The Materialistic Princess, Episode 9
It was just as Anok gripped my shoulders as if to push me away.
“Here! A woman’s voice came from in here!” The door flew open, and reporters burst into the room.
“As expected, Princess Kanef! You were here…!”
“Hah! Y-Your Highness the Crown Prince!”
The reporters discovered us and let out sharp screams.
“A scoop, it’s a scoop!”
In the midst of all that chaos, I found myself thinking that his lips were very warm and soft. I slowly drew my lips away and met the blue eyes staring straight at me. Color had settled over the dry expression from which I had never been able to read a single emotion until now.
“Why are the two of you together in the Winter Hall?”
They were mercilessly setting off their flashes. Amid the commotion, servants and knights came running here.
“Reporters are forbidden from entering the west wing today! Her Majesty the Empress has commanded it.”
“What? There was no such order just a moment ago.”
The knights were dressed in uniforms similar in style to Crown Prince Anok’s. They shoved the reporters, who kept pointing their cameras until the very end, outside.
“Leave at once!”
Whatever had briefly settled there vanished in an instant. He met my gaze directly with questioning eyes and asked.
“…
What is the meaning of this?”
To be honest, I had expected him to blush or act flustered. Ah, of course, even in the novel, after he regained his emotions, he didn’t exactly have a wide emotional range.
But I knew he was someone who could feel excitement and even speak sweet words. Yet the current Anok was gravely calm. Awkwardly, I let go of his collar.
“Ah, this is a method of drawing out emotions, you see. Usually, when someone kisses a beauty like me, their heart races, their breathing gets a little short, and they feel a strange sensation different from usual…”
“Hmm.”
Anok quietly looked at me, then nodded.
“As you said, something does feel different from usual.” ‘As expected!’ I cheered inwardly at his answer. The soul fragment was real. Though he wore such a composed face now, from the moment he felt emotion, he would gain the ability to empathize and would ordinarily feel joy and happiness as well.
“My blood is also circulating quickly through my body.”
With a pleased expression, I listened attentively to his words. The sight of him describing each feeling he experienced was even rather cute.
Crown Prince Anok was the same age as Reiji, wasn’t he? Thinking him adorable, I opened my mouth to tell him what that emotion was.
“That’s right. That is what we call excitement—”
“You attempted to assassinate a member of the imperial family.”
“…
Pardon?”
Assassinate? What assassination? We’re two grown adults, and all we did was kiss!
“You attempted to steal an imperial item, and you are also a suspect in the attempted assassination of a member of the imperial family. Arrest her.”
“What?!”
Sensing that things might go terribly wrong at this rate, I sprang up from my seat.
“How is kissing Your Highness an assassination attempt? And as for stealing, isn’t that merely circumstantial suspicion in the end?”
To make my words more persuasive, I straightened my back and spoke confidently.
“Right now, Your Highness is essentially oppressing, with baseless accusations, a princess who was formally invited to the imperial palace after earning merit by saving His Majesty the Emperor’s life. Is that not so?”
At my words, Anok looked as though he had fallen into thought again. Then he readily agreed.
“That is certainly true. I acknowledge that there is reason in your words.”
The knights, who had seen us from the moment our lips had met, could not understand the flow of this conversation at all.
I had no need to explain anything that might be disadvantageous to me. Among the uniformed knights, a man with black hair and milky-white eyes approached.
“Ahem! Your Highness the Crown Prince, are you all right? We have sent the reporters out, but newspaper reporters will not give up easily. It would be better for you to move elsewhere…”
The knight glanced at me. Black hair and milky-white eyes… I was sure there had been someone with those traits.
“It seems the two of you were photographed. The reporters will also cling to Princess Kanef.”
Anok lowered his gaze slightly as if lost in thought and slowly rubbed his brow. His hand was so large that it almost covered his entire face.
Growl.
At that moment, a pitiful sound rang through the quiet room. At the sound from my stomach, the knights were the ones who grew flustered and blushed.
I clutched my stomach, hesitated for a moment, then spoke to Anok casually.
“Um, Your Highness. I haven’t eaten anything today. With reporters spread all around nearby, if the princess who saved His Majesty the Emperor’s life were to collapse from hunger, how absurd would that be?”
As if telling me to say more, Anok lifted his head and met my gaze.
“Please give me food…”
“…
Summon the chief attendant.”
Under the protection of the knights, we were guided to the rear garden of the west wing. There was a glass greenhouse there that only members of the imperial family could enter.
Anok ordered food to be brought there. The servants waited on us with extreme tension and moved briskly. Anyone could see that they were afraid of Anok. ‘Why does not being able to feel emotions make him a demon?’ Well, that was precisely why the soul fragment I possessed was valuable.
“Ooh, meat!”
Aside from the refreshments I had tasted right after arriving at the imperial palace, everything I had eaten so far had been disappointing.
But perhaps the imperial chef had put his mind to it, because before long, a golden-brown, well-roasted whole chicken, various jams, meat stew, white bread, peeled shrimp drizzled with lemon sauce, and neatly arranged grilled clam meat were laid out.
“…
This taste is out of this world!”
With a blissful expression, I began to eat. Anok stared at me for a while, then took one bite of the meat pie placed before him. The servants waiting nearby watched him eat with tense expressions. ‘What’s with them?’ Anok slowly chewed and swallowed the pie, then set it down again. Of all the people I had ever seen in my life, he ate food in the least appetizing way. Wondering if perhaps the pie was bad, I tried a bite too.
“…
This flavor!”
The meat pie was on a completely different level from the cheap meat sandwich I had gotten from a peddler. I passionately devoured a slice of pie.
“Ahem…”
Just as I tore off a leg from the freshly roasted chicken, the atmosphere felt strangely off. ‘What now? I’m just eating…’ Grumbling inwardly, I meekly set down the chicken leg in my hand. Then Anok said, in a voice that sounded somewhat like a sigh.
“Tell the head chef it is an excellent dish.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The servants left the greenhouse with somewhat gloomy expressions. I watched them, rolling only my eyes. Anok noticed that I had stopped eating while watching the mood and said indifferently.
“There is no need to mind it.”
“Ah, yes…”
Do you think saying that will actually make me stop minding it? I could not bring myself to talk back like that, so I quietly picked up the chicken leg I had put down.
“But, Your Highness. Honestly, you felt it earlier, didn’t you?”
“Ahem!”
The knights still standing in attendance beside us burst into coughs. Anok did not immediately understand and tilted his head.
“What do you mean?”
“Your emotions.”
“Hmm.”
“Your heart was pounding, wasn’t it? Your breathing grew short, heat rushed through your body, your face felt hot, and just…!”
“I suppose it was similar.”
He had finally acknowledged his emotions! I spoke in a tone full of certainty.
“That is the emotion called excitement.”
Hearing my words, Anok tilted his head again.
“That is excitement?”
“I’m telling you, it is. You simply don’t know emotions very well yet. I’m an expert on emotions, so you must believe me.”
Anok seemed to ponder for a while, then made a sound as if he had realized something.
“I see.”
“Yes, exactly. Since you kissed a peerless beauty like me, it is only natural that your heart would pound and you would feel excite—”
“So this is the emotion called displeasure.”
“…
Pardon?”
Displeasure? I thought I had misheard him.
“That feeling I had when the princess charged at me… I believe that was probably a threat.”
…
Charged? Threat? I had tried to plant the excitement of an intense first kiss in him, but now only completely absurd words were coming out. Regardless of my bewilderment, Anok continued speaking.
“And when you kissed me out of nowhere, I felt a strange sensation I had never experienced before in my life. Yes, I think that can be defined as displeasure. It was similar to what I heard from my tutor.” ‘Even in Fragment of Emotion, the first emotion the crown prince felt toward Roselia was displeasure…’ Though I had become Roselia, there was no need for even this to be the same. Out of frustration, I thumped my chest with my fist.
Unlike me, who felt as though I might burst inside, the knights standing guard around us were listening to this conversation with shocked faces.
Before long, someone even ran out of the greenhouse.
“But is this truly emotion? I cannot tell.”
The conversation was going in circles. I calmly enunciated each word.
“I am the princess of House Kanef, through which elven blood flows.”
Look at this hair, these eyes. Though it was altered ready-made clothing, the soft blue silk dress, like water, that the imperial palace had fitted for me further emphasized my mysterious atmosphere.
“The fact that I suddenly went to Rockingham’s shore and saved His Majesty, and the fact that I can make Your Highness the Crown Prince feel emotions, are not coincidences.”
I heard murmuring behind me. I smiled a small, triumphant smile.
“I see. Then are you saying that the princess received some sort of revelation and made all of this possible?”
“Something like that.”
That was true. After all, I could do all of this because I knew the contents of the book in advance.
“Just like a ‘saintess.’”
Even in the novel, there had been an episode where Serena’s special nature caused her to be revered as a saintess.
It had been for the sake of settling political interests between the imperial family and the Holy See, but in any case, it was also something I had been subtly aiming for. ‘A saintess with elven blood!’ How persuasive would the words of such a being be? I could already hear the sound of gold piling up in the mansion.
“After trying to steal a jewel, you suddenly attempted fraud, then tried to assassinate the crown prince, and now fraud again…”
I was genuinely dumbfounded by this man.
“How is a kiss assassination?”
“You are being rude to His Highness, Lady Kanef!”
I looked at the man who loudly rebuked me from the side. His black hair and milky-white eyes seemed to stir something in my memory.
I frowned slightly and barely managed to recall one name. ‘Leonard Rone?’ He was the crown prince’s aide, a rather inflexible and extremely fastidious knight. Instinctively, I sensed that this man would not be of any help to me.
“Your Highness, isn’t feeling emotions an important matter? If you keep acting like this, I’m going to feel a little hurt as your partner.”
I calmly recited the facts as they were.
“Isn’t the reason Your Highness’s political support base is wavering because of your lack of emotion? That is what the Holy See keeps seizing upon, is it not?”
He seemed to be watching to see what I would say. Since it was a widely known matter, I continued without hesitation.
“And I have the ability to make Your Highness feel emotions.”
Anok immediately countered.
“I am not sure about that.”
I sighed and set down the chicken leg.
“Goodness, you are a suspicious person. Fine. Then all we need to do is confirm whether or not you can feel emotions, right?”
“Are you perhaps going to pounce on me again?”
“Ahem! Ahem!”
Sir Rone and the other knights burst into another fit of coughing.
“Emotions are incredibly diverse, you know. There is the happiness you feel when eating delicious food, the sense of accomplishment when you achieve your goal, the deep emotion stirred by the saga of a great hero, and so on.”
Looking at the well-prepared food on the table, I asked him.
“This is quite delicious food.
Your Highness, have you perhaps ever eaten something terrible?”
“Well. It is all similar. Of course, what I eat in the imperial palace is easier to eat.”
“Oh dear. Something truly terrible can even make a person angry.”
I smiled brightly and turned to Rone.
“Now then, where is the kitchen?”
In any case, all he needed to do was feel an emotion, right?