Jake and Roti were… well, it was hard to explain.
Should I say it was hard to find them, or rather easy?
Last night, we had been scouring the depths of Lutetia. No matter how well the healing device healed my body, everyone would still want to rest.
We stayed up late and fought until nearly the end.
In reality, Charlotte, Alice, Claire, and Leo were all in their respective rooms. If you knew the locations of the rooms, you could easily find them.
But… Jake and Roti were not in their rooms.
The locations of the rooms themselves weren’t exactly hidden, so if I asked any of the servants, they could easily tell me. But if the person I was looking for wasn’t in that room, knowing the location was pointless.
Jake and Roti weren’t officially in a relationship yet. If I could call it a “relationship,” the two had already been “dating” for quite some time. They were almost always together and were relatively friendly with each other… though Roti kept some distance in front of others.
Honestly, it was a bit ambiguous to even consider it. There are many who mingle without being in a relationship, and conversely, there are those who wish to maintain premarital purity even while dating. In this age, it wouldn’t be strange at all for such extremes to coexist.
But whether the two were dating or not—
“Sylvia.”
—To be honest, as someone who has never been in a relationship in either life, I couldn’t help but think those two were a bit… ugh to look at.
Right? They’re not even all that romantic.
Well, compared to the Leo in the original story, they were much better. Leo had no characters he was dating, yet the female characters would just kiss him. If you saw all the fate events, you’d probably witness several kissing scenes throughout the story.
If this world’s Leo were like that Leo, I might have seriously considered giving him a whap on the back of the head.
Still, these two were maintaining their own boundaries, and above all, they were a pure couple for each other.
They didn’t openly hold hands or link arms. But they were close enough to feel each other’s warmth. It was a distance only possible because they had feelings for one another.
Well, yeah.
I did nudge them a bit.
I’ve always liked pure love stories, so I hated it when pure couples acted frustratingly distant. That’s why I worked hard to help the two of them get closer.
Seeing it in-game as a ‘story’ and seeing it ‘in real life’ was a huge difference.
It felt somewhat similar to watching a friend brag about having a girlfriend in my past life. Back then, I could at least curse him out; but with these two, since I was the one who pushed them together, I couldn’t say anything.
“Jake, Roti.”
Jake turned toward me, looking like he was glowing with a smile. That was the face of a friend right after he got a girlfriend.
“You came all this way to find us? If you’d told the servants and waited, we would have gone to our room,” he said.
…True.
Even if I hadn’t found the two of them in one shot, all the servants would probably be gossiping. Since they were important guests, wherever they went within the palace, that location would already have been shared. If I said, “I’m looking for them,” they could have easily relayed that message to the two.
There was really no reason for me to come to the terrace, asking all those servants.
“…I’ve been wandering around since waking up, and I thought it wouldn’t be bad to chat and get some fresh air,” I said.
But saying “I didn’t think that far” felt embarrassing, so I just left it at that.
It was, after all, the truth—at least the part where I thought it wouldn’t be bad. Of course, I had climbed onto the roof to sneak into Charlotte’s room, but I couldn’t say that loudly in front of the other servants.
Well, at least I got lucky finding both of them at once. In that regard, I could say it was ‘easy’… thinking about it, if the two of them weren’t in this kind of relationship, they wouldn’t have been here at all.
“Really? Looks like it’s not that serious of a topic?”
Jake leaned back against the terrace railing as he spoke. Roti, who had been slightly turned inward, turned to face me too. Though, seeming aware of the differences in status, she didn’t lean back like Jake did.
I wondered how Roti would react if she found out my true identity.
Thinking about it, she likely wouldn’t change her attitude too much. Even in front of commoners, Roti was the type to use formal speech.
“It is a serious topic, but it’s also something the kingdom folks can’t do anything about.”
After all, it was decided that we were heading towards the Papal State. So trying to hide the circumstances here would be an exercise in futility. No matter how clueless someone was, it wouldn’t be hard to connect the dots that ‘the group that entered beneath Lutetia’ would head to the Papal State. The fact that Charlotte was likely to be excluded, but considering that, she still intended to follow was just more meaningless worrying.
“First, I’d like to apologize to you both.”
“Apologize?”
Jake tilted his head in confusion. Roti’s gaze was sharply directed at me. It seemed they couldn’t figure out what I was going to apologize for.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to appoint Roti as a knight for a while.”
“Oh, that.”
Only after I said it did Jake nod his head.
The appointment of a knight itself wasn’t a huge problem. After all, both princesses recognized the duke, and if I suggested that, I didn’t think the Emperor would refuse it either. Although the Emperor had a lot on his plate, and things had been somewhat delayed, if this situation hadn’t turned out like this, Roti would probably have received her knighthood within a few months.
But now the situation had turned upside down.
That Emperor was currently missing.
I roughly knew where he was, but that didn’t mean I had confirmed that he was really there, so for now, he was considered ‘missing’. Naturally, all the official duties the Emperor was supposed to do had come to a standstill.
In a normal ‘constitutional monarchy’, if the king is absent, the council should manage the country. But in this Empire, the council was basically a puppet of the Emperor. They were the ones with the highest support if they acted according to the Emperor’s wishes, and thus, to become a council member, you had to openly parade around as the Emperor’s dog.
If they were incompetent, the Emperor would have cut them off in the first place, so for each council member, their abilities aren’t questionable; but ‘being good at following orders’ and ‘responding to unpredictable events’ are entirely different ranges of capability.
That said, asking another noble to grant Roti her knighthood was problematic. It would mean owing a debt to that noble, and primarily, Roti’s knighthood carried the significance of being given by the royal family. It was that authority that allowed Roti, a commoner, to possibly marry the duke’s eldest son.
“If that’s the case, there’s really no need to worry.”
Jake shrugged and said.
“Well, if we’re talking politics, it would be better for Roti to receive a knighthood. But… actually, we’ve already discussed it among ourselves.”
“You mean you’d get married even without a knighthood?”
“It’s not illegal, is it?”
Upon hearing Jake’s words, I looked toward Roti.
Roti was, very rarely, slightly flushed and avoiding my gaze.
Hadn’t she hesitated just a few months ago because of ‘status’? That’s why I was trying to gift her that knight title, and I figured that it had changed her thinking a little.
“Well, it’s a thing to be congratulated, but…”
Seeing those two together was somewhat ugh to look at and made my stomach ache, but that didn’t mean I wanted them to break up. Honestly, it would be even better if they got married, had kids, and lived well together.
Yet, even so, I was curious about the sudden shift in thinking.
Perhaps sensing a hint of that in my words, Jake opened his mouth instead of the quiet Roti.
“Somehow, it seems Roti has gained a bit of confidence since then.”
Roti jumped in surprise and looked at Jake, but he continued speaking without paying her any heed.
“I think it was after hearing what you said at the beach that time.”
He was probably referring to the time I had eavesdropped on their conversation at the beach and butted in.
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