Chapter 11

Episode 11: The Robed Woman <3>

…In a town slightly away from the center of the royal capital, there was a very irritated maid.

She had come to the town’s acupressure shop with her employer, at the employer’s insistence.

Being a maid, she had initially refused, saying, “Receiving an acupressure massage would interfere with my duties,” but her employer was so persistent about getting a massage together that she eventually gave in and got one herself.

That was her big mistake.

Her employer had never intended to get an acupressure massage in the first place.

While the maid was lying face down for a long acupressure massage, the employer’s real goal was to sneak out of the acupressure shop and wander around the town.

By the time the maid realized this, it was already too late.

When the maid finished her 45-minute acupressure massage and sat up from her face-down position, the employer, who should have been receiving treatment on the next bed, was completely gone.

“That damn idiot girl, aaaaaaaaaah!!”

The maid rushed out of the acupressure shop and searched the town for her employer. If her employer was in danger because she had been getting a massage, her head would roll.

And that doesn’t mean she would be fired from her position as a maid. It literally means her head would separate from her body and fly through the air.

The maid desperately searched for her employer.

She went back and forth through the market with its street stalls, thoroughly checking places her employer might be interested in.

But no matter how much she searched, she couldn’t find her employer.

“(Damn it!! This is bad, really bad!!)”

“(Maybe she went further than the market?)” “(If so, where?)” “(If that idiot is in danger…!!)”

In her anxiety and intense tension, thoughts swirled around in her head.

“Tch!! That stupid girl!! Where on earth…!!”

In the middle of the bustling market street, the maid vented her frustration without caring about the people around her.

…Just then, someone called out to her.

“Who are you calling a stupid girl? Hey, over here.”

When the maid turned toward the voice, there stood a woman in a robe with the hood pulled so deep it hid her eyes.

“My lady!!”

The robed woman who had called out to the maid was none other than the employer she had been desperately searching for.

“I’m really going to beat you up…”

“I was so worried!! Where have you been!?”

“Where else? Exploring the town, of course.”

The girl said this without a hint of guilt as the maid pressed her.

“Exploring the town… exploring!? What if something dangerous had happened!?”

“Something dangerous did happen.”

“It did!?”

The maid’s eyes widened at the girl’s outrageous statement.

“Yes. But some strange person helped me, so you can relax.”

“I can’t relax even if a strange person helped you!!”

“My, what rude language. If it weren’t for him, you’d be in big trouble. You should be grateful to him.”

“Well… I guess that’s true…”

“(Then maybe you shouldn’t call your savior a ‘strange person’…)” But she would never say that out loud. She knew full well that such logic wouldn’t work on this girl.

“See? Fufun,” the girl said smugly, satisfied with having talked the maid down.

The girl, who had left the maid on her own and gone out into the town, now acted all high and mighty.

…But this tyranny was allowed because the girl was indeed in a very high position.

The girl’s name was Luna Lindeza Gilbert. She was the third princess of the Gilbert Kingdom, Luna Lindeza Gilbert herself.

A princess with vibrant pink hair, constantly praised by dignitaries from around the world as a peerless beauty.

But in reality, she was a tomboyish princess who, fed up with the stifling life in the palace, dragged her maid out to wander the town and observe the lives of commoners.

“Come on, let’s hurry back, Irene.”

“…Understood, my lady.”

The maid, called Irene, followed Princess Luna as she quickly started walking back to the palace.

“Honestly, because Irene wasn’t properly by my side, I got into quite a mess today.”

“You’re the one who snuck out of the acupressure shop and left me behind!!”

“I don’t know anything about that. Irene, you’re such a failure.”

“Haah… Yes, I’m a failure. I deeply apologize.”

Irene responded in a completely emotionless, robotic tone. She knew better than to take the princess’s words seriously.

“Well, I’ll forgive you this time. Make sure to do better next time.”

“Yes, understood. I am grateful for your generous heart, my lady.”

Irene replied in a flat tone. However, as a maid, she had indeed taken her eyes off her employer, so she reflected on that and vowed, “I’ll never take my eyes off this woman again.”

“As long as you understand, fufun.”

“…?”

Irene felt a sense of unease at Princess Luna’s satisfied smile.

Normally, this unreasonable scolding would continue endlessly until they reached the palace, but today it ended surprisingly quickly.

“…My lady, you seem to be in an unusually good mood today?”

“…N-no, not really.”

Luna turned away and responded after a long pause to Irene’s question.

“…?”

Irene found this reaction quite different from usual but quickly brushed it off, thinking, “(Well, this airheaded princess’s moods are always like this.)”

…And back at the magic academy in the western part of the kingdom, far from the royal capital they had left, a man named Shion Kurosaki had no idea that he had just saved a princess of a nation.

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