Chapter 209 - Border Problems

Lucia could only sigh in annoyance. At least he didn't go and get caught up with another girl again.

There were some boys that approached her and asked for a dance, but she simply declined. She walked out of the hall and onto the side terrace. She found an empty spot and began quietly eating the food she picked out earlier.

She had separated from Aurellia since the girl was asked to dance with someone. Aurellia didn't decline out of courtesy, but Lucia didn't care one bit about giving others face. She declined all the beastkin that had wanted to dance with her.

While she was eating by her lonesome, a voice sounded out from behind her.

"Yo! You alone?"

"...Cel?"

Lucia didn't bother turning around to face the familiar voice. Despite changing the way he talked, Lucia's ears were pretty sharp and had detected the familiarity in the voice.

"Hmm, you could at least act surprised, Lulu," Cecil flipped over the stone railings and landed right next to her.

"Hmph, I'm not talking to you," Lucia turned away and continued eating her food.

"What? Is this about me running away instead of going over to you?"

"Hmph!"

Cecil shrugged. "Okay, so if I asked you...then what? I don't even know how to dance! I'm not gonna go and embarrass myself now."

"..."

"I bet you don't know how to dance as well, right?"

"Guhh..." Lucia's face turned red at his words. It's true, even if Cecil did ask her, they'd only go and embarrass themselves on the dance floor.

"W-weren't you supposed to be the young heir of a prestigious family, Cel?!"

"Hey! Don't blame me! I was only taught martial arts!"

"Well, it's not MY fault!"

"Aren't you supposed to be the Aurielle's 8th young princess?"

"I just recently became one!"

Even Lucia, as a child, was only ever taught spells and knowledge regarding mana. As for these...'fancy' hobbies and activities, it was obvious that she too, would have no clue on what to do.

Magical combat was their forte, but give them something else to do and these two would be too clueless.

"Well, let's save ourselves the embarrassment and just hang around here!"

"Hmmm..."

"What? Disappointed?"

"Oh! Was that not Ob.vi.ous?" Lucia replied in chagrin.

"S-sorry..."

Lucia sighed, "Well, it's not your fault. Can't help it since you're always training or doing something else everyday..."

"Yeah..."

The two stood there in silence. Lucia continued eating her food. Cecil conjured a small mana bolt in his hands and began moving it around his hand. It became a small habit for him whenever he had nothing to do or was lost in thought.

The first melody being played ended after a couple of minutes. The two heard an applause coming from inside of the hall.

"...I don't think I can get used to this..."

"Haha, my thought's exactly, Cel~"

Lucia giggled, she went back inside the hall to return the plate and didn't take long to return. She went over to Cecil again and asked.

"Let's get out of here?"

"Sure?"

"Hihi~"

Lucia stretched her arms out, Cecil got the gist of what she wanted and simply picked her up in a princess carry.

"Oh? You actually knew what I wanted?"

"..."

"Normally you'd just play dumb, Cel~"

"I'm not that dense...I think..."

"Hmhm~ sure you aren't, took you a year to figure out how I feel, that's not dense at all. That's SUPER dense."

"Ugh, whatever...Silv, Yuna, we'll be heading out now~ make sure you take back mother and father to the residence later."

Yuna who was close by with Silver in her arms simply nodded in response.

This should be reminded, but these two weren't the only people on the side terrace. When Lucia went in earlier, some of the youngsters had noticed her going out again and they followed her. She then went over to Cecil and was now being carried up in his arms.

The couple finally noticed that there were other people around them. The two blushed, but Cecil simply turned around and stepped on the stone railing. He activated Mana Burst and jumped, launching his body straight into the air.

"Woah!!"

"H-hey! Are they supposed to do that?!"

"This party still hasn't finished yet!"

Their exit had left the people behind clamoring. Anna and Zaki couldn't but help overhear the commotion. While the elders around them had somewhat dark faces and were a little disgruntled, the mother and father pair only laughed.

"Well, that's our children. I was expecting something like this to happen~" Anna giggled.

"I honestly thought they'd not even step through the front door of the mansion, they did a good job enduring all the way until now," Zaki added with a profound nod.

"Ahahah~ let the children be! They're simply not used to things yet. By the way, Eldest Brother, I heard that Cecil has been..."

The family head, Maki, quickly diverted everyone's attention to a different topic. Cecil and Lucia had escaped from the party and were heading back to Cecil's private residence.

He could have simply used Blink to move back, but he thought it was nice to soar through the night sky by jumping from building to building.

A full moon was high up in the air and it was a beautiful night. The pair soared through the air in silence, enjoying the nice calm of the night.

******

It was the next day. This time however, Cecil was walking in the direction of his classroom alongside his friends.

It was the first time after 2 months that he'll be attending class. The air was hot and it was pretty unbearable if not for the fact that Lucia, Ainz, and Fina were constantly using cooling magic.

"Jeez...the days really are unbearable!" Cecil exclaimed.

"T-tell me about it...I feel like I'm being cooked alive...why couldn't you make an AC big enough to cover the sky, Cecil???" Fina replied while being carried on Ainz's back.

"Ahahahah! That'd be impossible Fina!"

"Fifi's a merfolk, that's why she's more susceptible to heat than us!" Velicia added. The girl was currently clinging onto a fatty. It was the long absent Lucius, the fat alchemist!

"Hey, Lucius, I was always wondering, but what's been going on lately? It was like you had vanished all of a sudden! I didn't see you anywhere after the first time we saw you!" Ainz asked.

"Humhum...well I was actually pretty busy! There was a small problem back at my clan. I had to go back and settle some things...I missed the tournament and Urrugdrasil Trials because of it...what a shame."

"Family issues, huh? I won't pry, but do you need any help?"

Cecil offered a helping hand. Lucius smiled at him, but chose to reject it.

"Don't worry about that. It's all been taken care of. We've just had to deal with some beastmen invaders on our lands. My family's territory is pretty close to the border, after all."

"Okay."

The Empire had been pressuring the Anglaria Kingdom right from the start of the New Year so there were bound to be some border problems, it probably had something to do from when the humans first invaded the Orca Empire's lands.

It's been a couple of months since then, but now with the Empire wanting to exploit and take away the new magi-tech that Cecil had created for the Kingdom, could they seriously have stopped encroaching on their lands?

Cecil thought that this was unlikely. He could still detect to distress that was present in Lucius' eyes. There was no way the problems were resolved. In fact, things might have gotten even worse after the trials.

Although they were from the same continent, the beastmen have always been overbearing in doing things.

They acted to their own wishes, but only during times of crisis where their interests were being harmed would they try and humble themselves to the other powers...or take the drastic route of putting pressure onto the other powers until they caved in to their demands.

This was what's currently happening to the Anglaria Kingdom, constant harassments and encroachment on the borders. Despite being at war with the humans, the Empire still had the time, energy, and man-power to cause trouble for another kingdom.

All of this was still tolerable to the Kingdom, but Cecil honestly thought that the Royal Family should be stricter and more intolerant to this kind of harassment.

The Empire was disturbing the peace and stability of the people residing at the border areas. If Cecil was given the choice, he'd like his shot at those beastmen. They've been really annoying ever since the trials.

The group separated from Lucius once they arrived at the academy's main building. They quickly arrived at their classroom and everyone was pleasantly surprised to see Cecil gracing them with his presence this time around.