Chapter 94
Chapter 94
When I returned to the reception room, there was a boy with an unfamiliar face standing at the center of the group.
White skin, a slender jawline, and a lean build.
If his hair had been just a little longer, I might have mistaken him for a woman.
“Ahhhh…….”
He was in the middle of being doted on by the women.
When it came to Alice in particular, she even went so far as to knead his face, marveling at how soft his skin was.
Leysias, who had followed me back into the reception room, saw the scene and let out a long sigh, her expression utterly dumbfounded.
“…What are you all doing?”
“…….”
At that, the women—including Alice—turned toward us with sheepish expressions, like children caught in the middle of a prank.
“Oh, you’re back?”
“Miss Leysias, your little brother is adorable.”
“Randolph.”
At his sister’s call, he scampered over and stood in front of us.
As I looked at him with interest, Leysias placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder and spoke to me.
“This is my younger brother, Randolph.
He’s planning to enroll in the Bayern Academy next year.”
“Only a one-year difference?!”
It was the women, who had been playing with Randolph until just now, who reacted with shock.
Well, it was hard to believe that the bright, innocent-looking face peering up at us was only a year younger.
I already knew, so I wasn’t particularly shaken, but the rest of the group openly expressed their surprise.
Alice, who had been kneading his face just moments ago, even wore a look of fascination.
“Randolph, this is my academy friend—”
Leysias gestured as if to introduce me, but before she could finish, Randolph stepped forward toward me.
“Are you Ostia-nim, my sister’s friend?”
“Yeah. I’m Ostia.”
Unlike before, his expression was now exceedingly serious.
For a moment, I wondered if he was jealous, thinking I’d stolen his sister away—but then Randolph bent at the waist until his body nearly folded in half and spoke.
“I’ve heard so much about you, senior! Please take me as your disciple!”
“…?”
Caught completely off guard, I glanced sideways at her.
Leysias hurried over with a flustered expression and grabbed her brother’s shoulder.
“Randolph, what on earth is this—”
“I want to learn the secret technique you used to steal the heart of my once-stubborn sister. Please, take me as your disciple!”
Regardless of her reaction, Randolph’s attitude remained unwavering.
He pressed his point without caring about the gazes around him, and that stubborn resolve—so unlike his delicate appearance—made admiration rise in me unbidden.
When I burst out laughing, Leysias’s face turned bright red.
She grabbed her brother’s shoulders and shook him, trying desperately to rein things in.
Alice watched with narrowed eyes, while Yuria—who was relatively close to Leysias—covered her mouth and let out suppressed giggles.
“Take you as a disciple, huh…….”
“Yes, please!”
The fact that he was a friend’s younger brother earned him points, but more than that, I liked his boldness.
After reaching the realm of Sword Master, the very grade of my existence had changed.
I kept it under control, but anyone looking at me would still sense it unconsciously.
Yet Randolph’s eyes, as he looked at me, didn’t waver at all.
Finding that commendable, I patted his head and said,
“I’ll give you high marks for your confidence. But you’re still lacking in qualifications. At the very least, if you enter as the top student of the magic department like your sister, I’ll consider it.”
“…Then!”
“Yeah.
So train hard until then.”
“Thank you!”
Before I knew it, I’d ended up taking on a disciple candidate.
Having received my conditional approval, Randolph clenched his fist tightly and shouted, ‘Yes!’ He looked so excited that he didn’t even notice his sister trembling in embarrassment, her face beet red.
The others behind us couldn’t hold back their laughter.
“He really seems like the type who doesn’t care about his surroundings.”
Elisia let out a deliberately impressed remark, saying he was exactly like his sister used to be.
Only Randolph tilted his head, clearly not understanding what she meant.
As planned, we went sightseeing.
It still bothered me that the disturbance within the territory hadn’t been fully resolved, but with knights and mages swarming everywhere, I doubted anything would actually happen.
Randolph left us due to a magic class.
Alice and the other women said their goodbyes with regret.
Leysias rubbed her flushed cheeks and insisted that everything he’d said was a misunderstanding, but the group merely looked at me with oddly nuanced expressions.
I nodded to her, signaling that it was fine.
“Well, it’s only natural to be drawn to me, but unfortunately, I’m a man with many obligations. It’d be hard to belong to just one woman. I hope you can understand that.”
“So that’s what you mean…….”
Teasing Leysias as we stepped outside the mansion, I saw that the time had already drifted into the afternoon.
We headed toward a bustling district near the estate.
Perhaps because patrols had been reinforced, the empty streets and plazas we’d seen earlier were once again lively.
The only problem was that every member of our group was too eye-catching.
We’d all changed out of our uniforms into casual clothes, but there was nothing we could do about our shining appearances.
“So what? The lord’s daughter here is our friend.”
Alice said it wouldn’t be bad if people recognized us and gave us special service instead.
Half-dazed, we were persuaded and began sightseeing in earnest, thoroughly enjoying ourselves as we visited all the famous restaurants and shops Leysias recommended.
Then, in a plaza we wandered into, a theater troupe was in the middle of a performance.
Seeing the ridiculous clown makeup reminded me of the Majin I’d encountered in the Kingdom of Demedrio.
Just in case, I spread my senses wide to search for them, but fortunately, I felt no demonic energy.
