Yotogi no Kuni no Gekkouhime

s to be calm and composed, like the willows that sway along with the wind, not against it.
Unlike the gaudy princess in front of him, this little girl here stays dignified, making Milano honestly impressed.

Though it’s simply just that Selene never has something like royalty pride to begin with.

When Selene sees Princess Ente’s behavior, it instead make her feels relieved.
Princess Ente is certainly a beauty, but that gleaming light in her eyes and her small face made Selene thinks that she looks somewhat like a praying mantis.
She’d be really envious if his childhood friend was the cute and kind-hearted type like Arue, but now that Selene knows her personality, she can push the Prince to her without any worries.

But apparently Milano doesn’t like Princess Ente that much, seeing as he wants to avoid any contact with her as much as possible.
But even if God forgives him for trying to avoid Ente, Selene will not.
She’ll use any means necessary to get Prince Milano to be more intimate with this praying mantis-like princess.

“Serves, you right.”

Selene mumbled quietly in her mouth so that the voice doesn’t leak out.
Selene remembered from somewhere that female praying mantis have high probablity to eats the male partner after copulation, and so she giggles to herself, thinking that was a brilliant analogy from her.

“Selene, please give me a little help.”

“Eh? Wha? Hya-!?”

Milano whispers softly to Selene so that only she could hear.
Immediately after that, Milano uses both of his hand to scoop Selene’s body up, holding her in his arms.
It’s the so-called princess carry.

Selene, who was imagining the scene where the Prince is being firmly held, shredded to pieces and eaten alive by the giant praying mantis just now, couldn’t react in time, thus she was held up without being able to resist.
Now she’s the one being firmly held by the Prince instead.
Such is irony.

“Prince Milano!? What exactly are you doing!?”

And, the one who’s even more astonished than Selene is none other than Princess Ente in front of her.

“Please excuse me.
Selene has weak constitution you see.
So let us have a chat later, for now I’d like to let her rest first, is there anywhere she can take a rest? You said that you cleaned the guest room daily right?”

“That is…… B-, but Prince Milano you didn’t have to carry her! She can walk on her own just fine isn’t she!”

“This girl’s body is not that strong you see, even right after we brought her to Helifalte, she was so tired that she collapsed.”

What Milano said is undeniably a fact.
When he said that, a part of it was out of concern for Selene, and another part was for avoiding conversations with Ente.
It’s half-truth half-lie in a sense.

On the other hand, Selene’s trying to escape from his arms, flailing about like a kitten who didn’t want to be held.
Unfortunately however, the difference in their physical strength is too large.
It looks like an amateur being tightly grappled by a judo master, thus she could only flails her little legs around.

“……Very well then.
I’ll have someone from the castle guides you.”

“You have my thanks.
Then I’ll see you later.”

Milano bows slightly with elegant movements before walking past Ente.
Seeing that they walked past by, Ente turns to look at them with Hannya Demon-like2 expression.
Though fortunate, or perhaps unfortunately, both Milano and Selene didn’t see that face of hers.
The servant acting as a guide leads them inside, before having the two entering the room dedicated for Selene.

“Let me go!”

As soon as they enter the room, the thin thread of patience within Selene finally snapped, and so she mercilessly slaps Milano on his cheek.
In Selene’s mind, she thinks she’s slapping with a force so strong that it’ll snap his neck right off his shoulders, but in reality Milano feels almost nothing.
Milano lowers Selene down to the floor without a hint of pain on his face.
Selene then immediately flees to the corner of the room like a scared rabbit, and with her back against the wall, she makes a 大 letter pose as if trying to intimidate him.

“I’m sorry.
If I let Ente keeps going on like that I’ll really be taken into her room you see.”

“You taken, better.”

“Please don’t say something like that.
Also I must apologize for saying that you were of different status earlier, even though it’s for simple pleasantries.
I must apologize for suddenly holding you as well.
But I really can’t handle that princess you see.”

“Hmph!”

Even when Milano apologizes, Selene’s anger doesn’t seem to be dissipating any time soon.
She’s probably thinking that he’s mingling intimately with another girl.
Milano shrugs his shoulders, and just like every time he had to deal with the upperclass ladies, he bows down respectfully.
Yet the area between Selene’s brows is still wrinkled.

‘Her jealousy is deeper than I thought……’

Though in actuality, it’s just that she doesn’t like being lifted up by the Prince, who was just being considerate, nothing more.

“I’ll have to go and greet the people in this castle you see, so Selene you should go ahead and rest first.

Milano said and left the room, leaving Selene alone.

“As I thought, nothing good ever comes from being involved with Ente……”

Rubbing the cheek that was slapped just now, Milano leans on the door and sighs.

Though this journey is supposed to be a studying journey, but to be honest there’s really nothing that can be learned in Valbell.

