“Haaah. What a pain,” said a girl from the village.
She knew well sorcerers were guests of honor. But that didn’t make her task any less annoying.
The girl was sixteen years old and the granddaughter of the village chief. Being related to the chief in a small village like this didn’t mean much to outsiders, who would see her and her family as nothing more than country bumpkins. But in the village, her grandfather was a king. And that made her a princess.
She was walking with a heavy basket in hand.
Normally, she never had to carry anything. The village boys wouldn’t let her; they carried everything for her, light or heavy. She was their princess, after all.
The basket contained the sorcerers’ lunch. Usually her grandfather, grandmother, or mother delivered food to the sorcerers. But they were all busy that day, so the role had been given to her.
Her grandfather, who was usually very soft on her, had issued her a direct order: You do it.
She couldn’t refuse an order from the village chief, nor could she complain about it. As a representative of the village, she had to take responsibility and deliver the basket to the sorcerers.
The girl didn’t have any particular feelings about the sorcerers. From her perspective, they simply showed up at random, shut themselves away in the building outside the village, then disappeared before she knew it.
Despite living in the village her whole life, she had barely ever interacted with them. She only caught glimpses of them from a distance and had never had a conversation with one.
They were cityfolk, and she was a country bumpkin.
They were sorcerers, and she was a regular person.
To her, they literally resided in a different world.
Not that she cared. All she had to do was give them their lunch and leave.
Once that was done, she would hang out with the village boys. She was approaching marriageable age, and they all fawned over her and competed for her attention. Eventually, she would marry the one she liked the most and start a household with him, which she would run.
A modest life like that was good enough for a village princess. She would be satisfied with it.
Or so she thought.
“…Huh?”
The girl approached the building on the outskirts of the village in which the sorcerers were doing…whatever it was they did…and found a crowd of village children gathered there. They were surrounding something and cheering excitedly.
Wondering what all the fuss was about, she looked to the center of the crowd and saw a boy wearing an eye mask who looked to be around her age—maybe a little younger—standing and smiling.
She had never seen him before, and he was dressed in fancy clothes. He had to be one of the sorcerers.
Suspicious about what he was doing, she silently approached the crowd. Once she got close, the sorcerer turned around and looked right at her.
“Greetings, my lady. What do you want me to make?”
“H-huh…?”
His eye mask completely covered both his eyes. Despite that, he noticed her approach and even turned directly toward her as if he could see her.
“Oh, uh, I’m just here to deliver lunch…”
She didn’t even know what he meant by the question, and she found his unusual appearance a little frightening.
“Really? Well then, how about you?” The boy with the eyepatch turned to a little girl nearby. “What do you want me to make?”
“A horse! A pure-white horse!”
What? A horse?
What were these children doing? They were told not to interact with the sorcerers.
She got her answer a moment later.
“What the—?!”
The next thing she knew, a pure-white horse was standing next to the boy.
“Wooow!” the kids all cheered.
The chief’s granddaughter was amazed, too. In fact, she was stunned silent. She had no idea what was happening; she only knew it was amazing.
“Do you want to ride it?” the boy asked.
“Yes, very much!” the little girl who had requested the horse replied.
The boy kneeled before her. “All right, young miss. Allow me to help you up.”
He looked like a prince as he offered her his hand. The girl blushed deeply and timidly put her hands in his.
The chief’s granddaughter was shocked by the sight.
The boy’s graceful behavior. His elegant speech. He was just like…just like the prince riding a white horse she had always dreamed of.
Once that thought entered her mind, she ceased to care about his weird eye mask. The smile beneath it stole her attention instead. He was absolutely as handsome as a prince.
“U-umm! Excuse me!” she called out nervously as the boy hoisted the little girl onto the horse. “I want to ride the horse, too! Can I?! Please?!”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
She wasn’t an idiot. She knew her selfish and arrogant behavior was only tolerated because of her position in the village. It was only here that she was a pampered princess.
The boy wasn’t from this village. He wouldn’t take kindly to her shoving younger children aside for his attention. But her emotions had gotten the better of her. Even a village princess dreamed of meeting a real prince at least once in her life.
Enough with the weary packhorses of the village—she wanted to try riding a gallant white horse from the city. Preferably with a prince at her side.
Any girl’s dream was right before her. That was why she couldn’t restrain herself.
As the chief’s granddaughter wallowed in regret at her rash words, the boy smiled and spoke to her.
“Why, of course. Right this way, fair princess.”
From that day on, delivering lunch became her job and hers alone.