by CHIROLU
“Oh, my...” the woman said in surprise, and then broke out in a gentle smile once more.
“I gave my pursuers the slip, so I think it should be fine, but it’s probably best to avoid being seen by too many people.”
It seemed that something bad really had happened.
With the smile plastered on Latina’s face growing a bit stiff, she guided the Rose Princess and headed back.
Kenneth was waiting for them in front of the Ocelot, looking astounded.
“You sure came back from your errands with an unexpected souvenir...”
It was clear that Vint had carried out his duty and told Kenneth in advance.
“Did Vint head out?”
“Yeah. He never listens to anyone but you, so it’s a good thing you told him to do that.”
Kenneth apparently also thought it was the right choice to call Dale back, which affirmed Latina’s decision.
“For now, come inside. It’s empty right now.”
“I understand. This way, please...”
“Thank you.”
As the Rose Princess said that with a smile, she showed no sign of displeasure at stepping into a shop like the Dancing Ocelot, which decidedly didn’t have the atmosphere of a first-rate establishment.
She looked beautiful as she sat up straight in a hard wooden chair, but it wasn’t fitting to the image of a noble lady.
“I should tell you about myself before Sir Dale Reki returns, yes? My apologies for being so late in offering my name. I am Rose Cornelius. The house of Cornelius possesses both territory and rank in the court, but my personal position is that of a priestess of Niili, so please do not worry about formalities.” Rose said that with a smile, and it was clear that she was a friendly, gentle woman. The temple of Niili opened its doors to the folks about town, also treating the sick and injured. Rose’s approachable, affectionate nature, which was entirely unlike that of other nobles, may have been a result of having worked there.
“I’ve heard of you. You’re famed for being a priestess with an extraordinarily high level of divine protection.”
“It’s nothing so amazing. I was just born with something unusual, so I stand out, for better or worse,” she said, touching her dark-chestnut hair. It was apparently a wig. “In exchange, though, no one will recognize me as long as I hide that,” she said with a mischievous giggle.
“What business do you have with Dale...?”
“I want to entrust him with a message, since I am not acquainted with the count who is the lord of this town.”
Though Latina was a bundle of wariness, Rose didn’t show any discomfort as she responded. She was calm and composed beyond her years.
“Why Dale in particular? For starters, you’re not exactly in a position to be gallivanting about on your own.” There was wariness in Kenneth’s voice as well as he said that. Accepting that as only natural, Rose quietly responded, “I was with the Second Demon Lord just the other day.”
With those words, it wasn’t just Latina, but also Kenneth who was left unable to speak. The Second Demon Lord was infamous for being even more brutal and dangerous than the other six.
However, Rose didn’t explain any further and remained silent. And considering the circumstances, Kenneth didn’t try to draw any more information out of her. Since a demon lord was involved, it made sense to leave things up to Dale. So Kenneth put a close on the topic and asked Latina to prepare some tea.
Having been visibly shaken, it took Latina longer than she needed to finish preparing the tea, despite it being something she had done many times before and was quite accustomed to. She remained silent when she brought out the tea set before Rose and poured out a cup, an aromatic steam rising off of it. This awkward silence continued on for a while, until Dale and Vint returned together.
As soon as Dale saw Rose quietly sipping away at a cup of tea in the back of the Dancing Ocelot, he let out a hysterical “Rose...?!” That reaction was only natural, as Vint hadn’t told him the details. Vint paid Dale no mind and continued on in at his own pace, then rubbed his head up against Latina. He seemed to want to be praised.
“Thank you, Vint. Welcome back, Dale. Um, I’m still not clear on the details, but I ended up running into Lady Rose...”
“That explanation doesn’t really tell me anything...”
Latina was crouched down and petting Vint as she looked up at Dale. She tilted her head a bit.
Unsure as to act towards Dale, Rose stood up and gave him an informal bow. It was just a casual gesture, but there was a polish to it. She was dressed in dusty traveling clothes, but it was clear that she was a part of the upper echelons of society.
“It’s been a long time, Sir Dale.”
The two knew each other through the ducal Eldstedt family. When Latina and Dale were returning home from their trip and passed by her in the port town, Rose had been on her way to the duke’s estate. When Dale had gone to the capital for work afterwards, he ran into her there. He had lost a chance to tease his friend, but in exchange got to see the normally straight-faced man act terribly embarrassed in front of her.
“Right... What are you doing here?”
“Despite appearances, I am in trouble... Allow me to get straight to the point. I was kidnapped just the other day.”
It was an explosive statement.
“Huh? Bwah?!” Dale let out a strange exclamation. Latina, meanwhile, was too shocked to make a sound. Vint kept on wagging his tail, doing his own thing.
“B-By the Second Demon Lord...?” Latina whispered the name that Rose had uttered, but the woman shook her head in response.
“No. It was another group that kidnapped me, but it will be difficult to investigate who they were at this point. The Second Demon Lord killed them all.”
“How... are you alright, Lady Rose?” Latina asked, her voice stiff.
