The Princess Won't Accept My Resignation (2)
Rip!
Once again today, the sound of paper tearing rang through the princess’s study.
What found its way into one of the most exalted trash bins in the entire empire was nothing less than a marriage proposal.
And not even one meant for the princess herself—this one was addressed to some foolish man in her orbit.
Evan doesn’t even look at me as a woman… yet the proposals keep multiplying.
Yes. These days, the princess’s greatest headache revolved around her escort knight, Evan Farcion.
Her knight—who combined martial prowess with scholarly grace and a face that outshone most men—enjoyed staggering popularity even among the empire’s nobles, a class steeped in pretense. Proposals addressed to him arrived on her desk almost every other day.
The man who ought to have been receiving them, of course, had no idea his superior was quietly disposing of every last one.
…I can’t just sit around waiting like this forever.
“Sir Evan. Come in for a moment.”
The instant the princess finished speaking, Evan—who had been standing watch outside—opened the door and stepped inside.
“Yes, Your Highness. What is it?”
Ash-gray hair distinctive to the Farcion line, deep blue eyes that called the ocean to mind, features that asserted themselves without ever clashing with the rest of his face, and a tall, well-proportioned frame. His muscle was lean rather than bulky, and his calm gaze was already sweeping the study for any potential threat.
“Ahem… Sir Evan. You have a tea time scheduled with Sister Rio shortly, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right. Is there a problem…?”
“That tea time. You’ll be joining it.”
“...Pardon? I must have misheard.”
“You heard me perfectly well. When I sit down with Sister Rio later, don’t loiter behind me doing nothing. Sit beside me and take part in the conversation.”
Evan stared, dumbfounded, at the princess who sat brazenly in her study chair, chin propped on one hand, idly rolling a pen between her fingers. He began trying to talk her out of it.
“Your Highness… I’m not loitering. I’m standing behind you to ensure your safety—”
“Then we’ll simply bring another escort knight. Hmm… Sir Dalim should do nicely.”
“...Dalim is still an apprentice knight, Your Highness. He’s hardly ready to protect you.”
Dalim Breadlight. He was a proper knight who had passed every grueling trial the empire prepared, yet in the eyes of Evan—one of the empire’s sharpest blades—he was still a greenhorn who hadn’t even finished his apprenticeship. On top of that, Dalim’s primary weapon was a battle axe. Fine for the battlefield, perhaps, but hardly ideal for guarding a high-value target.
“My. Does that mean Sir Evan lacks the confidence to protect me while seated?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Then it’s settled. Shall we go?”
With a scrape of chair legs, the princess rose, linked her arm through the arm of the still-frozen Evan, and casually pressed her chest against him.
“Come, Sir Evan. You’ll escort me properly all the way to the tea garden, won’t you?”
Unfortunately, escorting Her Highness all the way to the garden never happened.
The first reason was that Dalim didn’t live in the knight barracks; he had built a house out on a remote mountain, and I was the only one who ever went looking for him. The second reason was that the whole situation made me extremely uncomfortable.
If the maids or butlers cleaning the halls saw us walking that closely pressed together all the way to the garden and reported it to the Emperor, I was finished. Her Highness was simply acting that way because she felt at ease with me, but for me it was pure agony.
“Why does this guy have to live in such a weird place…”
To fetch Dalim from the log cabin he had built on a mountain far from the Imperial Palace at the capital’s heart, I needed to hurry.
Hummm—!
I wrapped mana around my entire legs, reinforcing the muscles, then began leaping from rooftop to rooftop at a speed ordinary people would never even see. The empire surrounding the palace was large enough that circling it by carriage took a full day with rest stops, so I kept moving across the roofs until my breath was just starting to catch. That was when I finally reached the mountain where Dalim lived.
Climbing it would have left me drenched in sweat, so I simply wrapped mana around my throat and called for him.
“Dalim Breadlight. If you don’t come flying out here in ten seconds, I’m calling a full assembly of everyone above you and below me. Ten… nine… eight… seven-six-five-four… three…”
For reference, Dalim was an apprentice knight—the lowest rank in the order—while I was treated almost the same as the knight commander. If he failed to appear within ten seconds, the entire knight order would be summoned.
Thud-thud-thud-thud! Boom—!
“Y-you came, Senior!”
