(Dis)Engagement [4]

"[Illusion]," I whispered.

One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds. And finally, after five whole seconds, something happened. The fishing rod I was holding turned into a stick.

Well, it didn't actually turn into a stick. It just looked like that from the outside since, you know, Illusion.

Soon, the novelty of actually being able to use Magic wore off, and reality crashed down onto me.

'This fucking sucks.'

{What sucks— oh, you can use Magic!} Nira suddenly exclaimed.

'Yeah, yeah, but there's a delay between cast and activation.'

{How bad is it?}

'Five seconds.'

{...Yeah, you're better off just using your sword.}

Nira's words made perfect sense. However, I wasn't going to give up just like that. I was sure I could shorten it later down on the line.

Then, I realized that I was still on the boat with Mom. 'I shouldn't let her see this.' After all, I was already suspicious enough as is.

So, I dispelled the Illusion and returned to fishing. Boring. But as I was about to just fall asleep, Mom suddenly said,

"We're going to the Capital next week."

"Oka— W-Wait, what?!"

"You heard me." Mom smirked as if she was expecting my reaction. "We're going to the Capital next week, so prepare yourself."

Now this was interesting!

"But why are we going, though? Surely it isn't just a simple outing…"

After all, the Capital was a whole two weeks and a half away from my mansion. Going there to simply play was not really what Mom would do.

At my question, Mom's face darkened.

"It's the Patriarch's order that your sister has to meet her fiance."

"W-What? Fiance? Who!"

"I don't know." She bit her lips. "He never tells me anything. Since only your sister and I are required, you don't need to com—"

"I'm coming," I said with a cold smile and placed a hand on Nowa's head.

She was looking at me with her round eyes, blinking, not knowing what Herald the fucking bastard had prepared for her.

"Little one, you don't need to if you don't want—"

"I'm coming."

After all, I couldn't miss the chance to stare at my dear sister's fiance right in the face and figure out his motive.

If he turned out to be a good guy, well, maybe I'd warn him about Nowa's love of…uh…unaliving things.

.

.

.

.

"—So, that's why I can't hang out with you next week."

Currently, I was in the edge of the forest with Ihwa. We sat down on a piece of cloth on the ground, and she was brushing my tail.

"Is that so?" She hummed and continued brushing my tail. "Can I come, too?"

I'd already expected that she would said something like this, so I wasn't exactly surprised.

"Sure. I asked Mom beforehand, so it's fine. But are you sure your parents will let you go? It's a five-week round trip, and who knows how long we will stay in the Capital…"

"It's fine. I'll tell them that I'll go hunting." Her face darkened. "They don't care enough about me, anyways."

.

.

.

.

A week had passed since then.

Mom, like every other time, wanted to go undercover, which was fine since the road between the Leinfall Duchy and the Capital was safe enough.

So, all she brought with her was an unmarked carriage, a few guards (including Edward), and Ria. Hannah was also coming since she wanted to sell the potions she made…which I just found out were Futa potions.

Like we'd agreed beforehand, I picked up Ihwa when we got past the forest.

"Ihwa, you can marry my little one if you want," Mom suddenly said out of the blue.

Okay, it wasn't that surprising, considering the fact that Ihwa literally pounced on me like some kind of wild beast and hugged me as soon as she spotted me.

But unlike what I'd expected, Ihwa wasn't flustered at all.

"I'll take care of her."

It was hard to know if she was being serious or not. But, it seemed that she was getting more and more confident and she grew older. That, or she considered Mom to be close enough to act comfortably around her.

Meanwhile, I unwittingly played the role of a blushing maiden. I swear, it was this body acting up! It wasn't me!

"W-What are you saying? W-We're friends! We can't!"

"Ria and I were once friends too, you know?"

Hannah, who was watching by the side, seemed to want to say something. That something was probably, 'And look where you are now,' but she refrained from doing so.

I made eye contect with her, and we both exchanged a knowing nod. It seemed that we were thinking of saying the same thing.

About what I said before, I didn't say it out of fluster. I really meant it. Until (and even after) I revived my Ihwa, I wasn't going to fool around.

I wasn't some kind of unfaithful husband!

Besides, I had a daughter, for fuck's sake. What would she think of me if I took in another wife? Being absent from her life was already bad enough of an impression, so I didn't want to make things worse.

Anyways, we got on the carriage. Journey being boring and all that. The only silver lining was that my tail was brushed also everyday. So, by the time we reached the capital, it was silky smooth with the fluffiness of literally Heaven itself.

The Capital was surrounded by high walls. Wow, so very surprising. There were at the very least several thousand windows plastered on the walls, serving as shooting sites for Archers and Mages—mostly Mages.

It was only then that Mom finally decided to reveal her identity as a noble just to skip the line. Of course, since she really disliked attention, made sure that we all wore cloaks to obscure our faces.

Just like that, we was inside the Capital city of Kralid.

'This is…definitely much more different than I remembered it to be.'

One would expect that a child who lived on the streets of the Capital like me would know everything, but no, so much had changed since I left it.

The architecture was unrecognizable. Some Otherworlders in my previous life called this type of architecture "gothic." I didn't know what they meant, but now, I could tell.

'They made the Capital shittier. It looks all dark and shit now. Well, the colorly glass of some buildings look cool, though.'

It didn't help that there was a dome that covered the entirety of the Capital and filtered out sunlight. So, it was almost as if it was prepeturely late afternoon here—except when it was night, in which case, everything would be totally dark if it wasn't for the streetlights.

After settling in a high-class inn, Mom decided to take us to the streets to play. I didn't know what this gloomy city had to offer, but I was interested to see.

