Risou no Himo Seikatsu Vol 2 Chapter 2

Chapter 02: The Emissary from the Twin Kingdom

A few months had passed since Zenjirou made his debut into higher society at the banquet without any problems.

Recently the highest temperature during the day was a bit over thirty degrees and during the night, the average temperature dropped down to around twenty-five degrees. It were pleasant times.

The Carpa Kingdom didn’t have easily distinguishable “four seasons” like Japan, but various changes could be spotted from a look out of the window of the inner palace.

There was not enough change to warrant an assignment of “four season”, but one may roughly call this a “change of season”.

However, Zenjirou currently was in no state to fully enjoy this calm season.

“Hah, Hah, Hah…”

Before long, an electronic sound unknown to this world quietly beeped under the quilt.

Zenjirou barely caught that sound and rummaged about under the blanket, then took out the thermometer pinched under his armpit and held it up to his face.

The number displayed on the digital thermometer was two degrees above his average body temperature.

Zenjirou was down with a fever.

Of course she was worried about her sick husband, but she was a Queen. Her own well-being took priority over nursing the Prince Consort.
Aura had suspended her duties for now and returned to her own chamber in the palace. There she immediately called for the royal court physician to get herself examined.

Aura sat in a chair woven from vines with her mouth opened widely to show her throat. The old physician told her “Yes, thank you” and she closed her mouth.

“Yes, everything is alright. Or at least, you are showing no symptoms at this point, Your Highness.”

“I see. Well done.”

Good. The medical treatment wasn’t all that advanced in this world, so the physician’s assurance gave no definite peace of mind, but judging by his tone, she wouldn’t have to worry for now.

“Then check on my ill husband in the inner palace next.”

“Yes. I will do everything in my might.”
The aged physician complied with a soft smile and left with the Queen’s permission.

In exchange for him, Aura’s personal secretary Fabio Debache entered the room.

Aura smiled a bit at the middle-aged secretary with the slender face and nodded once.

“Imbued Stone of Cure”. Secretary Fabio raised one eyebrow upon hearing that term, but nodded right away and stated his opinion.

The “Imbued Stone of Cure” was a magical tool made in the Twin Kingdom of Sharrow and Jilbell, located in the central area of the southern continent.

Of course, it couldn’t re-grow a limp you had been bereaved of or recover any of the five senses you may have lost, but only a handful of sick people ever passed away after using the “Imbued Stone of Cure”.

The Carpa Kingdom was an eminent and large kingdom that dominated the western part of the southern continent and was on fairly good terms with the Twin Kingdom of Sharrow and Jilbell, but even so, they only possessed three “Imbued Stones of Cure” at present.

“I see. It makes it easier for me to hear that.”

Aura herself had immediately considered to use the “Imbued Stone of Cure” in the moment she heard that Zenjirou had fallen ill, but she found herself unable to tell if that judgment had been done by her emotions as a wife or by her reasoning as a Queen.

In other words, Aura was agitated so much that she couldn’t make such an “obvious decision” anymore.

“At any rate, my husband still looked fine this morning when I woke up. I wonder what kind of illness got him.”

Aura mused about Secretary Fabio’s word with her chin still on her hand.

Aura, too, have had a few illnesses like that in the past.

The condition of “suddenly taking a turn for the worse, even though everything was fine in the morning” added to Secretary Fabio’s idea, narrowed the illnesses Aura could think of down to one.

“Just as you assume, I dare to say.”

“…..”

If Zenjirou’s illness was really “that one”, all her worries so far would come to nothing. “That one” wasn’t a lethal illness. If anything, it was actually a good thing that he caught “that one”.
Aura’s assumption was then backed up by the words of Doctor Michelle when he returned from the inner palace before long.

“Zenjirou-sama has caught the ‘Blessing of the Forest’.”

