WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 96: Will You Be My Partner?
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“For a martial artist as well-trained as me, physical aging naturally slows down.”
“Hm? What do you mean by that? I only asked how old you were.”
Alicia tilted her head with the most innocent expression in the world, and Adeline stared at her.
Three seconds later.
Thwack!
“Agh?!”
Alicia cried out, clutching her forehead.
Adeline had just committed an act of insubordination.
“Ah, my mistake.”
“...”
“My hand slipped, Your Highness.”
Was this really okay?
Could Adeline really smack a princess on the head like that?
“Urgh... You still hit as hard as ever. I thought being an instructor had mellowed you out these days...”
“If Your Highness hadn't provoked me first, you wouldn't have been hit.”
Still, something about the atmosphere was strange.
The two of them seemed far too comfortable around each other.
As if they'd known each other for a long time.
‘Come to think of it... can Alicia act like that around Adeline?’
I could roughly guess why Alicia had come looking for me.
She was the heroine whose Affection Level reached MAX after Cecilia's.
She probably genuinely wanted to attend the victory banquet with me.
But I alone remembered what she'd said during the battle against Necreddin.
‘You could become my weakness, or I could become yours.’
Would someone who'd been so cautious have any reason to behave this openly in front of Adeline?
Once that thought crossed my mind, my brow furrowed.
“...What are you doing right now?”
“What do you mean? Isn't it obvious?”
Alicia quickly put on her familiar smile.
“I'm teasing you.”
Fuck.
When I glared at Adeline, she was shaking with suppressed laughter too.
Of course. I'd wondered why she was in such a hurry.
It seemed Adeline had sensed Alicia approaching from a distance, and the two of them had set this whole thing up to tease me.
“Adeline and I have known each other for a very long time.”
“Didn't I tell you? I had a difficult time after attending a banquet alone. One of the people who gave me a hard time was Princess Alicia.”
“Gave you a hard time? I only prepared a buffet, yet she suddenly drove her fist into my head. She hit hard even then.”
Apparently, this wasn't even the first time Alicia had been hit.
According to Alicia, after the Prince claimed Kylien as one of his close aides, she felt she needed a sword of her own as well.
At just that time, she noticed Adeline, who was rapidly gaining a reputation, and put some effort into recruiting her.
That effort being...
“A buffet?”
Adeline sounded utterly dumbfounded.
“You lined up twenty scantily clad men and said, ‘If you become mine, I'll let you pick and eat whichever man you want.’... You call that a buffet?”
“...H-how could you say that?! B-bring me a blanket!”
“An eight-year-old child was doing something like that. I thought I had no choice but to hit her.”
She deserved it.
Anyway, after that incident, Adeline became sick of banquets and declared herself neutral, while Alicia settled for Kaizel and made him her sword instead.
Then I came next.
Apparently, the two had continued to keep in touch from time to time after that.
“Haah... So it was all a joke.”
A hollow sigh escaped me, but Alicia soon continued with a serious expression.
“What I said about formalwear was sincere.”
“What?”
“I truly want to take you as my partner to this banquet.”
She held out her hand to me.
“Will you allow it?”
“Your Highness.”
Adeline interrupted her.
The amusement had vanished from her eyes as well.
“You aren't unaware that, at a time like this, Your Highness and this child becoming partners could harm both sides, are you?”
“You still see me as an eight-year-old child who only set up buffets.”
“Is that why you nearly let His Highness the Prince take Halibal from you?”
The Prince hadn't sent Kylien to target Alicia, Aren, or Mine in the first place.
Rather than those three, whose respective factions were already firmly established, he'd wanted to draw in someone like me, who had no backing at all.
It looked like an incidental measure on the surface, but in reality, it had been aimed at me alone.
All three of them had met the Prince and Kylien and returned safely.
Thanks to Regnar, I'd barely escaped that situation. And now I was supposed to attend a banquet with Alicia?
That would be no different from openly declaring war on the Prince.
The faction supporting the Prince was still larger, so it would mean making all of them my enemies.
But...
“I won't let him be taken from me. No matter what happens.”
