“Lucian, what did you just say?!”
“…It’s not a word you need to concern yourself with, my lady. Isn’t that right, Your Majesty? I’m sure a king such as yourself would never do something as vulgar as to sniff a young lady’s dress, wouldn’t you say?”
He was speaking so rapidly, it was almost hard to make out what he was saying.
I separated from Lucian, checked my dress to make sure it was still all right, and heard Lord Aroo let out an apologetic cry.
“Rurr…”
“I’m sorry I did something so thoughtless,” he seemed to be saying.
But he was still focused on my dress like before. He never took his eyes off of my waist.
“What’s the matter? Ah, is this what caught your interest?”
I rummaged around in the pocket at my hip. It was the white feather that had landed on our table earlier. I’d been wanting to take it to the library later and research what sort of bird it might have come from.
“Lord Aroo, do you recognize the bird that lost this feather?”
Even once he’d given it a sniff, the wolf remained silent, with a serious look on his face. Finally, after a lot of thought, he slowly shook his head.
“…You don’t have any proof that it is what you think it is?”
“Woof!”
“Basically, yes,” he was saying with a nod.
“Very well. Would you like to take this feather with you, Lord Aroo?”
Despite my suggestion, he told me it wasn’t necessary. He gave it another good sniff before stepping back and taking a seat on the ground.
That was when I noticed the Gardener Cats gathering around us. They’d stopped their farmwork to come see what Lord Aroo and I were doing.
“…I know. Why don’t we take a snack break?” I suggested. “It’s a great time for one.”
“Meow!”
“Purrrrfect idea!”
The Gardener Cats began to rejoice.
With their chorus of meows behind me, I led them to a hole that had been dug next to the fields. The hole didn’t go directly into the ground, but had instead been dug like a slope. It was giving off a faint icy chill.
“Grah!”
Wintelle used her large paws to remove the boulder covering the hole, and we instantly felt the chill get stronger.
“It looks like the special treat I made is still frozen,” I said.
At the bottom of the hole was an ice box—a simple freezer built with Wintelle’s ice.
Wild Snow Cats were said to freeze the meat of their prey to preserve it for longer. They were intelligent enough to pick the best seasons for hunting and preserve their prey in icy holes like these.
Wintelle carried those same instincts, and even preserved some of the food my villa gave her to eat. When I saw that, I knew I had to request her help in making a cold room.
But Wintelle didn’t seem pleased with a relationship where she was only fed and left to do as she pleased otherwise, as the Snow Cat was willing to use her power more proactively. This allowed me to have both the crest tool that functioned as my refrigerator, and now an additional cold room to preserve all kinds of food.
“It’s nice to have a cold room for the upcoming season!”
I chanted a quick spell to cut through the surface of the ice box. Even Wintelle’s thick ice quickly split apart into two halves. Inside were rows of metal jars filled with sherbet.
“This is for Wheat. Here’s Tomato, Shirota, and Nobunaga’s shares,” I read off the labels on each jar for Lucian to distribute to the Gardener Cats.
Wheat, Tomato, Shirota, and Nobunaga—they were all names of different Gardener Cats.
At first, I named them all after their favorite crops, but that method didn’t work as more Gardener Cats came to the villa, since some shared the same favorite crop. Those had to be given distinct names. Gardener Cats supposedly didn’t function any differently without names, but us humans needed a way to refer to them.
Gilbert, the other villa chefs, and I were the ones to name them.
I decided to borrow words from my past life so that my name choices wouldn’t overlap with the other chefs’ ideas. Shirota was a white cat, so I borrowed the Japanese word “shiro” meaning white. Nobunaga would often break out into a strange dance that reminded me of Atsumori, which is what I named him for.
I watched Nobunaga dance with joy as he claimed his sherbet. Then I called out to Lord Aroo. “Would you like some sherbet, Lord Aroo? There’s still some left. You like pears, don’t you?”
“Aroo!”
“I’d love some,” he said before approaching me.
I unscrewed the lid and placed it on a group of rocks I’d combined with a spell to serve as our table. But that was when it hit me.
Lord Aroo can’t hold a spoon like the Gardener Cats, can he?
Watching him poke at the sherbet with his nose, I decided to scoop some up and present it to him.
“Here you go, Lord Aroo. Please eat it before it melts.”
I was particularly confident that my pear sherbet was one of the best.
Packed inside the soft, sweet ice were juicy pieces of pear. Its refreshing and sweet chill was the perfect sensation now that the weather was getting warmer.
I smiled, held the spoon out for him, and suddenly…
“Whoa!”
Light shot out from Lord Aroo’s body. When it faded, he was standing there in human form.
“Your Majesty? Is it all right for you to be in your human form?” I asked.
“I’ve determined that no one else is around. Is there some problem?”
“No, it’s not a problem…”
My heart skipped a beat. My pulse started to race.
His silver wolf form was lovely, but His Majesty’s human face was incredibly intense. Underneath his sparkling, silver hair was a pair of sharp eyes—greenish-blue like a winter lake, and mesmerizing enough to draw you into them. His handsome nose and jawline were made with perfect lines, as if he’d been sculpted out of ice by a master artist. He was masculine, yet elegant. His looks were something pure, without a single flaw to speak of.
It was only natural that my face would flush, suddenly staring back at the king’s beauty without any warning.
“Give me that. I can eat on my own,” he said.
“Ah…!”
He snatched the spoon from my grasp.
With an emotionless look on his face, King Glenreed brought the sherbet up to his lips.