The Princess's Market Date
The breakfast table at the Black Mane Mountain Stronghold was always a battlefield, but this morning the heat was coming from a slightly different direction. Rodin had just taken a satisfied sip of his savory sungnyung—his usual post-meal palate cleanser—and let out a contented sigh. Normally, the two houseguests would have been locked in a chopstick war over the leftover meat dishes, but today they had apparently agreed to claim the seats on either side of him, wearing deadly serious expressions.
“Cult Leader! I have just received a divine revelation!” Ivona cried, clutching a holy book—actually an imperial restaurant guide she had secretly acquired last week—tightly to her chest. Her golden eyes blazed with a “sacred appetite” three times more intense than usual.
“The name of the demonic beast is the ‘Silver Boar.’ Its hide is harder than steel, and its meat… no, its soul is so deeply corrupted that it yearns to be purified (harvested) within my mouth! Would you not accompany me alone to subjugate that unholy meat… I mean, that demonic beast?”
“Hey, Ivona. Wipe the drool off your chin. You just want to go catch the Silver Boar because it tastes good.”
Rodin replied with a look of utter disdain. From the opposite side, Lize cut in with a snort, arms crossed.
“Ignore the gluttonous saintess, Rodin. The boar is irrelevant. According to my mana detector, an ancient ruin belonging to a great archmage from five hundred years ago lies buried beneath that valley. The unstable mana leaking from it could contaminate our hot spring water. You must come with me for a detailed investigation. This is a critical matter of protecting our mana.”
Lize emphasized the word “our” and subtly leaned her head against Rodin’s shoulder. Her purple eyes glowed with a strange mix of academic passion and ulterior motives.
“A ruin? That just means I’ll get covered in dust and have to deal with annoying traps. Sounds like a pain in the ass. Can’t we just leave it alone? So what if the hot spring gets a little murky? Just wash your body and it’s fine.”
At Rodin’s ironclad laziness, both women’s eyebrows twitched violently. The man who could dismiss a date invitation from the continent’s greatest saintess and the master of the Magic Tower as “getting covered in dust and being annoying” was probably the only one in the entire world.
Creak—.
From the crack of the office door connected to the living room, Veronica held her breath and eavesdropped on the conversation outside. In her arms, she clutched a heavy ledger containing the stronghold’s entire economy and survival.
“......”
Ivona could resurrect the dead with her holy power, and Lize could reshape terrain with a flick of her finger. The proposals she had just heard proved it. Hunting demonic beasts and excavating ancient ruins—those were stories from a dazzling, brilliant world that only the “strong” could share.
Veronica looked down at her own pale hands. She had gripped the pen so tightly that every knuckle had turned white.
I’d only be a burden if I went. If a monster appears, I’d just scream, and if a trap in the ruins goes off, Rodin would have to carry me while running…
A sharp pain stabbed through her chest. She had worked harder than anyone to manage the territory and earn money so she could stand beside Rodin, yet whenever he needed to show his “real” power, she was always the one hiding behind a rock.
Rodin will definitely go, won’t he? When two such beautiful and incredible women are tempting him to go alone with them…
Veronica slumped weakly onto the desk. The countless numbers and fertilizer purchase lists written in the ledger suddenly felt meaningless.
“Ahh, my dear ledger. You’re the only one who understands my heart, aren’t you? Why does the smell of ink feel so salty today…”
She picked up her pen and scribbled tiny words in the corner of the shopping list: “Idiot Rodin,” “Annoying Saintess,” “Damn Witch.” The tears that had begun to form dripped onto the ink, blurring the letters into dark smudges.
“Cult Leader! When you grill silver boar meat, a choir sings hallelujah in your mouth! Come experience that gastronomic paradise with me!”
“If we obtain the mana stone from the ancient ruins, I can cast an ‘Eternal Spring’ barrier over your cabbage fields! You won’t need those plastic greenhouses anymore! You’ll benefit if you come with me!”
Ivona grabbed Rodin’s right arm while Lize seized his left, each trying to pull him toward herself. The saintess’s pure physical strength and the archmage’s mana-enhanced power collided across Rodin’s body. It was a force that would have torn an ordinary person limb from limb, yet Rodin remained as still as a thousand-year-old zelkova tree, simply sipping his sungnyung.
“Hey, hey! You’re gonna pull my arms off. Let go, both of you. Boar or barrier, I have to spread fertilizer in the fields today. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow.”
