Chapter 81
“Uh, why aren’t you coming in already?!”
What do you call that outfit again?
Even though Akion desperately tried to turn his head away, his mind had frozen solid from pulling all-nighters.
And now a visual shock too?
Rather than think of anything, Akion had frozen completely.
“Uh, u-uh….”
“Saint? Sainnt?”
“He’s frozen… Let’s take him inside.”
All he could do was stare blankly at Aysirel in an effort to wake his frozen mind.
And be dragged along by the Saintess and Aysirel.
Watching Akion react like this….
“Heh, h-heh, heh.”
Aysirel mistakenly thought he was completely smitten with her.
‘I knew dressing like this was the right choice…!’
In fact, today was the day they would carry out Operation: Akion’s Rest.
It was also something Hermione and Asterra had asked Aysirel to do so they could survive.
To that end, Aysirel had created work for the Tower Master and Goldie,
and hadn’t even hesitated to engage in heated debates with the Saintess and Flare.
“Anyone would feel most comfortable in their mother’s embrace. Therefore, this Aysirel Volkov believes that we must all embrace Akion with motherly love!”
“Ah, yes, I heard the Saint lost his birth mother at an early age…! As expected of his fiancée, your understanding of the Saint is truly profound!”
“Can’t you just give him a warm drink and put him to sleep…?”
Flare had tactlessly attacked her with the facts,
but Aysirel fought back undaunted.
“In that spirit, let us each come dressed in an outfit to satisfy our maternal instincts!”
“Mm-hm, I’m already dressed to bestow the mercy of the Heavenly Lord, so there’s no need for me to change!”
“This is supposed to be a duchess…?”
Thus, Aysirel had even subdued Flare, who, despite being at the very bottom of the imperial line of succession, was still a member of the Imperial Family.
“So, Sister Aysirel.”
“Yes, Saintess.”
“Exactly where is the maternal love in that garment with so little coverage?”
But the Saintess now knew that this “maternal love” was actually a revealing outfit.
Her cold gaze stabbed relentlessly into Aysirel.
However, Aysirel was a swordmaster who had survived the frozen north.
“Saintess. Men and women alike must be held in their mothers’ embrace from the moment they are born.”
The Saintess’s cool-headed criticism?
Aysirel didn’t care.
“Ultimately, the first thing a person encounters after being born is their mother’s embrace. Above all, as his fiancée… I have an obligation to offer Akion the embrace he is most familiar with.”
Because she needed Akion.
Of course, all that florid rhetoric could be summarized in a single sentence.
‘Sister Aysirel is thirty this year, right? Then… what on earth is she planning to do to the Saint?’
This woman was in a hurry to get married.
The Saintess wasn’t ignorant of women’s affairs simply because she was a saintess. As a woman herself, she had some intuition about these things.
Above all, how many women whose marriages had been delayed had knocked on the church’s door!
Having been tormented by them, she immediately saw what Aysirel was up to.
‘I must protect the Saint after all…! Heavenly Lord, please watch over me!’
With the awareness that the Heavenly Lord would smack His forehead if He heard her, the Saintess tightened her grip on Akion’s arm.
Flare, who had watched all of this from inside, gaped.
‘Could it be… the Saintess too?’
And thus began another bold misunderstanding.
Flare’s head began to ache at the fact—or rather, supposed fact—that she had gained another rival.
*
Of course, Flare had dressed up in her own way too.
“Your Highness, this is your chance! Your chance to get Prince Akion wrapped around your finger!!”
“Bae? Aren’t you getting too excited…?”
“Bring in the maids at once─!!”
In fact, her head maid Beatrice had mobilized every maid, so this wasn’t merely a halfhearted effort;
she had gone all out.
“Is this… me?”
“Your Highness. This Beatrice has applied makeup like this whenever I lured my husband into bed. Is that not why I have five children?”
“B-Bae! How could you say something like thaaaat…!”
To head maid Beatrice, Flare was a child she had borne in her heart.
It would be no exaggeration to say she had carried her on her back and raised her from infancy.
How could she not be happy now that this child was finally escaping the Imperial Family that had put her through so much?
And so Flare, who had even come dressed up with such resolve…
- Knead, knead~
“H-how is it, Prince? Feels good, doesn’t it?”
was giving him the shoulder massage the maids had given her herself.
“Ngh, Your Highness’s hands are magical.”
“E-hehe. You flatter me.”
While sitting on Akion’s back as he lay face down.
Of course, Akion, pinned beneath her, was internally shouting “This is bad!!” dozens of times per second.
But since he was pinned down anyway, he resigned himself to it and lay there receiving the massage.
“Grrr, if only I hadn’t lost…!”
- Knead, knead~
Aysirel, who had lost at rock-paper-scissors, was massaging Akion’s thighs and legs.
“Ah, ah. Sis. There. Ah.”
“Hmm? Here? Does it feel good?”
“Mmm-hmm….”
