Chapter 49

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 49

Chapter Title: Huh? Thigh?

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"Huh? Thigh?"

"D-did I grope you!?"

I couldn't help but blurt out in a shrill voice.

What on earth had he made of my desperate plea for help?

"Didn't you grope me? Like you were toying with some random man."

"What? No!"

"It was anything but innocent. You even got bolder, sliding deeper inward."

"I-I didn't know."

"You didn't know?"

His green eyes brimmed with unmistakable disbelief.

"And yet the person who 'didn't know' kept touching me with those increasingly clingy hands..."

"S-stop!"

If he kept going, the things I'd have to explain would spiral out of control, so I cut him off first.

Clutching at my soul that was trying to flee, I stammered an excuse.

"It was a cry for help. I had no choice but to..."

Sigh.

Recalling last night's events again drained the strength from my body.

I'd thought I absolutely had to tell the Duke about it, but wasn't it a stroke of luck that we'd ended up alone like this?

"Actually."

I took a short breath and glanced around.

Then, lowering my voice, I whispered right into the Duke's ear.

"I met the Crown Prince yesterday."

"...What?"

Everything stopped.

The Duke's movements froze solid.

I sneaked peeks at his expression as I elaborated at length.

"I was so flustered too. I couldn't sleep... I thought I'd take a short walk, but who could've guessed I'd run into His Highness the Crown Prince of all people."

"Where did you run into him?"

"In the gardens. Not far from the palace we're staying in right now."

"That's a place Raiden Kletan frequented even as a child."

Oh no. Damn it.

I'd walked right into the tiger's den on my own two feet.

As I smoothed out my involuntarily furrowed brow, his voice came again.

"Did you talk alone?"

"Well..."

I wasn't sure where to even start in detail.

After quickly summing up the situation, I spilled the most important part first.

"We talked about the weather."

My follow-up explanation was basically a play-by-play of yesterday.

I'd mentioned it might rain, so we talked weather, and when the Crown Prince asked follow-ups, I'd answered diligently.

"Hmm."

But as he listened, the Duke's face grew stiffer and stiffer.

The anxiety churning in my chest deepened in tandem.

In the end, I spat out the words that had been circling in my mouth.

"That was an interview, right?"

"...An interview?"

His question carried a hint of absurdity, but it wasn't a denial, so I let my dismay show plainly.

"It felt like an interview. He kept asking all these pointless questions... What if His Highness decides to plant me like a stake in the Kletan imperial palace?"

Part of me wondered if I was being overly self-conscious.

But having analyzed the Crown Prince's— that lunatic's— personality in detail while reading the original story, I couldn't ignore the mounting unease.

He'd just bombarded me with questions, which meant he was that interested!

'I don't want to leave this place I've finally gotten used to.'

Leave the cozy, comfortable Brail ducal residence—no, my room?

I'd already (in my mind) picked out a house to live in right in the heart of the duchy. That was no future I wanted.

'And the imperial palace isn't my vibe at alllll.'

My homebody genes, etched deep into my bones, instinctively rejected unfamiliar spaces.

Crowded places even more so.

As my imagination ran wild uncontrollably, that's when it happened.

"Haa..."

This time, the Duke let out a deep sigh.

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked up at him. His face seemed much more relaxed now.

After a brief pause, he rubbed his temple out of habit and spoke.

"First off, don't wander around alone needlessly from now on."

The heavy emphasis on "needlessly" wasn't just my imagination, surely.

I had plenty of guilty spots, so I nodded obediently.

And his next words were...

"Even if the Crown Prince really was interviewing you, it doesn't matter right now. You're bound to me by contract anyway."

"C-contract?"

Those words jogged a memory.

"Before that, Princess. Shall we settle our overdue accounts?"

"Overdue accounts...?"

"You know how expensive items from high noble houses are. If we billed you for everything, it'd be at least ten million tri per month—not counting the artists' fees, which would push it to around eighty million tri."

Ah, so that's what he meant by contract...

"Boarding fees?"

"Didn't you check the contract clauses? It says you have to stay in the Brail Duchy until you've paid off all your debts."

"R-right, yeah."

I'd been too frazzled back then to read it properly, but there it was.

'So, in the end, it's a good thing?'

It felt like I was getting the short end of the stick somehow, but his words sounded awfully convincing to my muddled ears.

As I nodded inwardly, he smoothly changed the subject.

"Anyway, good to know you didn't eat something bad."

"Ah, yeah."

"...But what were you thinking about so deeply?"

He'd stepped back from me a bit as he asked.

"Oh."

Only then did I remember my original goal, and I opened my mouth.

I'd meant to hurry back to my room and ask Bonita about minerals suitable for the tumbler material.

But thinking about it...

'The Duke would know this best, wouldn't he?'

The realization hit me like lightning.

It almost felt like fate had dragged me straight to him without a chance to resist.

I hadn't had a good moment to talk to the Duke face-to-face since arriving at the palace, so I seized the opportunity.

"Oh, right—the thing about making that item I discussed with Her Majesty the Empress yesterday."

"...Business talk?"

I nodded as if to say, Obviously.

Ever since meeting the Empress, my head had been full of merch ideas.

"What I have in mind is something called a tumbler—a kind of cup. So..."

I briefly explained the concept of merch and tumbler functions as I knew them.

The Duke started off looking a bit skeptical but soon leaned in with clear interest.

Probably because a cup that kept its contents at a steady temperature was so novel.

Before long, he'd pushed the Raiden Kletan issue aside and listened intently, then gave a clear answer.

"Don't you already know the perfect material for that, Princess?"

"Me? What?"

I blinked in total shock, and he shook his head with a wry smile, elaborating.

"Yes. You even used it to smash the Magic Tower's core."

The Magic Tower's core?

For a moment, I couldn't contain my beaming smile and cupped my cheeks with both hands.

Right—Partanium!

I remembered reading about it in a book on Partanium in the ducal library.

Partanium resisted not just magic but also temperature and corrosion. Which meant it required extremely tricky processing.

Tricky processing meant enormous costs.

But that wasn't a problem for me now. Why?

'My sponsor is the Empress of Kletan!'

Remembering there was a Partanium mine in Magic Tower territory, I cheered inwardly.

With two wish coupons left from earning the title "Ear of the Magic Tower," getting their cooperation was basically a done deal.

After quick calculations, I strode up to him and grabbed both his hands.

"Thank you so much!"

"Thank you for what?"

"For everything today!"

I curved my eyes into crescents and gave him my heartfelt thanks.

For standing up to the Crown Prince on my behalf (?) and providing that crucial hint for the tumbler.

If that wasn't help, what was?

With that thought, I shook his hands up and down a couple times, then spun around and dashed off.

"I'll head in first! See you at dinner later!"

'Hm?'

Why were the Duke's eyes on his own thigh?

Eh, he must think I'm thanking him even for that thigh thing. Haha.

Captured by tumbler thoughts, I brushed off the stray notion and quickened my pace.