Volume 2 Chapter 23 Adventure In The Street Market
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Following Christy, Kian exit the Adventurer’s Guild building.
Outside the building is a marble platform, and from a rectangular space, they go down several steps to reach a brick-paved road.
Manon──Maribel was quietly sitting on the step, hiding in the shadow of a flowerpot to the left as she faces forward.
She was wearing the simple robe she had on during the exam.
Unlike the eye-catching Christy, she dressed neatly and inconspicuously.
Perhaps she planned to distract attention from herself by deliberately making Christy stand out.
”Manon!”
”──Christy. Welcome back. I didn’t even have to ask how it went. And hello, Sir Kian.”
”Hello, Lady Maribel.”
She was still wearing a white mask on her face.
Just like before, golden hair could be seen peeking out from under the hood.
With dark blue eyes, she stared intently at Kian through the holes in the mask.
”Well, there’s no need for formalities.”
”That’s not how it works… Lady Maribel is the lord of this Margrave territory.”
”Oh, so my identity has already been discovered. But I’m just a nominal lord. I leave real politics to my steward and the female magician and stroll around like this every day, being a good-for-nothing.”
”Um… well…”
”Oh, was that a difficult comment to respond to?”
”Of course.”
Christy sighed next to me.
Her arms are crossed, emphasizing her ample chest.
Just taking a deep breath makes them shake wildly──they must be bigger than Esther’s and as big as Aliona’s blast breasts.
Kian looked politely at the lord’s girl, whose appearance was in stark contrast to the black-haired magician.
”So? I was asked to be your escort”
”Yes, that’s right. I want to go shopping at the street stalls in the west.”
”If that’s the case, you didn’t really need to hire me, did you? Since Ms. Christy is here, if you wanted someone who could use a sword, you could have just called on one of the guards who are free to change into casual clothes.”
”What I wanted was someone who knows the street market well. Also, someone who could skillfully avoid conflicts. As for protectors, Christy alone is more than enough. If I had asked a guard, they would have pushed me back to the room in the first place, so I thought of asking you.”
”Hah…”
”──But that was just a pretext; the truth is I wanted to meet you again and talk.”
Maribel smiled as she said this, her dark blue eyes softening beneath her mask.
She placed her slender hands on the white mask and popped the clasp open.
When she raised her face again, she revealed a fragile look often seen in portraits.
With her thin golden eyebrows and cute, round eyes.
A sharply pointed nose and full, cherry-like lips.
Softening her subtly rosy cheeks, she grinned sweetly.
”I’m Maribel Danofen. I’m supposed to be the nominal lord of the Margrave Izerland territory. As you can see, during the day I sneaked out of the fortress to roam around, I’m a bit of a ‘bad girl’. Please get to know me from now on.”
”…I’m Kian, a Rank 8 adventurer belonging to the East End Adventurers’ Guild. Nice to meet you, Your Excellency.”
”Oh, you passed?”
”Yes, thanks to you, Ms. Christy.”
”Hmmm, well, how lucky. Manon said, ‘I want to go see the hero who defeated Griffin alone,’ so I, who graduated at the top of my class at the Royal Academy, ended up joining your exam party. You can thank me and Manon for that.”
”You said that you were the top of the academy… that’s amazing. Ms. Christina, you’re a great magician.”
Kian said with a smile, but tilted his head in the background.
(She graduated at the top of her class and is a female magician under Margrave…? Were there no other options? What research department did she graduate at the top of her class?)
’Does it make a difference what department you graduated from?’
(If one is at the top of the ‘Ritual Magic Department,’ they’d probably be a top candidate for executives in places like the Magician Guild or the Female Magician Association. And if you study in the ‘Magic Policy Department,’ that would lead to the Court Magician Course, eventually advising the King. It’s also possible to graduate from more than one department, for example, if you meet the graduation requirements for both ‘Ritual Magic Department’ and ‘Magic Policy Department’… then they’d truly be a genius.)
’I see, conversely, if it were the Ancient Civilization Research Department…’
(That’s a research department at Azrael’s monastery. There isn’t such a department in the Franz Academia magic faculty. If I remember correctly…, in Franz, it was called the ‘Prehistoric Civilization Research Department.’ For example, in that case, hardly anyone gathers, and it’s relatively easy to be at the top. Well, relatively speaking.)
”I was lucky to get Christy. I heard from the house steward, ‘There’s an excellent magician, but he keeps failing at finding a job,’ so I asked them to please recruit that person.”
”Hey, Manon!”
Christy, proudly displaying her ample bust, instantly turned bright red.
On the other hand, Maribel elegantly placed her hand on her mouth and laughed with a “ho ho ho.”