Ever since she was young, this was how she acted when the topic of the Second Demon Lord came up. To those who lived in Vassilios, the country of the First Demon Lord, the Second Demon Lord was a hated enemy who had killed their king. Dale figured that may have been why.
“A whim, it would seem. I have a mana trait... and the Second Demon Lord found that amusing.”
“And you were released after that, with nothing done to you?”
“A close aide of the Second Demon Lord let me go. I know nothing of the specifics... but it seemed that she did not have much loyalty towards her master...”
“The Second Demon Lord’s demons are ruled by fear. They’re slaves, and toys. It’s not like the First Demon Lord, who welcomed the people who helped him out as his demons and lived together with them...” Latina responded in monotone with a sigh, wearing a stiff expression.
“Latina?”
“The Second Demon Lord is scary. When she killed the First Demon Lord a long time ago, it was just because she thought it was interesting to kill someone who wouldn’t die so easily.”
“Why do you know that...?”
Latina blinked once in response to Dale’s question, and her expression returned to normal. She looked up at him and appeared just a bit sad.
“I was told it a while back, where I was born. They said the Second Demon Lord was really scary, so I had to be careful. That if I ran into her I may be killed, so I needed to make sure to hide.”
“Did your father tell you that...?”
“It wasn’t just Rag. When it came to talking about the demon lord... my mother actually told me more.”
“The person who let me go said something similar,” Rose said, then looked at Dale once more. “Because of the circumstances, I could not carelessly let my own whereabouts become publicly known. I thought of you and made it to this town, Sir Dale, but I did not know exactly where you were, so I was troubled. But then, the Fairy Princess showed up and helped me.”
“Dale...”
Hearing Rose use that nickname again, Latina glared straight at Dale. Breaking out in a bit of a cold sweat, he averted his gaze.
<
br /> Lately, when he’d shout out loudly about how cute his daughter was, Latina would react like she was annoyed. It may just be that she’d grown up, but it still made him feel somehow lonely. As a result, he’d lately been bragging about Latina when she wasn’t around, along with his usual intimidation and threats. He had absolutely no intention of restraining himself, though. He didn’t feel like mending his ways at all.
Rose had no way of knowing what Dale was thinking and kept on talking as before.
“I still do not know who was behind the people who kidnapped me, so I did not know who to turn to... so I came to you, Sir Dale.”
“R-Right. If that’s the case, then he must be worried out of his mind... Even if you send a letter right away, it’ll still take a number of days until a response comes, right? What’ll you do till then?”
“If you could recommend a place to me, then I will head there. There should be quite a few inns that serve travelers in this town, yes?”
“I’m not all that familiar with any high-class sort of places I could recommend to you...”
Dale personally only ever used the Dancing Ocelot, so he had no need to know all that much about the other inns in Kreuz.
“Oh, my. I don’t have much on me, so a cheap inn would actually be a big help. Those are the sort of places I stayed in on my way here,” Rose said, letting loose that preposterous statement with a smile.
“Rose...” Dale said with a sigh.
“Wow...” Latina said, so thrown for a loop that she was unable to hold back her usual utterance. It seemed Latina was trying to correct that childish habit lately, but despite her efforts, it still slipped out when she was shaken, so it was hard to see much change.
That’s fine. It’s cute, after all, Dale thought.
“I can’t imagine what he’d do if you did something rash...”
“Well, I was kidnapped, so I obviously did not have the money on hand. I mimicked what you adventurers do and earned some traveling expenses, but that was not steady...”
“W-Wait... Rose?! What did you do?”
“I took on jobs in the towns along the way. You know, exterminating magical beasts and then selling their remains. That is how I got the money to make it here. Is that so odd?”
“U-Um... Dale?” Latina cut in, no longer able to hold back. She was visibly perplexed. “Lady Rose is... a princess, right...?”
“Well, she’s the daughter of a noble...”
“What is it?” Rose asked with an innocent smile. From her appearance and demeanor, her nickname “princess” seemed totally fitting. But underneath that, it seemed she was rather different.
“You didn’t run into any trouble along the way?”
“Do not worry, Sir Dale. I silenced all those ruffians.”
That utterance caused nothing but worry.
“The general opinion is that magic users can’t handle close-range combat, but when you have as much excess mana as I do, you can chain together simple chants to get by.”
Dale also didn’t have to worry about his available mana when casting magic, thanks to his divine protection, so he understood what she was saying. He could also pump a great deal of mana into simple spells to raise their effectiveness, which would normally be terribly inefficient, allowing him to use their quick activation speed to bulldoze through his foes.
Even so, it felt quite unfitting to hear such a statement from a frail-looking woman.
Rose was an acquaintance of Dale’s, but it was only through his friend, so they weren’t all that close. He didn’t think she was a woman of such decisive action. It was just too much of a betrayal of her outward appearance.
I knew she was an outstanding magic user, but... he thought, along with a sigh.
“In that case, since you’re here, you should stay at the Ocelot... That’s fine, right, Kenneth?”
“I should be able to get her a room, but I can’t do anything about the customers around her.”
