Sasaki and Peeps - Volume 6 - Chapter 2.1

The next day, we left the Republic of Lunge and returned to the Kingdom of Herz. We went straight to the town of Baytrium; I wanted to see Mr. French. Last time, he was absent when we visited Count Müller’s mansion, so we’d agreed to try again at a later date; this time, we were able to meet with him. We took our seats on the familiar reception room’s sofa set, facing one another over the low table.

“It’s been so long, sir!” he exclaimed. “Thanks so much for coming. I know you must be busy.”

“Actually, I should apologize for our sudden visit. Do you have time?”

“Of course, sir! And no need to apologize. I’m just glad you’re here. I should be the one doing the visiting, but it seems I’ve shifted the burden onto you. And I don’t even have a proper welcome ready.”

“I heard from Count Müller that you’ve been busy.”

Mr. French seemed somehow more dignified than he had the last time we met. I suspected this was due to his noble garb. He appeared more used to the getup now than when we met at the party in the royal castle. With his powerful build and intimidating expression, he gave off a real sense of presence—it was almost frightening.

“How has it been, taking over these lands?” I asked.

“Well, sir, in the very near future, I’ll be heading out for the first time to engage an Imperialist noble in battle…”

“It may be rude of me to say this, when I’m the one who got you involved in everything, but I hope you’ll be careful. As long as you’re healthy in body and mind, you can always try again.”

“Thank you, sir! I’ll do my best to meet everyone’s expectations.”

He was obviously giving this his all. Perhaps he was overdoing it. Would he be all right like that? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t uneasy. Still, an aide of the count’s was always close at hand, and it was widely known that Mr. French had the king’s favor. I had faith that, unless something crazy happened, he’d be fine. He’d never take on a fight he was sure to lose, at least.

We then heard a knock on the reception room door. I looked over as it opened with a ka-chak.

“Are you there, brother? They told me you were…”

A young woman in an apron appeared from the hallway. She was probably in her mid-teens, and her hair—bright red just like Mr. French’s—was tied up in a ponytail. Putting two and two together, I assumed this was his younger sister. Her sharp eyes were striking; her sleeves were rolled up, and she held a ladle in one hand.

“H-hey!” exclaimed Mr. French. “I told you not to come in without asking!”

“Oh, come on. Quit throwing your weight around just ’cause you’re a noble. I’m family, right? Who cares?”

Her attention then naturally shifted over to me, the stranger in the room.

She tilted her head to the side. “I’m sorry for barging in, sir. Are you a merchant here in town?”

“You fool! This is Court Minister Sasaki! The one who saved my life!”

“…Court minister?”

“He’s the third-highest-ranking person in the whole kingdom!”

“Oh…” At Mr. French’s scolding, the girl froze in place, her eyes still locked on me. After a few moments, her face went ghostly white. Then, in a weak voice, she asked, “Am…am I going to prison…?”

“I’m really, really sorry for my foolish sister’s rudeness, Mr. Sasaki!”

“No, I’m the one who stopped by unannounced,” I assured them. “Don’t worry about it.”

Come to think of it, I remembered hearing that Mr. French had a younger sister—way back when we’d first met. He’d told me that his father, who had a wounded leg and eye from his time as a soldier, was looking after her.

I assumed his family had only recently moved into the mansion. Mr. French had inherited the land and the role of lord from Count Müller; those in the estate would need to be considerate of the rest of his family as well. I bet they’d been told to treat the place as their own home.

His sister looked a little older than Lady Elsa. It would be cruel to seek a born noble’s behavior from a commoner, though. I sympathized deeply with her plight. A noble title had suddenly been thrust upon her brother, and she was probably having a hard time keeping up.

“Excuse me, but did you need something from Mr. French?” I said to her.

“Huh?! Oh, um…”

The mood in the reception room had grown awkward, and it was all my fault. Now I was trying to repair it.

His sister humbly held out the ladle. “I wanted him to taste test dinner, sir…,” she said. The ladle was full of a viscous white liquid—probably soup. Cream stew, if I had to guess. The diced meat floating in it looked delicious indeed, and the distinguished sparrow on my shoulder was clearly gazing straight at it.

“I’ll have a taste after this,” said Mr. French. “Could you go on back to the kitchen?”

“O-okay,” she replied. “Sorry I disturbed your noble business.”

“You can go ahead and have some now if you’d like,” I told him. “Would that happen to be cream stew?”

“It is, sir!” exclaimed Mr. French in place of his sister. “The very dish you taught me!”

His attention was flitting back and forth between his sister and me. I felt really bad about putting him through all this. “So your sister cooks, too?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “She tends to all the housekeeping while I’m out working.”

I couldn’t have been more envious of their congenial familial relationship. Looking at them made me smile.

“If you’re all right with it, sir,” he continued, “would you like to eat here?”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Of course. You’re more than welcome!”

In that case, I thought, maybe I’ll take them up on the offer. The sparrow on my shoulder was practically bouncing up and down—doubtless exhorting me to say yes. “I hate to intrude. But if it’s really all right…”

“Brother,” said the girl, “What should I, um…?”

“I’ll come help you in a bit, so could you wait in the kitchen for now?” he said.

“Okay, sure. Sorry for causing a fuss, my lord,” she said to me.