”Isn’t that fine? There’s no advantage in putting on a brave front, Ms. Christy.”
”Well, you know, there’s such a thing as face.”
”From my perspective, just graduating from the royal capital’s academy is impressive enough. And to be at the top… I genuinely respect that.”
”…! As long as you understand!”
’You’ve become quite smooth-tongued.’
(Well, I’m speaking from the heart…)
Kian replied to ‘glasses’ and flashed his white teeth.
”If you have a chance, please tell me what you have studied. I’m very interested.”
”What? Even if I explained to you what the essence of magic is, you wouldn’t understand a single thing. Can you even read and write? “
”Um… I think I can read and write Azrael language, Western common tongue, and Eastern common tongue without any problems. I can read and translate modern elf language, but writing it is a bit iffy. Speaking it is absolutely impossible for me because the pronunciation is too difficult. I can’t read or write ancient elf language. I can manage to read some commonly used magic languages, but… that doesn’t really count as being able to read, does it?”
”Ha, as expected, it’s not much for a commoner──wait, what!? Huh? No way!? What? Azrael language aside, Western common tongue and Eastern common tongue too!?”
”Yes. As for Western common tongue, I’m speaking it right now.”
”W-well… your pronunciation is incredibly good… but I’m not falling for it! My father always said that trying to make oneself look bigger is a con artist’s usual tactic!”
”W-what!? I was just answering honestly!”
”It’s not good to put on airs!”
”Wait a minute, what do you call this kind of thing…? That’s right! A boomerang!”
”Wha!? I-it’s not a boomerang, Manon!”
”Speaking of which, we played with a boomerang together the other day, Christy. It was so much fun. I want to do it again.”
Maribel, completely ignoring Christy’s words, tries to continue the conversation cheerfully.
Feeling that the conversation was getting chaotic, Kian decided to pull it back somewhat forcefully.
”Um, excuse me. So, what is it that You Excellency wants to talk to me about?”
”──? It’s simply that I want to meet and have a chat. There’s no ulterior motive.”
”Yeah…”
So then, did she take the trouble to leave Izerland Fortress just to chat?
That’s just too weird.
Free-spirited and eccentric──.
The bards have sung about her as a fragile princess from the frontier, but this image of her has been completely overturned.
Kian had an indescribable look on his face, and Maribel laughed and closed one eye.
”I’m just kidding”
”Huh? … I don’t know what’s going on…”
”Hehe. I do have ulterior motives. Since Oswald seemed to be quite taken with you during the exam, I became more curious about you as well… I don’t know much about dungeons, and I’m completely clueless about martial arts, but from Oswald’s reaction, I thought Sir Kian must be a very skilled warrior.”
Maribel said this and took a step closer to Kian.
Her deep dark blue eyes, like sapphires, gazed up intently at Kian.
She shouldn’t have the ability to see through lies like Serena does.
However, being stared at by those eyes made him feel as if his true nature could be seen all the way to the core.
”The other day, at the far end of the exam venue, it wasn’t Christy who defeated the monster called Shield Cain, was it actually you?”
”Huh? Huuuhh!?”
”…No, the one who delivered the finishing blow was this Lady Christy. That’s for sure.”
”So you’re saying Christy defeated it all by herself?”
”…Well, that is…”
He couldn’t lie, but he also couldn’t belittle the magician in front of Margrave.
Kian, troubled by how to respond, looked down.
After staring at Kian’s flustered appearance, Maribel broke into a smile.
”…anyway, that’s my delusion! The reason I came to see you today was to hear that and to ask you to guide me through the street market in the west! Yes, it was true that I wanted you to accompany me shopping. Sir Kian, what do you say? Will you accept my request for protection?”
”Of course. I’m an adventurer, so I have no reason to refuse a request.”
”Hey, wait a minute!”
Christy cuts in between.
Then he looks up at Kian, glaring at him.
”Is it true that you were the one who defeated Shield Cain?”
”Yes…”
”…! Is that really true…? But, it didn’t look like that, did it? I should have pierced it with my spear countless times!”
”But, Oswald could see it. That’s why he were invited to the ‘Knights of the Sun’ training grounds yesterday, right?”
”…Why did that guy do that?”
”I heard it from a knight named Renaud de Châtillon. Do you know him, Kian?”
It’s unclear how much information she knows, but Maribel still directs her carefree smile at Kian.
This puts him in a tough spot for a response.
He should answer that he know him, but the more he answer her questions, the more complicated things seem to get.
’What will you do?’
(Well, denying it would be bad. If Maribel talks to Renaud, he would get seriously angry due to his pride being hurt. But if I say I know Renaud, it seems I would end up having to discuss the duel commotion from yesterday in detail.)
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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