“Episode 20”
“This is completely insane. How dare you run away just before the engagement with the Emperor of Laphion? How could you do such reckless things!”
“Hmph, why do you think this is my doing? Did Uncle orchestrate this?”
Princess Lesilia, who was wrapped up in a blanket, snapped back at Prince Tesla’s words and sat up.
“What?”
“I never said I would marry the Emperor of Laphion!”
“Even so, you want to disappear with a clueless guy?”
“Watch your mouth! Despite my low birth, I’m smarter than Uncle, you know?”
“Lesil, are you still not in your right mind? Do you want to support that mercenary’s rebellion even now?”
“So what? Look, neither of them are by your side right now! Pathetic, isn’t it?”
Prince Tesla chuckled and sat up on the bed. The princess, who had been bowing her head, raised it again.
“Brother!”
“What?”
“That day… You let Norton and the kid go, didn’t you? The captain said he would handle it. Isn’t that right?”
Prince Tesla hesitated for a moment. How could he have graciously let a mercenary who dared to elope with the princess of the Shattohnill Kingdom go?
“Well….”
He couldn’t bring himself to mention the fact that on that day, Norton, who was confronting the knights, had fallen off the cliff. The same fate befell the child born to the princess eight months later.
“Are you not going out?”
I asked Lionel, who seemed completely uninterested in getting up from the bathtub.
“A stoic woman,” Lionel muttered softly, splashing water on my face.
“Ouch.”
He seemed to find it quite amusing to splash water on me.
“I was just about to.”
“Your clothes are quite wet. Would you like to wear my robe? The attendants following us might get the wrong idea.”
I expressed my concern about his wet bottom seriously.
“Haha, what a thoughtful consideration.”
He quickly dismissed my sincerity.
“Why not? Should I lend you a dress as well? So that the chilly wind doesn’t bother your legs.”
“Well, since embarrassment is the attendants’ job anyway, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
I finally laughed, and my laughter echoed in the bathroom like an echo. Lionel seemed to be twitching his face, but as soon as our eyes met, he quickly changed his expression and forced a smile.
“However, you know, in this world, you must be the only one who would send off the emperor so comfortably without even a greeting.”
Oops, Lionel’s words reminded me of the etiquette towards the emperor, who had briefly left the room. I quickly tried to get up from the bathtub, leaning forward, before realizing my situation and hesitatingly sitting back down. Oh no, I’m naked. The sound of water friction reverberated loudly in the bathtub. Because of that, a large amount of water splashed onto him, precisely onto the pants he was wearing. It was too late to salvage the situation, and he was already too wet. Lionel’s pupils dilated significantly. My own pupils shook just as much as I looked at him.
“…Ah? Ah!”
I let out a delayed scream and reached out my hands to him, then stopped.
“What’s this… Are you trying to freeze to death on your way out?”
Lionel looked down at his wet pants, now clearly inappropriate in any situation.
“Well then, see you tomorrow. If I’m still alive.”
He finally stood up from the edge of the bathtub, his buttocks leaving the surface.
“Your Majesty… Please don’t go far. Please return safely.”
Lionel bid me farewell with a timid voice. He turned to leave with a firm expression, then suddenly his body swayed dramatically.
“Zelda, are you just going to let me go like this… Ugh!”
His body swayed violently.
“Be careful!”
In an instant, with a splash sound, the water in the bathtub shot up like a fountain and disappeared. And before my eyes…
”Yes? Th-the floor?”
“The soap on the bathroom floor.”
He elegantly wiped his wet face and spoke. I quickly pulled my face out of the bathtub and looked down at the floor. The soap I had used and left there before he entered the bathroom was crushed and messy on the floor. That soap was quite valuable… On the day I left the Shat’ohneil palace, Bonnis, who shared the same room with me, secretly took one from the royal bath supplies room and put it in my luggage. If I were to describe this soap, it was a rare one that left a subtle lavender scent on the body until night even if used in the morning. Ah, what a waste.
“Even if you fell, why did you have to fall into the bathtub?”
I asked him, looking at him as if he had done it intentionally.
“I’m sorry. It’s because you left the soap on the floor.”
“That was my mistake… Right. I apologize.”
