that would have been stranger.
“What should we talk about today?”
The white-haired beautiful boy muttered that to himself, bright with excitement.
Lately the kingdom had been in terrible shape, what with the demon attack on the council chamber and the mounting casualties, but that was still a little distant from Alfonso’s world. That did not mean he was indifferent to the lives of the people, nor that he had any real streak of a bad king in him. Quite the opposite, in fact—he loved his subjects quite a bit, and he cared for the servants too. Moreover, one of the casualties was Captain Heik, a man the boy knew by both face and name.
But he was still young. For now, relationships with the girl he liked mattered far more than the kingdom’s future, politics, or even someone’s death.
In a way, he was precocious; in another, he was still immature.
Under ordinary circumstances, his parents, Marc and Katarina—or if not them, then his sister Clara—would have pointed out the flaws in the boy’s behavior. After all, he was not just any child, but royalty, and not merely that, but the designated successor to the throne.
The problem was that all three of them were too busy dealing with their own affairs to pay him proper attention. Each of them had assumed that, since they themselves were occupied, one of the other two would surely look after Alfonso. And that was true even if all three of their troubles had not been caused by Valdes. It was the classic sickness of a family crippled by poor communication.
There was no one else with the leisure to spare on him, either. Everyone important enough to caution the prince was busy, each in their own way, handling the rapidly changing situation alongside King Marc. As for the people who were free, none of them were high-ranking enough to reprimand the prince.
But for Alfonso, this was an unexpected chance.
“Ah, maybe I should go there this time? I’m sure my sister would like that too!”
It was a rare day of free-wheeling freedom.
As long as he finished the usual lessons with his tutor and the royal duties and such, he was free to do as he pleased. So long as he did not cross any major line, there was not much anyone could say. And Alfonso was a sly boy who knew exactly where that line lay.
Still, he could never have predicted what was going to happen to him that day.
“I’m here!”
The room where the two princess sisters stayed was by no means close, but because his head was full of bright, flower-filled fantasies, he arrived in no time at all.
His appearance startled the nearby servants. It was because Alfonso had never once come here during Mercede’s stay in this wing. They were also Ulsro maids accompanying the Ulsro delegation, not servants of the Ventorino royal household, so their surprise was only natural.
If he had visited often, the maids who did not know about Valdes’s relationship with the two princesses would have been a great help to Alfonso. But the boy had not done that. It was a mistake, if one could even call it that, born from his youth—he still did not know that, before you go after the general, sometimes you have to shoot the horse first.
"Is Princess Mari inside?"
"Ah, yes! She came to visit Princess Mercede about thirty minutes ago."
"Okay, got it!"
Alfonso, hearing the flustered maid’s answer, moved straight to the door and knocked.
Knock, knock.
"Princess Mari, are you in there?"
It would have been more proper to ask the room’s host first, since Mercede was the one staying here, but Alfonso, blinded by love, had forgotten even the manners he knew himself. Under normal circumstances, Mercede would have been annoyed, and if Marc or Katarina had found out, he would have been scolded severely.
But whether that was his good fortune or bad luck, nothing of the sort happened. Not because Mercede was being merciful—simply because the two women inside were so flustered they could not spare even a shred of attention for etiquette.
…
When no sound came from inside the room, Alfonso blinked in confusion.
A quiet room was only natural; this was an elite guest chamber with excellent soundproofing magic. But the lack of an answer was strange. If nobody were inside, that would be one thing—but the maid had clearly said that Princess Mari had gone in. There was no reason for her to lie.
Even if Mari did not answer, the fact that Mercede did not answer either was enough to make him uneasy.
“Huh?”
Only then did Alfonso belatedly realize he had made a mistake in etiquette. At the same time, one of the maids standing nearby, wringing her hands in anxiety, carefully pointed it out to him.
"Um, Prince...? This is not Princess Mari’s room, but Princess Mercede’s...."
She had not even been directly critical; for a maid, this was as polite and roundabout an explanation as she could manage.
"...I know that."
Alfonso shot her a short glare, but said nothing else. He was irritated that a mere maid had caught him in the error, but this was not someone he could casually reprimand. More than that, he was worried that perhaps Mari and Mercede were angry with him.
Yet his concern proved unnecessary, because almost immediately a voice came from inside.
"W-wait a sec...!"
"Ah... yes, yes!"
The voice did not sound angry so much as startled and flustered.
And Alfonso was delighted.
She was surprised because I dropped by out of the blue!
To a young boy, a sudden visit or surprise was not a provocation that made blood boil because he had no time to prepare and show his face; it was simply something startling and fun. So he assumed Mari would be happy.
And thinking that made him even more excited than before.
The door opened almost at once, considering Mari had said to wait a moment.
"Uh...."
It was only because Mari’s appearance gave the boy an unmistakably strange feeling.
"Hahaha, y-you came?"
That was the way she always spoke to him. Not the formal deference she used in public, but a private, intimate tone that carried familiarity. Yet everything beyond the tone felt wrong.
First of all, her voice was trembling oddly. And her breathing was hot enough that a little steam seemed to come off it. As if she had just been exercising. Since both her voice and her breath were not dramatically altered, it could not have been that intense a workout.
