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The southwest of the Dragonfriend Kingdom of Lugunica was home to the Bariel baronry, ruled by Baron Lyp Bariel. Lyp himself was a tyrant, despised by his citizens. Burdened by heavy taxes and grueling labor, the Bariel baronry was, for a time, regarded as the kingdom’s penal colony.
However, in recent months, Bariel’s dreadful reputation had faded into the background. If anything, rumors now suggested that the baron and his subjects had grown surprisingly amicable.
All of this change was attributed to Lyp’s young, wise, and beautiful wife, who had supposedly reformed his heart for good—a treasure of a woman who devoted herself entirely to serving her people…
But everyone in the baronry knew that was a lie.
The transformation hadn’t taken place in the baron’s heart. The ruler of the barony itself had changed. To put it plainly, Lyp had fallen ill, and his wife had taken over the management of the land.
The sickly Lyp was out, and the fate of the baronry now lay in the elegant hands of its baroness—hands that seemed as if they had been lent by the gods themselves. In one fell swoop, she had captured the hearts of her people.
Where the former baron had been nothing but an exploiter, the new baroness ruled with a hands-on approach, treating her subjects with much greater care. With her striking noble beauty and the reassurance she provided through her frequent visits to the farmlands, the people of the Bariel baronry had become utterly enthralled by her.
They hailed this merciful young woman as the Sun Princess.
“…I wonder what your people would think if they knew their precious Sun Princess kicked me into a pond and tried to drown me.”
“Slander doesn’t suit you, Al. Besides, the dead can’t talk… And tell me, who would the people believe? You, a sketchy, gruesome thug? Or me, beautiful and beloved?”
“That—what you just said—that’s the most slanderous thing of all. Mark my words!” Al declared, giving her a thumbs-up.
He sat cross-legged in the mansion’s garden near the pond, completely drenched from his fall, soaked through to his undergarments. He had removed his straw sandals to let them dry in the sun and sat shirtless, struggling to wring the water from his coat.
Pond scum had worked its way between his chin and his helmet, and he vigorously tried to scrub it off with his right hand. Of course, he was having a hard time—Al didn’t have a left arm.
“Sir Al, I shall help you wring out your clothes! Please, leave it to me!”
Noticing Al’s struggle, a young boy called out to him. His round, lovely face made him look about ten years old, and the way he tried to stand tall in his tiny butler’s uniform was endearing.
But that preciousness was fleeting—
“Don’t, Schult. I can’t have your skin drying out from working with water. If you became unpleasant to hug, I would have no choice but to strip you of your title as my personal bed sharer.”
“Wha—wha—wha—! Princess Priscilla, when you hug me out of nowhere like this, I don’t know what to do with myself…!”
Schult’s face turned bright red as he shrank in embarrassment, caught in her embrace. The once endearing moment had suddenly taken on an oddly scandalous air—funny how those things could happen.
“Why the foolish look, Al?” the fiery-haired woman asked, flashing a daring smile as she continued hugging Schult to her chest.
She truly was like the sun—staring at her for too long would surely destroy any man’s eyes. Her coppery hair shimmered under the sunlight, her eyes burned with a fierce and untamed fire, and her allure was nothing short of hypnotic. Her ample, exposed curves left little to the imagination. She captivated the hearts of all who laid eyes on her, men and women alike.
Even the striking red of her dress seemed dull in comparison to her overwhelming presence. This was the Sun Princess who had taken over the baronry in her husband’s stead—Priscilla Bariel.
Under Priscilla’s piercing, serpentine gaze, Al shook his head, pushing down his irritation.
“Ahh, nothing. I was just remembering how nice the older woman/younger boy subgenre is. Thanks for the eye candy.”
“Again with the gibberish. More words from your homeland?”
“Yeah. Also, there’s water in my helmet, so I can’t see very well. That about sums it up.”
After a string of random excuses, Al clutched his head and gave it a shake. The rattling sound came from the hinges of the black helmet he always wore.
“Helmet! Oh, Sir Al, your helmet will rust if you leave it on! And without your helmet, Sir Al, you’ll be headless! Terrifying! Let me dry it right away!”
“That’s a cute misunderstanding, Schult, but I’m not actually made of metal above the neck, so I wouldn’t be headless, okay? Besides, this helmet won’t rust.”
“Huh? It won’t? And you have a head… Oh, that’s a little disappointing.”
“I don’t get why that’s such a letdown for you.”
With a cynical chuckle at Schult—who, unless he was mistaken, sounded a bit melancholy—Al tapped his helmet and let some water drain out.
“This helmet’s special. And I’ve got a personal connection to it.”