The door closed, and the sound of her receding steps echoed from the other side. Once they’d grown distant, I turned to face Mr. French again.

“Your sister is quite charming,” I remarked.

“Do you think so, sir?”

“Not only did she cook at home, but she even mans the kitchen here? She seems like a wonderful young woman. Regarding what just happened—could you please tell her again that I honestly didn’t mind at all?”

After Adonis’s successful coup d’état, Count Müller and his family had moved to the king’s castle. However, they’d apparently left about half their servants behind to assist Mr. French in the count’s old position. Even if his sister did nothing, the servants would have prepared their food. She was the sibling of a viscount, after all, and would be treated as such. And with the Marc Trading Company’s backing, they were surely in the black for the time being when it came to managing the land.

And yet his sister was still cooking their food. Clearly, she was a hard worker.

“Huh?! Oh, uh…,” stammered Mr. French.

“Is something the matter?” I asked.

“If you’d be, well, okay with her, sir, perhaps you might take her as a concubine…”

“……”

Was this déjà vu? Wasn’t I literally just party to such a conversation? Now that it was happening again, I began to seriously wonder if Mr. French had joined forces with the count in order to make fun of this near-forty-year-old bachelor. And wasn’t Mr. French himself old enough to start thinking about marriage, too?

“Excuse me,” I began, “but are these types of propositions commonplace in this kingdom?”

“D-do you not fancy her, then, sir?”

“That’s not what I mean. She is a wonderful woman and far more than I deserve. But in my homeland, this sort of proposition doesn’t happen very often. I was surprised because I didn’t know how to answer. Though I suppose I hear of such things frequently among nobles.”

“Searching for a marriage partner for a family member is relatively common, I believe…”

I suppose that makes sense. Even Japan was like that until about midway through the last century.

If there was one problem, it was our difference in age. I was well over ten years older than Mr. French’s sister. The fact that he’d made the suggestion anyway told me that this world’s views on marriage were far more severe than I’d realized. I really got the sense that romance and marriage were entirely separate. Here, one didn’t fall madly in love and then decide to tie the knot. Marriage was a crucial system—a means of survival.

This made me even more confident that I must avoid marriage altogether. Peeps and I had one goal: a slow, relaxed life at our own pace. The less baggage I was carrying around, the better.

“I can talk to Count Müller about finding her a suitable partner, if you’d like,” I offered.

“Sir! I couldn’t possibly—”

“The count has high hopes for you, too, you know. He wouldn’t do anything that might disadvantage her.”

“Thank you, sir. For treating someone like me with such kindness and consideration.”

That evening, we imposed on Mr. French’s hospitality and ate dinner at his mansion. I hadn’t eaten cream stew in a long time, and it was delectable. It was full of flavor, with plenty of ingredients. As a corporate drone, I was so busy I’d always eaten the stuff that came in a bag you had to boil, which could hardly compare. Peeps had his fill of the stew as well.

As we were leaving, we got to see Mr. French’s father and inspect his injuries. The wound on his knee wasn’t severe, and I used my intermediate-level healing magic to fix it in a single go. His eye, on the other hand, took several tries, but eventually he was able to recover most of his vision.

Finally, the happy family saw us off as we left the mansion behind.

During the following days, we stayed in our lodgings in Baytrium and practiced magic. The whole time, I thought of Mr. French’s father’s injuries. I bet Peeps would have been able to heal him instantly. On the other hand, despite my vast reserves of mana, I was still lacking in technique.

So like before, I put all my time into learning the advanced-level healing spell. Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful. That said, I did see results—my intermediate healing spell saw a slight boost in efficacy. Apparently, even though you could categorize magic as beginner, intermediate, or advanced, a lot of it varied by individual. I was honestly pretty happy with how things were going. Also, I’d finally managed to recite the advanced spell’s awfully long incantation without making any mistakes.

After spending a few days doing that, it came time for us to return to modern Japan. Thanks to Peeps’s teleportation magic, we warped from the town of Baytrium to the office of the court minister in the royal castle in Allestos. From there, we walked to the chancellor’s room.

As we’d discussed, Count Müller was present with Lady Elsa next to him.

“Sir Sasaki, I can’t thank you enough for putting up with my daughter like this.”

“Please, my lord, there’s no need for that. This was my own suggestion.”

“I am usually with her where she is staying,” added Peeps. “She will be in safe hands, like before. You needn’t worry.”

“Thank you very much. I’m honored to have the Lo—er, to have such a respected bird watching out for her.”

Count Müller kept almost letting the Lord Starsage’s title slip. His respect for Peeps was making his mouth move before he could think. That said, the way he awkwardly referred to him as a respected bird struck me as kind of cute and made me want to chuckle.

“Um, Father,” said Lady Elsa, “do you have a moment?”

“What is it?” he replied.

“Why do you sometimes stammer when you talk to the birdie?”

“Um, well…,” Count Müller faltered.

Part of me wanted to watch his uncharacteristically charming behavior a little longer, but we didn’t want to reveal the secret of the Starsage’s survival, so I decided to forcefully cut their exchange short.

“All right, Peeps, let’s head out,” I said.

“Very well. You may leave it to me.”

With a somewhat dissatisfied Elsa in tow, we set off from the otherworld.