194 ⑤ Tyrant

The time between then and night was only painful for me.

He was not allowed to stay in this mansion until his husband had finished his supper, and he was to be placed under house arrest in the original room again.

The food could be finished in a little over an hour.

Thus, even until sunset, when supper began, only two hours remained.

Well, I can't even comfort boredom with my enemies capturing me.

I slept on a fuzzy bunk, and I didn't even have time to get bored.

"Dear Asta... Shall I bring you something to drink...?

and Chiffon-Cher, who peered his half from the clash, calls on Hikame.

"No, it's cool."

"Really...... but please don't hesitate to say anything as we still have a lot of time left by dinner...... because it is the job given to me to respond to it......"

With that being said, Chiffon-Cher gets closer all the time.

"All I want is to go back to my house as soon as possible."

"... Anything else, whatever Asta wants..."

The sleeping area is slightly shattered.

When I saw it, Chiffon-Cher had his hips shallow at the foot of the sleeping table.

He has one arm on the cloth, twisting his creased hips and pointing only his upper body towards me. Those strange purple eyes stared at me and I accidentally shrugged my body.

"Well, then can you tell me something to the boredom? It's not about this mansion or the nobles, it's about the public."

"Well......" Chiffon-Cher smiles with his hands in his mouth.

"But I don't know what's outside this mansion... because I'm not allowed to leave the mansion..."

"But you were forced to come from outside this mansion, weren't you? Although I don't understand one thing about the relationship between the West and the North right now."

I get up and agua in the middle of my bedroom.

It's not even a very tough topic for my mind, but it might be somewhat better than letting myself down to some outrageous thoughts.

"If you're going to say it at last, I don't know much about slavery in this country either. You seem so free to behave... but still, you're a slave, aren't you?

"Yes... I was captured by Selva's soldiers at an early age and brought to this Genos... but I was able to learn the West Word faster than any of them, so that I was allowed to live in the Mansion..."

"That's a really bad story. I don't know how bad that sounds to me."

"No... Still, this Genos is peace... I'm sure it's because you're far from Mahdra... at the border, the people of the west and north resent you as enemies... but in this land you won't be treated so badly either..."

Still, they were throwing a radar at you, I almost said, but I guess that means something like that doesn't even go into a terrible way.

After all, I was born and raised in peaceful Japan and it seems to be a little overloaded topic for me.

"The kingdoms of the south and east are still at war at the border, aren't they? But it seems that in this genous we are able to coexist without interference while countering. Would the people of the North and the West be able to coexist in the territories of the East?

"Come on... I don't know... my hometown was far from Sims, so I don't know..."

It's what I thought from the beginning, but I couldn't even feel the slightest dust on this Chiffon-Cher sign of mourning our condition.

I don't know, of course, if that just hasn't come out on the surface, or if the feeling of just moaning has also ruined me.

The only thing that is clear is that this woman is the one who exchanges words in this irresistible mansion without the most abomination.

"... Master Asta is a stranger..."

Smiling loosely, Chiffon-Cher said so.

"I can cook wonderful dishes like that while I am a people of the lodging town... you shelter me and others while I am a people of the west... and you seem to be a lot more powerful even though you make such a kind face..."

"Hey, there's no such thing as a powerless person in a forest settlement as me."

But that young man named Roy seemed a few steps weaker than me like that. Does it mean that my life by the woods has helped me a little?

"He's really strange... so much so that in a few moments I'll be saying goodbye... it's the first time I've ever felt like this since I left my hometown..."

"... I don't hate you either, Chiffon-Cher"

If Cycleus loses his legs, will it be possible for these people to gain their freedom as well?

Given the relationship between the West and the North, it's not even that optimistic - for now, I'd like to let the story tell around the camouflage that I met this kind of woman in this hall.

"... it's almost dark..."

Chiffon-Cher stands up softly.

That's how she came back from across the clash with a flaming candlestick in her hand.

No, a candlestick, or a lantern. Metal hand-held, the flames are sealed in a glass cover.

It did feel like the sunlight plugging in through the small window of the light removal had been reduced a lot.

The time for supper is finally drawing near.

Do you like my food? Is there any chance that I will be freed as promised, if you like it?

If they don't let me go - that's when I might have to think about getting away with it, too.

(ii-fa...... you would just be back home already and hearing what's going on from the rud-lu's...)

How angry I-Fa would be about me for not fulfilling my promise to go home safely.

And how sad you will be.

My chest is bitter and my head is heavy.

It seems as if the dark clouds that have arisen in the body are turning into black turbulence and rumbling around.

Without the thought that the ai-fa, which I don't know the circumstances, would have been more painful, I could have been all twitchy with no shame or outrage.

