722. [Side Story] Lake Kingdom (3)
There were two people whom Christian told the boy undercover to be careful of.
One is my younger sister, Ariel.
And the other was a nanny who had taken care of the prince and princess since they were babies.
“Nanny Nanny!”
Ariel recklessly dragged the boy undercover and took him to the nanny’s room.
“Oh my, our prince and princess. welcome.”
The nanny was a great witch called ‘Coco of the Cut’.
In addition to simple nanny duties, she also had to perform guard duty to protect the royal grandchildren, so the king made her, the most powerful wizard among his vassals, the nanny and guard of his two children.
Coco, who was also the prince and princess’ magic teacher, smiled kindly.
“I was sad that you didn’t come to hang out often after you grew up, but I’m glad that you two came together like this today. “Do you have any business with this old man?”
“Look straight at the nanny!”
Ariel grabbed the double boy by the collar and shook him violently.
“It’s not your brother, this person is fake!”
“yes?”
Coco frowned and looked at the boy closely. The boy swallowed dryly and avoided eye contact.
After a while, Coco tilted her head and leaned back.
“…You are the prince, right?”
“No, it’s different! Are you saying it’s completely different? Look straight!”
Only then did Coco, who had used magic to examine the boy double, let out a perplexed groan.
“This can’t be right. The princess is right. There is a significant high-level perception-impairing spell… and an appearance-changing spell was also used. “Your voice has also been altered.”
Coco, who had finally accepted that the prince in front of her was a fake, raised her hands.
“It’s really surprising. In fact, if it weren’t for the princess’s point, I would have been deceived too.”
“Can you dispel the magic spells?”
“I will try.”
Eventually, after a while, the boy undercover lost the necklace with the recognition-impairing spell, and even his hair and eye color were disguised and returned to their original black-grey color.
‘It’s ruined…’
Since he dared to infiltrate by imitating the prince and was caught, he will be reprimanded. On the other hand, the prince will be scolded for failing in his mission…
The boy’s mind went blank and he sat there blankly, but Ariel and Coco were looking at the boy and were just amazed and amazed.
“There is no other magic? It’s really amazing. “How come you resemble your brother so much?”
“Don’t they say there are three identical people in the world? Rather, princess, resemblance is not important right now…”
“Oh, that’s right.”
Sreung!
Ariel drew her sword again and scolded the boy.
“Tell the truth! Who are you? “Where is your brother now?”
“Uuuuuu….”
The boy, who was weeping in front of the sword hanging in front of his neck, eventually had to confess his loss.
The real Prince Christian left for the Eastern Continent in search of the magic of immortality. Diran Dahi, the head of the Magic Research Institute, also accompanied him, and under his instructions, he acted as a double.
“When you leave, it takes time because there is no teleportation base, but when you return, you can come right away with magic… Anyway, he expected it would take about a month. I was supposed to not get caught for a month… but
I got caught as soon as I started.
Ariel was shocked and frowned in front of the boy who was purring his lips in despair.
“The magic of immortality? There’s no way something like that exists! “Onii-sama, what the hell…!”
Nanny Coco helped.
“That’s right. Even if there was such magic… it would no longer be magic, but something no different from a curse.”
Coco then shook her head.
“And the prince was driven to the point where he needed to find something like that.”
“You’re really… an idiot. “What you need is not the magic of immortality.”
To stop wandering and stay proudly by your father’s side.
That alone would have made the king happy, but the prince, riddled with inferiority complex, seemed to see nothing like that in his eyes.
“Huh…”
Ariel let out a long sigh and stood in front of the boy double with both hands on her waist.
“great. Now that things have already turned out this way, my brother is gone for a month! “You need to play your brother perfectly.”
The fact that the prince left for a month without informing the king to the already destroyed Eastern Continent was not a good thing to hear. Especially Christian, who is annoying his father.
In that respect, Ariel wasn’t sure if she should praise her brother’s preparedness for leaving behind a substitute.
After all, he had planned to supervise this fake so as not to cause any damage to the real Christian.
“With my brother’s face, I will always be by your side and watch over you to avoid any accident.”
“yes? “The princess…?”
“is it so. I myself. So, if you were planning on doing something stupid while pretending to be a prince, wake up early.”
It was unfair, but due to the circumstances, the boy double sniffled quietly.
Ariel pointed at the boy.
“So you. name is?”
“yes?”
“I can’t call you brother. “What is your real name?”
The boy hesitated before answering.
“Uh, nothing….”
“Huh? “How can you not have a name?”
“I am the lowest-class slave among non-citizens. “Non-nationals usually don’t have names…”
Ariel, who had hesitated in surprise, asked again.
“But didn’t people still have a name for you?”
“My masters usually called me… A Slave or The Slave.”
“Wow really? “That’s too much…”
Ariel shook her head because she couldn’t bear to call him that.
“Then let’s at least decide on a temporary name for ourselves. Um, so…”
Since it was a person’s name, I couldn’t just give it a name like a dog’s name. Ariel hesitated, thinking.
The article preceding the title of the boy that his former owners had called him slipped from Ariel’s lips as she was lost in thought.
“Hmm. A: The….”
“…Yes?”
The boy mumbled in confusion.
“Ader…?”
“what? No no! This is just something I muttered. “Is there a name that consists only of articles?”
In front of Ariel, who was waving her hands urgently, the boy absentmindedly pondered the strange name.
Why?
The moment that name came out of Ariel’s mouth, I felt a sense of fate.
The intuition that that is his name.
“I’m a pinch hitter anyway. temporary. “Because it’s fake.”
The boy undercover bowed his head.
“That name is enough.”
“….”
“Please call me Ader from now on, princess.”
Then the boy smiled shyly.
“Thank you for giving me a name. “I will use it carefully.”