Tap.
While watching the performance, someone lightly brushed my fingertips.
The plaza was packed with people, so I thought it was just the crowd pushing past and ignored it—but then the touch came again.
“…Alice?”
I turned my head, mildly irritated, and saw Alice standing beside me, watching the performance with an indifferent expression.
At my call, she narrowed her eyes as if to say I’d only just noticed, grabbed my sleeve, and then—using movements worthy of a high-level assassin—pulled me along.
“Where are we going? What about the others—”
“I told Leysias. I said we’d be watching the play for a while, so it should be fine if we join them later.”
She answered briskly and kept leading me on.
We passed through the busy streets, wandering around to look at unusual accessories and interesting foods we hadn’t seen before.
“You’ve been busy lately and neglecting me. At least put up with this much sulking.”
She turned her head away, pretending to pout, but then tugged my hand and moved even farther ahead.
After about thirty minutes, Alice seemed satisfied.
With a smile filling her face, she turned back toward the plaza where the performance was still ongoing.
Overall, the sightseeing was satisfying.
There was plenty to see and eat, leaving no room to be bored, and it put me in a good mood to see that everyone else had enjoyed themselves as well.
After dinner, we returned to the mansion.
Having spent half the day walking around, everyone looked visibly exhausted.
Leysias guided us to the bathhouse, and the moment I stepped inside, admiration spilled out on its own.
“This is nice.”
The facilities were good enough to rival high-end saunas from my old world.
There had been bathhouses in the imperial palace too, but those were nothing more than gaudy decorations over entirely ordinary facilities.
Here, however, the steam billowing from every corner and the hot spring water pouring down made it look as though something straight out of the modern world had been transplanted here.
“Ah.”
After a quick wash, I sank into the bath, letting out a sigh of contentment.
The others wore similar expressions as they soaked.
Naturally, the bathhouse was separated by gender.
With the buildings themselves completely divided—leaving no chance for any novel-like peeping—Diark and Werner swallowed their slight disappointment.
“Thanks to Miss Leysias, we’re getting to have an experience like this. It’s nice enough that I’d want to come back someday with a lover.”
Diark wiped the sweat from his cheek and muttered while staring off into space.
Werner, beside him, lightly prodded him and asked,
“From among our group?”
Diark’s gaze shifted to me.
He shrugged and answered with a gloomy expression.
“…It’s Arthur. The competition’s just way too overwhelming.”
“Well, you never know.”
Only Werner smiled meaningfully at that.
Seeing it, I narrowed my eyes.
Judging by how far he was taking this, was there something going on?
“By the way, Ostia, who are you thinking about?”
“Who?”
Caught off guard by the sudden question, I failed to grasp the point.
In response, Werner and Diark launched into a heated discussion with serious expressions.
“No matter what, wouldn’t it be Miss Alice? It feels like they’ve had a connection since the very beginning.
They actually seem the closest.”
“No, didn’t you forget Britain? Those two even had secret meetings. The rumor spread all through the soldiers.”
“Now that I think about it, Miss Leysias is suspicious too. That reaction earlier…….”
I let out a hollow laugh at their conversation.
To come all this way and end up talking about this of all things.
“Stop talking nonsense. I already have a fiancée.”
“A fiancée? Who?”
Diark looked genuinely shocked.
Seeing that expression—as if he were hearing it for the first time—I casually tossed out my answer.
“Did you forget? Second-year Petra is my fiancée.”
“…?”
But Diark still looked unconvinced, tilting his head again and again.
In the end, he looked at me with a strange expression.
“Senior Petra is the fiancée of the Third Imperial Prince, Leios. What are you talking about—”
At that, Werner’s mouth fell open as he turned toward him with a stunned expression.
At the look that clearly said You seriously didn’t know until now?, Diark’s eyes filled with bewilderment.
“Ostia is the Third Imperial Prince.”
“…….”
A brief silence settled between us.
In that moment, countless thoughts flickered through Diark’s eyes before disappearing.
What remained was his choice to deny reality, insisting he must have misheard.
“I think I got water in my ears. I’m hearing weird things.”
“Your Highness!”
Diark threw himself face-down on the bathhouse floor and performed a full prostration toward me.
I leaned halfway out of the bath, scooped up a wooden bucket, and tossed it at his head as I spoke.
“And only now you react?”
“…Right? Heh heh.”
He was quick to read the room.
Though he’d been shocked by the revelation that I was the Third Imperial Prince, true to his character, he soon adapted and grinned foolishly.
“So does that mean my future’s completely secure now?”
“Did you forget what I’m called?”
“…Still, you don’t really seem like the rumors.”
Having returned to the bath, Diark looked at me with puzzled eyes.
As a noble himself, he must have heard my reputation in detail.
But my behavior at the academy had been far removed from those stories.
“Rumors can be spread intentionally too, you know.”
Werner tossed out the remark from the side.
It carried a lot of implication.
Diark wasn’t an idiot, so he seemed to understand the gist, and our conversation soon shifted to other topics.
After finishing our bath, Diark said he was tired and immediately threw himself onto his bed.
The women were still bathing, and while I was feeling bored, Werner approached me, swirling a bottle of wine he’d somehow gotten his hands on.
“How about a drink?”