After all, the very moment she’d taken the hand of that angelically beautiful masterpiece of the gods, Sophie had bid an eternal farewell to the life she’d lived until then.
Hesitating out of consideration would get her nowhere. I’m going to do my best to reach out and grab what I want with my own hands!
Sophie turned back to Jeykos. “I’m L-Lernetta’s friend, Sophie! I-It’s a pledger to meet you!”
She’d tripped over her own tongue.
If it had just been once, she could’ve passed it off and made a face as if she hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary at all. If her voice had been a bit quieter, she could’ve gotten by simply by putting on a look that seemed to ask, What’s wrong?
But Sophie had royally, officially, and politely tripped over her own tongue in a loud voice.
I gave speeches before thousands and never tripped up then! Sophie thought, wondering if her overly hot face might explode on her.
There, there. We’ll just leave that one behind. Sophie felt as if she’d just made a blunder she’d likely never be able to forget for the rest of her days, but you can just forget about that bit.
It was amazing.
That was amazing... Sophie thought as she sank into a massive chair. The chair was covered in white cloth with pale pink flowers stitched onto its surface. Not only did it look adorable and luxurious at the same time, but it was soft and felt amazing to sit in. If she had been the same Sophelia who’d never used a backrest, it would have surely been a heavenly comfort unlike any she’d ever experienced. But now that Sophie knew the wonders of backrests, she was unstoppable. She wasn’t moving so much as an inch from the spot.
Sighing to herself, Sophie was alone in the room.
After taking on the form of a cat to avoid startling those in the castle, Azuello had found his heart snatched away by the cookies offered to the group, and Azuello the cat had snatched the maid’s heart in turn. Noticing that Azuello seemed terribly curious about the castle’s kitchen, the maid was now escorting him around for a tour. He was sure to be living it up surrounded by a mountain of cookies right about now.
Vyce had disappeared alongside Livio with a monster over his shoulder.
A monster? Yes, that was right—a monster.
Sophie had no idea what had happened, if some monster had seen Matcha and Kataf and said, “There’re horses! Get ’em!” before launching their onslaught. Nonetheless, the two steeds had turned the tables on the monsters that had encroached on them, creating a mountain of monster corpses.
It was the very moment Sophie had questioned the definition of a horse.
I mean, just think about it—if their owners are exceptional, there’s just no way the horses would be able to keep up just being average! It was the fruit of their labors. If they worked hard, would they be able to understand the words humans spoke and become monster-slaying steeds? Let’s not get into the question of what constitutes “working hard” for a horse. After all, Sophie had decided that she’d doubt her own common sense instead. When did she decide that, you ask? When she left the castle behind her, probably.
The mere fact that she’d had a handsome man—practically a walking string of miracles—take her hand to run away from that place was already more than she could’ve ever expected. So to suddenly proclaim “there’s no way horses could ever defeat monsters!” would be a waste of breath. Sophie would accept things as they were and as she was. What was wrong with that? That was how Sophie wanted to try living.
Among the pile of defeated monsters Matcha and Kataf had created, there was a Deadripper.
A Deadripper? What was that again? It was why Vyce had been traveling.
He’d attended an evening party in the neighboring kingdom with his sights set on a type of monster meat that one could only have in a certain town. He’d avoided the main roads to instead embark on a journey alone with his fiancée—the sort of thing one could never imagine from the king of a nation. Whether they knew about that or not, Kataf, the king’s beloved steed, and Matcha, who’d been keeping watch alongside him, had felled a Deadripper.
After seeing the large white bear that was as tall as Sophie herself, what had been Sophie’s first impression?
“It looks just like Azuello...”
Perhaps it wasn’t quite accurate to say the monster looked like Azuello—after all, Azuello had only been imitating the beast. But still, in her mind, Sophie equated white bears with Azuello.
With that association in her head, there was no way Sophie could stand to watch the monster be cut up or see the meat from the creature.
Livio must’ve been considerate enough to pick up on that. While Livio could deal with the beast himself without issue, he had instead proposed to Vyce that they have a pro butcher the monster since the meat tasted better that way. That’s what I like about him! Just watch!
Vyce was Vyce, and he neither turned Livio down nor asked why. Instead, he simply laughed. “Works for me!”
The king had read Sophie like a book!
With that in mind, Vyce and Livio had set out, carrying the monster that had been teleported there on their shoulders. From the sound of it, they were going to call on the help of the owner of a restaurant that served monster cuisine.
Even after Lunetta entered the castle baths with Sophie, she had continued to think, muttering under her breath all the way. Since using transfer magic for the first time, it seemed Lunetta’s mind hadn’t stopped working. Lunetta had gone on and on, talking about things that Sophie had no hope of comprehending.
It seemed Lunetta’s maids and ladies-in-waiting were used to such things. They had waited for just the right moment to pop in and say, “Yes, certainly,” before scrubbing Lunetta squeaky clean. After guiding Sophie to the room that had been prepared for her, they had given her a polite bow and urged her to relax until dinner.
Sophie had bowed back, looking over at Lunetta.