I Didn't Really Want to Do Farming! (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 8

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Stella spoke once more, but there was still no answer.

“Was I imagining it?”

The long journey had piled up fatigue, so it made sense to hear hallucinations. It felt uneasy, but she decided to conclude it that way.

After a while, Stella drank the tea brought by the maid and lay down on the bed, closing her eyes as she felt her body limply relaxing.

She thought she had slept well even on the swaying ship, but lying on the soft bed made her newly realize how uncomfortable the places she had slept in until now were.

“Am I suited to being a hostage?”

When she arrived at the Credion Empire, it felt like being livestock dragged to a slaughterhouse.

But with this kind of treatment, she thought it might be more like a pet than livestock. They mentioned something about being an empress candidate, but Stella thought it was a distant story unrelated to her.

There would be plenty of princesses who came to the Credion Empire as hostages, or rather as empress candidates, so there was no need for her to go along with that tune.

As various thoughts ran through her mind, Stella felt her eyelids growing heavier and closed her eyes.

Soft breathing.

Once only even breathing sounds filled the bedroom, the guy hiding behind the curtain peeked out.

“Esta, I can’t see!”

Someone from behind pushed the guy who was peeking at Stella with only his head sticking out.

“Ah!”

Fortunately not falling, Esta, who was dangling from the curtain, swung her body back and forth like a swing and landed with a plop on the bed.

“How is it? Is it her?”

Ark, standing on the windowsill, asked with a serious expression. The guy with particularly chubby cheeks was holding a baby carrot in one hand and crunched it.

As the sweet carrot crunched in his mouth, a satisfied smile spread across his plump face.

“Well. It seems like it might be, and it might not be.”

Esta tilted her head, stood on tiptoes, and stealthily approached Stella’s face.

When her feet sank into the soft bedding and half her body was buried in the blanket, Esta began crawling on all fours over the blanket.

“Don’t go! What if it’s not!”

Ark mumbled with his cheek full of carrot.

“If it’s not, then she probably couldn’t hear our voices!”

“Even if she hears voices, there are humans who aren’t! Did you forget?”

“But this time the feeling is different.”

Ark stomped his short legs, but Esta sharpened her eyes keenly and pushed through the blanket to get closer to Stella.

“Look at this, I feel the energy of the earth from her.”

The place Esta pointed to with her finger was the pillow Stella was using. Ark, who had been watching Esta helplessly, groaned and climbed down the curtain.

“Hold me a bit.”

Since the curtain was short and didn’t reach the bed, Ark flailed without being able to jump down and called Esta. The carrot he was holding was stuffed into his pocket, half sticking out.

“Why come down if you’re scared.”

Esta sighed deeply and approached under the curtain, stretching out her arms. Seeing Esta grumbling but coming to help him, Ark smiled brightly.

“Jump!”

Esta shouted, tensing her body as if preparing for the impact. At the same time, Ark let go of the curtain he was holding.

But what fell onto Esta was not Ark’s chubby body.

The moonlight seeping through the window was blocked, and a huge shadow covered Esta’s head.

Esta, who was trying to catch the falling Ark, slowly tilted her head back at the suddenly darkened view.

“Huh?”

Above his head, a large hand was supporting like a roof. The Ark he was trying to catch was sitting on that hand, with only small feet sticking out.

“You guys speak well?”

Stella’s face suddenly appeared above the two guys’ heads.

“Aaaah!”

“Uwaaah!”

Ark, sitting on the palm, flailed his legs as if having a seizure, and Esta’s legs gave out, collapsing with a thud and screaming.

Startled as well, Stella quickly shook her hand, and because of that, Ark fell onto the bed. The carrot in his pocket plopped onto the bed.

“Run!”

Esta scooped up Ark, who had fallen headfirst with his feet in the air, and carried him.

“My carrot…….”

Trending

Ark reached out toward the carrot he couldn’t pick up, but Esta jumped straight to the window and leaped outside.

“Wait a minute!”

Stella, coming to her senses late, called out to the fleeing guys, but they were already gone.

“They’re really fast.”

Stella, staring blankly out the open window, sat down on the bed with a dazed expression.

Feeling something foreign on her palm, Stella lifted her hand from the bed and discovered the carrot that had fallen on the white bedsheet.

Stella picked up the half-remaining carrot with her thumb and index finger and examined it closely. The carrot, smaller than her pinky, was cut in the shape of round bite marks, as if it was leftover from eating.