The name of an illness with a mortality rate close to zero left the physician’s mouth. Hearing it, Aura refrained from looking up to the ceiling from the overwhelming exhaustion and told Doctor Michelle “Good, well done” with an austere expression.
In the back, Secretary Fabio showed a sly smile with one corner of his mouth raised as he easily saw through the consternation of the Queen.

“Aura, what’s the ‘Blessing of the Forest’?”

It was still evening, but since the window shutters were closed as not to let the open air in, there was no way to tell the situation outside.

Amidst this dim room, Aura sat in the chair that stood besides the bed and intently wiped the sweat from Zenjirou’s forehead or neck with the towel she had brought over from the refrigerator while answering his question.

Moreover, you never catch it again after having it once and strangely enough, a lot of people, who had it, show weaker symptoms on other illnesses later on, so it is called the ‘Blessing of the Forest’.”

“Uwah… If I were to bring my body, infected with the virus and full of antibodies, back to Earth, I would get a Nobel prize…?”

That aside, it were truly great news that this illness was “rarely lethal”. Zenjirou had been crippled by the fear over an illness in the different world, but now he forgot the pain in the joints of his body for a moment and smiled faintly.

“Hmm, three days at the earliest and seven days at the latest.”

As the joints in his body were aching, it was uncomfortable even when he was laying down and due to the high fever, he was sweating non-stop, yet when he was drinking water, his throat smarted as it was swollen.

(Still, you’re gonna feel like shit for a week at worst, but does really ‘no one die from it’? Seeing their level of civilisation, I would think they drop like flies)

Surviving a few days in bed with a fever of over thirty-eight degrees was feasible for an average household in modern Japan, since it had doctors, medicine and a balanced nutrition.

And he wasn’t wrong about that.

For that reason, parents with young children deliberately got them infected with the “blessing” when someone caught the “Blessing of the Forest” in town.

Anyway, these circumstances of the lower class had hardly any relation to Zenjirou.

Aura phrased a question she had suddenly recalled, whereat Zenjirou turned on top of the bed and showed an unpleasant expression on a rare occasion.

On the other hand, Aura, too, showed a bewildered expression on a rare occasion and persuaded her wilful husband.

Right now, Aura had specially taken some time off to attend to him like this, but as the Queen, she was originally in no position to do work like this. Looking after royalty was the job of the attendants, not the family.

As his throat hurt considerable, he could only reply with a feeble voice, but he rather stubbornly refused to accept Aura’s suggestion.

Aura called out to him again, so he strained his aching throat and confessed by squeezing out a small voice.

I don’t want to do that… so I prefer to be alone…”

Their body was weakened by the illness and it affected their mentality, too. So a lot of people got abnormally timid or felt lonely for no reason.

The soup was too hot, the towel for wiping his body was lukewarm and so on. He started to curse every little thing. To begin with, the fact itself that others were healthy, even though he was going through such a hard time, was hateful.

Needless to say, Zenjirou was now a grown-up man at a good age. Even when he was weakened in mind and body, his mentality wasn’t so weak that he would propagate an absurd aggression to his usual milieu. He didn’t propagate it, but it was tiring to suppress that urge.

“It’s okay… I can change my clothes by myself and I’ll ring the bell for the toilet…”

Zenjirou rejected it outright with a feeble voice, whereat Aura raised a voice, still not convinced.

The man called Zenjirou considered it a sacrilege to cause others unreasonable trouble. Moreover, the status of the other party didn’t matter in doing so. That applied to royalty and nobility, of course, but likewise to the waiting maids, who were nothing more than mere attendants.

“…Fine. I will tell them to keep coming here to a minimum.”

“Mm… Thanks.”

“It is nearly time for dinner. Is there anything you would like to eat?”

The weakened Zenjirou reflexively revealed his wish upon her words.

Porridge for the sick.

“Porritch? What is that? Dryte plums? I know of eggs, but what is soi sauce?”

He replied to Aura with a faint smile.

