What on Earth Got Into This Fearful, Timid Pink Retriever?

Chapter 81

The people heading toward the main building's grand conference hall all walked with tension in their steps.

The loud flashes and vein-popping shouts that had just erupted at the front gate were probably still ringing in their ears, so it couldn't be helped.

So I felt a little pressured.

How should I put it? Because I had to break ranks, I guess?

I leisurely followed behind the stiff old professors, then subtly tilted my head toward Professor Iris walking beside me.

"Professor."

"Yes?"

"Please go on ahead to the conference room. I'll bring Lily over."

At my sudden suggestion, Professor Iris slowed her steps and pushed up her glasses.

"Is there some urgent reason you need to leave?"

'There is, but...'

'Hmm.'

'But Professor Iris isn't someone I should casually voice suspicions around, so for now I'd better keep quiet.'

"In any case, haven't we already agreed to carry out the face-to-face testimony quickly and efficiently?"

I shrugged, giving a reason that was both rational and efficient.

"It's too troublesome to go all the way into the conference room together, sit down, listen to a boring opening speech, and only after all the guest introductions are over go, 'Now then, shall we fetch the saintess?'"

"That's true."

"If you add up all the time those old fogies spend clearing their throats, it'd be an age anyway. It's a hundred times better if I go fetch her quickly."

Of course, saving time was a real reason too, but in truth there was one more reason I had to go get Lily myself.

'The fact that Iveline came here means...'

Sharp calculations started spinning through my head.

The princess had personally come all the way to the Academy.

Which meant my father had directly reported the full details of this incident to the imperial family through the Imperial Intelligence Bureau.

'Then the Crown Prince will naturally know too.'

Crown Prince Louis.

If Father's report had gone into the imperial palace, then by common sense, that news should have reached the Crown Prince a second before it reached Iveline.

That's how the chain of command works.

The imperial family even factors that in when assigning the locations of each main palace and detached palace inside the palace, down to who uses which quarters.

'There's no way Iveline's carriage could be faster than the Crown Prince's carriage.'

But while the princess arrived at the front gate first and was locking horns with the Pope, where exactly was the Crown Prince, who should have heard the news even earlier, heading?

'Above all, that guy has a reason to interfere in this situation like a dog with a bone.'

He wasn't the kind of person who'd sit still after hearing that the pink retriever he was obsessively chasing had been caught up in a dispute involving the Order and the Academy.

'No matter how you look at it, he'd have skipped the Academy's front gate and headed straight to my lab, where Lily is hiding quietly.'

That was the only conclusion I could draw when I thought it over.

So I had to go myself.

If I sent some clueless staff member, they might get overwhelmed by the Crown Prince's berserk momentum and Lily could be dragged away against her will.

"All right. Do as you wish."

Professor Iris coolly agreed and added an instruction.

"Then while you're at it, bring Viscountess Müller, who's protecting Lily, to the conference room as well."

"Yes. Understood."

I gave Professor Iris a light wave, then immediately turned around and quickened my pace down the opposite corridor.

* * *

Tap, tap-tap!

Her beautiful silver hair whipped wildly in the air, and her breath came up to the very tip of her chin.

Without giving a second thought to the expensive hem of her dress getting dirty with dust, Elysia ran fiercely toward the Academy grounds.

'Please, just be safe.'

Just now, when she reached the front gate, the scene in front of her eyes, busily being controlled by the holy knights and Academy staff, was devastation itself.

Two hideous shapes lying on the ground, charred black.

The Order's holy knights had turned into charcoal along with their silver armor.

A fierce, overwhelming scene that had already produced casualties.

Were they hurt?

Was someone hiding an injury beneath that indifferent, easygoing face?

That was precisely the moment her steps were about to turn in a hurry toward the headmaster's office.

"……Huh?"

Elysia's violet eyes flew wide open.

A figure stood far off in the distance.

Did she mistake him for someone else?

The reason was that the direction he was heading was the exact opposite of the headmaster's office.

According to the staff member controlling the front gate, all parties involved were headed to the headmaster's office.

In fact, she had even confirmed that Cassian del Farne was among the people confronting each other at the front gate.

However, a moment later.

"Ah."

Elysia figured out what building the figure was heading toward.

'It's the Faculty of Magic building.'

She had never visited it directly even once, but while he was away on the Legion Tour, she had already looked it up and memorized the exact location in her head.

Elysia immediately began following the distant figure instead of the headmaster's office.

* * *

'As expected.'

See? See?

I knew it.

When I rounded the corridor of the Faculty of Magic building and reached the front of my private lab, I could confirm just how accurate my foresight was.

In front of the tightly shut lab door.

There, Viscountess Müller, still blocking the doorway, was locked in a tense standoff with a dazzling golden head that looked very familiar.

Strictly speaking, what was familiar wasn't the person, but the head.

'Come to think of it, that hair color really is strongly hereditary.'

It was probably because the author had set the novel up with the clear premise that the Leopold imperial family shared blond hair.