After that, he spent a painful time in silence, like torture in thin lights - no matter how limiting, he put his legs down under the sleeping table, with both open doors open from the outside without any foreshadowing.

"Asta at Fa's house. My husband said he would forgive me."

He was one of the guard soldiers.

Forgive me or not, I took it. I can't even look at it.

"Come here.... woman, you stay in this room"

Now it's time to face Teng himself with this imitation.

Anyway, we have to calm down, calm down and deal with it.

I asked Chiffon-Cher only to get ready to change and set foot in the corridor again.

(Is it Cycleus himself, or Cycleus's men or something - now finally, don't let everything clear up)

I think so, with a number of lanterns up on the wall and still walking down a dim and creepy corridor.

This trip was a lot longer than even the bathroom and cooking area.

Really, it's what happens when you're in the maze. Wherever you go, brick walls and carpet floors just keep going, and you can't tell at all. Even assuming I could skip the soldiers and escape, I wasn't even going to be able to go back to my original room instead of going outside.

They go down the spiral stairs, they are stretched out, and then they go up another staircase. After all those minutes of walking, the door finally appeared in front of me.

It's a big door, distinctly different from the other doors we've been through.

The edges are reinforced with plates of metal, and the decoration of the sculptures is just as stunning.

There is a time, and it's reclining. It's like the gateway to hell.

"I brought you Asta from Fa's house!

One of the soldiers tells me out loud.

I guess this door is so thick that it won't reach you unless you raise your voice about that.

From inside, I heard a man say "come in" in his cuddly voice.

A heavy door is opened by the hand of a soldier.

Really, the bright light flooded the corridor.

They have a lot of grand lights. I step inside the room with my eyelids half-closed to avoid being struck by the light.

And - relative to the person.

"Stop there," a low man's voice tells me.

The door closed slowly and two soldiers stood on my left and right.

(This is the mastermind...?

I drink sauce and saliva.

I hear so much about Cycleus' appearance from Gazran-Rutim.

But it wasn't Cycleus.

It couldn't have been Cycleus.

"My Lord... he is in Asta, the house of Pha."

A low man's voice said so.

It was no more than an accompanying martial officer who stood in his stead than he had just raised his voice.

He seemed to be a man of the highest rank, dressed in a more magnificent armor than the soldiers who refrained from my left and right.

But it doesn't look good in that outfit either. He has a strangely sloppy physique and looks like a dumb cow.

But it didn't matter that way.

The problem was that the lord of that room, who slept sluggishly in a fuzzy bench and looked at me - Teng himself, who brought such an irrational fate to me.

"Yeah. You're not even some kind of man. I'm not a kid yet."

A tall voice, that's what he said.

That was the key as high as a child, a tongueless voice.

No, no, no.

He was just a little girl who wasn't old enough.

"It's hard to believe a kid like that just made that dish. Is this really Asta from Fa's house?

"Yes, that's for sure"

When a sloppy soldier answered that in a shady voice, the girl looked at me from top to bottom with an inexplicable eye.

It's an arrogant shore to see, and I've got eyes that I could look down on.

But after all, he was just a little kid.

The age would be ten or so. It's harder to tell the back length because you're sleeping in self-depravity, but it's small and thin anyway.

But its laid-back body was wrapped in a pure white dress, as if it consisted only of frills and ribbons.

The upper body is perfectly designed to suck on the body, and the waist to bottom is stacked with a skirt strand like a large wheel. It is a luxurious and gorgeous costume like a wedding dress.

From its shoulders to its arms, the ivory coloured skin is blurred, where silverwork and gemstone arm decorations glow.

It has chestnut hair stretched all the way around its chest, and it's the silver tiara that glitters on the top of its head.

While dressed in such a costume, the girl lay herself in a long chair.

The fluffy skirt is half peppered and ruined.

Of nobility, it would be a princess.

I also make the face I deserve to call it that.

Light-colored eyes are firm and large, and bow-shaped eyebrows, small nose beams, and lips like cherry blossom stumps are very well made. He has a small face that seems to be easily wrapped in the palm of his hand, and his ivory skin, which has not burned to the sun, is spotless and slippery.

But the girl had a much more grumpy look on her endless face.

It's also a face filled with negative emotions that are completely different from those of Ai-Fa and Lara-Luu.

This guy looks like a pain in the ass - and he sounds a warning in my head.

"... what are you staring at?

The girl said that in an irritating voice.

"Aren't you mistaken about something because you get a little culinary arm? If I were you, I wouldn't be allowed to stand before me as a person with a lower status like you, would I?

The words I wanted to say back came to me as much as I wanted.

But if you put something far-fetched in your mouth, that's what you might get slapped with a whip. The girl's voice was filled with plenty of unpleasant sounds just to make her think so.

"... are you the one who made me come to this place?

