Flowers of Worship - Chapter 18

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As I am carried by Sophie like a burden, “If you miss it, it’s all in vain.” I grumbled, but she didn’t even pretend to hear it. Although Sophie is from a commoner, there is a strange cold side to the pain of commoners, and Chris said, ‘She seems to be doing that because she doesn’t want to think about her past as a commoner.’ While Leon said, ‘She seems to be angry when she sees helpless people.’ Either way, Sophie is a little cold to common people. She is cautious. I thought it was better to take care of myself than to use my strength in subduing monsters for the common people.

I was brought to the barracks on Sophie’s shoulders, stripped off my armor, then laid down on the bathtub. The good thing about being a Knight Commander is that I can bathe in hot water even at times like this, and it is a great privilege at this moment. Although, to be honest, I couldn’t envy the king.

“Lord.”

While I was still feeling the hot water relaxing my body, Sophie entered the barracks again. Sophie had taken off her armor and washed her face, but there were crumbs on the corners of her mouth from what she ate. As I slowly raised my hand and tapped my chin, Sophie wiped her chin with the back of her hand.

“Oh, I was starving to death.”

“You don’t use that word in front of Jian, do you?”

Jian is Sophie’s youngest son and is only five years old. Her hahaha seems to be bitter. No wonder when I had met Paul a few years ago, he had a rough tone. It looks like he learned it from his mother. I looked up at Sophie in my condolences to Paul’s etiquette teacher.

“What’s going on?”

“A letter has arrived.”

“A letter? … Ah.”

Sophie smiled slyly as my face knew who it was.

“Do you write letters with great enthusiasm?”

I sat down and said nothing.

It made me laugh.

“You mean, the Prince who is fifteen years younger than me?”

Sophie burst out laughing at my words.

“You enjoy it. When would you like to welcome the fifteen-year-old prince?”

“To be precise, the fiance, not a spouse.”

At my words, Sophie snorted and sat on the wooden barrel next to the bathtub.

“You’ll be in trouble if you learn. So what do you do with a fifteen-year-old child?”

“Your highness, Your highness. You’ll get hurt by that habit one day, Sophie.”

“Yes, yes. his highness fifteen-year-old.”

Sophie giggled. Someone else has become Eden’s swordsmanship teacher, and Sophie and Eden are now out of business. After I got engaged to Eden, I couldn’t stay with him for a few days and left; we haven’t seen each other ever since. I haven’t seen him in two years. The time we have seen each other is much longer than when we met, and considering his young age, his interest in me may have diminished, but he has been consistently sending me letters.

To my beloved Cilli.

The first sentence of a letter always begins like this. Of course, we are engaged, and that sentence itself is famous, so there is no problem. But every time I saw that word, I felt like I was caught in a trap.

I don’t know what the weather is like there. The weather and atmosphere here are chaotic these days. This year I came to Istrum. I haven’t even debuted in the social world, but invitations are piling up like a mountain, and Ryzen is crying over sending replies. I tried to help, but he refused, saying I’d lose face. It’s a pity seeing him struggling alone.

My wealth is steadily increasing. And Rizal has recommended several investments, but I’m still only investing safely because I don’t know. Rizal has a lot of complaints, but I didn’t do anything disturbing, as you said. I now know it’s tiring to have so much wealth. While my fortune continues to grow, on one side, I am getting calls from people trying to take away my fortune. Among them, of course, is also the ‘His Majesty the King.’

Eden wrote, “His Majesty the King.” Whenever he writes about the king, he always emphasizes that he is the king’s highness. It’s a bit of a sarcastic tone, which made me laugh every time I saw it.

Studying is going well. No, it’s a little frustrating. I think the fact that I don’t know how well I’m doing is making me a little nervous. The teachers say I’m doing well, but in reality, where is the great teacher who said I’m not good enough in front of the Grand Duke? Well, not all, but most of them have recently in fashion these days for changes.

All the teachers who can speak ill in front of the Grand Duke are on the frontier. In other words, they are my knights. One of the articles was about someone who had never had anyone other than Sophie as a teacher, but it wasn’t wrong. Not everyone has a talent for flattery.

Oh, there’s one.

A man of natural talent and is excellent at flattering.

“I’m coming in.”