“It’s better than letting her go to some other inn... And if he heard I took my eyes off of her, he’d totally kill me...”
Even Dale recognized his friend’s skill. He’d prefer to avoid angering him and ending up in a quarrel.
“Do I have enough money to cover it?”
“I can at least cover that much...”
The Rose Princess with a commoner’s view on money broke out in a brilliant smile suiting her nickname.
After all of that, Rose ended up staying in a room at the Ocelot. She hardly ever left the room, likely because she understood the position she was in. When she did occasionally leave, she always wore her chestnut-colored wig.
She couldn’t use a public bathhouse thanks to the circumstances, so she instead made use of the simple bath in the rear of the Ocelot. Under Latina’s orders, Vint kept a close watch, so Rose felt safe and secure, not fearing any reprehensible men approaching.
Despite how restricted and restrained she was, Rose didn’t complain at all. However, she found putting her wig on over her wet hair unpleasant and wasn’t able to accept that. As a result, her long, brilliant, rose-pink hair was on full display as she dried it. When she did so, though, she made sure she was in a place where people wouldn’t see. Her hair stood out far too much; it was where her nickname came from, after all.
At first she’d do this in the back of the kitchen, but she soon moved instead to Dale’s room in the attic in order to teach Latina, as the woman was an excellent magic user. It seemed Rose had grown bored of spending day after day shut away in her room. As Latina took everything she was taught seriously, Rose grew more and more passionate about teaching her.
Putting it another way, though, Rose was an unexpectedly intense teacher. Up until now, Latina had only studied under more relaxed teaching methods. It was that way back when she went to school, and when Dale taught her magic, and when she learned from Master Cornelio in Tislow.
Rose, however, was harsh. She wasn’t unreasonably strict, but she demanded discipline from both herself and others when it came to wielding the great power known as magic.
Currently, Latina was sitting up straight as Rose read over the report the girl had written for the homework she assigned yesterday.
“I see. It seems you really do not have any problem when it comes to the basic theories, Latina.”
Normally Rose had a calm, gentle air about her, but when she was offering critique, the person receiving it couldn’t help but correct their posture. That was proof of just how serious Rose was when it came to teaching magic.
“Even if you are a devil, you were driven out of your village when you were still very young, yes, Latina? Your comprehension of complex words seems quite high, considering that.”
“Really? Maybe... it’s because the adults around me were very strict when it came to words...?” Latina was much less formal towards Rose than she had been at first. Latina’s friendly personality was the main reason for that, and Rose didn’t have any issue with her doing so. More than friends, they felt like sisters, with Rose gladly helping to look after Latina.
The decisive difference between Dale and Rose was that she was openly strict when she needed to be.
In summary, Latina and Rose generally got along well.
“In comparison, you do not seem to know many attack magic techniques.”
“Right. Dale said they were dangerous and I didn’t need to know them, so he didn’t teach me.”
“For people like us, who cannot match up to others in terms of physical strength, magic is an important means of self-defense. It is true that it can be dangerous if you use it wrong, but that only makes it all the more important that you have a deep understanding of it and know how to use it properly.”
The fact that Rose and Latina both shared the same affinities for Holy and Dark magic was also a big reason that Rose was such a perfect teacher for the girl, as the magic they could use was the same. Because Dale’s affinities were for Earth, Water, and Dark, he didn’t have anything but basic knowle
dge of Holy magic or Holy and Dark combination magic.
“Your specialty is mana control, so I think that increasing the number of spells you have to choose from depending on the situation may actually lower the danger.”
Latina’s mana control stood out even to a magic expert like Rose.
“Right!” responded Latina with a stern expression, looking overly serious. Perhaps thanks to her nature, though, she still looked adorable.
“Lady Rose, Purification magic is Holy magic, right?”
“That is correct. You can use Dark magic to deal with undead creatures too, but...”
“I’d be grateful if you’d teach me... I don’t think I can handle that Dark magic...”
Latina had made the request because ever since she was young, she hated undead creatures. She had bad memories of an encounter with undead monsters when she was little, which had developed into a bit of trauma.
It was Holy and Dark magic that could be used against the undead. Dale only had access to Dark magic, so his anti-undead method was to combine that with physical attacks. That meant it required getting up close and personal to undead monsters and striking them. Latina wanted to know how to deal with them because she found them frightening, so that method was just too difficult to handle.
“I think you could manage expanding the range enough to take out several at once.”
“Really?! I’ll try my best to learn it!”
Latina strived hard at the magic training in order to overcome her trauma.
Seeing Latina so happily have that magic training driven into her, Dale felt the need to ask her a question one day at dinner.
“Hey, Latina...”
“What is it?”
“You’re striving so hard to learn that magic, but... you’re not planning on becoming an adventurer in the future, right?”
He was nervous. He wouldn’t say she was a first-rate magic user just yet, but her skills were certainly above average from what he could tell. She would be plenty capable of handling being an adventurer if she wanted to, but he didn’t want her doing such a worrying, dangerous job. As a parent, that was only natural.
