Prince Nothea enjoyed the opera quite a bit. By the end, he had tears in his eyes, and was truly surprised to learn that the main character, who played a mercenary with red hair, was actually a female singer dressed as a man.
“This is quite entertaining. It’s quite different from a play.”
Karnov tilted his head slightly as he watched Prince Nothea, who was speaking quite warmly.
“Is that so? I’m glad you enjoyed the opera, especially since it was personally selected by the princess herself.”
“Well, it seems that the princess indeed has a good eye. She chose the most entertaining piece out of the books I brought and suggested turning it into an opera. She truly seems to have good taste.”
Karnov narrowed his eyes and looked at Prince Nothea.
“I see.”
“Right? I like people who have good taste.”
Karnov wiped the expression off his face and turned to Prince Nothea. Prince Nothea was smiling and looking at Princess Anastasia, who was chatting with the girls.
Glancing at him as if scrutinizing his profile, Karnov chuckled as if he finally understood. Prince Nothea looked back at Karnov in a little surprise. Karnov stood against the wall with a lighter expression.
“The princess is a person with a keen sense, but it’s not just because of that she chose that piece.”
“Oh?”
“It’s for her beloved knight.”
– The one in this novel, doesn’t it look like Ivan?
In the novel, the illegitimate child is described as a boy with mysterious blue-tinged skin. It reminded the girl of Ivan.
Princess Anastasia wanted to make a drama about a similar child for Ivan, who has no resemblance to the world as if he were from out of this world.
“Is that so? Then what a sweet woman she is. Even better to hear that she is a sweet woman.”
Prince Nothea corrected his words. Karnov’s eyebrows frowned. Instead of the bright smiling face he had always shown, Prince Nothea drew a faint smile.
“Still, fortunate as she is, my situation is not easy. If Her Highness is kind-hearted, would she consider taking pity on my situation?”
“You’re going to continue your relationship by being sympathetic?”
Whether it was due to hearing such absurd talk or not, Karnov’s words trailed off, but Prince Nothea didn’t point it out and simply shrugged.
“What’s wrong with that? It means showing compassion to the other person. For me, that’s enough.”
Prince Nothea’s expression, which said it was enough to be sympathized with, was again met with a cheerful smile. This time Karnov asked him.
“Is there a reason why you’re telling me this?”
“I was wondering if Duke Sedvoyer could help me.”
“What?”
Prince Nothea clenched his fists in both hands and made them gently touch each other.
“Wouldn’t it be possible to connect me and Princess Anastasia more closely? Otherwise, I prefer not to be connected at all.”
“…”
Karnov said nothing with his arms crossed. Prince Nothea continued, as if oblivious to Karnov’s lack of response.
“Helping me would be a good story for the empire too, wouldn’t it? After all, you have a strong aggressive nature.”
The tail of Karnov’s mouth went up. What Prince Nothea was saying was clear. Whether Karnov connected him with Princess Anastasia or not, he would do what Karnov wanted and pay the price for it.
In return, he sought the assistance of Duke Sedvoyer. Karnov, now responding with a lukewarm expression, said.
“Even if a wolf is aggressive, it knows how to hold its breath in front of a lion, doesn’t it?”
“But even lions can get annoyed. If it keeps being a nuisance, and…”
“Who knows.”
Karnov took off one of his gloves. At that moment, he remembered the girl’s voice saying, “Joel only takes commissions from your and Dimitri’s requests. He could become rich just from that.” He wanted to laugh but restrained himself.
“Is there something bothering you?”
One side of the removed glove slowly turned to ash in Karnov’s hand.
“I don’t know.”
“Uh…”
“If you think that my being stationed in the capital instead of at the northern border is because my power has weakened, even though I’m the Deputy Commander of the Imperial Army, then perhaps it would be wise for me to revise the report.”
Prince Nothea scratched the back of his neck with a shy expression.
“Then…”
Prince Nothea tried to continue something more, but Karnov raised his hand and stopped him.
“I won’t entertain any favors you may bring. And if the prince wants something from her, he should discuss it directly with the person concerned.”
This time, Prince Nothea looked at Karnov with his eyes wide open. He asked if he was serious.
“If you really want sympathy, you have to turn the boat upside down. Whether the princess will pat you on the stomach or tell you to sit up straight, I don’t know.”
With that, Karnov headed toward the girls. Princess Anastasia, who stopped by the main actress’s waiting room to deliver a bouquet of flowers, smiled and welcomed Karnov, then frowned at the dust on his hand and shook it off.
Prince Nothea looked at them and adjusted his posture. Lorenzo, who was holding his breath behind him, opened his mouth.
“Really turning heads, huh?”
“Think about it. I have a reputation to maintain.”
“Your abs look pretty good, though.”
Lorenzo murmured regretfully. Prince Nothea sighed deeply.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
On the night of the full moon, Asha tied a wide piece of lace around her hair and snooped around. Ivan was following Asha with the hem of her long gown.
<Just go over and brush it off, why do you have to be so sneaky?>
Asha sighed. Now of all times, her kitchen was under construction, and what had to be put in the refrigerator was being stored in the kitchen of the Taimir Palace.
“I’m busy preparing for my birthday party, and I don’t want any unnecessary commotion. They’ll definitely think I’m inspecting things.”
