My Childhood Friend Is An Archmage Chapter 50
Translated by d6y (ko-fi)
Chapter 50
* * *
It takes a while for Lancer to calm down.
"You look so ugly right now," I mutter, wiping his tears with my handkerchief.
Lancer blushed bright red.
"U-Ugly…." He was about to protest, but his mouth only gaped like a fish in a bowl.
I burst out laughing. "You look really ugly when you cry, so don't ever cry again. I don't want to have an ugly friend."
"That's too much…."
"What is? You wouldn't like me if I was ugly either."
"I'd like you, Skyla, even if you suddenly lose your body and your soul is trapped in a cursed doll."
"Stop saying such horrible things." I boop his nose and stand up. "You haven't eaten since this morning, have you? Go eat something."
"What do you mean 'since morning'... Oh, come to think of it, what time is it?"
"I don't know. The sun has already set."
I glance out the window. It was dark before I knew it, since it's winter, the sun sets faster.
"Have I been sleeping all day…?"
Lancer seems shocked. After all, he fell asleep thanks to Count Diern's magic. It probably caught him by surprise and he didn't know what happened.
Duke Soli would explain what happened to him later.
As I'm thinking,
"Have I… been turned into a squirrel without knowing?"
He asks an out-of-the-box question as he stands in front of the window.
"...What?"
"Have I… started to hibernate?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Squirrels hibernate, and I wouldn't have been asleep for this long unless I suddenly turned into one."
"...."
What is going on inside that head….
"Yeah, I heard your miracle logic, let's go downstairs now."
I tug on the tether inside his room. A moment later, there was a knock on the door, accompanied by hurried footsteps.
"Master Lancer, Princess Skyla?"
It was Rachel, the maid.
"Lancer is hungry, please go get him something to eat."
I handed him over to her as her face lit up when she saw him back to normal. It's relieving to see that at least one servant here cares for Lancer.
"Skyla, aren't you coming?"
"I have to go home."
"Why? Why don't you stay with me for a while longer…."
"I'd love to, but my parents are coming back tomorrow so I need to get to bed early."
I wasn't lying. My parents were travelling to the southern seas and will soon return by overnight carriage in the morning.
"Then can we meet tomorrow?"
"...I'm not sure."
There's most likely a lot of work accumulated in the few days my parents had been away. As the next head of the family, I must be there to help my father.
"I've got some work to do, so I'll be a bit busy for the next few days, but I'll see you at the weekend."
"I see…" The frustration was evident in his voice, but he didn't push me like he used to. "Okay. I'll wait to hear from you then."
"Mhm."
I wave at him and as he walks away with Rachel, Lancer keeps looking back. So I keep doing so and only start to walk out when he's completely out of sight.
"I'm glad things went well. It seems that Lord Lancer is quite fond of you."
Just as I'm about to close the door, I hear a man's voice from behind me.
It's Count Diern, who's been waiting outside the room.
I didn't bother to deny his words. After all, you can't hide a sneeze and a crush on someone, no matter how hard you try.
"Have you been waiting outside the whole time?"
"As you can see." He shrugs. "If the princess failed to calm him down, I was willing to sell my soul to the devil to keep him under my magic, not like it was going to happen, but just in case."
"You wouldn't have had to do that. Thank you, though, Count Diern."
"You're welcome." He bows slightly out of courtesy.
"...." I stare at him silently. The story he told me keeps coming to mind.
"My goodness, it's embarrassing to be under a menacing gaze like that. If you have anything to say, say it."
Noticing my intention, he struck first. I decided to comply straightforwardly. "I'd like to ask you something."
"Go ahead. I'll tell you everything I know."
He's merely being polite, but I seize it as an opportunity. "What was the name of your friend, Count?"
"Ah."
The Count clicks his tongue, muttering, "I wasn't expecting that."
Was that too personal to ask?
I thought, wondering if I was being rude, but I still shamelessly waited for him to answer.
"... It's Bliss." After repeatedly opening and closing his mouth for a while, he finally speaks. "Bliss, that's my friend's name."
"And her last name?"
"Oh, Princess Skyla. According to the etiquette of the Hebnia Kingdom, it's not polite to speak the surname of the dead."
"Ah… I'm sorry."
"No, Princess, you've never been there, so you wouldn't know, and that's alright."
