The Asura Kingdom, where I suspected Aisha and Arus had run off to, was the largest country in the world. It went without saying that it had a massive population. The best place to hide a tree is in the forest, and it was easiest to hide in a place with lots of people.
On top of that, it was a country of abundance. As long as they didn’t throw their funds around, Arus and Aisha could live comfortably.
That being said, Asura was a military society. There were soldiers all across the nation. If we got them to memorize Aisha and Arus’s features, they might be able to find them. I was going to borrow the strength of Asura’s knights and soldiers.
With that in mind, I left to meet with Ariel. The sun had already set by the time I arrived at her castle. In fact, it was basically the middle of the night. However, when I said that it was urgent, I was immediately taken to Ariel’s bedchamber.
Ariel was in her sleepwear, and her hair was a mess. She must have been asleep before I arrived. When I first popped up, her face was tense, but then I explained what was going on.
She let out a sigh with an exhausted expression on her face. “Is that it?”
“What do you mean, ‘is that it’?”
“In other words, you had a fight with your little sister and your son, right?”
“Sure, but—”
“You had me worried when you said it was urgent, but…”
Ariel was a very busy queen. As of late, I couldn’t meet up with her without an appointment, but I’d been shown through right away this time around. Hearing it was urgent, she must have thought I had something to tell her about the Man-God or a problem involving our teleportation circle plan. In other words, she’d met with me on short notice because she trusted me, but I’d just brought my familial problems. Yeah. Probably a bad move.
“You’re right. I apologize,” I said sincerely.
“Please, you need not,” she said. “Depending on how one looks at things, you could say that Ruquag’s Mercenary Band’s advisor has abandoned her duties. She is an incredibly talented person. Her absence will have a negative effect on the organization going forward.”
“I really appreciate you saying that.”
“For now, I will order Sylvester to help in the search. That said, if Aisha really wants to hide her location, I suspect she will remain unfound.” Ariel smoothly wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to her lady-in-waiting.
Sylvester was one of the Seven Knights of Asura and the man in charge of her security. We’d started exchanging greetings since we’d been bumping into each other more as of late, but I’d never really sat down and had a conversation with him. I didn’t know what sort of person he was.
“You have my gratitude,” I told Ariel.
For now, Asura was taken care of. Was there anything else I could do? I tried to figure out where to go next.
“The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Ariel muttered under her breath.
I paused. “Excuse me?”
“Refusing to follow the rules of the house and leaving. Did your father not do the same thing?”
Oh, she was talking about Paul. Now that she mentioned it, he had gotten into a fight with his old man and left home abruptly. After that, he’d never once returned home or seen his father again.
Was that going to be the same for us? Was I never going to see Arus or Aisha again?
“Why were you against this in the first place?” Ariel asked suddenly.
“I don’t have an answer,” I admitted.
“You should have just let them get married. That would have been an appropriate reward to Aisha, who has long served your family. One could argue it would be a bit excessive, letting the head of your house marry a maid, but I believe Aisha would make a more than suitable wife for the next house head. Plus, that isn’t something you’re concerned with anyway, right?”
You heard this a lot in Asura: a talented servant who’d contributed to their master’s wealth being allowed to marry into the family. Of course, that was only if the person wanted it.
“Queen Ariel, did you not approach me with a marriage proposal for Arus? Why would you say that?”
“Well, I don’t mind if it ends up being Sieg instead.”
As my children grew older, Ariel had started proposing that her daughter marry one of them. At present, there were people who weren’t fond of the fact I was operating within the Asura Kingdom as one of Ariel’s friends. They felt I was lining my pockets because I’d saved her once in the past. They also thought our teleportation circle plan was all a plot for me to obtain more profit. There were people who saw me as a pest buzzing around an unwitting Ariel. By offering one of my sons to the royal family, we could prove to them that that wasn’t the case. That was her hope.
“We can talk about Sieg at a later date. Anyway, this is bad, right? I mean, this is Arus and Aisha we’re talking about.”
“The aunt and the nephew she looked after since he was a wee baby… Is that not a wonderful relationship?”
“I, um, think that kind of relationship between family members isn’t a good thing.”
“Why?”
I still hadn’t figured out the why. Why was I so resistant to the idea? Incest was considered taboo in my previous world, but that wasn’t the case here.
Ariel looked genuinely baffled. In this world, every now and then, you would see aunts and nephews get married in families that treasured their bloodline. I understood there were families like that, but I didn’t feel that kind of resistance to their situations the way I did right now. Why, then, was I so against their relationship? Was I jealous? Did I actually love Aisha romantically and had always wanted to make her mine?
That really wasn’t possible. If I felt that way, we would’ve ended up together by now. This was something else. Maybe it was like Aisha said before: I thought she belonged to me.
I could deny that as much as I liked, but it could be that my anger stemmed from Arus taking her from me. It was more possible than the other option, but…it didn’t feel quite right either.
Was it because she was an obstacle to Arus’s growth? I mean, there was an element of that, but realistically, that was just an excuse. If I’d been against their relationship because of his growth, I would’ve focused more on him. It wasn’t at the core of this.
“I…don’t really know,” I said.
“In that case, you should think about why you feel the way you do,” Ariel said. “I’m certain that both Aisha and Arus would like to hear your reasoning.”
“All right.”
Ariel was correct. Before I talked to Aisha, I needed to figure out my own feelings. If I didn’t, we’d just end up in a feedback loop. I’d fail to express my feelings to her properly, and she’d run away again.
“I shall excuse myself. I apologize for disturbing you in the middle of the night,” I said.
“It is fine.”
After leaving Ariel behind, I nodded to Dohga at the entrance to Ariel’s chambers.
“I will look for little sister too,” he said, a concerned look on his face.
I really appreciated that.