“Ohh, that’s news to me,” Priscilla said. “Where did you steal it from?”
“Why’s that the first thing you jump to?! Have a little more trust in me!”
“A fine piece like that? I doubt you had the means to buy it on your own. So, where did you steal it?”
“At an arena when I was a gladiator! But I didn’t steal it, okay?! When I escaped, a nice guy gave it to me. It was hanging in the arena as a decoration, so I figure it’s decently well-made.”
The word gladiator quickly colored Schult’s face with sorrow, but when Priscilla didn’t bat an eye at it, Al felt a small sense of relief.
“You were a gladiator in Volakia, if I recall correctly. That would mean your escape point was Gladiator Island, Ginonhive. That helmet likely belonged to a gladiator master—or was a replica of one.”
“Damn, no secrets from the knowledgeable, huh? You got me. I was put to work forever on Gladiator Island. Lost my left arm there. This helmet was like my severance pay.”
Al’s voice carried a bitter edge as he casually rattled off his life story after it had already been exposed. Still, regardless of how he obtained it, the helmet was special to him. There was no need for him to remove it just to dry it.
“That overly curious expression isn’t gonna work on me, Schulty.”
“Oh—um—but I’m not really curious! Being a man is about more than just looks!”
“Not helping, dude! Now you are just hurting my feelings!”
Schult, realizing his attempt at consolation had failed, hung his shoulders. Priscilla patted his head, then turned a sidelong glance toward Al.
“Well, a man’s worth is not solely decided by his looks,” she said. “But a person’s face is one of the criteria by which they’re judged. Schult, never forget that it was your cuteness that first made me take a liking to you. Try your best to delay growing up. Also, no body hair allowed.”
“Geez, at least give the kid a command he can actually follow with effort, boss.”
Schult clenched his fists and declared, “I-I’ll do my best to make that happen, Princess…!”
Al cast him a pitying glance. “See that? Schulty is so gullible, he actually believes he can do it.”
But working hard for Priscilla was Schult’s life’s calling. It would be cruel to try to stop him.
And with that, after making a lighthearted decree that set the course for her servant’s dedication, Priscilla retrieved her fan from her cleavage. Every time Al witnessed this, he couldn’t help marveling at what a daring yet aesthetically pleasing place it was to keep a fan.
But as she covered her mouth with it, she sighed.
“Hmm… It seems my momentarily dispelled boredom has returned. Al, on to the next event at once. The drowning amused me. So next… Yes, why don’t you dance on a bed of fire for me?”
“Oooh, nice, I did want to dry my clothes—said the dumbass!”
“You already agreed to it. Why did you suddenly regain your senses? What was that just now?”
“That was sarcasm. Please don’t make me explain it to you; it’ll break my heart.”
As Al curled into a little ball of dreariness, Priscilla’s mood began to spiral downward. She was as fickle as a cat, but even crueler—that was the most dreadful thing about his master.
Al wanted to get her back in a good mood, but he had no idea how to do that.
“Hey. You. You are my clown. At the very least, you should possess the basic knowledge to fulfill that role. Learn from Schult. No matter what I say, he is always ready to follow me.”
“Talk about unreasonable requests.”
“It’s not at all unreasonable. Schult, speak to me. Entertain me. Right here, right now.”
“Huh?! U-um—yes! I shall try! Umm…ummm…”
Schult racked his brain, desperately trying to make up for what Al lacked in satisfying Priscilla’s tyrannical request.
This was too much for Al’s conscience. He was just about to step in, when—
“Aha! I remembered something! I heard the maids gossiping earlier!” Schult’s face lit up brightly as he clapped his hands and began speaking. “Apparently, in a village south of the baronry, there’ve been lots of missing persons cases! And there is a forest near the village, and when people go near the stream there, they often don’t come back! They call it Nightmare at Ladrima. Oh, oh, I’m so scared!”
“What’s this? First, you think I’m headless, now this—Schulty, do you like ghost stories?”
Al smirked at the boy’s odd fascination while emptying the water from his helmet through the slits. Then, with a clang from the hinges, he turned to Priscilla and said, “Hear that, boss?”
“Nightmare at Ladrima…people go missing by a stream in a village to the south…,” she murmured listlessly.
Al felt a bad premonition stir within him.
And that bad feeling quickly became a reality before he could do anything to stop it.
“Amusing,” Priscilla said as she snapped her fan shut. Pointing its tip at Al and Schult, she declared, “That’s how we’ll pass the time. I shall solve this mystery myself!”
With a bright, sunlike smile, she charged headfirst into the pointless and troublesome affair.
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