Perhaps because Valbell sees Helifalte as its rival, so most of their culture are forcibly changed to resemble Helifalte.
There is also not much unique industry or knowledge that utilizes this region’s geography too, all in all just a cheap copy of Helifalte.

Valbell also probably only wants to publicly announces that ‘The Prince from the great nation has come all the way to greet us’ and nothing more.
The person who really wants him to visit is probably only Ente who’s too attched to him.
He judged that it’d be the best course of action to withdraw from here as soon as possible.
While hoping that Selene’s mood will be better by dinner time, Milano goes to exchange the annoying social pleasantries alone.

“Tastes, horrible.”

On the other hand, Selene, who’s now all alone in the room, is cringing at the room’s interior.
Almost all of the furnitures in this room are gilded in gold, and on top of that, there’re also a lot of mysterious objects that seems to be art pieces, carpet with bear head attached to it, a taxidermied deer head on the wall, and many more furnishings that she has only ever seen in animes and mangas.

『All of these are nothing but frabications, deception if you will.』

While Selene’s playing with the bear head on the carpet by sticking her hand into it, Butler who has been staying inside Selene’s dress obediently until now suddenly jumps out, as if he has run out of patience.

『Good God! What is up with these horrendous things! How dare they offer such a hideous room to the great Princess! Though every one of these furnitures are covered in gold, but they’re nothing but third and fourth rate piece of arts, what a truly horrible tastes indeed.
And also, please have a look at this.』

Butler jumps up onto the shelf with one big leap while also venting his anger, he then holds a small vial turns the it around with both of his hand.
Heaps of dust fall out from the bottle.

『It looks beautiful only at the visible parts, but it seems like they doesn’t care about the details at all.』

“Butler, you housewife?”

The way Butler complains sounded like a housewife checking on the window and sees that there’re dust everywhere, which made Selene chuckles.

Basically the room itself have a bad taste, but the bed is quite nice if we exclude the fact that it is leopard print.
But there’re only two things that’re important for Selene, one is if the amount of food is sufficient or not, and second is the bed comfortable to sleep.
Well, Selene’s actually able to sleep anywhere as long as she has a futon to begin with, even a thin one.

『I think Princess is too kind for your own good.
That little girl Ente is going to take advantage of you.』

However, after saying that much Butler begins to rethink what he thought.
Her merciful and generous heart is the proof of a monarch.
The evidence of a person with great capabilities.
She even accepted a vermin like him, granted him with wisdom and power, such a great Princess would surely be compassionate even against such a hateful attitude, able to laugh it off and forgives the rudeness toward her.
Thinking such, wouldn’t it be idiotic of him to be upset with that girl’s attitude? His master is always one step ahead of him.

『Good grief, seems like I still have a long way to go as the Princess’s butler.』

“Eh? What?”

『Princess, I’d like to go and have a look at the state of the kitchen here, so may I leave for a while?』

“You, hungry?”

『Not at all, but that little girl called Ente seems to like Prince Milano you see.
She gives you such a horrendous room like this, I’m afraid that they’ll serve you terrible food as well.
So I’d like to investigate the ingredients used.”

“I allow.”

『Thank you very much.
Then this Butler will get to work immediately.』

He stands on two legs and bows respectfully to Selene.
Butler dashes off like an arrow, jumping right out of the opened window.
And so Selene, now truly alone, lies down on the bed, thinking about what to do next.

“What do I do……”

With one hand, Selene grabs her silky white hair like threads of silk hard.
Selene’s plan at first was something like, since Ente’s the fashionable type of princess, she probably would invite Selene to a tea party or something.
She’d then casually try to slip in topics about the Prince to Ente.
After that it’ll be like 「How dare he makes a girl cry, he’s the worstー!」 or something, creating an awkward atmosphere between them, slowly forcing them to be together, that was the plan.
It was a brilliant plan that took her two hours of precious sleep time to come up with.

But because of the Prince’s dumb behaviors, the plan is now useless.
She must create a new plan immediately.
However, she wonders just how on earth can she have a meeting with Princess Ente.

If she is able to publicly announce her position as the Princess of Aquila, then perhaps it’ll be possible to forcibly and directly have a tea party with her, but unfortunately that method is not possible.

Which means that the only time she can meet her is during dinner only.
But there will probably be other people other than Princess Ente as well.
It’d be better if there’re only three of us, Milano, Ente and herself.
Thinking about such things, Selene desperately squeezes every atom of her intelligence that she doesn’t possesses, but suddenly there’s a knock on the door, and about at the same time the door is hurriedly opened.

“Ojou-chan3, how are you feeling?”

“Princess, Ente?”

What extreme luck is this.
Princess Ente that she has been wondering about on how to meet her, has come to see her in person.

“There’s something I’d like to talk about with you, I wonder if that’s fine with you?”

“Un!”

Selene smiles brightly, knowing that God is on the side of righteous after all.

However, Selene failed to notice that Princess Ente’s eyes are sharp cold, as if she’s looking at a hatred enemy.