Volume 2, Extra 3.3
Volume 2, Extra 3.3
Translator: Adam Seacord
Editor: Weasalopes
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“You seem to be enjoying youfself, Princess.”
“Yes, very!”
Aearis answered her elderly advisor with a brimming smile. He couldn’t help but smile in glee upon seeing her in ernest joy. Aearis was now spending her days, fulfilled. In order to improve herself, Aearis spared no effort, day-to-day when it came to appearance, knowledge, and athletic, as well as how she carried or thoughts or her posture while listening to someone talk: about character and class in general. Everyone who knew for whom her efforts were being made for considered it a waste, but it was true that this served as the driving force of Aearis’ self-improvement. So, no one dare said anything. Besides, they all understood that, as wasteful as it might be, considering the issues the object of her adoration held, that efforts of this magnitude would be required.
As a result, the still-young Princess Priestess ended up refining her appearance and gestures as if they were assimilating to her character. While working at the temple, everyone in her presence couldn’t help but naturally kneel from her aura. While she was unaware, Aearis was now, in both name and power, the icon of Farlane, the supporting pillar of the Arfemina Temple. Ofcourse, her foodie side would never change.
“Off duty, today?”
Seeing Aearis in her street clothes, a rare sight, the elderly advisor asked another formality with an obvious answer. Communication began with efforts like these, though.
“Yes. Staying locked up in my duties as a Princess Priestess can make me close-minded. That’s my excuse, anyway.”
“I can guess whose mantra that is, but at your age, Princess, don’t worry about any of that, and take your day off as it is. Go have fun. Another decade, and you won’t have the chance.”
“I understand. So I’ll go enjoy my day off like any child my age.”
Carrying on her cheery smile, Aearis produced her magical item to disguise herself in front of the advisor. All of the advisors knew that Aearis put on a magical disguise and the seudonim of Elle at every day off to go play the kids of Azuma Workshop or the kids in the temple. In the beginning, they were worried sick and followed after her or asked the artisans at the workshop a hundred questions, but Aearis (smartly) never went anywhere near any unsafe areas. Once the advisors knew that the artisans didn’t take her anywhere like that either, they decided to the princess roam as she pleased.
As for the other members of royalty, ever since their commotion with Barold was settled, they were not really worried about Aearis going out. With Alfemina’s obvious favoritism towards her, there was no way that Aearis would end up in big trouble.
“So, where to, today?”
“Both Hiroshi-sama and Haruna-sama are there. I was going to do farm work with them.”
“Ah, that explains the sporty outfit.”
“Yes.”
In a country as large Farlane, any royalty or Princess Priestess would not have been allowed, even by their advisors or nobles to perform work in the field, of all place. In this case, though, now that anyone who’d be a stickler for those things had lost power over Barold’s incident, the old slums were now one of the safest areas in Wulls. Especially Hiroshi’s party would be with her, no one could find a single aspect to object to. There was really no point when some even considered the potential romantic relationship between Hiroshi and Aearis welcoming.
“I wish you luck, Princess.”
The old advisor meaningfully said, to the girl dedicated to self-improvement for her love.
“I’m not even of child-bearing age, I may remind you. I am in no rush. It would be troublesome if things go well between us, now.”
“Is that so? If you say so, Princess, this old bone will say no more.”
“Thank you.”
With a smile, Aearis turned to leave. If this was the end of the scene, it would have been a neat little one, but the world isn’t fair. The one came to ruin the mood, was a tentacle of an octopus that stretched out of a vase, now empty, that was used to hold large bouquet of flowers in the hallway.
“Octopus pot! Octopus pot!”
“Oh?”
“There you are, Elle-chan!”
A mysterious creature came crawling out of the pot, calling out in a dazed tone. It was Octogal, of course.
“Hello, welcome.”
“Elle-chan! Elle-chan!”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Just came to see your face.”
Aearis met Octogal’s sudden appearance with her usual grace. It was actually right after Haruna’s birthday when Octogal came to the castle of Wulls. It went without saying that neither Hiroshi’s party nor Artiem knew that Octogal was in Wulls.
“Elle-chan, where are you going?”
“I’m on my way to the farm, where Hiroshi-sama is.”
“Is Hiroshi-chan there?”
“He is. I did make sure of it.”
“That’s too bad!”
Octogal was now floating up and down in disappointment, knowing that Aearis was going to join Hiroshi’s party. It had kept its presence here a secret for finding the right time to make the joke. How did Octogal get to Wulls? It had made itself as small as possible, and smuggled itself in Artiem’s bag. With one Octagal here, the other Octogals had immunity to come and go. At times, there were thirty or so of them infiltrating the castle and temple, taking the hardworking people of these places a good surprise.
IT wouldn’t have been amiss for anyone to cut it down where it crawled, but since Aearis declared them as the kin of Aranwen and treated them as guests. All the people of the castle and temple could do was ask them to knock off the pranks. It had only been ten days since the first one appeared, but no one was surprised anymore by one popping out of a pot.
“I’m sorry. I can play with you at night, though.”
“No worries.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
“We’ll play with Mark-O.”
“Charge!”
The Octagol, with its companion that appeared out of nowhere, declared so and disappeared from the scene. They didn’t seem to be impacted by the restriction on transportation spells within the castle of Wulls.
“Can I ask you to look after Mark and his people, please?”
“Yes, Princess.”
Mark, who reacted dramatically when he didn’t have to, was the perfect toy for the Octagals. At the same time, he had a few female servants that were on the prideful side, whom the Octagals eagerly harassed. While they didn’t cause enough trouble to halt work completely, Mark was having none of it.
“In any case, you never seem to be the object of Octagal’s mischief, Princess.”
While Aearis’ body had matured almost too much to believe that she hadn’t started her cycle, she was someone never sexually harassed by Octogal. As the elderly advisor wondered why…
“It’s dangerous to tease Elle-chan.”
“No go, no go!”
“It is forbidden.”
“There you go.”
The additional Octogals answered the question themselves. When it came to age, there were other children they messed with that were close to Aearis’ age, and Mio was a dangerous figure to mess with, too, but that didn’t seem to be a deciding factor. They messed with Elena and the Queen, too, so they had strange standards. There was probably something else that kept even Octogal from messing with Aearis, that had nothing to do with age or physical maturity.
“There’s Lay.”
“Charge!”
It seemed that the two that arrived later were off to mess with Layotte. Of course, unlike Mark, Layotte never stopped his work, and always treated them with enough interaction to keep them amused.
At the end of the day, the people of the castle of Wulls had completely accept this strange creature that kept whining about ‘burying the body.’
“Won’t you tell me about Hiroshi-san?”
“About Boss Man, huh…?”
Teres could only flash a mixed expression at Artiem’s ernest question. She had expected the question to come some time, but now what it was here, she didn’t really know how to answer it.
“I’m guessing you can’t ask him yourself.”
“That’s embarrassing…”
“I thought so…”