I didn't even know how to treat such a small tyrant, and I tried to respond with the softer tone possible, but not with polite words or anything first.

There seemed to be no complaints about the tone, and the girl just clung to her lower lip in a silly way.

"What are you talking about now?... hey, who are you? In what country the hell did you get the skill to cook that kind of food? It's definitely not Genos, is it?

"Before I ask you about my qualities, I wonder if you could let me hear your qualities. Who the hell are you?

"I am Lefreia."

All that being said, whether it's enough or not, the girl - Refraia - calls me even more.

"I've never tasted a dish like that before. I heard you didn't use any unusual ingredients, and what is that? Where the hell are you cooking on the land? From what I've seen, it's like mixing up with some country, Sim? Jagal? No way, it's not Mahydra, is it?

"My homeland is an island country outside this continent. The name of the country is Japan."

Answering that without a shame, he said, "An emigrant people!?," Refraia opens her eyes.

"Well, you were a migrant... then I'm also convinced you can cook dishes you've never seen before! But how can there be a migrant people in the middle of a continent like this? What kind of migrant people just do a little business with Mahydra and Sims and go right back out into the ocean?

"No, it's..."

"Weren't Kimmus and Karon the only ones in Selva and Jagal in the first place? And yet, how can you cook like that? Why would a kid like you do that? Who the hell are you?

I just got back to the first question.

I don't know what the hell's going on, but I always decide to get my attitude in order.

In the meantime, I also decided to observe a bit of what was going on indoors.

It is a luxurious room that deserves to be called an aristocratic residence.

Not as big as a scab, but not only a carpet with long hairy feet, but also a geometric tapestry stretched out on the walls, leaving the boneless brick walls almost hidden.

The girl is lying in a long chair shaped like a sofa bed, the size of which, if normally seated, is likely to line up as many as four adult boys.

And between me and my husband, there is a growing table with grape liquor colored crosses, decorated with colorful flowers piled up in a grass basket.

In addition, the four corners of the room contained strange stone statues.

Is it an ornament, but also an exorcism potency? It is a monstrous half-beast god's stone statue with a lion's head and a human upper body, and a horse or a deer's limb.

It is made of stone that emits a white, smooth glow like marble, each carrying a sword and a spear and turning towards the center of the room. The shape of an excitedly stripped lion, the muscles of his shoulder over his weapon, and the huge hooves that were swung up are carved in quite a rough twist, and I can still feel the sense of movement that seems to move.

More notable than that, however, was the lighting in that room.

Something like a giant chandelier was suspended from the high ceiling, from which light like the white daylight was delivered to every corner of the room.

It is a treasure-shaped chandelier that is about a meter in diameter.

If it's my hometown, it's not that amazingly lavish.

But given the level of civilization in this world, it would be worth a surprise.

Whether the material is glass or crystal, dozens and dozens of lighted candle flames reflect indiscriminately on transparent decorations to produce sun-like light.

I wonder what the hell the candle is from. The room is full of slightly sweet and gentle scents. Smoke, too, seems a lot less.

"- Answer my question. What the hell are you blurring about?

The sound of an explosion of eclampsia is still likely, and I can freshly rush to the girl Lifreia.

"... I'm not going to be able to give you much of an answer to satisfy your curiosity. I was thrown out on this land when I realized it."

While choosing words, I let them answer that way.

"But anyway, my hometown wasn't on this continent, and there were plenty of people in that hometown who could cook even at my age. I know it feels a little unusual, but that's all."

"... yeah"

"So, can't you answer my more questions? Who the hell are you and why did you invite me to this mansion? Besides, there's no way to threaten me with a knife."

The girl shut her mouth perfectly.

That's how you look at me in disgruntlement.

"Someone over there..."

And I turn my gaze back towards the soldier in formation instead of the bench.

"I guess you're the executor there who kidnapped me, huh? Why did you have to imitate such an outlaw when you served in the aristocracy hall?

This was half like tearing.

But he looked familiar in the figure's thick shape, and his mundane voice sounded familiar.

It is a people west of the yellowbrown skin, with dark brown hair swirling with a shadow.

He has an unhealthy swollen face and is hard to tell how old he is. However, the force seems to be strong for the groaning.

The man looks back at me silently, bluntly glowing his little brown eyes under his hazy eyelids.

"I have an idea whose belongings the hall here is. But his husband must be attending an important meeting at the castle in Genos right now. Is he telling me that you guys did this? He doesn't want to get bored with the people by the woods."

…………

"You said Refraia, didn't you? What the hell are you...?

The girl rose up peeling.

One of the skirts, like a chunk of frills, glitters in the light of the chandelier.

And - the girl stepped on the estate waste.

"You don't care about your father! You don't have a father, so now I'm the Lord of this Hall!

