Engagement

After Raymond and Carollus got the perfect plan, the latter walked toward Alicia and Alex. He grabbed Alex's shoulder with a dangerous grind.

"Alicia. Didn't you say he made you sad earlier?" Asked the king with a menacing tone as if he forced her to admit it.

"Ah! N—!" She wanted to deny it, she corrected herself after a glare from her uncle. "N—Yes."

"I see…" The king nodded repeatedly before looking at Alex with fierce eyes. "So, you are the one who made my little Alicia sad?"

"That was not the case, let me explain it…" Alex became flustered, he never expected that the king suddenly turned this petty.

"What explanation? I don't need your so-called explanation. All I know you've made my little Alicia sad and you have to be punished." The king continued with a snort.

"I…" Alex sweatdropped, he was anxiously looking at Alicia for help. Unfortunately, she looked away, not helping him at this moment. The same applied to the grand duke. As soon as Alex glanced at him, he already threw his gaze away while whistling.

The king kept staring at Alex and said, "So, how should I punish you?"

Suddenly, Raymond grabbed Carollus's hand and shook his head as if he was a savior. "Brother. Please calm down."

"No matter what. He deserves punishment. He should be executed by now, but since you want me to forgive him, I will let him off if he marries her."

'Such bad acting…' Alex cursed his words. Raymond just said calm down, but Carollus already interpreted it differently. He wondered whether this person was really a king or not. Little did he know it was the impact of his talent that made them unable to think like usual at the moment.

"Get married?" Alicia looked at her uncle with her mouth wide open.

"That's right. You will marry Alicia and that's the end of this conversation!" Carollus paid no heed and kept pressuring Alex.

"Uncle! What are you saying? Marry him?" Alicia turned red.

"Yes. Why? You don't want to marry him? There is still the hero in the Zircodina Kingdom… I see that you want him to be your husband then." The king narrowed his eyes.

"No. Alex is far better than him. Ah!" She denied the claim before she realized she blurted how she viewed Alexander.

The king showed a face as he had won.

"Brother… Alicia hasn't matured yet. Why do you think marrying her is a good idea? How about we let them get engaged first as a probation period. I still need to think about my daughter's feelings after all." Raymond tried to calm the situation down by becoming the middle-man.

"Engaged? Fine! I agree with that idea. You two are now officially engaged by my name as the king of Acacia Kingdom." Carollus then glared at Alicia. "If you don't like him even a little bit, it will be fine. I can simply ask your sisters, then."

Alicia stumped. On one hand, Alex was a simple traveling companion. Although she had some good impressions of him, it was not at the level where she wanted to get married to him. On the other hand, she couldn't think of the hero or the people in the capital as a likable character. She didn't want to admit it and decided to run away. "You two are bullying me!"

With Alicia leaving the room, Carollus and Raymond could finally move freely. Carollus still grabbed Alex's shoulders and smirked. "Looking at your expression, it seems that you also refused this idea?"

"This…" Alex looked down and sighed. "I am just a commoner, not someone great. Besides—"

Carollus suddenly released his killing intent and locked into his eyes. "You will get engaged with her. If you refuse this, I will just kill you to avoid any future problems. Now choose! Will you die here or will you get engaged with my Alicia? Judging from your expression, I can see you are a man with a past. I know that you don't want to die yet."

Alex gritted his teeth and looked down. "I understand."

Carollus finally let him go. "You can go back."

Alex nodded, left the room, and soon heard the laughter echoing inside the room.

Thrilled by the result, Carollus laughed out loud. Raymond smiled but didn't break his silence. "Don't you think it's a bit too much, Brother?"

"It's fine. For the future Acacia Kingdom, I gamble everything including my life. Besides, I can see deep inside his eyes, he…" Carollus sighed and shook his head. "Never mind. I just have a feeling that he is a good boy. As long as you teach him, Alicia will be happy in the future."

Raymond closed his eyes and sighed.