Zenjirou remembered that the homemade dried plums of his aunt were in the refrigerator, but dried plums alone wouldn’t make a difference. The Carpa Kingdom did cultivate wheat, but there was apparently no custom of turning it into porridge. Even if he had them prepare a special wheat porridge for him and added dried plums to it, there was no guarantee it would taste good.

(Guess I’ll deal with it a bit more serious when I feel better…)

“…Okay. I will tell the kitchen to prepare you a special meal.”

Aura wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel once more before leaving the room, whereat Zenjirou responded like that with a weak and forced smile.

When Aura left and closed the door behind her with a clatter, Zenjirou was all alone in the dim bedroom.

He fumbled his way to the table next to the bed with his hand, took the 500ml PET bottle, which was filled with boiled water that had cooled down, from it, opened the lid and raised it to his mouth.

His throat stung just from swallowing the lukewarm water. Still, he knew how dangerous it was when he didn’t take in some water after his body sweated so much, so he endured the pain and drank the water.

After emptying the bottle halfway through, Zenjirou close it again and put it back onto the bed table.

Back in Japan it would just be recyclable garbage, but in this world, the small container, too, was a valuable item.

A repetitive use invoked a hygienic uncertainty, even if washed carefully, so it couldn’t be utilized for long, but it was pure gold in an emergency like this.

(Aww, what came over me!? Wanting porridge in a different world… Am I an snotty brat or what!?)

Zenjirou didn’t evaluate himself all too highly to begin with, but he had never thought that he would lack so much self-control as to reveal such a stupid selfishness. His self-loathing reached a fatal level, in all seriousness.

Still plunged into his pillow, he kept regretting his verbal slip in anguish.
However, that, too, was a blessing in disguise. After a while of engulfing himself in a self-loathing so strong that he forgot the drowsiness of the fever and even the pain in his joints, Zenjirou let his consciousness sink into the abyss of sleep without him knowing about it.

“…Good grief. Have I really been paying attention to my husband until now?”

Aura sat down in the couch of the living room with a thump, showing unsightly wrinkles around her nose.

As a bit of her irritation had subdued from sitting down, Aura cast her eyes down with a calm expression now and grumbled.

Her sick husband had automatically voiced his desired food and she couldn’t even prepare that for him. Not just that, she didn’t even know his preferences in food, so her self-loathing became even worse.

Aura imagined Zenjirou’s situation anew and felt gloomy.

That tendency became quite apparent in wounded soldiers with a weakened spirit. Any military officer knew that the second most frequent last words from a dying soldier in the expeditionary troops were about their “hometown food”, only exceeded by their “family”.

“…In the end, I am nothing but compelling inconveniences on him.”

A dejected voice unconsciously left Aura’s mouth when her reflecting ended.

Aura had no recollections of forcing him into coming to this world and in fact, Zenjirou had made the decision to come here all by himself.

As far as Aura was aware, he was always having fun. Especially during the nights, where they had physical contact, he was making a happy face that was overflowing with euphoria and satisfaction. She could claim at least that much with confidence.

“Right. My husband is by no means unhappy. I am just a tad too negative. Still…”

“Still, I believe it is alright to grant my husband’s request to a reasonable extent. It would be a problem if he were to ask to be send back to his world because of homesickness, since it would not only throw the royal family into disarray, but also the whole Kingdom.”
Aura neatly combined her emotions as a wife with the sense of duty as a Queen, and told herself that.

The South Continent knew of an animal called “Small Flying Dragon”.

Incidentally, the other three kinds were the “raptorial dragon”, the “Hulking Dragon” and the “Meat Dragon”. All of them were important and indispensable livestock, each sustaining the human lifestyle.

In terms of the livestock on Earth, the “Raptorial Dragon” equalled a “horse”, the “Hulking Dragon” a “cattle” and the “Meat Dragon” a “pig”.

Basically, it fulfilled the same role as “carrier pigeons” on Earth in old times.

The “Small Flying Dragon” didn’t even take half a day for a distance for which a couple of mounted messengers needed five days without rest in a relay team.
Such a “Small Flying Dragon” arrived from the eastern border station at the palace with a letter at noon that day.

