The Lady is a Stalker

There was a long, horizontal dining table that you only see in movies set in the Middle Ages. ‘Let’s go back right after we finish eating.’ Thinking like that, she sat down next to the crown prince without thinking about it.

 

“Why are you sitting so close?!”

 

“Yes?”

 

Prince Raven jumped up and shouted at her with a completely red face.

 

‘Umm. It seems that it is etiquette to eat at the end of a long table, as seen in movies.’

 

Also, getting angry over something that wasn’t a big deal. She also had an ominous feeling that the nagging noise that would hurt her ears would begin. However, if you sit at the very end, you have to shout loudly in order to have a conversation. She calmly opened her mouth to the crown prince.

 

“I’m not good at making loud noises, so please, generous Raven, please understand.”

 

At her words, the crown prince sat back down with a red face and pursed his lips. Since she didn’t have anything to say, she just looked closely at the servants who were busy preparing the meal. Hmm. There were two people who seemed to be moving frantically, but whose movements continued to overlap. Even the occasional glances were sticky. Perhaps they were lovers?

 

She felt bad about keeping it to herself, so she covered her mouth with he hand to prevent any sound from escaping and whispered softly in the Crown Prince’s ear as if he was telling a secret.

 

“…It seems like that maid and the butler have a crush on each other.”

 

Even though he was a servant of the imperial palace who was said to have no eyes or ears, he still had ears to hear. Even if it were true, it would be embarrassing to hear it in person. With that in mind, she whispered something so that only the crown prince could hear it, but the prince flinched when she suddenly came close to him.

 

Goosebumps appeared on his arms, probably because of disgust.

 

Seeing that intense reaction, she somehow felt like a villain making fun of an innocent woman. If he wanted to push her because she had done something, he could, but he just sat frozen. If it were her, she would have thrown his pack on the cold floor, but he showed incredible patience.

 

He asked while looking at her with a slightly red face. His voice was shaking slightly, although he tried to feign calm.

 

“How do you know that?”

 

In response to the prince’s question, her eyes lit up and she answered quietly in his ear with a confident voice.

 

“I tend to be very perceptive when it comes to relationships between men and women.”

 

“…”

 

The crown prince’s face contorted as if he had heard her even though she couldn’t hear what she was whispering with a confident expression. He seemed like he couldn’t agree with what she was saying.

 

“…This story has no credibility at all.”

 

He turned his head again with a cold face and declared. He looked as if he had been drained of energy by talking about useless things. At that time, the maid approached, dragging a tray full of snacks. She clung to them and looked at them with a strange look as they whispered her secret story.

 

She slowly walked away from the crown prince. Then, the crown prince could be heard sighing a little in relief. His unstable breathing and slightly tired complexion returned to normal as soon as she left. Did he hate it that much? She was a little offended, but she didn’t show it and just cut a small piece of the cake in front of her and put it in her mouth.

 

“…”

 

It was so sweet that she almost frowned reflexively, but she forced herself to move her mouth, considering the sincerity he had prepared for it. But no matter how much she thought about it, sweets weren’t her taste, so she was debating whether to spit it out or not when the crown prince spoke to her.

 

“…These days, you have a good reputation among my subordinates.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

She never acted with the thought of being kind to them, but what Princess Seravi had done before was so shitty that her evaluation seemed to have risen relatively. She answered in a calm voice as she put the cake in her mouth.

 

“I don’t know about everyone else, but the second-in-command is quite kind.”

 

“…Damian?”

 

As soon as the deputy commander’s name came out of her mouth, the crown prince’s voice darkened slightly. The crown prince looked at her with an expression demanding an explanation. She was debating whether to take the poison in her mouth or not, but she barely swallowed it and spoke.

 

“He is objectively a good person. He may look light, but he doesn’t go overboard. He has a strong will and good skills. Although he comes from a slightly different background, he is young and capable, so he will probably be lined up for marriage talks, and his face is like that. If that’s the case, then it’s …”

 

As her words got longer, the prince’s face became more and more grimly distorted. She finally realized this and started talking for no reason, but he had already heard what she was trying to say. There was no way that praising one’s subordinates as being great would be unpleasant to hear. By the end of the story, he was radiating such a red-faced energy that it felt like his whole body was alive. Did she make a mistake again? Even though she was always nervous in front of the crown prince, she couldn’t tell which one might be a land mine.