“Your confidence is impressive. How can you be so certain?”
“Because I've decided it will be so.”
Alicia looked straight at me as she spoke.
“You think a political connection will be a problem? I'll make sure it isn't. If others laugh at you, I'll shut their mouths.”
“Isn't that a little excessive? It's only one banquet. Partners changing at a banquet is common enough.”
“You may not know it, but I am more sincere about Halibal than anyone else right now.”
Her hand remained outstretched before me.
Adeline looked at her for a moment before finally shaking her head with a sigh.
“She says that. What will you do?”
Then she held out her hand to me as well.
“In the end, the choice is yours. Which hand will you take as you step onto the stage?”
Two hands were held out side by side before me.
Then something I'd forgotten came to mind.
I'd been so flustered by the sudden bombshell of needing a victory banquet partner that I'd forgotten.
Where would I be now if I'd been taken to the Prince without Regnar's help?
The Prince would probably have done whatever it took to make me join his side.
If that had happened, I might not have been here now.
And I remembered the person who'd defused that worst-case scenario.
“I'm sorry.”
“Look at this kid.”
Adeline laughed as if I were ridiculous.
“The two most sought-after women in the Empire are both holding out their hands and asking you to be their partner, and your answer is ‘I'm sorry’? I never taught you that.”
“I'm deeply honored, but...”
I looked between the two of them.
“Thanks to both of you, I remembered something I'd forgotten.”
“Do you mean Duke Ren?”
“What did that monster of an old man say? He didn't say you absolutely had to marry his daughter, did he?”
“Nothing like that... But now that I think about it, there's someone I should ask about this banquet first.”
The face that came to mind was hers, still lying in a hospital room.
Cecilia.
After returning to Nevil, I'd visited her first to thank her and talk about the dungeon.
Cecilia told me it was only what she should have done and that I had no need to thank her.
Even as she said that, I couldn't forget the quiet smile on her face, unable to move her arm as she pleased.
“If it's Cecilia Ren, her arm still shouldn't be fully healed.”
As Alicia pointed out, someone with that kind of injury normally couldn't attend a banquet.
Alicia must have known that, which was why she'd come to ask me to be her partner without hesitation.
The problem was that, perhaps because of that, even I hadn't considered asking Cecilia to be my partner.
“Even so, I need to ask her. Could I decide after asking whether she plans to attend?”
At those words, both their expressions darkened.
“If Cecilia says it'd be difficult for her to attend the banquet...”
“Then you're saying you'll choose either me or Adeline.”
“So we're your backups.”
I knew how absurd that sounded.
If I put myself in their shoes, it was like asking someone I liked out on a date, only for them to say, ‘I'll ask another woman first, and if she can't go, I'll go with you.’
Even so, this was probably the right thing to do.
For both Regnar and Cecilia.
As a chilly silence settled over the room, I waited for their response.
Part of me feared the iron fist that had hit Alicia would land in my solar plexus.
Alicia chuckled, and the heavy atmosphere vanished as if it had never existed.
“Then do that.”
“...What?”
“The young lady of the Ren House, which officially claims neutrality. And there is also that rumor.”
She covered her mouth with her fan and smiled.
“It is a wise choice, Halibal.”
Then she tilted her head slightly and added playfully.
“Of course, I can't help being a little disappointed.”
Only then could I think again about what Affection Level 5 meant.
A high Affection Level didn't necessarily mean someone would act only on their emotions.
“I'd forgotten that I haven't had as many opportunities to spend time with you as she has.”
“Well, then that's settled.”
Adeline shrugged in agreement.
“Go ask Cecilia for an answer first. If she can't attend the banquet...”
She grinned and lightly patted my shoulder.
“Then you'll go with me. Got it?”
“...”
“Separate from that, I'll have your formalwear made.”
“No, that's all right. You don't have to go that far...”
“It doesn't matter who your partner ends up being. My disciple is attending an Imperial banquet for the first time in his life, so it's only right for his teacher to get him a proper set of formalwear. This much is fine, isn't it?”
I looked between the two of them.
I was sincerely grateful to them for neatly sorting out what could have become a complicated situation.
