Chapter 71
“What about the coachman? Do we not need to call for one separately?”
Upon being instructed to get in the carriage, Arian tilted her head and asked.
It was a natural question.
After all, a carriage was bound to have a coachman to drive it.
However,
“We don’t need a coachman. I’ll be driving.”
Naturally, there wasn’t a single coachman in the world who could drive this carriage.
It had just finished development, after all.
Since it wasn’t pulled by horses in the first place, it was hard to even call it a carriage.
“Then that’s a problem…?”
“What’s a problem?”
“N-no, it’s nothing…! I just need to get in, right?!”
Arian had muttered to herself, but when Franz asked, she hastily shook her head and changed the subject.
Franz felt a bit bewildered.
She had said it was a problem in a very serious tone, but when he actually asked, she didn’t give him an answer.
“Well, if it had been really important, she would have told me.”
It wasn’t like Arian walked on eggshells around him just because he was the Magic Tower lord.
Surely she didn’t say anything because it wasn’t important.
Having convinced himself of that, Franz spoke.
“You just need to get in.”
“There are four doors, so which one should I take…?”
So that was the problem from the start.
True, a carriage only had one door, so it was understandable that she would be confused.
“Here, get in this side.”
In the end, Franz personally opened the passenger seat door for her.
“So I have to ride in such a cramped space…”
Arian muttered in fascination and climbed into the car in an awkward posture.
He had removed all the miscellaneous devices, so it was quite spacious for a car, but it seemed to feel cramped to her, who had only ever ridden in carriages.
‘Now I’m upset for no reason.’
He knew Arian meant no harm, but his heart ached unnecessarily since the car he had so proudly introduced was getting poor reviews.
But it was fine.
Her mind would change once they started driving.
Soothing his feelings like that, Franz got into the driver’s seat.
“The seat is nice. It’s appropriately soft, so I don’t think my back will hurt even if I sit for a long time.”
“I paid the most attention to that. We have to sit for a long time, so it shouldn’t be uncomfortable.”
At Arian’s praise, Franz’s mood quickly improved.
Don’t they say a parent is happier to hear their child praised than to be praised himself?
It felt exactly like that.
“Arian, when you ride in this carriage, you have to wear a seatbelt.”
“Seatbel… What is that?”
“If you look behind you to the right, there should be a metal clip. Can you find it?”
At Franz’s words, Arian turned her head to the right, but soon turned back to face Franz.
“W-where is it?”
Of course, the belt clip was perfectly visible to Franz’s eyes.
But that was only because he knew exactly what the clip looked like.
For Arian, who was encountering a car for the first time, it was entirely possible she couldn’t find it.
“Hold on a second.”
In the end, Franz stepped up this time as well.
Leaning his upper body toward her, he stretched his arm all the way out and grabbed the belt clip with his hand.
And he turned his head to explain, but,
“Here, this…”
He was left speechless because their faces were far too close.
With a little exaggeration, they were close enough to hear each other’s breathing.
However, this situation was a golden opportunity for Arian.
If she just mustered her courage and leaned her head forward slightly, their lips could touch.
By pure coincidence, Franz had thrust his face right in front of her.
However
“H-huh, gasp?”
Arian, who was weak in both offense and defense, already had her thought circuits burning up.
He, who was usually completely oblivious, had suddenly gone on the offensive, and the sheer contrast made her all the more startled.
Silence hung in the air for a moment.
Gulp-.
Brought back to his senses by the sound of Arian swallowing her saliva, Franz hastily returned his body to its original position.
An awkward atmosphere settled between the two.
“S-so this is the seatbelt…?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Franz answered calmly as if nothing was wrong, but inwardly, he was fixated on the situation from just a moment ago.
It was a situation that any man - no, any person - would naturally be fixated on.
After all, it was a distance where their lips would have touched if they had just leaned their heads forward a little.
It happened yesterday morning too, so why did these things keep happening?
“I need to be careful…”
Impropriety concerning his position was the thing he had to be most careful about.
It had the potential to drag down not only his own honor but also his family’s, and even the prestige of the Magic Tower.
“So what do I do with this…?”
“Ah, there’s a hole to plug it into down on your left, right? Give it here.”
“A hole to plug it into…?”
Arian’s voice sounded strangely suggestive, but Franz ignored it and took the belt clip from her.
And click, he plugged the clip into the hole.
“It’s done when it makes a click sound like this.”
“But why do we do this?”
Why do it, she asks.
To think she would ask such a basic question.
“To survive in case we get into an accident.”
“…Does this carriage kill you if you get into an accident…?”
Come to think of it, that was true.
Would there really be a risk of dying while driving a car in this world, when this was the only car that existed in the entire world?
“Still, you never know.”
It might suddenly run over a protruding rock, bounce up, and flip over.
He just had to think of it as preparing for unforeseen circumstances.
Soon, Franz, having buckled his seatbelt just like her, pressed the ignition button.