 

She swallowed dryly out of nervousness. She was frozen and waiting for the crown prince to answer, but the answer he gave after a while was unexpected.

 

“Don’t think nonsense. Distian prohibits office dating.”

 

“…”

 

What kind of nonsense was this? Aside from the fact that the crown prince had a strange misunderstanding, there was no way that there would be a clause prohibiting dating between men in a place where there were no women except her. No, of course it was possible to have an office romance, but… At the very least, it meant that there was no such provision in the Imperial Military Act. There was no doubt that the crown prince had just created it.

 

She looked at the crown prince with suspicious eyes. Then he glared at her with burning eyes and said,

 

“Is there anything you’re complaining about?”

 

He still sounded angry. At first glance, it seemed like he was asking his subordinate about his complaints, but to her ears, it sounded like a kind of threat that he wouldn’t let anything go if he complained. Well, since he was the commander-in-chief, he could make military laws at will. Even so, she had no idea that he would make it so spontaneously, and that too because of his own emotions.

 

She couldn’t believe the crown prince was in such a mood… No matter how much he hated her, he didn’t even want to burden himself.

 

* * *

 

After returning to the imperial palace for a while, Raven returned to work, but Raven was still not in a good mood. Even though he had been saying so openly since yesterday that he would teach her magic if she wanted, she was deliberately ignoring his offer. Where on earth could she find a better teacher besides him?

 

…She said with her own mouth that he was the strongest person on earth. The fact that he personally wanted to make someone his disciple was an opportunity that could not have been obtained even if they paid hundreds of millions of dollars. He was a genius among geniuses, having solved the 10-way nonlinear partial differential equation, which scholars at the Tower of Magic had been studying for hundreds of years but could not find the answer to, at the age of six. He was the one who did not listen even when nobles, royal families from other countries, or talented magicians crawled on the floor and begged to become his disciples. At the age of eight, he was asked to become a professor at the academy, but he flatly refused. Even though he said he was willing to teach her magic personally!

 

As soon as he thought about it, he heard a ‘cracking’ sound and the fan base in his hand broke. It was something he did unconsciously.

 

“Why are you so angry?”

 

“…I? I’m exactly the same as usual.”

 

When he looked up, he saw Damian, his second-in-command, standing with a calm expression while chewing something. Was he angry? No way. Ever since he was much younger than he was now, as part of his royal training, he had been taught to never show joy or anger on his face, no matter what. No matter how angry he was, it was difficult for others to notice it.

 

“Why don’t you just hide it and talk about it? They all collapsed.”

 

As he said that, Damian pointed to the scenery of the training ground outside the window. The men who were training at the training ground were staggering as if they were about to collapse. He was draining mana from the deadly force he had released without even knowing it. For a human who had reached that level of survival, sending out mana was the same as making a direct attack. Since they were trained soldiers, it ended like this, but if there were ordinary people nearby, there would definitely have been casualties. He had never had anything like this before. It definitely looked like he was in heat.

 

He said with a deep sigh.

 

“I was rude.”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

As he answered like that, his face was surprisingly calm, as if he had not been affected by anything. Even though his subordinates in the training hall, which were quite far away, were collapsing, the person closest to him was just fine and was steadily eating something. Normally he would have just ignored it, but today the crunching noise bothered him.

 

“What are you constantly eating during work hours?”

 

Although he meant to tell people not to eat, Damian obediently explained the identity of what he was eating.

 

“Oh, this? It was given to me by Princess Seravi.”

 

He was startled by the unexpected name he suddenly heard and flinched. Never would he have thought that the name of the person who had been occupying his mind until now would come out of Damian’s mouth.

 

“What?”

 

“She gave it to me a few days ago when she left for vacation. She made it herself and told me to eat it.”

 

He asked back in a surprised voice.

 

“You mean you got it right away?”

 

“Why? It tastes good. And I’m sure everyone else got it besides me?”

 

At Damian’s words, the words ‘I didn’t get it’ reflexively rose up in his throat, but he barely swallowed them.

 

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Translator Note: