Volume 2 - CH 23

The place we had been called in to was one of the venues inside the Royal Castle.

Together with Lady Sophia, I walked on the red carpet inside the dazzling venue. She was dressed in a deep red dress, and wore her platinum hair up. It seemed to heighten her beauty as the rose of the Rosenberg marquis household all the more.

My Lady was growing more beautiful with each passing day. I attended as her escort, and we advanced towards the inner parts of the venue. It was a buffet-style party, and a group of people who seemed to be members of the royal family were talking at one of the tables in the back in a good mood. 

There was still some time left before the start of the party, but, once the party began, the hosts would become busy immediately. Therefore, Lady Sophia needed to greet them beforehand. Together with my Lady, I made my way to the table where the royal family was.

The royal family seemed to be talking with other guests that had arrived before us, but, when those guests noticed Lady Sophia, they said: “Let us continue speaking later.” and took their leave. We gave them a slight bow and then turned our gazes towards the royal family.

Photographs or anything of the sort were non-existent in this world. Therefore, this was my first time seeing the royal family. However, from their attire, I concluded that the couple in front of us were King Theodore and Queen Adele.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesties, King Theodore, Queen Adele.1Thank you very much for inviting me here today.”

“Ah, it’s been a while, Sophia. I’ve heard of your continuous achievements.”

Having heard this exchange, although I didn’t let it show on my face in the slightest, I felt relieved. This was the second time that Lady Sophia had met King Theodore and Queen Adele. However, their previous meeting had taken place behind closed doors. Given what it had been about, I wouldn’t have found it strange for them to pretend that it never happened.

Lady Sophia had expected it as well, so she didn’t use the phrase: ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you again.’ Nevertheless, the King responded with ‘It’s been a while’. In other words, he didn’t intend on keeping the previous meeting itself a secret.

Previously, Lady Sophia had said things such as: ‘Even if I were to make the gods into my enemies-’, so I was worried that she perhaps might have secretly picked a fight with the royal family, but… that seemed to have been a needless worry.

As I was analyzing their exchange like this, my Lady had finished her greetings. I sensed both the King’s and the Queen’s gazes turning towards me and I immediately bowed respectfully.

“It is my utmost pleasure to meet you. My name is Cyril, I am a member of the school academy’s Student Council. I am beyond honoured to have been invited here today.”

“Oh, so you’re the Sir Butler2?”

“…Pardon?”

What did he just say? ‘Sir Butler’? Did I hear wrong?

“…Ah, don’t worry about it.” 

Although I was terribly curious about it, since His Majesty had said to forget about it, there was no way that I could ask him again. I lumped all of my curiosity together and chased it away into a corner of my mind, and then finished my pleasantries. 

The Queen addressed me right after.

“You’ve been a great help to Alforth.”

“I apologize. I was told that Your Highness the Queen had given her permission, nevertheless…”

“Yes, I certainly gave that permission. Therefore, please treat Alforth like a younger brother, and continue to guide him from now on.”

I couldn’t reject the Queen’s request, but I couldn’t treat His Highness as a younger brother either. At a loss on how to answer, I replied with an “…Yes…?” 

This was an ambiguous reply that could be understood as both ‘Yeah.’ or ‘What?’ and it was my standard answer when I didn’t know what to reply.3

Using it incorrectly could be disastrous. However, since it allowed the other person to freely interpret the answer, it was effective when used in these kinds of situations.

“I have also heard that you have been of great help for my niece. We will not be making a public statement, but you have our gratitude.”

“Such gratitude isn’t necessary, I merely helped.”

I implicitly insisted that this achievement belonged to Lady Sophia. 

“You’re certainly correct. If it had been your achievement alone, I was thinking of using it as an excuse to back you up. It’s truly such a shame.”

“…Pardon?”

What did she say just now? I thought I heard the Queen say that she would back me up… was I imagining things? Commoners could get backed by nobles. However, I had never heard of the royal family ever backing a commoner. I might have misheard her, or perhaps it was a slip of the tongue, or something like that.

“Ahem, Adele. There are other guests we have kept waiting, let’s leave this at that for now.”

“Oh my, how careless of me! I seem to have gotten a little ahead of myself.”

After being admonished by the King, the Queen took a step back. For the time being, my chance meeting with the royal family ended like this.

After the party started, I wandered from table to table with Lady Sophia, exchanging greetings and walking aimlessly. The guests were mainly people related to the royal family. Since most of the guests were supporters of King Theodore, the members of the First Prince’s faction and the members of the Second Prince’s faction were mixed together. It was a rather magnificent sight.

As the daughter of a marquis, Lady Sophia fit right in, however, my existence was too dissimilar. Before every greeting, I was worried that, once I introduced myself as a butler, there could be trouble… but fortunately, nothing of the sort happened even once. I guess it was to be expected of the guests invited by His Majesty.

After we greeted others for a while, Fol approached us, smiling and wearing a dress. Lady Sophia answered her with a smile, and I took a step back and deeply bowed.

“Eldest Daughter Fol, how do you do?”

“Ah, there’s no need to address me so formally, Sophia. The same goes for you, Cyril. I don’t mind if you call me Fol, no matter where we are, if it’s the two of you doing it.”

We had been officially proclaimed as ‘friends of the royal family’. A small commotion broke out among the people in our vicinity, who were straining their ears to listen in. It was rare for Fol to come to official events such as these, but, despite that, she suddenly attended a party. Moreover, she declared Lady Sophia, who was invited to this event, to be her friend. Even without knowing about her illness, this was more than enough to make people suspect that something had happened.

I guessed that while they wouldn’t be able to publicly announce Lady Sophia’s achievement, they could hint at it unofficially, emphasizing their connection with the Rosenberg Marquis household.

Fol didn’t have any of these ulterior motives. Most likely, she simply liked Lady Sophia. However, in any case, being on good terms with the royal family was a better plan, since it was safer for her to have a good relationship with them : be it simply as the daughter of a marquis or as a villainous daughter.

“I am truly grateful to both of you. Thanks to you, I am able to once more pursue a lot of the things that I had given up on. As I too will achieve… just like you.”

She looked like a bashful young maiden. The key part of her statement was ambiguous, but, since I knew how to lip-read, I was able to tell that what she said was: “achieve my desires”.

She was probably talking about teacher Tristan.

Originally, she had been fated to die early. My older sister might have been the one who realized this, but, on the outside, the person who knew of this and took action to save her had been teacher Tristan. It wouldn’t be strange at all for Fol to fall in love with him.

It was for this reason that Fol was calling my older sister ‘she’, and differentiated her from teacher Tristan. To tell the truth, they became so synchronized that teacher Tristan’s behaviour reminded me of my older sister, but… 

Well, it would be quite boorish of me if I were to say it out loud.

“Oh, that’s right. I apologize for the change of topic, but my father and my mother as well are both grateful to you as well. Since they weren’t able to make an appearance today, they would like to express their appreciation to you at a later date.”

“We appreciate these words of gratitude.”

Lady Sophia answered flawlessly. To do things such as allowing the Royal Prince to offer a reward could become quite a severe matter. However, it would be rude of her to refuse as well.4 My Lady’s decision to simply accept the words of gratitude, without mentioning the matter of a reward, was the right one.

“Also, I have a message to Cyril from Tristan: ‘The Eve of the Festival has already begun.’ Do you know what he means?”

“…Yes, I do.”

While I understood the meaning of this message, I didn’t know other important, vital information, such as what I should do, and what characters appeared in the Eve of the Festival. In other words, this was a roundabout way of telling me: ‘Come talk to me later.’

“Just what was the other thing I wanted to…? Ah, that’s right! I heard that there’s a student called Raymond in your class, I thought you would naturally know him, right?” Fol suddenly asked.

“Yes, there sure is. What’s the matter with him?”

“I dropped by your class’ café, and since I liked the setup, I asked about it. I was surprised when I heard that Luke was the class representative.”

“Ah, right, come to think of it, Luke works for you.”

When the two of them learned that Fol’s illness had been cured, they thanked me in tears. However, there was no connection that led from that to the topic of Raymond. “Perhaps you heard something from Luke?” I spoke out.

“Yes. He said that as his assistant, Raymond aided him perfectly. He also said that you were worried about it as well. Therefore, I thought that I would try asking you what you think about him.”

“ I… see. He is still young and inexperienced in some ways, but he’s quite an outstanding prospect for the position of butler. Above all else, I believe that he will serve his future master to the utmost of his abilities.”

His goal was to protect his family. However, whatever his reason was didn’t matter. In order to protect his family, Raymond would serve his future master with all his might. Moreover, he wasn’t the type of person to forget the kindness of others. He would surely become a loyal butler, for the same reasons Roy and Emma would too.

In the process of answering her, I hinted at him not having a master at the moment by saying ‘future master’.

“Then it seems that my decision wasn’t incorrect.”

Fol smiled meaningfully. From her expression, I was able to read between the lines of her words. I had planned to try and recommend Raymond to Lady Sophia at a suitable time, but… it seemed that I had missed the chance to hire an exceptional employee. 

While thinking that it was a little unfortunate, I answered Fol’s question.

Afterwards, we parted from Fol and walked to the terrace to get a bit of fresh air. I stood next to Lady Sophia and leaned onto the handrail, admiring the castle grounds illuminated by the setting sun. 

Suddenly, Lady Sophia muttered, “Thank you.” When I turned to look at her, my Lady’s platinum blonde hair was swaying in the wind and she looked calm and bashful.

“I realized that I hadn’t really properly thanked you yet. Thank you for saving Fol for me.”

“I was simply granting my Lady’s wish.”

“ ‘No matter what wish it might be, I will grant it to you, just once.’ was it? What if… what if asked you to grant me your love…? Would you have granted it to me?”

For an instant, I felt as if time had stopped. The noise around us disappeared, and it was as if the only ones left in this world were Lady Sophia and I.

During this moment, the setting sun sunk towards the horizon, and night began to stretch across the sky. The boundary line between the two was dyed purple. It was the magic hour, the time that was said to be the most beautiful time of the day.

This wondrous sight alone had taught me about the passage of time.

“…Would you like to know the answer to that question, my Lady?” I asked back, right before the setting sun began to sink under the horizon. Once more, silence drifted between us. Just as the sun was about to disappear, Lady Sophia quietly shook her head.

“No. One day, I will confirm that answer myself. Therefore… please, prepare yourself, will you?” She smiled, showered by the rays of the setting sun.

Her eyes, hiding her strong will, were more beautiful than the magical sky.

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Many apologies for the delay with this chapter! Our amazing editor is currently dealing with exam preparations and while I am looking for a back-up editor just in case, she still agreed to help me with this project. She just has less time therefore, for a month or two the chapters might be getting to you on Wednesdays rather than Tuesdays!

The epilogue officially concludes the second volume of the novel, but there’s a third one plus some side stories to look forward to!  I will be translating these chronologically like the author had posted them as well. 

Thank you for reading!