"Father... were you the daughter of Cycleus, Refraia"

Well, it is the most difficult conclusion.

There is no doubt that this is the Hall of Cycleus beyond serving the people of the North as slaves, but Cycleus should now be packing in Castle Genos - a contradiction that could now be unraveled.

Also, if I were Cycleus' daughter, I would have had the opportunity to hear the reputation of my shop from around Deal.

The suspicion in my chest was to be cleared up.

I'm sure Cycleus is not involved in this.

Otherwise, more importantly, you can't allow this kind of imitation in your absence.

"Yeah, I think I know the general situation.... So, what are you gonna do with me? If I lost my hand in cooking, I'd be forbidden to do business in boarding town."

…………

"As I explained, I'm an exotic cook. I would have cooked the best dishes myself, but I don't know if it would fit the mouth of the people on this land. Still, I didn't mean to lose my hand."

I had been drained of a lot of poison, so I could state that in a relatively quiet manner.

It's only unforgivable that you took Nair hostage, but if this was nevertheless an attempt to attribute it to the curiosity or prank of the daughter of a nobleman who grew up spoiled, there should also be a way to fit it round.

"I don't want a reward, so get me home. So, I want you to keep doing business the way you've always done. - That's all I want. Is it something I can't get you to do?

Refraia chewed her lips and shut up.

I don't think such a little girl is empowered to do this to my shop, but I wonder.

But, well, I don't mind postponing that.

If this ridiculous story crushes my stall, it should be another big mess in Inn Town. If Cycleus or Melfried returns from the castle in five days, we should get another chance to negotiate.

So - if you could just let me go home, that's fine now.

"... angry man, you are"

Eventually Refraia said so with a beautifully shaped brow in sight.

I guess I spoke a little too suddenly, and I get my place right.

But Refraia silently stretched its slender fingertips onto the table without trying to explode the eclampsia.

There was something like a small jewellery box on it, from which Refraia took out a small metal plate that glowed silver.

The metal plate is arced and thrown away at my feet.

It was a shiny silver coin that I own a few at home, too.

With a value of 100 pieces of white copper coins and 1000 pieces of red copper coins in a single sheet, it is the first currency you will only see in the accommodation town in exchange shops.

"... make him take the reward? But this is too much money for anything."

It takes about four extra days for me to earn one silver coin, by the way. The current net daily income is roughly 250 red copper coins.

Or should I honestly take it here and give it to Nail as a nuisance fee?

I was thinking about that, and Refraia stayed in a ruthless look, I said.

"What are you talking about? That's the price for your job."

"The price?"

Just pick up the silver coin at your feet, and I'll tilt my neck.

What difference does it make, in terms of reward and price?

"I haven't recognized your work that far yet. So you do what you deserve."

"Yeah? I don't know what you mean."

"Tomorrow's, daytime snacks first. If you can satisfy me with that, I'll give you another silver coin."

When he abandoned me to undo my words, Lifreia suddenly turned her back on me.

"Then I shall rest now. Prepare yourself for tomorrow."

"Wait a minute! What are you kidding about tomorrow's snack? Weren't you going to get me home when I tried to convince you!?

Refraia stopped and gave me a sideways, risky gaze.

"Shut up. I am the lord of the house. Follow my word while you are in this hall."

"There won't be such a lawless story! How many noble daughters are there to be forgiven and not forgiven!

I almost stepped out of my way.

but the soldiers grab my arms lightly from left to right.

But I couldn't shut up about it.

"Then let me tell you, this kind of imitation is supposed to be detrimental to your father, too! Your father is connected to the people of the woods as a representative of Genos, isn't he? If you, the daughter of such a person, imitate this, your father will be put in a very bad position!

"... can't you hear me say shut up?

"You're the one who's gonna listen to me! If you don't want to turn the story up, let me go now! Now there's still room for laughing! But if I sin any more..."

"My father is in a bad position?

He whispered my words again, and that's what Refraia said.

On that small, well-made side, there was a snarling smile like a little devil.

"That might be interesting. I wonder what he would look like and be angry with me when he comes back five days later. I'm looking forward to that, too."

"Hey, hey -!"

"Then the deadline is five days. Father should return even in the morning of the tenth, so cook in the meantime a dish that can satisfy me from the bottom of my heart. Then I'll give you another silver coin, and I won't have to send you home five days later."

So Refraia cut the words, and now she looks like a prank kid.

"... but if you cook too much boring food, I will never let you do business in Inn Town, no matter what your father says. If you don't like it, encourage it at best."

"Wait, hey!

My anger got ripped off on the little girl's back.

And so the young tyrant vanished beyond the back door, which was opened by the hand of a sleazy squire.

I was to tremble in great wrath with a silver coin that glittered without sin, with my arms grabbed by soldiers from left to right.