Either way, in color, tone, and even the silky luster unique to straight hair, it was a dead ringer for his younger sister Iveline.

And the other dead ringer.

The crimson pupils, as if ruby gems had been set into the imperial family, snapped toward me when they registered my footsteps.

"……"

Prince Louis, who met my eyes, frowned slightly.

Meanwhile, Viscountess Müller, who had been blocking his way, looked openly relieved the moment she spotted me.

I casually ignored whether Prince Louis was scowling or not.

After all, I wasn't the kind of person whose values had a status hierarchy hardwired into them.

So I just bowed my head politely enough on the surface to seem proper.

"I pay my respects, Your Highness the Crown Prince."

"Are you the owner of this lab?"

"Yes, I am."

'Strictly speaking, though, it's a shared lab.'

'But there'd be no point in saying that; it'd only irritate him.'

I answered with my head still lowered and my gaze fixed on the Crown Prince's expensive shoes.

Then the clearly displeased voice of the Crown Prince dropped from above me.

"Lift your head."

I slowly raised my head.

Louis was looking down at me without hiding his displeasure.

"I don't have time for a long explanation. The situation is urgent, so open the lab door at once and hand the saintess over to me."

Hmm.

'This bastard is seriously treating the saintess like his personal property?'

A dry chuckle slipped out inside me.

Anyway, this is why blind love is dangerous.

A guy who had spent his whole life perfectly managing that hard-outside-soft-inside image would lose all sense the moment Lily got involved and start spewing full-blown lunatic lines.

'I didn't get it even when I read the novel, but seeing it in person is even worse.'

I glanced at Viscountess Müller.

She shrugged and sent me a look that said, 'You too, huh? Same here.'

Anyway.

"I'm sorry. That won't be possible."

"……What?"

Louis's eyes turned feral.

He asked, as if he couldn't believe the word he'd just heard.

"What did you just say?"

"I'm truly sorry, but it's difficult. I humbly ask your forgiveness."

Truthfully, I wasn't sorry.

What on earth would I have to be sorry for right now?

I'm the one solving the problem.

What's more, it's practically solved already.

This guy is being completely unreasonable.

If anything, he should be thanking me.

But what can I do?

If he doesn't like it, I at least have to say this much.

"The reason?"

"Do I really have to explain the reason to you again myself?"

I asked back with an air of feigned nonchalance.

"Did Lady Müller perhaps fail to explain to Your Highness why she couldn't hand the saintess over?"

"She did."

Louis spat out coldly.

"I was told the situation is still being resolved, so taking the saintess elsewhere right now would be troublesome. However."

He went on in a haughty tone.

"That premise is meaningless."

"May I dare ask for an explanation of what you mean by that?"

Ugh.

Fuck.

'This damn polished-speech routine is seriously a pain in the ass.'

"No matter the premise, keeping the saintess by my side is the surest way to keep her safe."

Hmm.

'That's an absurdly arrogant line of logic, but he's not wrong.'

'In the original, this bastard was crazy enough to storm the Order by force, beat the cardinal to a pulp, and rescue Lily in one over-the-top display.'

'That said.'

'The problem is that Lily is more terrified of you than anyone else in the world, you bastard.'

'The cardinal is scary because he's wielding a staff, but you are a trauma trigger for Lily just by existing.'

'You know exactly how dangerous and troublesome a man you are to Lily, so it won't work.'

"I'm truly sorry, but..."

"That's enough."

'This bastard is cutting me off already.'

When I still didn't back down, a dark blue fury flared in Louis's eyes.

"My patience isn't that long."

"……"

"I've already taken Lady Müller's honor into account and conceded that your argument has at least a shred of reason, so I'm even bothering to talk to you. But that's as far as it goes."

With a hard, stiff expression, Louis took a step closer.

"If you keep blocking me."

"……"

"From here on out, I'll have no choice but to see it as clear disloyalty."

Disloyalty.

The heaviest, most menacing word an imperial family member can say.

Any noble would have gone pale at that single word and stepped aside.

'But that doesn't work on me.'

I lightly moistened my lips with my tongue.

Because I already had a perfect three-step counterargument ready in my head to smash that flimsy threat flat with logic.

Just as I was about to start that glorious fact-smackdown.

Bang!

"……!"

"……?"

Behind me, the tightly shut lab door burst open with a loud crash.

'Huh?'

I flinched and turned around.

Viscountess Müller also looked toward the door, startled.

There.

"I don't want to go, Your Highness."

There was Lily, standing there with both fists clenched and her legs shaking.

'Huh? Fuck, she can't be doing this here.'

I was seriously flustered for a moment.

I'd clearly told her again and again to lock the door tight and stay quietly inside.

Yet this fearful, timid pink retriever had, for some reason, run straight out on her own to stand in front of the Crown Prince, who gave off the kind of aura that made even black tea seem too luxurious to share.

And she'd even done it by boldly blocking my way and spreading both arms toward the Crown Prince.

Hmm.

This is about to go to shit, isn't it?