CH 178

Giants and Dwarfs

Translated by SoundDestiny

Edited by SoundDestiny

“I’m sorry. Could you give me a moment alone?”

Heeding Chanoir’s request, Neferte left the queen in her room and went out into the corridor.

“…………!”

Neferte bit his lip in an intense feeling of helplessness as he thought of the grief-stricken face of Shanoar.

When told of the destruction of the kingdom of Athena, Shanoar paled like a sick man.

It’s no wonder. She had never set foot in her native land since she had married, and the country had fallen into ruin.

The queen’s grief at the thought of her father’s eternal separation without ever seeing him again was palpable.

“We absolutely must take back the Kingdom of Aterna, for the sake of Lady Shanoar! I’m not going to let the wicked witches and undead get away with it……!”

Neferte clenched his fists with renewed determination.

“Take care of Lady Shanoar  for me. I’m going to be out for a bit.”

“Yes, sir, I understand.”

Leaving the queen’s maid to take care of the rest, Neferte walked out of the palace.

He walked out into the garden of the palace, where Justy Oigist, who had walked Neferte here, was training with his spear.

Justy was wearing no armour, just a shirt and trousers. Sweat beads flew from his spear as he twirled it, glistening in the sunlight.

“………..!”

Neferte gasped and was fascinated by the sight of Justy wielding the spear.

Wearing glasses, Justy had the serious, rotten face of a civil servant. But from the neck down, he was covered in thick muscle, and his body was as strong as if a rock had been transformed into a man.

It was the ideal body for a fighting man. It was the opposite of Neferte’s small, thin body.

“Uuu….”

Neferte unconsciously touches his pale breasts and arms, lowering his eyebrows and contorting his face sadly.

“Aa, Prince Neferte! Have you finished talking to the queen?”

“Waa!?”

Justy noticed Neferte coming out of the garden and stopped cleaving his spear and turned around.

For some reason Neferte felt guilty when he realised he had been spying on him, and he waved his hands in panic.

“Aa! The queen is resting in her room! I was just going to have a look around the palace!”

“Ha? Is that so?”

Justy wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, tilting his head curiously at the panicked Neferte. The sweat runs down the surface of his thick arms and falls to the ground in drops.

“Kh….!”

Neferte was almost blinded by the sight, but with a will of steel he forced his gaze away.

“I’m fascinated by men’s sweat……This makes me look like a pervert!”

Neferte, driven by an unidentified sense of frustration and guilt, opens his mouth without thinking about what he is going to say.

“This …… is quite a small palace!　It doesn’t seem like the place for a queen to be sleeping, but I think His Majesty Granard is disrespecting Lady Shanoar.”

Involuntarily saying, Neferte makes his heart beat greatly, saying “I’ve done it” inwardly. It was what he had thought, but decided not to speak.

He had doubts and resentment about the fact that Shanoar was living in a remote palace away from the capital, but there was no power in the kingdom of Athena to protest against it.

In the event that the two powerful men, his brother Raidorl and King Granard, give up on him, then the fate of Neferte will disappear like a haze exposed to a gust of wind.

“Mmm ……that’s……”

Neferte, who was upset and said something he shouldn’t say, shook his face, but Justy vaguely muddyed his words without blaming him.

King Granard has already died, but this has not been made public. The only people who knew about it were a few from Raidorl’s aides. Of course, Neferte did not know this either.

Justy understood the delicate position in which Shanoar found herself after the loss of her husband, and he could not blame Neferte for her misfortune.

“His Highness Prince Raidorl has his own ideas of what a regent should do. If it were possible, I would like His Highness the Neferte to be aware of this….”

“No, I’m sorry, I forgot that you accepted me as an outsider and I said something unnecessary. I would be grateful if you would pretend that you never heard me.”

“I understand. Let’s just ignore the conversation here as if it were the chirping of a bird or the buzzing of an insect.”

They looked at each other, nodded and dismissed the subject.

Neferte breathed a sigh of relief and asked Justy what was bothering him.

“Sir Justy, you seem to be very fit, have you been a knight long?”

“It is only recently that I have come into the service of His Highness Raidorl as a knight. I have been learning to use a spear since I was five years old, both as a hobby and as an education.”

“Hmm……I guess it takes time to build up a body like that. I’d like to be like that one day…..”

Neferte slid his gaze over Justy’s finished body and sighed in anguish.

No matter how much training he does, he’ll never be able to get those muscles – Neferte’s expression darkens as he strokes his chest.

Justy lowered his eyebrows to the apparently depressed prince of a foreign country.

It is impossible for an unreliable warrior to know how to care for a depressed child. Even so, he squeezes out a few words of encouragement in his own way.

“……Don’t be so discouraged. There are many men of slender build who have gone on to great things as martial artists.His Royal Highness Prince Raidorl is not a man of size, and he has known a certain lady for many years who is a great master of the sword.”

In Justy’s mind’s eye is Angelica Ilkas. She is a one-legged, one-eyed woman who specialises in swordplay and water magic.

When she was with her ‘brother’ Sven Arbeil, Angelica became the ‘onee-chan’, but she was capable of destroying a whole company on her own if she wanted to.

There is no guarantee that Justy would be able to beat Angelica in single combat. Aside from Raidorl, Angelica might be the strongest swordswoman in the Kingdom of Zain.

Being small or a woman is often seen as a weakness. However, it is the strength that comes from overcoming weaknesses that can be relied upon at the critical moment. His Royal Highness Neferte is small in stature, but he has the strength to lift a great sword. If he can make full use of it, he’ll be able to become a great warrior of his own country.

“I hope so. I wish I was…….”

Justy’s martial encouragement made Neferte’s face light up slightly and he grabbed the greatsword at his back.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to learn a few tricks.　I would like to sharpen my sword for the coming restoration of my country.”

“It would be a pleasure to be used as a grinding stone for the crown prince. I would be delighted to serve you.”

Justy pointed the tip of his spear at Neferte, who was still holding his greatsword in its scabbard – the fake Mistilteinn.

The sounds of sword fights rang out in the garden of the palace and continued uninterrupted until the evening.