That reminds me: Ms. Natalia never ate unless I pestered her about it, but she’d chug liquor like there was no tomorrow. I recalled her using magic and making the bottles of alcohol on the cabinet float over to her as she greedily guzzled each one down.
Both Mr. Julius and Ms. Natalia seemed to have a very high alcohol tolerance, making me realize I seemed to attract that type of person. I felt like maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try a sip today. I had a hangover, but I was already good as new.
“Well, of course,” my master countered. “I came here to drink. Listen well, Chloe. I may be omnipotent and a genius and have power that could transcend mankind, but I still have things that I don’t excel at.”
“Cleaning up, being tidy, basic life skills, and making money,” I replied.
“Exactly. It’s all very troublesome to me. In other words, I don’t have a single gold coin to my name. And I can drink all the liquor I want here. I have to drink a century’s worth today, as you can see.”
“Do you not have any money?” I asked.
“I’m always prepared to not carry any money that’ll last me overnight. That’s the resolve I’ve got.”
“I won’t hand over my savings to you!”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I’ll be sure to have you take care of me when I return to Astria.”
“No way.”
“Aren’t children supposed to support their mothers at some point?”
“But you’re not my mother.”
“Close enough. Come on, Chloe. Your mother here approves of your marriage to Julius. Isn’t that great, Julius? You’ve got her parent’s approval.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Julius replied casually without voicing a word of dissent.
I’m sure that he finds it a pain to speak with Ms. Natalia. I looked at him. The dragon ring took up the ring finger on his left hand, and a slave collar gleamed on his neck. It appeared only his ears were open for accessories, as Layla had said.
“Ms. Natalia, I received a necklace from King Faisal earlier, but is it possible to change this into an earring?” I inquired.
“Why don’t you change it with your alchemy?” my master replied. “Or take it to a goldsmith or something.”
“I wanted to see you use alchemy without the use of a pot once more. I’d like to use it as a reference for myself,” I said.
“Oh? As studious as ever, I see. Very good. All right, then. It’s a bit of a pain, but hand it over.”
I obediently gave Ms. Natalia one of the black rose necklaces.
“Uh, that’s a sacred treasure of the royal family… I wonder if we can just have her work on it like that,” Layla whispered worriedly.
“Are you worried? Who do you think you’re talking about? This black rose is imbued with power, right? Then I won’t touch that part. I’ll just change this chain into an earring,” Ms. Natalia replied, hearing Layla’s comment. The new queen hastily nodded her head in silence. “It’s easy, so just keep your eyes on me. And if this is so precious, why don’t we ensure that it won’t get lost? It’s easy to drop and lose an earring. I think I had an everlasting magnet with me, so we just need to mix the two together…”
She reached out towards the blank space in front of her. The air started to distort, and half of her hand slipped through. After she rustled through this mysterious space, she pulled out an everlasting magnet, a lump of black iron. This was a material harvested from a monster called Galiosa of Brute Strength.
Ms. Natalia held the necklace and the everlasting magnet, enveloping the two items with both of her hands. A vortex of magic started to form, and the two items melted and mixed together within her palms. It only took a moment, and when she opened up her hands, a small, beautiful earring was nestled within.
“And done,” Ms. Natalia said. “I haven’t done a thing to the black rose, but the metallic bit is mixed with the everlasting magnet. It’ll basically stay on permanently. Now then, Julius, come over here.”
As usual, Mr. Julius silently averted his gaze. Unfortunately, for him, this didn’t work on Ms. Natalia.
“If you’re not coming to me, I’ll use my chain spell to restrain your body and forcibly drag you on your knees to my feet,” Ms. Natalia threatened.
“It’s best if you go,” I said to him. “And today’s a celebration, so let’s not ruin that. Come on, let’s be amicable. If a brawl breaks out between you and Ms. Natalia, the Holy Palace will be crushed to smithereens!”
Ms. Natalia was the type to follow through on her promise; if she set her mind to something, she’d never waver. I pushed Mr. Julius’s back and forced him to Ms. Natalia’s side. The earring floated up from her hand, and a small needle poked through his left earlobe and affixed the accessory. Mr. Julius didn’t have any holes in his ear, and it looked really painful.
“A-Are you all right, Mr. Julius?” I asked. “Does it hurt?”
“Of course it doesn’t hurt,” my master replied. “You know the magic that I applied to those earrings, Chloe. The metallic part of the earring fuses with the wearer’s skin, and it only comes off if the wearer wants it to. Now, there’s no worry of this earring being lost, and there’s no hole poked in his ear. Not bad at all, right?”
“So, I can take this off, then?” Mr. Julius asked.
“Yep. Only when you want to. You’re a Dragon Knight, right? It’s easy to lose earrings, so I made this especially for you.”
“It sounds like you don’t need it, Julius,” Layla complained. “I want to see Chloe, and King Faisal also views you as a friend. Don’t be so cold. You should come to see us every now and then.”
I noticed the new king looking a touch lonely. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that Mr. Julius is so unfriendly. Mr. Roge wasn’t at all deterred by his attitude and continued to force a friendship with Mr. Julius, but Faisal wasn’t so forward.
This is your fault. You can’t say that you don’t need this special reward in front of the people who gave it to you. I tried to scold Mr. Julius, but before I could, Layla gently took the remaining necklace from my hand and put it around my neck.
“See, look,” she said. “You’re matching with Chloe. Now, you can’t take off that earring or throw it away, can you?”
She took the small black rose on my neck in her palm and showed it off to Mr. Julius with a look of triumph on her face. He touched his left earlobe and gave a reluctant sigh.