“Wow…”
Arian let out an exclamation of awe as the blue light, starting from the front of the car, traced along the intricately drawn magic circuits.
She shouldn’t be surprised by just this.
Because the real thing was starting now.
“Arian, here we go.”
Franz shifted the gear to drive and stepped on the accelerator to start the car.
“H-huh?”
As the car began to move forward, Arian turned her head toward Franz with her eyes wide open.
“Is it fascinating?”
“Y-you said it was a carriage?! There are no horses?!”
“That’s just a figure of speech. And since it runs on magic, it’s still technically a magic carriage.”
Arian’s expression was like that of a little kid going to the zoo for the first time.
She was making an expression that was both fascinated and slightly scared at the same time.
“How is it? Do you like it?”
“It’s not a matter of liking it. This is simply a revolution…!”
He knew she would like it.
It made no sense for a mage to dislike this.
Franz felt extremely proud of her reaction.
Driving the car out of the Magic Tower’s grounds like that, Franz left the crowded city and headed for a quiet road.
Driving on a road where the mountains and fields could be seen at a glance, he felt his mind naturally clear.
This must be why people went for drives.
It felt like all the worries he had, along with the worries he would have tomorrow, were completely blown away.
The car was driving slowly like that.
“Magic Tower lord.”
“What is it?”
“I’m just asking in case.”
“Yeah.”
“Well… it’s nothing much…”
Arian trailed off.
Along with that, her voice held a faint tremble, so she seemed nervous about whatever she was about to say.
At that, Franz felt an unnecessary sense of anxiety, wondering if another accident had happened at the Magic Tower.
However, the words that soon came out of Arian’s mouth were far beyond Franz’s expectations.
“Do you happen to have a woman you hold in your heart…?”
“Huh…?”
Franz turned his head and looked at Arian.
It was a shocking enough statement to make him turn his head while driving.
Soon, Franz pulled the car over on the quiet path.
He wanted to focus a little more on Arian’s words.
It would be a disaster if they got into an accident while driving and chatting unnecessarily.
“Why do you ask?”
“No, well, it’s just that. You subjugated the Demon Lord, right? And now you’ve settled down in the Magic Tower, so I was wondering if you had any thoughts of getting married.”
What in the world was this?
Franz was quite flustered by Arian’s out-of-the-blue question.
Of course, he had thoughts of getting married.
He wanted to live a relaxed life in a quiet place with a pretty wife, happily raising one daughter and one son.
But he didn’t know why Arian was asking that.
“Is this a normal question…?”
Since Franz had almost no interaction with other nobles, he couldn’t judge whether Arian’s question was normal or not.
Well, setting aside the intent of the question for now.
“I don’t?”
There wasn’t really any woman he liked.
Or rather, he hadn’t had the luxury for that in the first place.
Both his body and mind had been so busy that, let alone marriage, even dating was out of the question.
“What about Yuna?”
“Yuna?”
Marriage with Yuna…
He hadn’t really thought about it, but it did seem like it would be fun if they did.
Since she was always smiling, he also felt that the household would be harmonious.
But he didn’t have those kinds of feelings, well, as for whether he liked her as a woman.
“Not really?”
“Then what about the saintess?”
“That’s an absolute no. She’s the saintess. I’d get stoned by the Followers.”
Marriage with Yusti-ah was a definite no.
Setting aside the relationship between a man and a woman, the saintess of the Goddess Church marrying another man was a nonsensical story in the first place.
And it wasn’t like she was going to quit her position as saintess either.
“Then what about that elf who came before?”
“She’s busy throwing a tantrum about becoming my slave, so…”
Marriage with them was a ridiculous notion in the first place.
While in the Hero’s Party, they had argued literally every single day.
Naturally, harsh words had gone back and forth in the process.
Of course, that was during the days when they were fighting with their lives on the line, so now that they had some breathing room, they got much closer.
But if asked whether they were close enough to harbor romantic feelings, the answer was an absolute no.
They had been together for years, and to put it bluntly, they had seen all sorts of sides of each other.
Of course, you never know how human affairs will turn out, so he couldn’t be entirely certain.
Anyway.
“As of right now, there’s no one.”
“I… see…”
Arian’s expression was truly complex and subtle.
It was as if she was smiling, but not really smiling.
A bitterness could be felt within her smile.
Was she in a bad mood?
Thinking that, Franz applied a drastic remedy to lift her spirits.
“W-wait…! W-we’re going to die at this rate…!”
As expected, when you’re feeling down, you just have to step on the gas.
It is so great not having to worry about crashing into anything else.
It was the day after finishing the drive with Arian safely like that.
“If anything happens, contact me with this.”
Franz handed the clerks emergency contact necklaces imbued with telepathic message magic.
As long as he received the contact, he could come back anytime via teleport, so there wasn’t really a problem.
He just hoped such a thing wouldn’t happen.
“Arian, let’s go.”
“Yes, Magic Tower lord.”
Franz got into the car with Arian.
Finally, the North of the empire.
It was their departure for Duke Phrygia.