“A message from the eastern border, you say?”

“Yes. A ‘Small Flying Dragon’ from the border station in the east just arrived with this letter.”

The letters inside were most likely all the same. The “Small Flying Dragon” was in danger of getting lost or being preyed on by a larger flying dragon, so it was customary that various of them were entrusted with delivering the same message.

After she read through the parchment with a bad feeling, Aura made a small sigh.

“…..”

So it wasn’t all that strange that Secretary Fabio, a retainer of Aura, was allowed to read it.

Taking the dragon-skin parchment, Secretary Fabio read the small scrap and let the corner of his mouth twitch.

“Earlier this morning, Her Highness Princess Isabelle from the Twin Kingdom of Sharrow and Jilbell has arrived at the eastern fort together with her personal guards of three-hundred men. She requested entry into the country, so according to the treaty, I allowed it under the condition of disarming in the urban areas. Furthermore, three-hundred of the cavalry from the fort will accompany Her Highness Isabelle as guards, too.”

After that text followed the date on which the letter had been written and the sign of the commander in charge of the eastern fort.

Secretary Fabio read the short letter a few times as not to miss anything and then spoke with a flat voice.

“Yeah, I would say so. A lot of money must have flown for Princess Isabelle herself to make an appearance.”

Isabelle Jilbell.

As the current pope, older than sixty years, was her father, she herself also had passed her 40s, even if she was called a princess. She was already a mother of three children, but it should be emphasized that she was one of the handful of people amongst the royalty that could use “healing magic”.

Then what was a person, who was so sick that he couldn’t leave his sickbed, supposed to do? It was quite plain. He summoned someone from the pope lineage. With the kind of sum that would make a minister of finance go pale in the face.

“Yes, without doubt. I do not know which country is involved, but they genuinely seem to be on the watch.”

“Very well.”

The number went up or down a bit depending on the distance to the destination and friendly relationships with that country, but approximately a thousand elite knights were considered to be the minimum. The reason why people from the pope lineage took a number of guards, which appeared excessive on a glance, with them, could be understood right away with a bit of thinking.

In fact, there had been various cases in the past, where a visiting person of the pope lineage had been confined, announcing that “he (or she) wished to migrate to said country”.

(Needless to say, the country in question had to shoulder the travel/lodging expenses for these guards.)

However, the bigger the troops, the slower they moved. In some cases, sick people, who could originally been saved, died because the delegation of around a thousand people took too long.

These knights matched a thousand people as they were armed with “magic tool” that were created by the other royal family in the Twin Kingdom: the Sharrow lineage. It was possible to cut back on the number of escorts a lot by dispatching them and as a result, the troops moved faster.

“Either way, the treatment must already be over and they are on their way home, seeing as they are heading our way. Shall I arrange your schedule, so that you have time to use the ‘Space-Time Magic’?”

The secretary bowed down a bit to the sighing words of the Queen.

The movement through “teleportation” ignored any detours, thus saved time and stilled the fears of a travel.

It was a good occasion to have a master of the “healing magic” owe her one. If anything, Aura would gladly welcome her as a guest under normal circumstances.

After she said that, she placed one hand against her chin and became absorbed in thought.

“Considering the distance to the eastern fort, I guess Princess Isabelle will arrive here in five days?”

Recovering from the symptoms of the “Blessing of the Forest” took at least three days and seven at worst. As Zenjirou’s symptoms were more serious, it was quite likely that he would still be bed-stricken when Princess Isabelle arrived.

“…How troublesome. I am not all that keen to let a foreign person into the room of my husband. I guess we should prepare an extra bedroom for the worst case and have my husband stay there during Princess Isabelle’s visit.”

The simplest solution to this was to have Zenjirou live in a different room for a little while. The inner palace was originally built to house several women, but at present, Zenjirou was the only one living there, so there were enough empty rooms.