<Don’t you need to do some inspection?>
Asha sighed and snooped across the hallway into the kitchen of the Taimir Palace. The guard, guarding the hallway near the kitchen, recognized Asha.
“Your… Your Highness? What brings you here?”
“I’m here because I need something. Is there anyone in there? I came in the evening on purpose because I was afraid it might disturb them.”
The guard coughed for a moment and looked inside.
“As far as I know, everyone who came in today is out.”
Only then did Asha breathe a sigh of relief and straighten her back.
“Really? Then I’ll go in for a second. Don’t tell anyone else I’m here, okay?”
“Yes, yes.”
The guard opened the door. Asha went inside, scanning the kitchen full of silence.
“If it’s heavy, I’ll hold it.”
“Just carry my gown. Don’t carry anything heavier. You’re still in your growing years.”
“I’m not the only one growing up.”
“I’ve already grown up. I’m just a little pea for life. Oh! But don’t tell this to Alyosha or Karnov; it’s a secret.”
Ivan looked annoyed but didn’t argue further. In the meantime, Asha took some porcelain bowls out of the refrigerator.
“Are these ones you made before?”
“Yes. This is a special syrup made by boiling lemon peel, adding shasling liquor, and just a little bit of gelatin.”
“What about this?”
“Fruit coulis. It’s raspberry strained through a sieve and mixed with sugar. Tonight, we’ll sprinkle it over freshly picked blueberries and drizzle this syrup on top. It’ll be delicious.”
Ivan nodded silently. Asha glanced at Ivan, then sighed without saying anything.
‘Would Ivan say it tastes delicious if I asked him if he’d like pumpkin patch fertilizer sprinkled on his food?’
<Hmm…>
It was a moment when Phoebe, perched on her shoulder, couldn’t bring herself to deny it. Ivan suddenly glanced deeply into the backyard of the kitchen toward the back door.
“Ivan?”
“…It seems like another person is passing by.”
“Oh, really? If we happen to bump into them, it might be bothersome, so let’s hurry and leave.”
“Yes.”
Quietly, as Asha and Ivan began to move their bodies almost outside the kitchen, Asha put her finger to her lips as she glanced at the guard. The guard nodded vigorously in response.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
“Didn’t someone just pass by?”
The guard looked sternly at the man who ran out of the kitchen. It was the nephew of the imperial chef, Fedin Buicker, who was in charge of the confectionery for the birthday party.
The guard inwardly felt relieved that Princess Anastasia, who had just visited, had left the kitchen quickly. He almost became a person who couldn’t even work properly.
“Ahem. As far as I know, everyone who came to the kitchen has left. Is there someone still here?”
“I have a tight schedule, so I’ve been handling meals in the palace while working. No, someone just left the kitchen earlier, didn’t they? A girl with pink hair… about this tall?”
The guard thought for a moment whether he should say something to the man muttering nonsense, but then remembered what she had instructed him to do.
“Um. Well. No one, no one passed by. I didn’t see anyone.”
“What? Are you saying I saw a ghost or something?”
The guard only shook his head when Fedin asked with a puzzled face. Fedin paced back and forth, clutching his hair in his hands, but he couldn’t find any trace of the vanished figure.
‘What’s going on? Why is that girl in the palace? Did I see wrong? When did I start seeing things?’
Could it have been from the store? The store had undergone renovations due to meeting with that girl…
Fedin stared at the guard with a face as white as a sheet, as if he were about to scream, but the guard only stepped back, looking puzzled, as if to say, ‘What’s wrong with you?’
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
The royal palace became more lively day by day. Summer flowers were in full bloom, and the costumes of the people who came and went became colorful. In such a palace, Prince Nothea was definitely the center of the topic of conversation recently.
What else was more interesting than a nice foreign prince with tanned skin and dark green eyes that you haven’t seen in the north?
The prince’s afternoon schedule in recent days has been to enjoy board games with Princess Anastasia.
“Oh! Wait, Your Highness! Just a moment… Just one…”
The young man looked at the board and then abruptly stood up, rubbing his head. Asha chuckled softly.
“Just give me a moment, okay? If I step back here, you’ll have to step back next time.”
“I’ll make sure to step back for you!”
The two were currently playing a board game called “Senet Mehen,” a renowned game in the empire where players roll dice to expand territories and collect more land to win.
As Asha held a piece in her hand, she gazed at Prince Nothea quietly.
“What would you like me to do to make way for you, Your Highness?”
At that moment, the air in the garden seemed to lighten. Prince Nothea quickly changed his expression. The nervousness he had shown just moments ago while playing the game seemed to disappear entirely.
“May I be honest with you?”
“Of course.”
Asha reached for a tray next to the table where she was playing. A special lemon syrup made of shasling liquor, freshly picked blueberries, and fruit coulis were placed in a bowl of ice on the tray.
While Asha poured fruit into her glass and added syrup on top, Prince Nothea fidgeted with the thin blanket covering his knees and then shrugged before speaking.
“Actually, I would like for Your Highness to become my bride.”
Bethelnic, standing behind him, had a small cough. Even Ivan stared at Prince Nothea intently and then lowered his gaze again.
“Me?”
“Yes, but it might be difficult, right?”
“Yes. I don’t know Prince Nothea very well, I don’t know Kirelettian well, and I’m going to open a shop in the capital.”
“In that case… What?”
Thanks for the episode! Can I ask when the next episode will be posted?