“Thank you, Big Sis. And... Alicia.”
I rose from my seat, bowed, and left the instructor's office.
As I walked down the corridor, only one thought remained in my mind.
‘I should go to the hospital.’
Talking things out really did help.
⁎⁎⁎
Halibal disappeared, and the door to the instructor's office closed.
“Now that he's said that, what will you do?”
“...Hoo.”
Alicia finally cast aside her mask.
The mask of a considerate woman she'd shown Halibal moments ago.
“I can see you’re struggling to hide your expression, Your Highness. It seems you’re quite shocked.”
“Be quiet.”
Alicia walked to the window.
The setting sun filtered through the curtains, tinting her eyes red.
‘Cecilia Ren...’
Even as a princess, she couldn't know every detail of every House.
She had frequently interacted with the Ren House since childhood and had become close enough to Senia to call her a friend.
In that situation, Cecilia had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
Her talent hadn't even matched Senia's, so Alicia hadn't paid her much attention. Senia was destined to become the next head of the Ren House anyway.
Yet the one person Alicia hadn't guarded against had become an obstacle.
The Red Scales of the Empire.
That was what people called Alicia.
A woman who weighed everything.
A woman who skillfully handled people's hearts to obtain what she wanted.
A woman who captivated countless people, but gave her heart to no one.
Yet Alicia herself had never been in a romantic relationship.
Even the buffet incident when she was eight had only been her clumsy imitation of seduction from a book.
Every relationship she'd formed afterward had been nothing more than an act performed according to a carefully calculated script.
She'd learned how to win people's hearts, but never how to give her own away.
And then, just now, the person she'd decided to offer her sincerity to for the first time had said:
‘I’ll ask another woman first.’
At that moment, Alicia felt something for the first time.
An unfamiliar, unpleasant emotion that seemed to twist her stomach.
‘...Is this what defeat feels like?’
Alicia clenched the fan in her hand as if she would break it.
⁎⁎⁎
Rough breathing leaked through the crack in the door.
When I looked inside, Cecilia was swinging her sword as part of her rehabilitation training.
Sweat formed on her forehead every time she raised her arm, and lingering pain was plain on her face as she clenched her teeth and endured it.
We'd known each other for quite a while, but this was the first time I'd directly seen her train alone.
She probably hadn't wanted to show me.
After the sound of her breathing stopped and a brief silence passed, I knocked.
“Come in.”
When I entered the hospital room, Cecilia, who had been sitting on the bed, looked at me and broke into a wide smile.
“I knew you'd come.”
“How are you feeling?”
“As you can see, there isn't any major problem. Senia and Aren come by sometimes to help me too. I think I'll be able to leave the hospital soon.”
She casually waved her arm.
On the table beside her was a plate holding a few slices of freshly peeled apple.
After a brief exchange of greetings, I got to the point.
“Did you hear that the Imperial Family is holding a victory banquet?”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Cecilia's expression quickly darkened.
“I don't think I can go in my current condition. I'm not completely healed yet, and they said moving around too much could make it worse.”
Her eyes turned to her shoulder.
“So don't worry about me. Go with someone else.”
The moment I heard that, I honestly felt relieved.
She'd said it herself, so I thought I could contact Adeline or Alicia now.
Was that it, then?
‘...No.’
I remembered the expression she'd worn just now.
It wasn't the face of someone who truly meant it.
And strangely enough, it wasn't the answer I wanted to hear, either.
I stepped closer to her.
“Cecilia.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really need your arm at the banquet?”
“Well, there’s the escort, dancing, eating...”
“I can help you with that.”
“...What?”
Cecilia's eyes widened.
I carefully took her uninjured hand in mine.
“I can escort you, and I can lead when we dance. As for eating... well, I'll feed you.”
“...”
“You know, the Imperial victory banquet. It feels like too much for me to attend alone. So I'd like someone who knows etiquette better than I do to be there and help me.”
Suddenly, I remembered the day Cecilia and I first became Follower partners.
This time, I returned the gesture Cecilia had once made, holding out my hand to her.
“Cecilia. Will you be my partner?”
Footnotes:
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