Secretary Fabio expressed a genuine consent to Aura’s suggestion.

However, there were plain spells like “stamina recovery” or “mental calming” amongst the “healing magic” that eased the patient’s pain without curing the illness itself.

“If it comes to that, my husband will have to meet with Princess Isabelle in his feverish condition.”

Princess Isabelle might look like a somewhat clean-limbed and refined lady in her middle years, but at heart, she was a “healer” with nearly thirty years of experience and a trueborn member of the Jilbell royal lineage.

“I just hope that no trouble arises…”
Aura herself was kind of aware that the possibility of actually nothing happening was rather low while she mumbled that.

Six days later.

The delegation of Princess Isabelle had arrived at the Royal Carpa Palace yesterday evening. The official greeting had been dealt with in the audience room this morning, but they couldn’t talk freely to each other at a public location.

“It has been a while, Your Highness Aura. First of all, let me congratulate you on your marriage.”

In the audience room, the two women had been clad in tight formal attires, but now they had changed into dresses with few ornaments.

In the Carpa Kingdom, wearing a white dress was a special privilege for young ladies or brides, so ladies at a certain age refrained from wearing one, but in the Twin Kingdom, the white colour represented the Jilbell royal lineage, so the people from the pope lineage wore clothes based around the colour white under normal circumstances.

Quite the contrast to a Carpa Kingdom dress, which was so revealing around the neck that the cleavage could be seen.

Aura answered like that without lowering head, throwing out her chest instead. Age-wise, Princess Isabelle was more than ten years older than her, but Aura’s status as the head of the country made her the overwhelming social superior. Princess Isabelle was nothing more than one of the countless royalty.

This gesture made her appear more as a madam from a mercantile house than a member of a royal family.

“I take it that I cannot make you tell me about that ‘urgent matter’ as a way of compensation?”

“Yes. It involved my credibility as a ‘healer’, so even if it is a request by Your Highness, I ask for your pardon on this matter.”

Well, obviously.

Royalty or nobility of other countries would surely not ask the Jilbell lineage for treatment, if such information was spread flippantly. After all, there was no royalty or nobility that didn’t love to behave secretively.

Aura had known from the beginning that there was no way that Isabelle would agree and abandoned the topic at once.

Aura then said with an expression as if she had suddenly thought of it and rang the bell on the table.

“You called?”

“Yes, very well.”

Princess Isabelle tilted her head puzzled, whereat Aura smiled meaningful.

“Oh my, how wonderful. In that case, I will personally attend to the matter. When I forward your request to the Sharrow Family, I will put in a good word for you.”

While they were having such a conversation, the door was knocked and Secretary Fabio returned with a silver tray in his right hand.

“Thanks. Put them there.”

Secretary Fabio put the silver tray onto the table between Aura and Isabelle and retreated after a bow.

Princess Isabelle made a slightly dubious look when she saw the pouches, but her eyes obviously widened in surprise in the next moment when she let her gaze wander to the rings.

“You may take them in hand. Let me hear your honest opinion.”

The diamonds and gold on the ring from the different world sparkled in the sunlight.

Three small colourless and brilliant diamonds were embedded next to each other into a yellow-golden socket.

“How beautiful… Are these gems crystals?”

“Diamonds!? In such a shape?”

The gem called diamond existed in this world, too, but there were no common techniques to polish them. All the diamonds currently in existence had been cut with magic by an ancient earth archmage.

The cutting techniques for gems advanced along with the development of precise machines. It was absolutely impossible to reproduce it in this world, even with the help of the irregular power called magic.

“I wonder how these well-matched lines were carved so detailed…”

The jeweller crafts of this world were in no way inferior in a broad artistic sense, rather, the reproduction was impossible due to the simple problem of technology.

Aura inwardly made a sigh of relief as Princess Isabelle’s reaction told her that her conjecture hadn’t been wrong.