A man over two meters tall, all copper-skinned muscle with white hair that clashed wildly with the rest of him, leapt down from higher up the mountain, tumbled to a stop right in front of me, and snapped into a perfect knightly salute.
“Right. Dalim. You off duty today?”
“Yes, sir! That’s correct, Senior!”
“Is that so? Then you must be bored sitting around at home. Come back to the palace with me and do one little job.”
“Y-yes? Come on… even if you’re my senior, I’m off today—”
“If you come with me right now, you get to meet both Her Highness Ekaterina and Princess Rio at the same time.”
“Lead the way, Hyung.”
In a knight order that was basically a sausage fest, the chance to see both the empire’s most beautiful princess and the equally stunning Princess Rio in one sitting didn’t come around often. Dalim, who was already the most woman-crazy of a woman-crazy order, could never refuse.
“You’ve got a fiancée and you still chase women this hard?”
“Heh… Senior, you don’t have a fiancée so you wouldn’t understand. Not every fiancée treats their partner well. Some of us are already living under their fiancée’s thumb.”
“...Don’t tell me the reason you live out here on this mountain is to hide from your fiancée.”
“What? If it weren’t for that, why the hell would I live in a place like this?”
“Uh… right.”
Inside the order, the rumor that Dalim was a complete lunatic was already well established. A truly tragic state of affairs.
Anyway, he had agreed to my request. All that remained was to get back to the palace quickly.
“Use the standard knight footwork and follow me. I’ll wait a bit—go grab your weapon.”
“Yes, sir.”
A short while later Dalim came down from his cabin carrying a battle axe slightly taller than he was. Every time I saw that thing I wondered how anyone managed to swing it.
“We’re going across the rooftops, so don’t put too much force into your steps.”
“Yes, sir.”
Boom—!
“So what’s your fiancée like that you’re running from her?”
“It’s a long story… haaah…”
Despite his massive frame, Dalim’s face filled with deep worry. He had said earlier that he was already living under her thumb—maybe she was already riding him hard?
“What is it? Just tell me. We’ve got plenty of time on the way.”
“Understood. First, Senior, do you know who my fiancée is?”
“Uh… if I remember right, the eldest daughter of Viscount Calibe…”
“Yes. That’s the one.”
“Then why are you avoiding her? I heard the eldest daughter of House Calibe is a beauty.”
As far as I knew, House Calibe was famous for the extraordinary beauty that came from their fairy–human mixed blood. Their only real drawback was physical frailty, but that alone wasn’t enough reason for Dalim to flee his fiancée.
“W-well… haaah… my fiancée is way too hungry for sex.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not that I dislike it, either. As a man, when a beauty comes at you like that, how could you hate it?”
“Then why? Just enjoy it.”
“It doesn’t work that way. Senior, you don’t have a fiancée yet so you wouldn’t know, but when you’re wrung dry from the moment you wake up until you pass out again, and that repeats for a whole week… that’s straight-up hell.”
“...I thought fairy–human hybrids were supposed to have weak bodies. How can that even last a week?”
“Haaah…”
Just thinking about it made Dalim shudder so hard his mana aura flared violently. It must have been truly exhausting.
“This is a secret, but… the fairy ancestor of House Calibe was apparently from the incubus–succubus line.”
“Succubus? The one I’m thinking of?”
“Yes. Not a true fairy, but something in the same family as succubi and incubi.”
“Whoa…”
Most fairies were beings born from natural concepts. If there was a concept of “clear skies,” there was a fairy of the same nature. As many concepts as nature held, that many fairies existed—including concepts like “the mating of beasts.” Fairies carried the nature of the concept they sprang from, so the incubus-type fairies that founded House Calibe were extremely fond of coupling.
So that nature survived even after they mixed with humans, huh.
“Even if I knock her out she wakes up right away and jumps me again. Knock her out a second time and she’s back on top of me. I finally couldn’t take it and ran.”
“...Is she looking for you right now?”
“Actually, I think she’s almost tracked down where I live. I’m probably going to get wrung dry again soon.”
“I can’t decide whether to envy you or pity you.”
“I can’t decide either.”
“Well… hang in there.”
“Yes, sir. I’m planning to recharge by looking at the princesses today.”
Honestly, the guy never changed.