Leon saw me hanging naked in the bathtub and said, “Oh, you’re beautiful.” The way he spoke, it was almost like a wooden stone, but this man was accustomed to it.

“I’m taking a bath, Leon.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Do not worry. It’s so beautiful that I can’t see it because it’s so dazzling.”

“Oh, it’s dazzling. My eyes, where are they, my eyes.” Leon muttered indifferently in a tone akin to reading a book. He looked at my body and didn’t care. In fact, Leon was a man who had no interest in anything other than knights’ work, swords, and money. Sophia looked at Leon and opened her mouth as if she couldn’t help but say, “Hey, it’s a bit odd to ask such a thing.”

“Are you a eunuch?”

Leon frowned.

“Do you realize that the word sounds a bit insulting to some men?”

“If it sounds insulting…I still have no chance of seeing your bloodline.”

“Don’t show off to others that you have become a symbol of fertility.”

“Hey, three children aren’t a symbol of fertility. But, haha, I must look great even if I’ve never been to that door, let alone have a baby. I will not deny that.”

Sophie took a noble posture, telling him to look as much as he can. “Yes, yes, you are a great symbol of fertility,” Leon said. Three children are relatively small, but to us, it is a lot. It’s because knights wander around for their job, so it isn’t easy to have many children. In addition, there were many cases of women giving up childbirth for fear of losing their skills as postpartum knights, so people were amazed that Sophie gave birth to three children. Also, the priests who encouraged childbirth even applauded Sophie.

While there are people like Sophie, there are people like Leon in both female and male that have no interest in people (that doesn’t mean they are interested in monsters). People said Leon was somewhere in between distrust of humans and the loathing of humans. However, quite a few people have said that the only person he doesn’t distrust is me, and I agree to some extent.

When I looked down at the letter again, I saw neat and elegant handwriting. Leon glanced at the writing and clicked his tongue.

“He’s still thirteen, and he’s already very good at writing letters. It’s pretty too.”

“I think it’s beautiful, but is it well-written?”

When Sophie asked Leon, he nodded his head.

“It’s incredibly well written. He writes much better than me. I’m sure the royal blood is not normal. How’s his education going?”

Leon asked, and I thought for a moment. Eden’s teachers were getting reports to me because I had put them and paid for them.

“It seems to be going well.”

It seemed to go very well. The teachers praised Eden by adding all sorts of modifiers, such as being a genius. The teachers I had put in were no idiots. They were all people with ideas. Even if the opponent were the Grand Duke, they would report to me if Eden didn’t do well and would carefully turn around and reported that he could not do it. But they all praised Eden’s achievements until the ink runs out.

“Will it be okay?”

Leon asked. When I did not answer, Sophie’s eyes widened, “Why? Isn’t it good for a child to study well?” She had a face that seemed natural. Well, she was elevated from a commoner to a baron and received a saint, which made her more troubled in life. Her husband was also a commoner, so he had a hard time teaching their children as nobles. As a result, their children had no interest in studying, and Paul had to inherit the baron title. They were the same age, but his studies were far behind. As a result, Sophie has no choice but to make a face like, ‘If he studies well, what is it?’.

However, Leon, a nobleman from the root, was well aware of Eden’s position. In addition to the position of legitimacy superior to the king. Eden was also born with magic. Eden, me, and the founding king was a magic swordsman. Therefore, Eden’s magical powers will inevitably increase his legitimacy and become a factor that threatens the king.

Eden is better off pretending to be stupid now. If he didn’t study and showed off being a fool in the position of the Grand Duke, the king’s vigilance would have softened a bit, but he didn’t. He was greedy to study, and although he had not yet made his social debut, he moves from Hastred to Yenson every season of his socialization. Many aristocrats who moved to townhouses during the social season struggled to see Eden once, but they raised the value without showing themselves. Now people began to find Eden more difficult to see than the king and are starting to find him more attractive.

‘Are you okay with this situation?’

Leon was asking so.

“Well.”

What should I do if he wants to live like that?

I ended my answer with a shrug. When I hesitated, Leon said, “For today’s battle report. It says there are no missing monsters, but it seems that we need to confirm. Sophie and I  will check it out and report it.” He said, placing the report on the wooden barrel next to Sophie while grabbing Sophie’s shoulder and dragging her out of the barrel.

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