When Aura had looked at the ring Zenjirou gave her in their wedding night again under the morning sun the next day, she also had exclaimed a surprise not much different from Princess Isabelle’s just now.

Aura explained herself at once to Zenjirou when he woke up and smile at her happily, and convinced him not to wear the rings ordinarily.

This development would have undoubtedly drawn attention to the donor of the ring, namely Zenjirou. Back then, the unwanted attention might have then preponed his debut into higher society.

Before long, Princess Isabelle noticed that Aura was looking at her with a smile, so she laughed it off with an affected “Ohoho” and put the ring back onto the tray.

“Quite alright. An impressive sight, is it not? If possible, I would like to turn it into a ‘magic tool’.”

Jewellery was a typical object for a magic tool, only second to weapons. Due to that, the people of the Sharrow lineage, employing the “Bestowal Magic”, inevitable had a good eye for jewellery.

“Good. I have not decided on a magic for it yet. Perhaps you have any ideas?”

“Hmm, it may be exquisite, but is a tiny jewellery after all, so I believe it would be better to refrain from putting in a large magic. Maybe something rudimental like ’Ignition’, ’Fireproof’ or ’Spring of Water‘?”

“I will not be so unreasonable as to ask for ‘cure’, but maybe ‘stamina recovery’?”

“Uh…”

As they concluded the matter for now and she had put the ring back onto the tray, Princess Isabelle suddenly looked at the two pouches on the tray.

Aura picked up the bigger of the two pouches and replied with a delightful smile to Isabelle’s question.

“Well, I belong to the royal family of the Twin Kingdom after all, so I am more knowledgeable about them than the average, but I rank behind the people of the Sharrow lineage.”

Judging by Aura’s words, the pouch must contain some kind of jewellery. Moreover, it belonged to the same person, who brought these extravagant rings into this world.

Aura opened the pouch while feeling Isabelle’s glance on her fingers, put her fingers into it and took out one piece. With a CLACK, she put the “certain object”, held between her middle finger and thumb, onto the tray.

The traditional marble had the simplest design of stained glass encased by a transparent, colourless glass sphere and rolled about on the silver tray.

As Princess Isabelle witnessed its radiance, she widened her eyes even more than when she had taken the ring in hand.

Princess Isabelle showed an expression that said “Oops” for a moment, then assumed her usual calm expression again.

Keeping her eyes on the rolling marble on the silver tray, she spoke with an extremely surprised tone.

Aura was dubious of Isabelle’s exaggerated reaction, but hid it behind a smile and replied.

Princess Isabelle was reaching out for the marble mindfully, but on the word “fragile”, she stopped her hand with a flinch.

“Although I say fragile, I mean that it breaks when you drop it from a height onto a solid surface. It will not be damaged when you hold it normally and we have a carpet on the floor here, so even when you should drop it, it will not cause it to break.”

“In that case, may I hold it in hand then?”

With Aura’s permission, Princess Isabelle picked up the marble with three fingers and held it up against the light like with the ring before, leaking a soft sigh of admiration.

“Let me be frank with you, Princess Isabelle. What price would you attach to a single piece of it if it were kept for sale?”

“That is to say, you intend to sell these gems, Your Highness?”

“Not quite. They originally belong to my husband after all. I cannot sell them all on my own accord. However, as this article does not exist natively in our world, I am allowed to part with a few of them to measure their value.”

“Why certainly.”

Non-essential things without a value for the military such as jewellery, had no set value, even if it would seem that way. Much less an item like a glass marble, which was unknown to this world up till now.

As such, it wasn’t all that odd that Aura hit upon the idea of spreading one or two to the public to establish its value. Likewise, it was neither a poor choice to ask Princess Isabelle for her opinion on it.

“Hmm, supposing I would be able to buy this gem… I would offer thirty gold coins for it.”

Aura was at a loss for words from the unexpected amount offered, but somehow managed not to show it on her face and replied shortly.

“…..”

After a short silence, Princess Isabelle shrugged her shoulders resignedly and answered.