On the other hand, Alex walked along the hallway, he thought to himself and he soon realized that he was played by the king. Unfortunately, he had no ability to fight them and he didn't have anyone in this world who he could rely on. He would accept it for now, but it might be different in the future… And he let the future decide what would happen next when the time had arrived.

Little did he know that the actual plan was coming from the grand duke. Their first conversation made him not suspicious of the grand duke at all because there was no way he would sacrifice his own daughter.

…

At night,

*Knock Knock*

Alex heard the knocking sound from his door. He just wanted to sleep early due to the stress he got today, but this sudden knock made his heart skip a beat.

"It's me. Can we talk, Alex?"

Alex widened his eyes, he didn't think that Alicia would come to his room during this hour. He rose from his bed, opened his door, and found Alicia with a red face.

"What are you doing?" Alex tilted his head in confusion.

Alicia glanced at his room and asked. "Can we talk?"

Alex opened his door wide, letting her in.

"What do you think about our engagement?" Alicia asked while looking around his room. Her heart beat rapidly this whole time.

The question startled him as he immediately closed the door and tried to explain, albeit no words came out of his mouth.

Alicia turned around and looked at his eyes with a serious expression. "I will be honest here. I like you… but it's not to the point of love. You are different from any people I have ever met and I do enjoy your company."

Alex's body shook as he heard her statement. His past resurfaced in his mind and made his feet limp.

"I know that my Uncle and Father want me to marry you because of your talent. I have been thinking for a whole afternoon and I think I would rather spend my time with you than the hero or any other people in the capital." Alicia clenched her palms. She didn't know whether this was the right choice or not, but she also felt awful when she imagined her sister Lea or Mia would actually be the one beside him.

Alex closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. "Let me tell you a story. There was an average boy. His parents loved him like how a family should be. However, they stopped loving him the moment his younger sister showed her real talents to the point many people said she is a genius that comes every one hundred years.

"Not only that, his parents started looking at him with disdain, and his sister only gazed at him with cold eyes. Even that didn't break the boy as he still thought 'If my sister is a genius, I will learn other things that my sister is not good at. That way I can help her in that area.'

"With that thought in mind, the boy started learning many other subjects, albeit everything was for naught. It was just his naive thinking. Because he learned unorthodox things, he didn't have any time to learn the normal ones and he only got scorn and hate from society.

"His parents got so disappointed and even uttered 'Why are you such useless trash? We regret giving birth to someone like you.' Those words finally broke the boy and he started regretting being born."

Before continuing his story, Alex sighed and glanced at Alicia, only to find her crying so hard. He quickly walked toward her and asked. "Alicia? What happened?"

Alicia placed her head in Alex's chest and kept crying.

"Why are you crying? If the king knows about this, he will kill me on the spot. Please stop crying." Alex desperately tried to calm her down.

Alicia chuckled despite tears kept falling down from her eyes. "Alex… I think I have decided. We can get engaged first. If we still don't want to marry each other after graduating from the academy, we will annul our engagement. Or if you have someone in your heart later, we can also cancel the engagement. This is a three years agreement between us. How about it?"

Alex closed his eyes, falling into deep thought. 'Three years… I can't afford to offend the king at this moment. Even though I loathe an engagement like this, especially after getting hurt by that incident on Earth…' Alex looked at Alicia and sighed. 'I admit that I also enjoy her company. She won't be like Sandra… right?'

As many thoughts came into his mind, Alex gave his answer. "Let's do your plan, then."

He started recalling his childhood again, from his parents and younger sisters, the movement when they started to change, and its impact on Alex's life. Unknowingly, tears also began to fall down his face.

Alicia repositioned herself and rested her head on his shoulder before asking. "What happened after that?"

Alex thought for a moment and continued his story while removing some parts that he didn't want to expose.

Little did he know that Alicia fell asleep on his shoulder and he also gradually became sleepy and dozed off.