My Parasite Skill System - Chapter 150
Oh, and yes, did I mention we changed carriage?
I preferred the former carriage. It was bigger and more appealing. While this one is just standard … and normal, basically.
Why had we changed carriage, now?
Well, for the same reason that human princess had put back on her large white cape and hood, hm.
That was to say, having a low profile, yes.
Shall I elaborate on that? Sit and listen.
It was as simple as that. You see, this wasn’t just anyone we had riding with us. It was the supposedly (and I say supposedly because it’s kind of hard to reckon, I couldn’t spot any specialness or anything to herself) 2nd or 3rd princess of this kingdom.
Kingdom whose capital we were, in fact, in, right now.
Yup. That wasn’t just anybody we got with us, me and Old.
It was a princess.
Now, why would she hide, though?
Briefly and simply: should and would that affair about her recruiting a monster to join her crew or whatever be known to the public.
Heh, heh, heh. In response to that, just look at her with her broad cape and hood pressed down on her face.
She wouldn’t want her people to recognize her. Not here, and not with us.
Sitting the way I was, next to her, thankfully I was tiny enough to still be able to observe her beautiful facial features–otherwise, I might, too, haven’t been able to recognize her.
Our carriage ride went like this: from the rear of the playground, we went far, far, and even farther behind, for a long time (probably; I didn’t really know. I had time to doze off as you may remember) up till we came to a stop.
I was to be wakened up, inquiring about our position right away; when Lady Elina told me we’d just swap carriage for some reason.
The former one was way too royalty-like and catchy for her. She had to lay low when she was with us, she said. Because, as we may well be acquainted with, if people see her with us, well, needless to specify I’m one vile monster, right?
She must not be recognized riding on it. Because, you know the people (I didn’t know the people, to be perfectly honest), they will start to talk and gossip.
What is the princess think she’s doing, riding and sharing her carriage with one set of weird people–one wrinkled grumpy old man, one elven princess running away from her devastated land, and one evil and dangerous monster posing as a little funny kid–hmmm?? This must be hiding something, right???
That’s that. I understood she hid.
And actually, they’d even left from the capital to the battlefield in this very carriage. Naturally, too, she’d been announced to leave; so her people knew to see her off and cheer her up, like a good, kind people.
Thus, that is that. We had to change carriage if we wanted her to accompany us to the mansion.
So she stayed and tagged along for some more carriage ride.
The one we were in, at the time, wasn’t so luxurious. I let you know that, already. But it was still kind of standard and viable. Not like that infamous one we shared with the elves, back then.
We rode on it.
And thankfully, it was still a big enough carriage that it could allow both me and the elven princess to lie down during the ride.
Swapping carriages, I was to be woken up.
Yes, the elven princess hadn’t even been awoken, while I had been.
She was most probably too sick to even be awakened by this change of mount.
So she didn’t need to fall back asleep.
I had. It was painful and boring. And it took quite a long time again.
But then, we arrived again: we were here.
Naturally, Old Sipping left carrying the elven princess with him, leaving behind them only that very poor pillow and luxurious sheet.
And while the sheet was left seemingly intact on the bench, the poorly made pillow, as for itself, wasn’t formed into a beautiful ball anymore and had halfway fallen to the slightly creaking floor.
Old was gone to see the new dwelling.
And quickly after that, I woke up again: we were here, but there was just me and the human princess, for some reason.
Well, and right now, I’m still sitting with that princess inside of the second carriage, trying to get a good look at this mansion she’d offered us.
I should probably go.
“Thank you again, big sister.”
“No, no. That’s just part of our contract, isn’t it? And you can go take a look at it, you know. I’m not keeping you here.”
“True, and yeah.”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm.”
“Well, I’d better go, now. Don’t wanna keep you for too long.”
“And well, it’s true I, too, shouldn’t be idling here for too long, so yes.”
“Hm.”
It was time to go off on my own for now, then.
And I knew the quest indicated me to stick around the princess in order to see what would be happening, but don’t worry ’bout it.
Above everything else, I wanted to go take a look at my home, now. I’d never had the luxury of having one, so far.
It was just right there, parked under the late afternoon’s sun along with the other houses of the neighborhood.
You could call me a former homeless dude because that’s what I was. “But I’m not homeless anymore,” I nodded to myself, “hm!”
Very eager to know the rest of this–I stood straight at once when my butt parted with my wooden seat.
I walked one, and two steps, when I already got in the middle of this oh-so-standard carriage.
The princess, still sitting down on our shared bench, and most likely waiting for me to leave that she could call the coachman saying, ‘little man coachman! Let’s march on again!’ I put myself in front of her.
Staring at her, she stared at me.
“Mhm?” but didn’t take long before shaking her hand, “What is it? If you go, you’ll start missing this big sister of yours, already?”
“Ye….no,” and with a quick hand, I took off her white hood–she instantly frowned and began to tell me off for this, but–”it’s fine, we’re in the carriage still, and I just wanna see your face better.”
“My boy, don’t do that without telling me first, then–”
“Okay, but shush!… and just give me your hand.”
“Sigh,” she went on shaking her head with the kind of look on her face that said, ‘my, oh my…’ when she went on, “my hand?… what for?”
“Just give it to me, big sister–we’ll shake hands.”
“Oh, shake hands? Sure, let’s shake hands,” she started to say, but due to her passive and tired tone, I had to cut her off again.
“You see: no.” It was a ‘no’ by me, though. “We can’t shake hands if you’re not eager to do so. Otherwise, all the magic of it turns to nothing; I don’t want that, and you don’t either…”
Well, I wasn’t sure whether I was understood or not, though, just as usual; but I still continued when she stared at me with such eyes, woah,
“That’s–that’s right, you can continue to look at me like this … at least, I can sense eagerness in that … and no!–don’t say a thing … just shake my hand.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Her thin fingers wrapped on my palm, and my thin fingers, too, also tried to go and be wrapped around her hand but were just too little to pull that off.
But it was just a detail!
Because I could tell, we firmly shook hands, for one, two, three long seconds… “and, voila~ we shook hands! Are you happy? I am.
“… that’s what they did that to me on the battlefield, some big adventurers people … and I think that, among other things, it meant ‘thank you,’ so I wanted to do the same with you, big sister Elina.
“–and no, no, I said you didn’t have to say anything, you’ve got your own stuff to do.. Will be off, now.”