He chuckles lightly and waves his hand in the air, and it makes me realise he's not as bad as I thought he would be.
I'm ashamed of how mean I had treated him when he questioned me about my relationship with Lancer.
"So, what else do you want to know?"
"In your opinion, what should your friend's lover have done so that she would still be here now?"
His eyebrow twitched slightly at my rather provocative question. And his mouth, as tightly closed as a prison door, seemed unlikely to open.
I bite my lip slightly. I know it's quite rude to ask something like this, even if it happened more than twenty years ago.
But I want to know. I want to know more about the woman in a similar situation to Lancer, even if it's just a little bit. If I could do so, then maybe it would give me a better idea of how I should treat him.
"...Princess, you indeed have a knack for baffling people." The count says a bit later.
At this point, I decided to be a bit more straightforward. "I hear that a lot."
"I see. You're certainly not cut out to be a diplomat, Princess. You're so good at touching other people's sensitive spots that you can manage to sour relations between two countries to the point of war if you want to, but anyways," he lets out a sigh thick as smoke. "I don't know either of what should've been done then to prevent her death."
As he muttered, the Count slowly turned his gaze to the window in the corridor. "I wish she hadn't fallen in love."
Beyond the frosted window was a darkened sky, with tiny clusters of stars hanging in dense rows. It reminds me of a story my nanny told me as a child, that all the stars in the sky were tears shed by people who had gone to heaven at a young age.
"If she hadn't fallen in love in the first place… she'd still be living," A dry laugh escapes him. "Love is such a strange thing. So sweet, yet so bitter. What about the Princess, can you not love for love's sake?"
"...." I couldn't figure out the answer to that.
If only I could hear other people's thoughts back then, as I do now. Then I would have understood why Count Diern had such wistful eyes paired with an affectionate smile.
* * *
That night, as soon as I returned home, I went straight to the library.
"I want to know about an aristocrat named Bliss. She's from the Hebnia Kingdom. Can you find her?"
"I'll try to find the relevant data."
The librarian seemed surprised by my sudden appearance so late at night, but he didn't hesitate to start sifting through books on the nobility of the Hebnia Kingdom for me.
While he searched, I sat down on the couch and closed my eyes.
Count Diern's words kept ringing in my ears.
"If she had never fallen in love in the first place… she'd still be living."
Maybe.
Just maybe, he was right.
No matter how much I love Lancer, as long as I'm human, I will make mistakes.
There will come a time when I'll be angry at him, annoyed at him, or even when I'll hate him and want to be away from him for a while.
Will Lancer be able to accept those feelings?
Thankfully, Count Diern was there to prevent Landseer from blowing up the mansion, but what about the next time?
Mages are a rarity in this empire. Especially one who could wield magic strong enough to defeat an archmage like Lancer.
Whenever his emotions get the better of him, he can't always find a mage to calm him down.
So… I should start drawing the line here.
I'll take advantage of the fact that he hasn't realised what love is yet, and reject his feelings.
I'll never, ever accept his feelings.
Be it ten times, a hundred times, or a thousand times, if he says he likes me, I won't listen.
It's ridiculous, but it's the only way I'll make him happy.
"Lady Skyla, I've found the person named Bliss."
I open my eyes at the sound of the librarian's voice. "Really? Show me the relevant data."
"Oh, by the way…." He scratches the back of his head, looking a little troubled. "Bliss is not a noble, but a royalty… Is she the one you're looking for?"
"Royalty?"
"Yes. The only person named 'Bliss' in the Hebnia Kingdom is Her Highness Princess Bliss, who has already passed away."
No way. Did Count Diern lie to me? Surely he had said his friend was a noble… Wait, he didn't. Has he ever said that his friend was a noble?
"...Are there no other young ladies named Bliss?" I ask, just in case, but the librarian shakes his head.
"None. No matter how noble someone is, they can't have the same names as royalty, so I think it's Princess Bliss you're looking for."
Saying that, he holds out a book to me. It was a book containing the biographies of the recent royalty of the Hebnia Kingdom.
With trembling hands, I grab it and begin to trace the entry for Princess Bliss with my eyes. After a few moments, I couldn't help but freeze at a single sentence.
Princess Bliss was the fiancée of Count Diern.