.

.

.

.

Nope, there was literally nothing.

Like the people inhabiting it, this city was boring. Even the clothes shop only sold frilly dark dresses that looked like they belonged to dolls rather than people.

{Says you as you proceeds to buy two of them.}

'Shut up. They look nice, okay?'

Besides, if I was going to blend in with this city, I was better off wearing this frilly black dress that had white fringes on it. One more major benefit was that I could hide my tail inside the dress. If someone asked me about my ears, then I'd tell them that they were headbands.

I put on the newly-bought clothes and held a parasol on my hand. There, perfect disguise.

We toured the streets for another hour, finding almost nothing else of interest. Almost.

"A photo booth!"

Someone exclaimed. It could be someone from our group, or it could be someone entirely unrelated. Whatever the case was, the Photo booth was now receiving Mom's undivided attention.

"Don't you think we should capture this memory, little one? It's not like we get to go here much anyways."

With her eyes sparkling like that, I knew that I really didn't have a choice. So, I nodded.

We got into the Photo booth. It was surprisingly spacious, being able to house me, Ihwa, Mom, Ria, Hannah, Edward, and Violette and with even some space to spare.

While Edward was pretty nonchalant about this, Violette was pretty nervous.

"M-Madam, I don't think we should—"

"Nonsense," Mom interrupted her with a warm smile. "You've always looked after my children for the past few years. And your brother has always protected my little one every time she goes out. If you don't deserve this, who should?"

I could practically smell the scent of Violette's heart melting from over here. I wouldn't even be surprised if she developed a crush on Mom after this.

Edward seemed genuinely grateful, too. After all, taking photos wasn't something that Commoners could do since it was too expensive and considered something prestigious—however much the Otherworlders insisted that it was something that anyone could do back on "Earth."

Anyways, we got inside the photobooth and hell broke loose. Everyone was so uncoordinated that we almost trampled on each other trying to get into position. It was only until the operator of the Photo booth came in that we were in our proper place.

"One, two, three, andddd… Done!"

I received the photo and stared at it.

Unsurprisingly, I was sitting on a stool in the middle with Nowa sitting on my lap. Mom was to the right of me, and Ihwa was to the left. Ria stood right behind Mom while Hannah was behind me.

Edward stood behind Ihwa (at Ihwa's own request), and Violette decided to stand right beside Ihwa.

I guessed she wanted to do that since among the Nobles, Head maid, and Genius Alchemist, she was only comfortable around her brother. But since there was no space available next to him, she decided to stay beside Ihwa, who I was sure she thought was a Commoner just like her.

Mom took the photo away from me and smiled.

"This is going into a frame."

After that, she handed me a smaller version of the photo. Yep, definitely going to keep this until the end of time.

As to where I'd keep it, well…

"O-Oh, young miss, w-why are you taking the necklace apart?"

I stopped what I was doing and looked at Ria weirdly.

"What do you mean 'taking apart'? It's a locket."

"I-It is?"

She seemd genuinely surprised.

"Wait, don't tell me you bought it for me without knowing?"

"I-I…" she looked down to the ground in embarrassment. "...I didn't. I just bought it because I thought it would look good on you."

What a silly maid.

I neatly folded the photo and put in in the locket-necklace. After that, I pulled Ihwa into the booth to have a private Photo session of our own.

But looking at Mom's sparkling eyes when she looked at Ihwa and I, it was obvious that she was thinking of something that involved me, Ihwa, and a wedding.

"Miss Operator, can you get out?" I asked as soon as I entered the booth.

The Operator looked at me weirdly for a bit, not really knowing what to do. It was only after I slipped ten Silvers in her hands that she decided to leave the booth.

Now alone with Ihwa, I summoned Aerin and Nira. In their humanoid forms, of course.

"What is this about?" Nira grumbled.

"Big sis, I think Master wants to take a photo with us."

As if a switch was flipped inside her head, Nira grinned. "You should've said so from the start!"

The photo-taking device was set to automatically take a picture in a minute, so we quickly got into position.

Nira stood behind me and crouched down; her arms wrapping around my neck.

I shuddered and remembered the time she nearly choked me to death, but I quickly discarded the thoughts. Actually, I didn't. I was pretty sure Nira was fucking with me and wanted me to remember that moment.

She couldn't fool me, however innocent she looked.

Ihwa and Aerin were more friendly. They stood right beside us, yes, but they were locking hands like the good friends they were.

Overall, it looked like that Nira was bullying me, and Ihwa and Aerin were some friends who happened to pass by.

It definitely wasn't a good photo since the Operator wasn't here, but everyone seemed satisfied with it.

Aerin walked up to the photo-device again and asked,

"It says here that we must choose the number of photos to print."

"Two—"

"Four."

Of course, Nira had to so rudely interrupt me.

"Why would we need four?" I frowned at her. "What are you going to even use it for? You guys are my Swords. You can look at me whenever you want."

Nira simply sighed and shut me up by pinching my cheeks.

"What awre ywou—"

"Pushover, ignore her. Print four."

"Okay, big sis."

Unfortunately, printing four photos meant spending five extra Silvers. But if it meant keeping my Swords happy, then it was worth it, I guess?

.

.

.

.

It was night when we returned to the inn. Since Mom was very loaded (obviously), we all got separate rooms. She wanted Ihwa and I to stay in the same room, but I firmly refused.

It wasn't as if I didn't want to stay with her. In fact, I'd love to spend the night with my best (only) friend. However, I needed to be alone in my room to sneak out tonight.

"Let's see where you are, Eric Solstar."