12 Chapter 12

"I don't like her." Matthew declared as soon as he took his first step into his room. The children have been playing together for the whole afternoon before having dinner together.

"Why? She's such an adorable girl." Mellisa untwisted the towel from her hair.

"She… she's so fragile, so small, I hate her." Matthew seemed to have ran out of words.

"You have father's decision, not her. Don't try to delusion yourself into that Matthew. I hate his decision too, he never batted an eye on us yet he paid so much attention into a stranger but she's just a child. You can't blame her for an adult's decision." She said as she walked to her bed with her romance novel on hand.

"Sis, you are sounding ancient right now." Mellisa threw a pillow to him.

"That is the land of Ashdown, here is the capital, this is Kenward and Atkinson." Ginny placed a giant map and pointed to the 4 areas that are clearly divided by colors.

"I see, what do you know about Atkinson?"

"Well, I've visit there once with the duke. As rumored, the land was surrounded by mist on the gate but when you passed the gate, the mist are fainter and you could almost not notice them. The city are very calm, the streets are quiet but it wasn't gloomy, many people were walking here and there and children were studying in an open-space academy unlike in the capital. Then nobles there used a no-horse carriage. Lord Atkinson said the carriage is still on progress and aren't really safe yet so they haven't announced it to the capital."

"No-horse carriage? What do they look like?" It seems like the Atkinson is the most advance of all, as expected from the land filled with knowledge.

"The carriage looked like an ordinary carriage but there are strange metals on the front of the carriage and there are weird strings made of metals that connect them together. It looked quite handsome."

"Handsome?" Celestina was flabbergasted by Ginny's line of thoughts. How could she call a machine 'handsome'?

"Yes, it was manly."

"Manly?" Once again, her line of thought attacked Celestina's mind.

"It really is miss. I'm sure you'll know what I mean when you see it for yourself." Ginny tried to defend herself, she knew it was ridiculous to call a carriage 'handsome' and 'manly' but she didn't know what kind of adjectives can be used to describe it.

"Well if we're talking about Atkinson we can't forget about Grand Master Louise. He's the tutor of our Emperor as well as our crown prince. He was also highly regarded by the former Emperor. Our Emperor named him the Grand Master just a month after his coronation. His knowledge is known to be very vast and no one has ever beat him." Ginny said with a sparkling eyes. She seemed to admire this grand master very much.

"Do you ever meet him Ginny?" Celestina asked again. Louise was mentioned in the novel, his first appearance was when he was assassinated and the crown prince was directly assigned by the Emperor to find his assassin. There were no result in the investigation, the crown prince was heavily punished by the emperor who was super disappointed at his son. After that, the novel completely forgot about the assassination and just focused on the chemistry of the main leads and their romance as the female lead accompany the crown prince during his punishment period.

"I've never met him, he wasn't there when I visited Atkinson," Ginny said sadly. "Well it's dark now, we have a lot to catch up tomorrow so you need to sleep now miss." Ginny tucked her to bed and went out of her room.

"This is so good." Matthew said as he elegantly cut another piece of steak.

"Mind your manners," Mellisa eyed him slightly.

"Come, let me cut it for you." Being a corporate slave in her previous life, Celestina never enjoyed the luxury of eating this kind of food, not to mention her now small body was too short for her to properly eat.

"What a loser," Matthew sneered when he saw his sister cut the steak for Celestina. "Just let the maid do that." He was about to order the maid to do it when Mellisa's glare reached his eyes. "…Fine." He said knowing his sister was about to get mad.

"Don't mind him, he's just a grumpy boy. Here eat well." Mellisa said and hand over the plate of well-cut meat to Celestina who took it with gratitude.

"Where's father?" Mellisa asked the maid as she cut her own meat as well.

"The duke had finished his breakfast young miss. He said he will tour the land for a while." Mellisa nodded at that while Matthew sneered even more. The mood changed instantly and Celestina hesitated to touch her plate until she saw Mellisa smile and took a meat to her mouth. "Let's enjoy our food. I hear they're serving chocolate pudding today, is that why you are here so early?" She asked Matthew who almost choked on his food. "W-who said that? I-I'm just hungry." Matthew denied strongly which just confirmed Mellisa's words.

Celestina wanted to laugh at his behavior but knew he would get mad. She held her laughter which made her choked on her food as well. "W-what are you doing?" Matthew ran over to her side and helped her drink. Mellisa stared at his brother and sighed deeply.

"I am sure you want to walk around the land later? How about we go out together? I heard that there is a food festival today." Mellisa suggested. Celestina nodded at that, she wondered if the food festival here is the same as at her old world?

It was just like what Celestina have in mind when she read the novel. The food festival took place in several streets and in the main street where it was the most lively, Celestina stood with Mellisa and Matthew accompanied by some knights disguised as commoners.

"Sis, look at that!" Matthew pointed to a lively stand where almost everyone watching were stunned and some were complaining. "Let's go try it." Matthew pulled Mellisa along with Celestina who held her hand. It was a shooting balloon stand, apparently no one had managed to shoot even one balloon. Many complained that the stand owner is a scam and some very colorful insults followed, the gift for winning the shooting didn't even matter anymore, people just want to be the first to shoot the balloon.

Matthew opened a path through the crowd and the girls followed him, he immediately asked for the arrows from the stand owner. Many people jeered at him for not knowing his place, some even laugh at him and said "Let the kid try, maybe he will be first to shoot it." with clearly sarcasm in his voice.

Matthew didn't mind the discouraging comments and simply smiled cheerfully when Mellisa encouraged him. "Good luck" Celestina said along with Mellisa, to her surprise Matthew smiled at her and focused on the balloon and shot it. It unfortunately missed. Some people scoffed as if already predicted it while a few sighed disappointedly. Mellisa handed another to him and encouraged the sad Matthew again. "Try again, it is almost impossible to success in first try." On his second try, Mattew looked at the balloon with an even more focused eyes and the veins in his hand is apparent. 'This kid really is the villain.'

He shot it and it went straight to the balloon popping it. The crown grew silent and the stand owner immediately handed over a giant doll to him. "Congratulations young man," He then said to the crowd "Even a young man can do this, yet you folks kept on complaining that I scammed you guys. Hmphh!" He then tied another balloon followed by crowds getting excited after Matthew successfully shot the balloon.

Matthew on the other hand, didn't even take a look on the crowd and handed the doll to Mellisa which she then hand over to Celestina. "Why do you give it to her?" Matthew said, yet the smile on his face stayed. Celestina stood straight and loudly said to Matthew "Thank you brother." Matthew grew silent at that. Celestina looked at his ears and noticed it was slightly red.

'What a tsundere.'