The first Princess and Sweet disasterI told the Demon Lord to give the Royal Crest back to the Princess before she left, so that it could become our reward if our plan was to succeed.
In exchange, the Princess had to pay us the insignificant fee of ten gold coins.
I could pay three months of maintenance for my guild with them, but that’s fine.
Money makes the world go round.
Three days went by.
Manarina challenged to duel the Prince of Vinceburg and I had already received reports about her victory.
How did she win?
Thanks to my help, of course, but it"s not like she knows that.
I didn’t want to disclose my secret even when she would come again to give us the reward.
The truth is that I have absolute confidence in this method, because I used it countless times before defeating the Demon Lord.
Support Magic.
I can infuse food with it, so that no one would notice anything, and just by eating it, one"s abilities would increase exponentially.
The Princess’s score rose by a thousand points after she drank the enchanted milk.
The k.u.mis enhanced her physical abilities and the millennial peach granted her magical resistance. The gap between her score and Prince of Vinceburg’s was now reversed and Manarina had easily defeated him with a single strike.
I made sure that some of my guild"s members witnessed the battle. Manarina had her brown hair tied and she wore a snow-colored, light armor and a focused expression.
As the Prince of Vinceburg was bragging, she disarmed him of his saber with just one slash. The scene left the King and the aristocrats flabbergasted.
Everything worked out perfectly, but doing things in such a way was risky.
If the Princess overestimated her own power, things could become troublesome.
But I guessed she didn’t get any chance to fight anyone else, and even if she did, she might have won with enough training anyway.
If we manage to win her trust, she might come here again if she needs help for another duel.
Let’s make one thing clear, it was just a buff, I wasn’t doping anyone.
Weak adventurers searching for an extra kick even when they’re training are nothing new, and many already came knocking at my door for that miraculous drink.
The self-proclaimed lady-in-waiting still hadn’t shown up, but sneaking out the royal castle without anyone noticing shouldn’t be an easy task.
Maybe I could see her again in a matter of days.
"d.i.c.k, why didn’t you tell her that you understood who she was?"
Aileen had just returned from a hard, but pretty profitable job we entrusted her.
She didn’t want to join my guild and neither she wanted to be known as "the martial arts master who took part in the expedition after the Demon Lord".
She wanted to be a free spirit.
Sometimes I ask her if she is interested in accepting a job, since the payment is pretty good and it was up to the guild to pay for the taxes.
When she turned seventeen, her nickname changed from "Boing boing" to "Boom boom", and even though her muscle-head behavior was still the same, finding out that she could make her own drinks and was pretty good at cooking was a pleasant surprise.
That’s why she helped me in the kitchen sometimes, but every time she always left from the back door. She didn’t like to stand out, exactly like a certain someone.
Although I was a jack of all trades, my cooking was fairly good, so when the guild’s cook wasn’t around, we were the only ones in the kitchen at night.
It’s not like I drink all the day throughout the year, you know.
"Because her efforts to conceal it would have been wasted, otherwise."
"Ah, I see. Anyway, it’s rumored that the Count of Vinceburg was so shocked, that he didn’t get up from bed the day after. What will happen to him?"
"He is a prince, not a count. He wanted to get married as soon as possible, so it seems that his lovers alienated him. Among them were other aristocrats’ daughters, so this caused some problems in the high offices. It"s pretty harsh, but he deserves it."
The Demon Lord was on her break since the guild was closed, but she helped me of her own free will. She was especially good at peeling root vegetables.
Aileen challenged her to see who was the best at it, so I indulged myself in the few things left to do.
Cody was still in a difficult situation, given the relationships between n.o.bles and knights, but Manarina talked to her father, and she managed to grant our condition. The n.o.bles’ requests to knights decreased sharply and the guilds finally started to receive more jobs.
This was a real blessing for me.
The next time Cody dropped by to drink, I wanted to hear his thoughts about it.
I would keep him drinking even after he was already drunk. I wanted to see him feeling good, for once.
"Anyway, rumors say that Manarina is a real beauty. But now that she reached adulthood, wouldn’t she receive more marriage proposals?"
"She would never accept them. She was struck by my Master’s charm."
"What are you saying… I just kept drinking in the background. She must have already forgotten about me. Also, she always called herself a lady-in-waiting when she was here."
As I was saying that, the moment she took off her hood came back to my mind.
I would never forget about her wonderful face.
But I already felt something like that five years before.
It was when I first met Mylarka.
Until she told me "You"re only accompanying us. You"re nothing special", I was intrigued by my teammates and was really happy that we were going to have an adventure together.
She was interested only in Annihilation Magic and cute, little animals, but she didn’t show that side of her to men. She was beautiful, and right after we finished our journey, she received countless recruitment requests.
But no one could break through her armor.
"You won’t interest me even in a million years", she always replied, and severed ties right away.
She was probably still alone.
Sometimes, Mylarka would drop by to complain about something, but a year before Manarina’s duel, she misunderstood my relationship with Aileen and stopped visiting. If she had insulted me, it would have been fine. Melancholy tightened my heart.
"By the way, didn’t the Princess attend the same school as…?"
"Mh? What was that, Aileen?"
"Hahaha, nothing, really. Maybe I’m wrong, but you might find out soon enough."
"What are you talking about? C’mon, I’m curious. Otherwise, I can’t focus on anything else."
"Grrr, I knew that demon was skilled at playing with my Master’s heart… I should learn from her…"
Aileen’s words picked my interest, but even though I kept asking her what was that about, she never gave me a proper answer.
Then, as we were still cooking, the doorbell rang.
"A customer? At this hour?"
"I can’t go. Demon Lord, you go, please."
She started walking, and both me and Aileen froze, making sure to not make any noise.
Two girls stepped in the shop wearing a long overcoat. One of them was Princess Manarina, while the other one was…
"We are not open yet, but how can I help you?"
"I want to talk with your Guild Master… d.i.c.k Silver, show yourself! Hiding is pointless!"
After a year, she was still the same.
She wasn’t gentle with me, but her voice echoed in my ears like the soft sound of bells in the summer breeze.
She took off her hood, freeing her long, blond hair.
Even without confirming it by seeing the earrings that restricted her powers, I knew who she was.
Mylarka Iris.
The beautiful and strong-willed young girl with incredible intelligence, who became a teacher at the Magic academy at the tender age of fourteen, and was known by the alias "Sweet disaster" due to some frightening experiments regarding Annihilation Magic.
No, she didn’t look like a young girl anymore… she was a beautiful girl.
Rumors said every guy in the school fell head over heels for her, but since until now she turned them all down already. Even if she acted cool with her arms crossed and her intimidating aura, being here meant that she overcame a certain complex.
Why was she looking for me together with the Princess?
I tried to fantasize on the answer, but the fire that burned in her eyes looked quite unfriendly.