/
Holly arrived at the banquet hall with an uneasy feeling. Unlike the previous day, quiet music was playing in the banquet hall. A red carpet was spread from the entrance to the pedestal, and several tables were placed on either side of it.
The nobles who she had seen their faces the day before were sitting there, gazed at Holly, and smiling with satisfaction.
“Where can I sit?”
Holly asked as she looked at Ahmed, who was kneeling on the edge of the red carpet. Her words trembled with anxiety.
“Follow me.”
Mona spoke softly and led Holly to the place she did not want to go the most right now.
“It’s traditional food. There is hot soup inside the hard bread.”
Holly shook her body as if sitting on a cushion of thorns. To her, Mona held out a loaf of bread shaped like an apple pie.
“You can eat it in half, and give the other half to His Highness.”
Instead of taking it from Mona’s hand, she glanced around. It felt strange. People lined up on both sides of the long path. She was now sitting opposite Ahmed, who was on his knees on a red cushion.
* * *
Cahill finished eating early and left the dining room. He went to a corner of the hallway where no one could be seen and sat on the window sill. The country of Sharif was small enough that the walls could be seen from the windows on the second floor.
That wasn’t the only strange thing.
As he gazed at the scenery with indifferent eyes, he found a group of people running away in the distance. They all had large bows on their backs, just like the men they met in the forest.
“…Are they hunters?”
Cahill muttered in a muffled tone.
“Looks like they’re going on a magic stone hunt again.”
As if answering him, the voice of a stranger came.
Cahill leaned over and looked towards the source of the sound. Servants doing the chores were standing right under the window sill where he was sitting. They didn’t seem to have seen him, who was directly above them.
“Hunting magic stones? I haven’t heard of a mine being found in this area.”
He narrowed his eyebrows at the information he didn’t know. There was no place more knowledgeable about the Magic Stone than Aisen, so there was no way he would not know. Perhaps, it was discovered while he was gone.
“It means that the word hunting is at stake.”
Cahill, who was contemplating the meaning of the word ‘Magic Stone Hunt,’ quickly turned his gaze away with a disinterested face.
“Is he getting married soon?”
“Yes. I didn’t expect him to really meet a desert person in a place like this.”
Meanwhile, the servants’ conversation continued. Their voices were excited with anticipation.
‘…Desert?’
Considering that it was a closed place, the probability that there were other visitors other than themselves was extremely low. Therefore, the protagonist of the story was likely to be Holly.
Naturally, Cahill’s ears turned towards it again.
“Then, isn’t it okay to go hunting for magic stones? I’m pretty sure it’s awkward. The original owner of the Magic Stone…”
“Hey, this guy! Be careful! That would cost us our lives!”
Another person stopped them in the middle. That was enough to guess that they were doing something quite dangerous.
Looking at them, his eyes narrowed.
The water drop necklace that Holly always wore was a magic stone. If they killed people and took them away from the magic stones…
“Isn’t Holly going to be in danger?”
She was now treated as a guest of the prince, but he would not know. Cahill knew how coldly a person whose eyes were turned over by greed could change.
As he was about to get up to catch them and inquire about the magic crystal hunting in detail…
“You’re here?”
A servant came from the other side, panting, looking for him. While he wore the same clothes as the servants who did the chores but had a fairly stocky build. Although he pretended to be an attendant, he was actually observing him.
“I’ve been looking for you for a while.”
The servant let out a sigh. He was in a tug of war against Cahill, who was wandering around.
“I came out because the dining room was uncomfortable, is there any problem?”
Cahill let out an emotionless voice and lowered his eyes. With the cool momentum, the servant trembled without realizing it.
Not only this servant who came to Cahill, but everyone who sat around him in the dining room smelled of blood. The Prince clearly knew who to watch out for. However, he had no regrets about it, as it was a natural thing for him that was shouldering the country.
“Where is my party?”
So, Cahill didn’t have to be kind to them either. The servant, who flinched at the voice, immediately changed his expression.
“The maid in charge would have taken her to her room.”
“I want to go to that room, too.”
The servant’s eyes widened in surprise. As he rolled his eyes with a restless momentum, he bowed his back.
“Are you married?”
“It’s not like that.”
At the slight denial, the servant’s face turned red. He hardened his expression before he replied in a stern tone.
“Then, no. In the Sharif Kingdom, it is taboo for unmarried men and women to sleep together. You seem like a noble person, so should you be ignoring the traditions of other countries?”
It seemed he didn’t just use his body. Even though he didn’t know if it was true or not, Cahill couldn’t complain about tradition.
“Then, where is my room?”
When he asked, the servant hesitated.
Cahill waited patiently for his answer. If he was going to be kicked out of the castle at all, he was going to break into Holly’s room, whatever the tradition.
“I will guide you.”
Hesitating whether he had read Cahill’s thoughts, the servant nodded his head. Not long after, Holly’s maid came to visit them.
* * *
Cahill lay on the hard bed and stared at the ceiling with a bored face. He did this for a while, and when his back was exhausted, he laid his body on the side.
“I saw the Prince from the beginning, but his hospitality is a mess.”
He recognized it from the moment he gently smiled at Holly. Cahill grumbled and turned to the other side. The room the servant told him to stay in was small, and the bed was of poorer quality than Halidem’s.
“Holly’s bed was soft.”
It hurt his pride, the bed in her room was larger than the bed in his room in the Royal Castle. Thinking that, Cahill vowed that he would change his bed as soon as he returned to Aisen.
“And, I have to go there with Holly.”
Holly’s well-baked skin stood out because of the pure white sheet. When he touched her cheeks, which were red hot as they were touched, saliva pooled just by looking at them.
“Shall I go see?”
Cahill got his body up as soon as he said so, and he lightly jumped over the window. The walls of the castle were bumpy, making it easy to step with his feet and hands. He then left the room and ran over the roof of the bridge.
Hanging from the outer wall of the building, he walked towards Holly’s room when he heard a tearing scream.
“What happened?”
Maybe, it had something to do with Holly. Cahill looked around as he hung from the wall. But, let alone Holly, no one looked like they were in danger, so he stretched out his arms to go back to her.
“Th, there…!”
Only then did he realize that the voice was coming from below him. As he bowed his head and looked through the gap between his legs, Cahill saw a servant. He was pointing his finger at him with a pale face.
“What are you doing there?”
“I’m going to Holly’s room.”
Even though he knew it was an answer the servant wouldn’t like, he didn’t hesitate.
“Have you been going out like that all the time?”
The servant asked with a tired expression. At that, Cahill nodded his head, showing that it was obvious.
Because they stopped him from going out the door, he could use his body to clear out all the people who were blocking the door. However, even if he wanted to do what he wanted to, Cahill knew enough that he shouldn’t make an unnecessary fuss in the palace of another country.
“Come down now! As I said, in our Sharif, unmarried men and women…”
Cahill covered his ear with his little finger at the things he didn’t want to hear. Then, he started climbing the wall again before putting his foot on the window sill and opening the window.
There was no sign of her inside, so he stuck his head in and looked at her.
“Not here.”
As he was about to go back down, he saw the bathroom door.
“Is she washing?”
Getting off the window sill, he was hoping she was there. Still, even there, there was no sign of a presence.
“Where did you go today?”