“Let’s go to the Imperial Capital.”
I said with a tense expression.
“There, you can be with your disciples and everyone else.”
“Hmm.”
The Sword Saint let go of his grip on the sword, seemingly lost in thought after my persuasion.
Seeing that, I relaxed for a moment —
Thud!
“Ugh!?”
The Sword Saint struck my forehead again with his sword.
Without thinking, I clutched my head with both hands and looked at the Sword Saint.
He was staring at me with a look of disbelief.
“Did you not hear what I said a moment ago? I came here because I’m tired of the mundane world. Now you want me to live in the busiest place in the Imperial Capital surrounded by all kinds of people?”
The Sword Saint snorted.
“Moreover, as your bait? I’m not some softy who would fall for such a trivial scheme.”
Well, that’s true.
I silently agreed with his words.
If a person who had been living in the mountains for decades came down just because of the words of someone he met for the first time, I would have tried that long ago.
“Well then, I’ll stay here.”
“Hmm?”
“I’ll stay here until I can convince you, Sword Saint.”
But I wasn’t completely unprepared, either.
Although there are only about two weeks left of vacation, I would try hard to persuade him during that time, and after narrowing down the most promising arguments, I’d rewind time to —
Thud!
“Eek!?”
“Do you have his voice recording in your head or something?”
Hitting someone’s head without warning and saying such a thing is really annoying.
Of course, I didn’t think I had the ability to overcome this person properly.
“A grown woman, even if she’s a bit older, says she’ll be spending the night at a man’s house? That could tarnish your honor, you know? No, more than that, the fact that you can boldly say you want to stay at a man’s house is a problem. And you’re a Crown Princess too.”
“……”
When I came with Jennifer, I stayed all night, and he didn’t say anything back then.
Furthermore, Alice did the same thing before. Claire did too.
Of course, Jennifer must have been beside me then, but in the original work, the Sword Saint was a character who didn’t care about that kind of thing. He’s probably just saying that to have an excuse to send me away.
Ignoring my glare, the Sword Saint turned his gaze away from me.
“And why are you frozen like that?”
“Ah, that’s…”
Leo’s forehead was already damp with sweat. It was no exaggeration to say that a few strands of hair were sticking to his forehead.
“Why, don’t you like me using ‘Your Highness’ as a weapon?”
“……”
“I met another princess long ago, you know? And if I were the type to care about status, I wouldn’t even consider taking Jennifer as my disciple.”
“Y-Yes, that’s true…”
“Oh, right, I see.”
The Sword Saint turned back to me.
“Is Alice your sister or your younger sister?”
“Older sister—”
Leo was about to answer from the side, but upon meeting my gaze, he quickly shut his mouth.
“……‘Sister.’”
“Hoh.”
At my words, the Sword Saint grinned.
“Is that so…?”
Then, with his arms crossed, he fell into thought for a brief moment.
“Well, fine. It’s already late. It wouldn’t be a manly thing to send you away at this hour.”
Having said that, the Sword Saint stood up.
“I’ll allow you to stay for today. But tomorrow, you must leave. I’m not so idle as to dance to your tune.”
No, you are pretty idle.
That being said, there’s no reason to have to dance to my tune unconditionally.
Still, having received permission to stay for at least a day, I felt a sense of relief.
That means an opportunity has arisen.
*
“Did you learn it from Alice?”
The next morning, the Sword Saint asked after seeing me meditating in a cross-legged position, having woken up around the same time as Leo.
That was the first thing he said to me since our conversation yesterday. After that, he completely ignored my presence.
Looking back, I could see that I had given him a reason to ignore me. Besides, I had spoken rather presumptuously, almost like a command.
But if he doesn’t start a conversation, I can persuade him through action.
Since he told me ‘you have no talent’ yesterday, I would need to show him my ‘talent’. And I would do that by waking up at the same time as Leo.
Peeking with one eye slightly open, I saw that Leo was looking at me with a mildly surprised expression.
However, his face showed more of a deep contemplation rather than surprise. Though he didn’t elaborate, he was also present when I fought against that black robe at the Northwood ruins.
Maybe he’s considering that I might have been here before.
“……”
It’s true that I have no talent in this area at all, and I’ve never learned it before; it took me 300 days to learn the most basic meditation from the Sword Saint, of all people. Learning a different technique might take even longer.
But at least for now, I have to pretend that this ability is my ‘talent.’ That way, the Sword Saint might trust me, even just a little.
I heard the sound of the Sword Saint’s footsteps. I closed my slightly open eyes and fully immersed myself in meditation again.
As if he’s trying to see my posture closely, I heard the Sword Saint moving in front of me —
Before the Sword Saint could say anything to me —
Bang!
The door swung open with that sound.
“……Alice. If you open the cabin door like that, it might break.”
The Sword Saint said lazily as if he already knew Alice was coming. It was a completely different attitude from when he greeted me.
“If it breaks, I’ll buy the best door I can find and replace it.”
Alice’s voice, saying that, was very calm, but it sounded incredibly angry in reverse.
“Even if you go buy that door, it doesn’t seem to fit at all.”
The Sword Saint replied in a very bewildered tone.
But it seemed Alice didn’t hear him.
Honestly, their conversation was quite interesting.
I had met the Sword Saint and seen what kind of character he was in the game, but it was the first time I was actually witnessing a conversation between Alice and the Sword Saint directly.
In the game, aside from the main story dialogues, other party members excluding Leo often ended up being just empty space. While it was said they made in some effort, the sheer volume of the main text made it hard to pay attention to every detail in the side quests.
As the story progressed, there were more characters to set as party members, and since the personalities of those characters were all different, dialogues had to be crafted according to the situation, which became quite a challenge to balance based on production costs.
However, reality is not a game.
One cannot just skip the narrative with ‘everyone discussed’ or ‘everyone trained together.’
“What brings you here? It doesn’t seem like you’re here to train like Leo.”
“……I came to find my ‘younger sibling.’”
While I might not be able to read other people’s vibes, at least I could perceive that the Sword Saint was glancing at me.
“Is there something going on in the royal family?”
I tried hard to maintain my appearance of being engrossed in meditation, eyes tightly shut, as if I didn’t even notice Alice’s arrival.
Though that didn’t seem… very successful.
Well, even if I tried, it’s not like I’d become invisible.
“Excuse me, but I’d like to have a conversation with Sylvia.”
With Alice’s words, the sound of her clothes brushing against the table was heard. It seemed the Sword Saint gestured towards the table.
“If you want, you can use that table as much as you like. There are no separate rooms, so we can’t have a secret conversation.”
“That’s fine.”
The tone in Alice’s voice as she replied was laced with amusement.
It didn’t seem like a warm laugh at all.
*
“I’ve heard the story.”
“……What story are you talking about?”
We sat facing each other across the old, shabby table, and about three steps away stood Leo and the Sword Saint. Both looked curious about what we were discussing.
I pondered seriously. Could it perhaps be related to Lucas? Could Alice possibly be my biological sister?
“You called Jaiden ‘older brother,’ didn’t you?”
—It seemed she hadn’t heard that.
Of course, regardless of that, I knew that what Alice was saying was an incredibly important fact.
I turned my gaze towards Leo.
Leo stared at me with his mouth agape, seemingly shocked.
As if he had never expected me to say such a word.
Regrettably, I didn’t know how to control the rapid beating of my heart due to embarrassment.
…At least for the two weeks I’m here, I’ll make sure to learn how to do that.
And I’ll make sure to kill Jaiden, who failed to hide the fact that I called him ‘older brother.’
It was me who forgot his request for secrecy, after all.
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