Even so, Akion was impressed by Aysirel’s unexpected talent for massage.
“That feels so goood….”
She seemed to know exactly how to work out every knot.
Thanks to Aysirel’s more-skilled-than-expected hands, Akion was melting into a limp puddle.
“When you train as a knight, you often get cramps or stiff knots. So I already know how to work them out.”
“I seeee….”
On top of that, Flare’s massage skills weren’t bad either,
so how could he possibly endure it as she deftly targeted his weak spots?
At this rate, Akion might fall asleep and be subjected to something dangerous.
- Eyes wide!
That was, if the Saintess hadn’t been beside him.
The Saintess kept a hawk-eyed watch on Flare and Aysirel, making sure Akion wouldn’t be subjected to anything untoward.
“Um, Saintess.”
“Yes, Your Highness the Princess.”
“You must be tired from your guard duties too, Saintess… How about taking a little break?”
In the end, Flare couldn’t stand it any longer and suggested, ‘Why don’t you go?’
“No. The Saint’s safety is a serious matter.”
“Safety is important. Yes….”
After receiving the Saintess’s answer of ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Flare gave up.
- Knead, knead~!
Flare had come prepared in her own way too, even if not as much as Aysirel.
Grumbling inwardly, Flare continued the massage.
“Saintess.”
“Yes, Duchess Aysirel.”
“Since I’m here, wouldn’t it be all right for you to rest?”
But Aysirel’s circumstances were different.
She had brought out a desperate strategy of her own… Wasn’t the Saintess’s interference practically sabotage?
“So please rest well. There will be no lapse in his security.”
Thus, Aysirel sent the signal, ‘If you’re not going to help, then leave.’
The Saintess shook her head.
“We must remain fully prepared. We never know what might happen.”
Her answer was, ‘What are you trying to pull? No!’
Aysirel clicked her tongue inwardly and redoubled her efforts with the massage, hoping to secure Akion’s support.
“Akion. Honestly, it wouldn’t be good for the Saintess to overwork herself too. Besides, with her here, isn’t this overkill for security?”
“……….”
“Akion? Akiooon?”
But no answer came from Akion.
- Snoooore, snoooore….
“He’s asleep….”
“Oops….”
The price of all those all-nighters was a brutally deep sleep.
A sleep so deep that no one could wake him, whether Flare or Aysirel climbed on top of him or someone shook him.
“Sigh, let’s lay him down. Your Highness, could you get off Akion?”
“Y-yes…!”
They had laid down his fatigue-soaked body, but it seemed wrong to wake him,
and besides, the Saintess would be watching with both eyes wide open, so they couldn’t do anything naughty with Akion either.
“Careful….”
“Hup.”
The Saintess, Aysirel, and Flare laid Akion straight on the bed.
- Soft breaths….
“Really… He looks like an angel when he sleeps.”
When those eyes steeped in fatigue and madness closed, a serene, sickly handsome man appeared.
How could someone like this be lazy one moment, then go completely insane whenever he researched?
- Pat, pat
Without realizing it, Flare smoothed and tidied his sleeping hair.
Perhaps the warm touch felt good against his body, which had been shivering from overwork,
“Mmm….”
- Squeeze….
“Ah.”
“Oh.”
“Oh dear.”
In his sleep, Akion tightly clasped Flare’s hand.
And the sleep talk he happened to utter was, of all things,
“Mom…….”
A word that seemed to prove his need for maternal love.
For a moment, Flare’s heart was deeply moved.
She knew that Akion had lost his birth mother early in life, and that his family had mistreated him for years.
For someone like him to say something like this in his sleep even after becoming an adult,
wasn’t it proof that the wound in his heart had never truly healed?
“……….”
As Flare’s compassion for Akion grew vigorously into something else within her….
“Um, Duchess Aysirel. And Saintess….”
“Yes.”
“Yes, Your Highness the Princess.”
“The two of you, um, you’re scary, so… Could you stop glaring at me?”
“No.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Until she could free her hand, Flare had to tremble beneath the killing intent of the two strongest women.
* * *
“A strong and mighty morning.”
Thus, Akion paid back his sleep debt all at once with eighteen hours of sleep.
Even the dark circles that had nearly reached his chin had smoothed out,
and he finally opened the laboratory door looking somewhat fresh.
And then,
- Whirrrrr!!
“Wow.”
He discovered a holy light sword welded to a motor shaft and spinning round and round.
More precisely, two holy light swords had been laid sideways, welded together, and made to spin.
Doing so had created a disk of light like an opened umbrella….
- Whirrrrr!!
- Click!
The Saintess, who was holding it, manipulated something on a spear-like rod, and the flashlight was stood upright and began rotating like a drill.
“Heehee…! With this, I can rummage through the demons’ innards even more thoroughly, right?”
“Ahem, you should know this is all thanks to Goldie!”
What in the world was that?
Akion was about to be swept away by shock, horror, and anger.