Perhaps she was simply hot, Alfonso thought.
Her cheeks were flushed red, and her hair was a little disheveled. More precisely, sweat had left it damp, scattering traces of moisture here and there. The same went for her hair—the beautiful blond strands, wet with perspiration, seemed even shinier, even lovelier.
…
"W-what is it?"
"Ah, no, it’s just...."
Alfonso, staring straight at Mari’s face, suddenly felt embarrassed and quickly averted his eyes. Only then did the boy’s gaze begin to catch the rest of her, beyond her hair.
Her clothes were nothing like her usual neat appearance, as if she had thrown them on in a hurry. It was all too strange. He remembered hearing his mother, Katarina, and his sister Clara say that, for royal women, clothing was a weapon and armor; that they should always be neat and graceful. Mari had always been like that until now. But not today.
Something’s off... something’s off... ah...!
Just as Alfonso was growing confused, he spotted something and his face turned bright red.
Th-th-tha— that’s definitely...!!
The fledgling boy’s eyes locked onto the chest of the sister he liked. The thing that had caught his attention was so shocking that he could not even think to hide his gaze.
The slightly sweat-damp, rumpled bodice of her dress. And, standing clearly atop that rounded swell, the small protrusion visible there.
He was still young, but he had already received royal sex education several times. And by this age, he had occasionally missed his mother enough to go to Katarina’s bed, touch her breasts, and, when he was feeling especially needy, even suck on them.
So he knew for certain. That was Mari’s nipple.
Ah, ah, ah, ah....
His mind went blank.
And for the first time, the boy felt a ticklish heat in his lower body.
The little thing nestled between his legs—the part he had only ever used to pee—was suddenly itchy and hot. It even seemed to have changed size a little. And for the first time, he felt a strange sensation that was not urine, yet somehow felt like urine might come out.
Ahh....
Alfonso finally felt that he understood, for the first time, what the sex-education teacher had meant by “lewd.”
The word he had never understood back then, the word he had never known until now. The boy felt that the sister he liked was lewd. And the moment he realized that, everything he was seeing changed.
Mari was lewd.
Too lewd.
Her red face. Her messy hair. The curves of her body, damp with sweat. Her rumpled clothes. The nipple peeking slightly through her chest. The bit of thigh visible because her skirt had ridden up a little. Even the fact that, for some reason, she was only wearing one shoe, leaving the other foot exposed.
Lewd.
So much that even the leg of his trousers started to feel uncomfortable, his posture turning strange.
The boy, who was only just beginning to awaken to sex, learned first of all about a kind of sexuality that was somehow crooked, and made that his point of reference. Of course, no one else knew that yet—not Valdes, who had unintentionally created this situation with Mari, nor Alfonso himself.
"Alfonso...?"
"Ah, um...."
The moment he heard his name, the boy came back to his senses and looked at Mari’s face again. The many things he had been planning to say on the way here were completely gone from memory. So, fumbling over his words, he noticed Mari’s mouth and decided to use that to buy some time.
"Th-there’s something on your mouth, sis."
"Huh?"
At Alfonso’s words, Mari looked visibly shocked and hastily brushed at her mouth with the arm of a sleeve that had been pushed halfway up. And there it was—what had just moments ago clung to her lips: curly hairs and thick mucus.
…
Sensing that Mari was embarrassed, Alfonso rushed to comfort her.
"I-it’s okay! My sister—well, the one I mean here is Clara!—she loses armpit hair all the time too!"
"H-huh? Ah, y-yeah, r-right... th-thanks...."
Unfortunately, the hair in question had come from somewhere a little different than the armpit, but that was the limit of Alfonso’s knowledge. Naturally, because this situation was already embarrassing enough, he did not notice anything strange. He did not ask why armpit hair was on her mouth, nor what the mucus was.
For the boy, it was a considerate gesture toward the sister he liked. But amusingly, Mari felt a faint sense of disappointment at that part. Of course, she did not show it, and so Alfonso never noticed a thing.
"Th-then... where is Princess Mercede?"
Alfonso asked, partly to change the subject for Mari’s sake and partly because he was worried she might be angry enough to refuse showing her face at all.
"M-my sister?"
At the mention of her sister, Mari flinched and turned slightly to look behind her.
And that let Alfonso see it too.
Huh?
Behind Mari, who had been standing squarely in front of the door, was something flesh-colored lying on the bed.
What’s that?
Though he could not see it properly because Mari’s body was blocking the view, it was enough to plant curiosity in his head. It was probably Mercede, but Alfonso could not figure out why something flesh-colored was visible at all.
"W-well...."
The boy, who had been thinking that perhaps they were simply exercising, watched Mari slowly open her mouth. What, exactly, would his sister say?
But before Mari could answer, a sound drifted from inside.
"Hah, ngh...♥"
"Hm?"
"...ha."
A voice that could sound like someone in pain to some people, and unashamedly sensual to others.
For a brief moment, as Alfonso’s gaze flicked past Mari and toward the direction from which the sound had come, Mari twisted her mouth slightly with a look of utter disbelief.
"No way."
"Pardon?"
"N-no, it’s nothing. My sister is just a little sick. J-just like you heard."