“Which reminds me, where are you heading, Lyn-chan?” asked Kana.
“Hm? Ahh, I am in the middle of heading toward Treia.”
“Treia...... ohh, isn’t that the town close to our house? Our Papa works there! And Onee-chan also.”
“What fortuity! So you all are residents of Treia!”
“Oh, no, that’s not it. Our house is on top of a hill a little ways off from the town.”
“Your house is... outside... of the town? Though I suppose that with Lady Mother’s magical prowess, it is true that you have no need to be afraid of magic beasts.” The seemingly odd statement came to make sense the more Lynfil thought about it.
“So, why do you want to go to Treia anyway?”
“Good question. Now, this is actually a secret, but I shan’t hide anything from my friends. I am going to see how Ani-ue is doing.”
““Ani-ue?”” Both sisters tilted their heads in concert.
“Indeed. This is also a secret, but right now, Ani-ue is working as an adventurer.”
“Your ‘Ani-ue’ means your older brother, right? Doesn’t that mean he’s the prince? Why is he working as an adventurer?”
Lynfil’s eyes sparkled with an “I’m glad you asked!” light. “After training in solitude to better himself for the past few years, Ani-ue has finally reached the next stage of his training. Of his own free will, he is placing himself within the general populace, all so that he can see the citizens’ way of life with his own eyes. And the profession that he chose to do that through was ‘adventurer,’” explained Lynfil passionately and at length. “Adventurers are people who stand face to face with any number of problems, men and women of valor who at times even subjugate magic beasts. They are closer to the general populace than the army, and are the heroes of the common man. Ani-ue is an esteemed individual who will eventually take the reins of this country after our Father King. Toward that end, he is hiding his identity and doing his best to meet the people where they are.”
Kana held out a plastic bottle toward Lynfil, whose shoulders were heaving with heavy breathing.
She took a gulp. “So cold! So sweet!” She smacked her lips, then downed the rest of the bottle in one go. Afterward, she stared closely at the bottle. “Hmm, transparent like glass, yet so soft and light. What a curious container this is.” After a brief pause to marvel at the bottle, she came to a start and then resumed talking about her brother. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to meet Ani-ue these past few years. That is why I am heading for this far off land, all so that I can secretly steal a peek at his gallant figure and burn it into these eyes of mine.”
“Secretly......?” Kana turned her eyes toward the hundred or so soldiers currently resting a ways off. They were super duper conspicuous.
“So, all right, Lyn-chan’s big brother sounds pretty cool!” managed Kana.
“Indeed he is. There are some deeply jealous people who say bad things about him, but I still remember how he always looked after me when I was young. He was kind and strong and just a wonderful person all in all!”
“Ohh, as expected of a real prince.”
“Does he ride a white horse~?”
In contrast to the increasingly excited sisters, their mother Silvia tilted her head at Lynfil’s words. (That... sounds different from what Shouzou-san told me......) What she had heard from Shouzou was that he had taken it upon himself to straighten out the good-for-nothing prince.
Silvia did not suspect Lynfil of lying at all. However, she could not deny the possibility that this 8-year-old girl was merely glorifying faint memories from several years ago.
“Lyn-chan, I want to meet a real prince!”
“Hina-sama too~!”
“Of course you do, of course you do. I also want to introduce my friends to Ani-ue. But you must remember, Ani-ue is hiding his identity. So we must do it very secretly, while pretending to be strangers, all right?”
“We just have to make sure he isn’t revealed as a prince, right? No problem, no problem.”
“No problem~!”
The two of them had every intention of going.
“Mama, can we go?”
“Okaa-sama, can we go~?”
“Hmmm......” Silvia had one hand on her cheek while thinking. What would happen the instant the princess with an overly glorified mental image met the prince in the state that she had heard described? None of the possibilities that came to mind boded well.
“What say you, Lady Mother?”
With a quick sideways glance, Silvia caught the old man Gettel—the person who was in charge of the princess’s education—looking at her pleadingly. He surely knew of the prince’s current state, and was thinking of preventing the princess from meeting him. In fact, surely he must have already tried to stop her from making this journey in the first place. Yet in spite of that, here she was, on her way toward Treia. No matter what any random stranger said, surely Lynfil would still drag her soldiers along while going to see her brother.
No, actually, there are some things that only a random stranger—an unrelated third party—could do.
“Very well. If it is not too much trouble for you.” Silvia’s smiling reply prompted Gettel to sigh in relief.
“We did it♪!”
“We did it♪~”
However, while watching her daughters hop around in excitement, Silvia did not forget to pound home one last nail. “And you two, you must not get in the way of His Royal Highness’s work, all right?”
“We knew that already, Mama,” said Kana while practically skipping. “And let’s also go tease Yuna-nee while we’re at it!”
“Stop it.” Silvia found herself already feeling the first twinge of unease—