kscans

Chapter 149 - The O-saki and the Emissary

"..."

"..."

After that incident, Little One was begged by the King of Sucaraba and ended up giving a lecture on magic-related matters. They couldn’t dispatch magicians from Frontier unless the basics were understood. Well, she had left that entirely to Hyarbas and Darvy, so she didn’t mind.

But because of that, Little One was stuck staying at the Sucaraba royal palace.

As the girl nonchalantly strolled through the palace, someone secretly followed her.

"What’s with him?"

"He has an unpleasant look in his eyes."

Chihaya and Dorfen narrowed their eyes suspiciously, glaring at the person following them at a distance. He probably thought he was being stealthy, but with his guards and attendants hovering around him anxiously, he wasn’t being stealthy at all.

Little One, who had relented to the Sucaraba King’s desperate pleas after the commotion, received an apology from the said Crown Prince at a banquet. His name was Salim. He had been invested as Crown Prince last year and was seventeen this year. Little One let the Crown Prince’s excuses about truly meaning no harm go in one ear and out the other, and she spoke in detail about the revival of magic and magical power, as well as her desire to lecture on the basic knowledge and principles that came with it. In contrast to the king, who accepted with a beaming smile, Salim just stared with wide eyes and listened in silence.

But from the next day on, the Crown Prince began to trail Little One.

No matter where she went, the shadow of Salim was always flickering into view, and even Little One was growing weary of it.

Occasionally, his moist eyes would fill with affection, and he would let out a sigh, sending a chill down Little One’s spine.

A melting, passionate gaze.

The dense Little One hadn’t noticed, but there was no way Chihaya and the others could miss a gaze laden with such blatant passion.

He’s a pervert. A pervert with a thing for little girls.

Little One’s troupe glared at Salim with a sub-zero sneer. However, a single word from the unaware Little One changed the situation. Ignoring her wary and glaring troupe, Little One beckoned to Salim.

"Oh, honestly! This is so annoying. Come here."

"Eh?"

The Crown Prince froze, dumbfounded.

"Hero?!"

"Chihiro-sama?!"

As Salim approached, mindful of the flustered Chihaya and the others, Little One handed him a single honeybee.

"You’re interested in the mononoke, aren’t you? Here."

"Is… is this alright?"

"It’s better than being stared at from a distance all the time, nyo."

Little One snorted with a huff.

The members of Little One’s troupe felt their jaws drop at the sight of the Crown Prince’s face melting into a puddle of joy as he gently hugged the honeybee.

So that passionate gaze was directed at the mononoke all along.

"What else could it be? Come on, there’s no weirdo out there who’d fall for a shorty like me."

Chihaya and the others couldn’t help but glare as Little One waved her hand dismissively.

There are at least five of those weirdos among royalty alone, you know.

But they dared not say it aloud. If Little One were to become conscious of it and act accordingly, it would only add unnecessary fuel to the fire for the other party. In response, at the very least, Little One’s super doting family would start sharpening their weapons to thrust at said party.

Ignition and explosion were guaranteed.

There was no need to wake a sleeping child. Yup.

Little One’s troupe exchanged nods and zipped their lips. Unknowingly, Little One was planting landmines all over her peaceful daily life. Her personal theory was that people didn’t look at her as much as she cared, but she would later come to realize that people were not as indifferent as she thought.

"I told you so!"

"Unyaaaan!"

In the not-so-distant future, Little One would be scolded by Romel for her lack of self-awareness and would be wailing her eyes out, but that is another story.

"Ah."

Little One’s group was taken aback by Salim, who was shedding tears while hugging the honeybee.

"Ah, wah… uuu."

The honeybee poked the weeping Crown Prince’s cheek with its leg as if to comfort him. The Frontier members froze in place. The Crown Prince’s attendants exchanged glances as if in a bind and smiled wryly.

"His Highness the Crown Prince is very fond of monsters."

"He would go on expeditions to the border forest and try to get them to warm up to him."

Apparently, he would go to the forest almost every month, trying to feed them, asking adventurers to somehow capture them so he could try to pet them, a one-man struggle. From the attendants’ perspective, their days were filled with heart-stopping moments, as he would be threatened from inside a cage, stick his hand in and get bitten or scratched, and even when he tried to release them in the garden to get them used to him, he would be sent flying by a headbutt.

"When he was tossed by a boar monster…"

"I thought he was dead… Oh, no."

The attendant, who had been staring into space with a bewildered look, hastily covered his mouth. He must have thought he had said too much. Indeed, the story was enough to make one’s stomach full just by listening. Faint scars ran across the arm hugging the honeybee. There were probably even larger scars on his back and stomach.

"Uuu."

He was the very picture of someone overwhelmed with emotion.

"Dorfen, heal him."

"As you wish."

Dorfen nodded to Little One and held both his hands toward Salim. A pale light instantly enveloped the Crown Prince. Wrapped in a haze-like magical power, the Crown Prince’s body flashed several times.

"Eh?"

"My!"

The visible scars faded and disappeared. Salim, perhaps sensing something, raised his face, red from crying.

"The pain…? Huh? The scars are gone?"