“Dagan can handle the fertilizer! What matters now is the ‘time of purification’ spent with me!”
“Going alone? If three people go, it’s not an investigation, it’s tourism! Absolutely not!”
The mana in the living room swirled from the two women’s power struggle, making the teacups rattle. Rodin looked up at the ceiling, pondering how to escape this bothersome situation.
That was when his sharp hearing caught a very small, faint sound coming from beyond the office. Sniff… hic… It was the sound of someone desperately holding back tears and sniffling—the most pitiful sound in the world, coming from the “chief administrator.”
Rodin’s eyebrows twitched ever so slightly.
“Hey, Princess. You in there sleeping? Why aren’t you making any noise?”
Bang, bang. Rodin knocked on the office door indifferently. Inside came the sound of a chair being shoved back in surprise, followed by hurried sniffing.
“Ah… Rodin? No, there’s just too much bookkeeping to do… I’m busy. You should hurry and go hunt that monster. Have a good time at the ruins too. Don’t worry about me.”
Veronica’s voice was a tone higher than usual and trembled faintly. Rodin clicked his tongue from outside the door, arms crossed.
“Why does your voice sound like that? Did you catch a cold? Or are you crying pathetically in the corner again? I told you that if tears fall on the ledger, you can’t read the writing.”
“Who said I was crying! I’m just… doing my job! Since I can’t fight and I don’t know anything about artifacts, it’s right for me to stay here counting numbers! Just go already!”
Rodin flung the door open. Veronica’s eyes were red and swollen, and she still held the ink-stained ledger in her hands. She turned her head away, unable to look him in the face.
Rodin gazed down at her quietly. The princess who usually wielded the stronghold’s finances with absolute authority was crumbling like this over a single date invitation.
“Ah, seriously… what a pain.”
Rodin muttered under his breath and abruptly grabbed Veronica’s wrist.
Rodin led Veronica out into the living room. There stood Ivona and Lize, still glaring at each other as if they wanted to devour one another over who would be chosen.
“Hey! You two!”
At Rodin’s lion-like roar, both women flinched and turned their heads at the same time. Rodin raised Veronica’s hand high and declared,
“Dagan can go catch the boar. You two can do your purification or harvesting or whatever by yourselves. As for the ruins, Lize, you can go alone. You’re an 8th-circle mage, right? You’ll manage just fine.”
“Eeeek?! Cult Leader, what are you saying? Just the two of us…!”
“Rodin! I told you the ruins are dangerous!”
Ignoring their protests, Rodin looked at Veronica.
“I’m going to the market with the princess today, so don’t interfere.”
“The market?”
Veronica asked back with a dazed expression. Rodin snatched the ledger from her other hand and pointed at the “shopping list” written inside.
“You were crying while writing this earlier. You need to buy cabbage seeds and bone meal for fertilizer. How are you supposed to carry something that heavy by yourself? I’ll be your porter, so let’s go.”
“Rodin… a porter?”
“What, you don’t want me to? Then forget it.”
“No! Let’s go! Right now!”
Veronica’s face bloomed brightly in an instant. It was hard to believe she had looked like she had lost the world just moments ago as she quickly clung to Rodin’s arm.
“Ivona, Lize! Did you hear that? Rodin is busy today with official duties assisting the ‘Lady of the House.’ You two should go work hard on your ‘combat’! Hahaha!”
While Ivona and Lize stood on the stronghold balcony chewing on handkerchiefs and shedding tears, Rodin and Veronica were walking down the mountain path together in perfect harmony. Rodin carried two large baskets in both hands, and Veronica leaned her entire weight against his arm with an expression that suggested she owned the world.
“Rodin, you’ll buy me something delicious at the market, right?”
“You’re the one who earned the money, so why should I buy it? You should buy it for me. I’m just the porter today.”
“How stingy… Still, I like it! I’m going to sweep up every seed at the market today! You’ll have to carry them all for me!”
“Sigh… Take it easy. Carrying stuff is a pain.”
Even as Rodin grumbled, he never pulled away from the small hand that clung tightly to his arm. Though he was the legendary Mercenary King who could split mountains and slay demonic beasts, what he needed to protect right now wasn’t the peace of the continent—it was the smile of this “non-combatant” chief administrator who hummed happily at the thought of going to the market.
From far up the mountain came the sound of Ivona chewing on tree roots instead of boar meat and wailing, “This is heresy…!” but Rodin pretended not to hear and quickened his steps.