“And of all places, I had to fall safely into the bathtub, so I’m sorry about that too.”
“…Yes?”
“I should have hit my head or something falling on the slippery floor, right?”
“I was careless. Please forgive me.”
I glanced at Lionel with a subtly threatening voice.
“I didn’t know you would slip, but since it happened, I guess I have to…”
“What?”
“Bathe.”
Suddenly, my body heated up. At the same time, the temperature of the water in the bathtub also rose. My blood rushed from my toes to my head at Lionel’s declaration of bathing together.
“Did you happen to put a heat-retaining magic stone in the bathtub? The water seems to be getting hotter.”
Lionel tapped the bathtub floor with both hands, searching for a nonexistent heat-retaining magic stone.
“Lionel? That’s my foot.”
“Oh, is it? Then this?”
“That’s my knee.”
“I see.”
“There’s nothing in the bathtub.”
“Really? There’s no heat-retaining magic stone in here? That can’t be…”
He waved his hands around, looking for the stone, then accidentally bumped my thigh.
“There’s… nothing!”
I retorted with an open mouth.
“Oh, my apologies. I thought it might be a heat-retaining magic stone since it felt so soft.”
“Were you trying to provoke me on purpose?”
“If I say no, will you feel better?”
Lionel smiled slyly and asked, still sitting in the bathtub.
“…In the end, all your clothes got wet.”
“Yeah, what should I do about that?”
I sighed as I looked at his face, which seemed to have some ulterior motive.
“I won’t just strip a naked person and kick them out, right?”
Ah, was that what you wanted to say?
“Because your robe wouldn’t suit my complexion.”
He pointed to a deer antler clothes hanger hanging on one side of the bathroom wall. A pink silk robe was hanging on it.
“And did you ask the attendants to bring clothes?”
“It’s late. They need some rest too. Don’t they? Besides, I’m already known as a tyrant.”
Suddenly, Lionel spoke with a kind tone.
“I’ll indulge myself during the day, but at night, I want to give them a break.”
He lazily smiled, placing one hand on his chest.
“Anyway, why does the water temperature keep rising?”
He lifted the steaming water in the bathtub with both hands, chuckling.
“It even feels hotter. Why?”
“The water was originally so hot that it’s probably just like that…”
I couldn’t tell him the truth, so I had to evade it vaguely. But his face changed to one of even more incomprehension.
“Even so, when I get into the bathtub, the hot water quickly cools down. It almost becomes icy cold.”
“…Ah.”
“Soaking in the bathtub for too long is not advisable…”
He looked at the rising steam above the bathtub as if it were something miraculous, then turned to me, who was sitting in front of him, with a strange look in his eyes.
“Zelda, is it because your heart is so warm?”
He posed the question but quickly shook his head in denial.
“No, it’s not like the water would stay warm like this continuously. It’s really strange.”
Ah, in the summer, Lionel’s curse would turn into an advantage. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to be by his side in the hot summer? We both possessed something essential to each other. Even now, if he hadn’t fallen into the bathtub a while ago, the water might have reached a temperature high enough to cause burns by now. I often used this phenomenon to my advantage. When something made me angry, I would soak in the bathtub, and as the water temperature rose, I would put two eggs in it. By the end of my bath, the eggs would be deliciously soft-boiled. Those who have never experienced the joy of eating freshly boiled eggs after a bath wouldn’t understand. Bathing with Lionel might not lead to the birth of boiled eggs, but it would be difficult not to anticipate it. He leaned back against the bathtub with his eyes closed.
“Ah… feels good. I stopped by the training grounds before coming to the Empress’s palace.”
“You did?”
Hearing that, I felt an impulse to visit the training grounds as well. I looked down at my hands. Just imagining wielding a sword made my hands tremble like a forbidden phenomenon. Later, I should ask Sharon where the training grounds were located within the palace.
“Yeah, it feels like all the tense muscles from swordsmanship are relaxing.”
Lionel’s expression looked genuinely relaxed, as if all his fatigue was melting away. Seeing him like this, I couldn’t bring myself to ask him to get out of the bathtub quickly. Eventually, I watched him through the steam, waiting for him to open his eyes again. But a moment later, I couldn’t see him sitting across from me anymore.