“….”
I can’t believe you’re smiling like that without any fear, with the same face as your older brother.
It felt unfamiliar and somehow reminded her of her childhood, so Ariel chuckled without realizing it.
“I’m glad that you don’t seem to be a very bad person.”
Ariel held out her hand to the boy double who was kneeling in front of her, now named Ader.
“Okay, another month… take care, Ader.”
Ariel smiled broadly.
“I will definitely assist you so that you do not get caught as a fake brother!”
“….”
Ader could not bear to grab the princess’s pure white bead that was held out towards him, so he just looked up at it quietly.
If I hadn’t been caught as a double, I would have grabbed that hand.
Now that my true identity – my status as a lowly slave – has been revealed, it feels like something far away that I can’t reach.
So instead of just holding his hand… I bowed my head deeply.
***
Ironically, while Ader was posing as Christian as a double.
Christian’s evaluation improved day by day.
As in the past, he did not show aggression without a reason, and he did not attend royal events large or small without permission.
Although he became expressionless and spoke less.
He constantly appeared here and there with Princess Ariel, and toured various parts of the country with Ariel in place of the king, who was in poor health, and executed various tasks requiring royal approval together with Ariel.
The rumor that the prince had finally come to his senses spread everywhere.
“As expected, the story of a fool’s transformation is popular regardless of time and place…”
Ariel sighed as she heard Christian’s evaluation improving day by day.
“It would be good if you really changed your mind quickly. ha.”
Ader, who was standing behind Ariel in embarrassment, suddenly blinked.
Ariel’s hair was disheveled after a busy day assisting with various government affairs. The red ribbon that I always tied up was coming loose.
Ader, who hesitated, asked cautiously.
“Uh… princess.”
“huh?”
Ariel looked back at Ader’s call and muttered humbly.
“Ah, it feels really strange to say princess or princess without calling your name with that face….” “
Haha….”
“So why?”
“If it’s not rude… may I help you get your hair done?”
Ariel, who only then realized that her hair was disheveled, made an audible noise and touched the back of her head. Ader waved her hands in confusion.
“that. sorry. “You’re saying such nonsense…”
“No, no. “I was just surprised.”
Ariel laughed and gave up her back.
“When will there be another time in my life when my brother will fix my hair? please.”
“Yes, then…”
Ader carefully untied the red cloth that tied the back of Ariel’s hair.
Ariel’s dazzling silver hair poured down like a waterfall. Ariel explained, lightly shaking her shoulders.
“My late mother always tied my hair with a red cloth when I was young. “What did you say that a red ribbon goes well with my silver hair?”
“….”
“That’s why I’ve been sticking to this style for the rest of my life. Even though I’m about to become an adult, I’m still a little worried about what people think about me because I’m going to keep tying a ribbon around… hehe. Still, it doesn’t look good on you, does it?”
Indeed, it was so.
Ader agreed, carefully combing the back of Ariel’s hair and tying it with a ribbon.
It was his first time seeing such soft and beautiful hair. Each and every strand of Ariel’s sparkling hair was like finely plucked silver thread.
And the pure white back of the princess’s neck peeking through that long hair…
As if she was caught up in the situation, she was dragged here without any will and was acting as a substitute for the prince.
At this moment, Ader felt fortunate to have come to the royal castle for the first time.
I’m glad I was able to trim and tie the princess’s hair.
Eventually, Ariel’s hair was neatly organized. Ariel glanced in the mirror and looked back with a wide smile.
“Wow, you tie your hair well? “What did you do before?”
“yes?”
“Before I came here as a stand-in. “The delicate and soft touch is not something I’ve done once or twice.”
Ader, who was dazed for a moment, stuttered out an answer.
“Whatever it was… I did it. Since we slaves are not in a position to receive special work…”
Ariel was ignorant of the lives of non-citizens. The life of the slaves at the bottom was even more so.
So I listened carefully to Ader’s random words.
“Where I was staying, many of the slaves stayed in one dormitory… “Every morning, if there were any chores needed outside the outer walls, the citizens would come and take the slaves to the places where they were needed.”
“Hmm.”
“We were assigned all kinds of dirty and difficult tasks every day, and this is a bit of a strange story, but… the people don’t like us being dirty. “I had to dress cleanly when heading to work.”
The citizens treated non-citizens as parasites living in the Lake Kingdom. I thought they were idiots who couldn’t even use magic, living in a beautiful and perfect magic kingdom.
The more dirty and dirty these parasites were, the more they were despised. Therefore, in order to please the public, non-citizens had to maintain a clean appearance.
“So I had to tidy up my appearance before leaving for work, and it just so happened that I ended up doing the hair of the people I was staying with in the dorm.”
In a dormitory where hundreds of slaves lived together.
Ader, who combed and braided everyone’s hair every morning, soon became a master at trimming hair.
“…Well, it’s such a trivial story.”
After finishing her story awkwardly, Ader realized that Ariel was staring straight at her.
Ariel, who was looking at Ader intently with her clear turquoise eyes, called out to him in a refreshing voice.
“Ader.”
Ader, who had lost her mind for a moment, came to her senses a beat later and answered urgently.
“Yes?”
“Please stop by often. “The life you experienced as a slave in this country.”
Ariel smiled brightly.
“I think it will help lead this country in a better direction in the future.”
“….”
Ariel turned her head away from Ader, who had a blank expression on her face, and looked at the documents on the desk. It was a document containing the future schedule.
“By the way, I have an urgent schedule to attend to next week… Hmm.”
On the document Ariel had put down, the words ‘Royal Ball Hosted’ were briefly visible.
Ader’s face, which was rare for a slave to be able to read, turned white.
Ariel smiled bitterly and asked Ader.
“Ader. “Do you… know how to dance?”