She spoke as if she was having a business discussion here all of a sudden instead of a hypothetical one, and proposed an addition of whole twenty gold coins at once.

She had checked with her, asking “are you being serious?”, because she already considered thirty gold coins “exorbitant”, so she never expected the offer to raise even further instead.

With that in mind, Aura gave Princess Isabelle a probing glance, but Princess Isabelle was looking at her with a gentle smile on her plump, but graceful face.

(No, that is not it. I find it hard to believe that Princess Isabelle would misread such an obvious implied doubt. She raised it deliberately, huh. But why would she put such an exorbitant price on a single gem?)

To make it easier to understand: You could buy the cheapest “Raptorial Dragon” for three gold coins and for ten gold coins you even got a superb “Raptorial Dragon for knights” that was trained for combat.

Needless to say, such a sum wasn’t uncommon for jewellery and some goods were even traded for one more digit. However, this marble wasn’t worth that much in Aura’s opinion.

Sensing that, Aura took the other pouch and put a few beads from it onto the silver tray as to attain more information.

Red, blue and green. The clear and transparent beads in various colours were rather eye-catching, but Princess Isabelle’s reaction remained down-to-earth.

Neither her praising words, nor her fascinated look seemed to be feigned, but she didn’t show any surprise, either, when she caught sight of the beads.

“Hmm, you can tell their quality on a glance, but considering the size… I would estimate ten silver coins per grain.”

Incidentally, one gold coins was worth a hundred silver coins, albeit for a small variance in its age or region.

In other words, Princess Isabelle had estimated one marble worth five-hundred times the value of a bead.

The abnormal value of the marble stood out all the more as the price for the beads was just as she had expected.

“Oh, I see. It was most helpful. Let me grant you one piece for your troubles. Pick whichever you like.”

A dozen marbles rolled about on the silver tray.

Princess Isabelle uttered a remark of surprise with one hand in front of her mouth, whereat Aura kept track of what she was looking at while calling out to her with a soft smile.

All kind of marbles spread on the tray. From the standard type with coloured glass inside to marbles with a bleared surface to ones with a beautiful marble pattern. There was even a globe marble amongst them that had a simple world map drawn on it.

“…..”

Princess Isabelle must have sensed that Aura was watching her behaviour. She shrugged her shoulders once, then picked up one marble from the tray.

The marble she had picked was a rather transparent and colourless one without any patterns.

“Say no more. It solely depends on my husband, but if he should be willing to part with them, I will definitely speak to you first, Princess.”

Aura’s assurance was seemingly satisfying for Princess Isabelle as she smiled softly and politely lowered her head.

“Oh, whatever happened to my manners? I ended up getting lost in the conversation. Your Highness, as a kind of repayment for the gem, may I have your permission to pay your sick husband a visit? I will be able to give a helping hand for a bit.”

“Very well. Excuse me then.”
Princess Isabelle concluded the conversation with a smile at the end and stood up with a genteel movement, making a small bow and leaving the room.

“…And thus, Princess Isabelle estimated the big, round gems to be worth fifty gold coins and the small grains with the hole to be worth ten silver coins. Let me hear your honest opinion.”

“Fifty gold coins, you say? I get the feeling that this price is a little bit over the top.”

“Fabio, watch your vocabulary. Or are you seriously saying that fifty gold coins is just ‘a little bit’ excessive?”

Without flinching from the displeased utterance by his master, Secretary Fabio apologized and rephrased it with a curt bow.

“It is strange, would you not agree? Let alone the fact that she showed a far greater reaction to the gems than to the rings.”

The meticulous processed golden socket had jewels called diamonds embedded in it, which were polished with a technique unknown to this world. The beauty of this jewellery was obvious to anyone. Even a person without any knowledge about jewellery would normally valuate the rings over the marbles.

Saying so, Secretary Fabio expressed his agreement to the opinion of his master.

The other party would take advantage of her if she were to express her desi

Chapter end