Chapter – 09
As soon as the casual conversation continued, the atmosphere quickly grew calm.
Leonard, who had somehow become shameless again, smiled faintly and said,
“Princess, what do you plan to make with the mana stone I gave you? If you want, I can recommend a decent mage.”
Ah, he’s talking about the . Now that she thought about it, she had received a scam-level item but hadn’t even considered using it.
“I’m fine. I already know quite a lot of people.”
She flatly refused, and while mentally thinking about the mages who had become her slaves… no, friends, as she changed the original story.
Mages were generally like researchers, the kind of beings who were happy as long as they were given money for research.
She generously lent them money and, in return, asked for a very small, modest 300% interest rate, and thus made them her friends.
“That mana stone is high-grade, so it’s difficult to craft. And it has dark attribute properties, so it carries risk.”
Prince Leonard continued speaking, as if he had not expected her to refuse.
“Then it’s even more impossible to leave it to Your Highness. I do have some acquaintances—no, I mean reliable mages, so it’s fine.”
“You even know dark attribute mages?”
“Well… I ended up knowing them somehow.”
“In Singkester, mages are extremely rare. May I ask how you came to know them?”
“No. You may not.”
She couldn’t exactly say she met them while disrupting the original story.
She refused again decisively, but feeling it was too rude, she added,
“They’re my acquaintances… no, my cherished friends.”
“I see.”
“You’re not offended because I refused, are you?”
“Of course not.”
He looked offended.
His face was smiling, but the atmosphere had already grown slightly cold.
To get upset over being refused twice…
She added a new note to her mental “handsome men dictionary” entry on Prince Leonard: directionally challenged, somewhat cute, but narrow-minded.
Still, as a princess, she couldn’t just let the atmosphere remain so dull.
She clapped her hands and smiled brightly.
“Now that I think about it, Your Highness, I heard you’re known in Blake as a genius swordsman. Is that true?”
“…It’s not anything that impressive.”
“But the rumor has spread all the way to Singkester! Isn’t that already amazing?”
“……”
At her words, he kept drinking tea repeatedly. His gaze was fixed somewhere beyond her shoulder into the bushes, clearly embarrassed.
“I also heard you’re called the Flame Mage. Being skilled in both sword and magic is impressive. Could you show me some magic?”
It was her second compliment, so she expected him to become even more embarrassed.
But instead, Leonard’s face stiffened.
As he placed his teacup on the table, the atmosphere turned cold again.
“I do not use magic just anywhere.”
“……”
Mages were usually arrogant beings who were eager to show off their abilities anywhere, anytime.
So she had expected him to become excited and demonstrate proudly if provoked slightly.
But that reaction was different.
Rather than feeling wronged, she was more curious why he had suddenly become serious. Maybe she had made a mistake.
While silence lingered between them—
She noticed a man approaching from afar, likely his aide.
Men from Blake all had broad chests and sculpted faces, and he also qualified for her mental handsome men list.
“Your Highness, I have something urgent to report.”
“Eric. Can’t you see I’m currently speaking with the princess?”
“I’m fine, Your Highness. Your aide looks like it’s urgent.”
She had learned that one should never cast shadows over a handsome man’s face. Being considerate, she slowly stood up.
Leonard immediately stood up as well.
“Princess, isn’t this rather rude?”
“Then later, you and that Eric person and I can do a two-on-one—”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.”
At Abigail’s sharp gaze from the side, she quickly opened her fan.
Right. As a princess attending a birthday banquet, she did need to maintain some dignity.
“Then we shall meet again later.”
During the tea time, the prince and the aide named Eric quickly left, and Abigail took their place.
Abigail began, in a graceful yet elegant tone, nagging her yet again to fix her habit of judging people solely by appearance.
“But Abigail, out of the twenty gentlemen I danced with yesterday, eighteen of them had completely unfair faces.”
“Unfair? What do you mean by that?”
“It’s like… just sad-looking. Faces that make me want to cry.”
“And the other two?”
“They were smiling faces. Faces that make me want to smile.”
Abigail looked horrified.
She sighed deeply and lowered her head.
“Two out of twenty… a 10% handsome-man discovery rate. At this rate, can I even find handsome men while traveling the world?”
At that moment—
Something like a piece of paper appeared in her lowered field of vision.
“Oh my, it looks like that Eric person dropped this earlier.”
Thinking she might get another chance to return it, she smiled—just as Abigail sharply reached out both hands.
“Please give it to me. I will have a servant return it to them.”
“Abigail, this looks like an important document. Wouldn’t it be better if I keep it and return it personally? Look—it’s tied with a high-quality string.”
As she brushed her finger along the string—
ZAP!
A spark of electricity burst out. At the same time, she felt a strong static shock and dropped the paper.
“What—what was that?”
On the dried paper, a red magic circle briefly appeared before disappearing.
“Princess… isn’t this magic?”
Abigail looked at her in shock.
Fortunately, she recognized that magic circle.
It was a tracking spell that recorded whoever touched it and a protective spell that prevented it from being undone.
Such magic was usually placed only on confidential documents. Why would a man named Eric be carrying one?
Since only she and Abigail seemed to have witnessed it, she quickly warned her,
“Abigail, don’t tell anyone about this. I think I’ll have to inform my brother.”
She immediately headed to Erdan’s office.
However, Erdan was in a noble council meeting, and Aurora was receiving foreign dignitaries who had come to see the Saintess.
After sending a message asking them to come afterward, she went to her study, stared intently at the paper, and decided to undo the magic.
Of course, she roughly guessed it was an important document from Blake.
But first, the person who dropped it was at fault. Second, it had been enough to provoke her curiosity by effectively attacking her. Third, if it truly was an important document, then rather than risk some mysterious death while holding it…
Wasn’t it better to check the contents and record them somewhere?
Nodding at her own perfectly logical reasoning, she stared at the sealed paper, put on her magic crystal bracelet, and contacted Slave 1.
“Sara, come to my study.”
Sara is introduced in the original story as a highly skilled mage with the “dark” attribute.
When she was ten, Sara was a fifteen-year-old student at the Elysium Magic Academy.
Additionally, she was skilled at deceiving and exploiting others.
The princess valued her personality more than her magical ability and provided Sara with full anonymous support.
After that, when Sara tried to exploit her, she hired dozens of lawyers and turned the tables, effectively exploiting Sara instead and making her her slave… no, friend.
Therefore, Sara was obligated to fulfill 99.9% of her requests at any time.
The remaining 0.1% excluded things Sara simply could not do.
So far, no such magic had existed.
An hour later, a woman with short, messy citrus-colored hair suddenly appeared in her study out of thin air.
“You called, Princess?”
“Sara, how did it take you an hour to arrive? Teleportation should take less than a minute.”
At her complaint, Sara replied lazily,
“I was researching magic for ten days without washing. You wouldn’t like it if I showed up dirty, would you, Princess.”
