Chapter 261: The Queen Is…
Chapter 261: The Queen Is...
"Lord Marie, let us stop joking with each other.""Yes."
Become a dog rather than a hound? Forgive me—that wasn’t it at all. I understood perfectly well.
"’Become my dog’ was merely a figure of speech. I apologize for the rudeness. What I meant was that I would like you to become my partner. Of course I will pay you compensation."
I had forced the Queen to apologize. Anouk was glaring at me quite severely. Still... receiving payment to become a dog?
"Does that mean you want me to become a host?"
"What is a ’host’?"
The Queen asked with a perfectly straight face. There were no hosts in this world? If I refused would I become a "hanger"? No deep meaning there. This was not the time for jokes.
"Umm... a male prostitute, then?"
I couldn’t think of anything else, so I tried it even though I was sure the nuance was different.
"A male prostitute? Anouk, do you understand the meaning?"
The Queen didn’t know that either. Anouk, however, clearly did; she whispered in the Queen’s ear.
"My! That is not it at all! Please stop heading in that direction already."
The Queen was genuinely angry.
"Yes."
She was right. The joke and the punchline weren’t quite meshing.
"As I said earlier, I want you to deal with the political enemies and villains I designate. That does not necessarily mean killing them. Of course, if you find it distasteful you may refuse."
"Even so, I know nothing about this country."
That was the fundamental problem.
"I will assign someone to guide you properly. Naturally we will not leave you alone at the scene while everyone else disappears. I would like you to serve as a member of the unit—not as the one carrying out the act, but as an escort for those who do."
The proposal seemed to have retreated a little. Still, it was an extremely shady conversation. Hmm... I could accept something on that scale, couldn’t I? Experience was valuable, after all. My heart wavered. If I happened to kill someone by mistake I might even gain a skill. No—assuming I would kill people was not good.
"How frequent would this be?"
I asked anyway. I couldn’t suppress my interest. The Queen gave a soft "Hohoho" laugh.
"Asking that means your heart has already moved quite a bit, doesn’t it? Well... at most once a month, if that. Doing it suddenly would be impossible, so you may observe once first and then decide."
Her words were gentle, but her eyes were sharp.
"Why did you speak of such things to a foreigner like me in the first place?"