Three days had passed since Princess Lysonna’s wedding ended in perfect success.
With the ceremony concluded, the purpose of our visit to the Seahealby Kingdom was technically fulfilled. There was, strictly speaking, no longer any reason for us to remain here.
Ordinarily, Bertia and I could have departed at any time. However, the Seahealby royal family had insisted on holding a post-wedding celebration—a “thank you party,” they called it—in recognition of Bertia’s help in the preparations and ceremony. We’d agreed, thus extending our stay a little longer.
Of course, when they said a “thank you party,” what they really meant was “an opportunity.”
An opportunity to strengthen ties between Seahealby’s nobility and the royal couple of the great nation of Alphasta. It was the kind of subtle diplomacy one expected at times like these.
Therefore, the guest list this time was restricted to Seahealby’s domestic aristocracy. The foreign dignitaries who had attended the wedding were, for the most part, excluded from the invitations. As a result, most of them had already begun preparing to return home. Some had even departed already.
Still, as with everything in life, there were exceptions.
Certain individuals with strong ties to Seahealby’s inner circles secured a place at the event despite the official restrictions.
Take Princess Bistona, for instance.
Her purpose was clear enough: to find herself a future husband. And since she was also the younger sister of Princess Lysonna, the bride of the recent royal wedding, the Seahealby court could hardly refuse her participation outright. They allowed her in with a polite, if weary, smile.
Her so-called guardian, Crown Prince Nishikaru, on the other hand, was said to be suffering daily from anxiety and indigestion, dreading whatever chaos she might stir up next.
Poor man. Truly.
That said, none of it really concerned me.
In all honesty, the internal affairs of the Umyuve royal family were no business of mine.
While the Seahealby Kingdom busied itself with clearing up after the royal wedding, bidding farewell to its foreign guests, and preparing the “thank you” banquet for us—during which poor Crown Prince Nishikaru was running himself ragged trying to contain Princess Bistona’s latest outbursts—Bertia and I, in contrast, were enjoying a few leisurely days of calm.
Or rather, we were supposed to.
“Hey, Zeno,” I murmured. “Would you say it’s acceptable to play ball with another nation’s guardian deity?”
“Acceptable?” he repeated. “Absolutely not! That’s definitely one of those things you should never do!”
“That’s what I thought.”
When I’d heard that Bertia was in the courtyard of our borrowed villa, playing with Kuro, I’d expected something harmless, perhaps a bit of light exercise or a new game she’d invented to stave off boredom.
Instead, I was greeted by the sight of my wife sitting gracefully under the shade of a parasol, a cup of tea in hand, smiling fondly as she watched Kuro bounce a ball with sharp precision.
At first glance, the scene was rather idyllic. Picturesque, even.
If one ignored what Kuro was using as the ball.
Because the “ball” she was playing with wasn’t a ball at all. It was a spherical barrier, perfectly smooth and opaque, within which squirmed none other than this nation’s so-called guardian deity: the two-headed serpent.
Judging by the reactions—or lack thereof—around us, I was fairly certain that only Zeno and I could tell what was really going on.
To everyone else, including Bertia and Miss Cynthia, her lady-in-waiting, the barrier must have appeared as nothing more than a shiny black toy.
After all, if Bertia had realized that there was a living creature trapped inside, she’d have immediately stopped Kuro, and the attendants would be screaming by now.
Which could only mean one thing: Kuro had deliberately altered the barrier’s appearance so that no one else could perceive its actual contents.
She flicked her gaze toward me briefly, her ears twitching, then gave a deliberate thump of her tail against the ground.
The meaning was unmistakable. Do something about this thing.
Considering what the two-headed snake had been up to these past few days, I couldn’t exactly blame her.
On the night of Princess Lysonna’s wedding, the so-called guardian deity of this country—a mid-tier water spirit in the form of a two-headed serpent—had drunk from a bottle of sake given by none other than my intoxicated wife.
In truth, I’d hoped that being smacked halfway across the night sky by Kuro, a high-ranking spirit of darkness, would have taught it a lesson and sent it slithering far, far away. But of course, that was too much to wish for.
The serpent’s tenacity—its almost obsessive persistence—hadn’t been an act. That much became clear soon enough.
By the very next morning, it was already back in action.
No. Technically, it had started even earlier. We had only discovered its antics in the morning; in reality, it had made its move during the dead of night.
Apparently, the creature had crept into our bedchamber under the cover of darkness, attempting to bite Bertia while she slept and thus form a contract through her blood.
Spirit contracts, after all, were forged through blood and naming.
Now, a sleeping woman obviously wasn’t capable of giving a name, but the serpent had found a loophole. During her drunken ramblings that night, Bertia had affectionately called it “Mr. Snake” and even “Yamata no Orochi.” The creature had evidently decided that either of those qualified as a formal name.
If it hadn’t been for Kuro, the thing might have succeeded.
Fortunately, Kuro, ever vigilant, had already anticipated the possibility. Without us even noticing, she’d sealed the entire bedchamber within layers of airtight wards strong enough to repel anything short of a high spirit’s power.
Thus, the serpent had found itself utterly helpless.
According to what we learned the next morning, the foolish creature had spent the entire night outside our door, unable to break through, weeping quietly until dawn.
When we finally found it, it looked pitiful. Later, we learned that Kuro hadn’t just stopped it; she’d given it a good beating for its trouble.
And as for sympathy? I had none.
Whether it had been trying to breach the barrier or foolishly challenge a high-ranking spirit to a duel, it had flooded the entire corridor in the process. The floor outside our room had turned into a shallow lake by morning.
Cleaning up the mess had fallen to Zeno. Since we couldn’t risk the maids discovering a magically drenched hallway and asking awkward questions, he’d had to scrub the entire area himself.
Honestly, I almost pitied him. Almost.
When he complained, I reminded him, “You do have the power of the wind at your command, don’t you? Shouldn’t this sort of cleanup be easy?”
To which he shot back, “Do you have any idea what the power of spirits is for?!”
He ended up using his power anyway, grumbling the whole time and proving my point that his indignation was unfounded.
As for Bertia…
When we told her what had happened, she only blinked in mild confusion. She vaguely remembered letting the serpent drink sake.
Bertia still hadn’t quite grasped the situation. Her expression said as much. She simply sat there, head tilted, watching the scene unfold in front of her without a shred of alarm.
It wasn’t until the two-headed serpent, ever the glutton for punishment, tried to slither close to her again that things escalated. The moment Kuro sensed the creature’s presence, she sprang into action, tail whipping, shadow flaring. What followed could only be described as a one-sided assault.
To any outsider looking on, it must have seemed like a little girl bullying a small animal, a misunderstanding that, of course, my softhearted wife couldn’t bear.
So it went, day after day. The serpent would sneak its way back to Bertia, clearly unwilling to give up, only for Kuro to spot it and send it flying again—a repeating cycle of idiocy and retribution.
Bertia, for her part, gently but firmly scolded Kuro each time, reminding her that “a kind girl doesn’t torment those weaker than her.” Yet she’d made it clear she had no intention of adopting the serpent as a pet.
“As the stand-in villainess, I cannot possibly become the Saintess!”
Even so, I had to admit. The serpent’s persistence was impressive. Maddening, yes, but impressive. Its sheer tenacity in the face of repeated defeat bordered on admiration… if only it weren’t such a nuisance.