The Crown Prince twisted his body to check his stomach and back. Little One watched him with a fond smile, her own smile as gentle as a blooming flower.

"It is healing magic. Dorfen is a noble with high magical power. He can even heal a severed limb."

"Incredible… But then, why have Her Highness the Princess’s scars not been healed?"

Salim was pointing to the countless red lines running up Little One’s arm. Though faint, they were certainly there. They were scars from the time she was in Joker’s forest, by the crack leading to the broken abyss.

"There are some special circumstances with these…"

Little One gazed at her scars with a melancholic air. Dorfen, standing beside her, furrowed his brow painfully. These were wounds inflicted by the Dark Spirit King. Healing magic had no effect on them. The dark magical power consumed the golden magical power. That was likely the reason. The dark magical power probably possessed the ability to nullify all other magical powers. Conversely, golden magical power could also nullify dark magical power, if one could get the first strike. In terms of power balance, the dark magical power surpassed the golden magical power.

Thinking that far, Little One had a realization.

Is that why the Higher Beings can’t touch the Dark Spirit King? Could it be that the Dark Spirit King is a natural enemy to the Higher Beings?

Can the Dark Spirit King devour even the Higher Beings?

While Little One was lost in her own thoughts, Chihaya and Dorfen were desperately struggling to somehow tear the Crown Prince away from the honeybee.

"There is a Lord’s forest about a day’s journey by carriage from here. We are going to meet the Lord. Would you like to come with us?"

In the afternoon, Little One visited the Crown Prince’s detached palace and invited him to go to the Lord’s forest. It was a forest Salim visited almost every month. He agreed without a second thought and eagerly boarded the Honeybee Carriage. And, like everyone else before him, he stared in amazement, comparing the interior space with the exterior appearance again and again.

We’ve gotten used to this, haven’t we.

Romel’s magical remodeling had progressed, and the Honeybee Carriage now maintained a space about the size of a single-story house. It had a living room, bedrooms for the twins and the knights, and even a simple kitchen. It was now, without a doubt, a house.

Little One’s secret base.

The only drawback was that a toilet couldn’t be installed, since it traveled through the sky. Toilets on vehicles were basically just a hole. Like horse manure, it would be released onto the road. The thought of droppings falling from the sky was too terrifying.

I wish he’d improve this too. Romel doesn’t seem interested though.

A craftsman is indifferent to anything outside their specialty. The same went for magicians.

While thinking about such things, the carriage, which would normally take a day, flew the distance in a few hours, and Little One arrived at the chicken forest.

"Ragon, are you there?"

From the forest, which had gained lush greenery thanks to Little One’s magical power, a giant chicken appeared with a rustling sound. The chicks hopping around it were also full of energy.

"Welcome. Here, how about an egg?"

Ragon happily offered a large, ostrich-like egg. Apparently, it was an unfertilized egg, different from the ones from which its children hatched. Adonis and Zack’s eyes sparkled at the sight. Little One left the egg to them and turned her gaze to the other Lord.

"I came today because I have something to talk to you about."

"I know. The answer is no."

"I see. Understood."

Bread, the giant mantis with large scythes. He, too, seemed intent on spending his life with Legion. The Crown Prince stared at Little One conversing with the two, deeply moved, fooooh.

"Are you truly on such friendly terms with the monsters? If you have any secrets, I would be most grateful if you would teach me."

Little One felt uncomfortable being stared at with sparkling, envious eyes.

"It’s not difficult. The Lords’ Kin are intelligent monsters. We eat delicious things together, communicate through writing… well, it’s like being neighbors, I guess?"

She wasn’t lying. Nope.

Salim nodded, saying, "I see, I see." Then he had his attendants bring out the food he had prepared. Vegetables, fruits, simple grilled dishes, and so on.

"I was not sure what they might prefer… so I prepared a variety of things for the time being."

Salim, who had been utterly defeated by the wild monsters, looked up at the giant chicken as if clinging to it for dear life. Ragon gave a magnanimous nod and picked up a skewer of meat from the basket.

"Cooking is something monsters cannot do… This is delicious."

The giant chicken skillfully stripped the meat from the skewer with its beak and chewed contentedly, mocha mocha. The Crown Prince read the words written on the ground, a huge smile blooming on his face like a flower.

And so, with Little One acting as a bridge, Salim’s long-held wish came true. To the Crown Prince, who was extremely reluctant to part, Ragon even gave him one of its children.

"I knew that this one had visited the forest many times… and that he went home covered in wounds. No harm will come of this."

Little One stared with an exasperated look at Salim, who was buried under a waterfall of tears. He, too, had been acknowledged by the Lord of the Forest through the brute force of his single-minded determination.

Looks like all that physical effort paid off, huh?

The giant mantis watched with a wistful expression as the Honeybee Carriage returned, having achieved its goal.

"You still haven’t changed your mind, Bread?"

"I haven’t. It’s for our master. I will follow Legion-sama."

Bread turned his back on Ragon and disappeared into the depths of the forest.

"So stubborn."

Ragon’s murmur was heard by no one, dissipating in the wind that blew through the forest.

An unsettling air hung over the Lords.

Something unknown to Little One was quietly beginning to rear its head.