While examining the carrot closely, Stella lightly bit the end with her teeth. As the cut piece entered her mouth, a sweetness that could never be tasted in ordinary carrots spread explosively in her mouth.

“Huh? What is this?”

After hesitating for a moment, Stella threw the remaining carrot into her mouth and chewed it finely. The more she chewed, the stronger the sweetness became. The carrot was so delicious that it was a waste to swallow.

Regretting the carrot that disappeared in her mouth in an instant, Stella looked around to see if there was anything else left, but there was nothing.

While searching even under the blanket, Stella suddenly stopped what she was doing and laughed emptily.

“What am I doing right now?”

She gave up looking for carrots, but there was a question that wouldn’t leave Stella’s mind.

Why do those kids speak so well?

There were definitely similarly looking ones in Amalrun too.

The ones that appeared in front of her when she was alone, smiling brightly, and giggling while imitating what she said well. But the ones she just saw were on a different level.

Their appearance and fluent language skills were closer to humans. The instinctive repulsion she felt wasn’t felt from them either.

They were the ones who sneaked up, but they spoke first and then ran away quickly, which was different too. If they were the ones from Amalrun, they would never have run away.

“What exactly are those guys’ identities?”

Stella stared at the half-open window and then slipped back into the blanket. The night wind was quite cold, but she couldn’t close it because the guys might come back in.

[This is the timeline separator]

In the Sun Hall, preparations for today’s formal luncheon were in full swing.

The expressions of the maids layering snow-white linen tablecloths over the table covered with thick woolen cloth were even solemn.

“It seems skewed to one side.”

“Can you lift that side a bit more?”

The heights of the tablecloth corners had to be the same, and even the intervals of the folds falling down had to be uniform.

As the maid who finished her role sighed in relief and stepped back, the waiting maids sequentially set up the centerpieces and decorations to be placed on the table.

“Check the condition of the petals and leaves carefully. There shouldn’t be wilted flowers in the princesses’ view.”

The vases placed at uniform intervals between the tables were all positioned to face the same direction. To prevent petals from falling, the maids inserted the flowers carefully as if handling a baby.

“Will it just end formally this time too?”

One maid inserting lushly bloomed pink roses into a vase asked an older maid.

“Probably? At the last formal luncheon, all the princesses just went back after nothing.”

“Why is that? Princess Veronica was really beautiful.”

Veronica was a person who drew everyone’s attention just by appearing.

Jet-black hair resembling the night sky, eyes like emeralds delicately processed and embedded, red lips, and flawless milky skin.

It was beauty that couldn’t be faulted even if one tried. But the emperor didn’t bat an eye even with such a beauty in front of him.

“Why else. It’s all because of Lady Melissa.”

“Weren’t the two old friends?”

“You don’t know anything. The two are more than friends. In my view, Lady Melissa is definitely already in love with His Majesty. That’s why she saved His Majesty’s life twice on that battlefield!”

Melissa was the first female marquess in the Credion Empire and a swordmaster who reached the realm of sword mastery.

She roamed numerous battlefields with the emperor, defeated countless enemies, led wars to victory, and saved the emperor from the crisis of death twice.

In the process, she had almost lost her life, so their relationship couldn’t help but be special.

“Well! His Majesty is also particularly fond of Lady Melissa.”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

For various reasons, over a hundred princesses resided in the imperial palace, but the emperor never met them separately unless it was a regular meeting.

Although they came as hostages, the princesses from each country were precious bodies also qualified to become empress.

The reason kings from each country sent their precious daughters, whom they wouldn’t hurt even if put in their eyes, to a distant foreign land was perhaps because of the faint but heart-pounding possibility that their daughter might become the empress of the Credion Empire.

Therefore, it was perhaps natural that subtle power struggles or tension among the princesses occurred whenever such formal luncheons were held.

“If their feelings are certain, why hold these formal luncheons every time? If the one who will become Empress anyway is Lady Melissa.”

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“That’s what politics is.”

The older maid said smugly, and the young maid’s eyes widened.

“Politics?”

“You’ll understand what I mean if you work in the imperial palace for a few more years. Before that, let’s remove the discolored rose petal from that vase first.”

“Ah! Yes!”

The young maid picked out and pulled a rose where one leaf among the beautifully bloomed pink roses had slightly turned yellowish.

“Still, I hope Lady Melissa becomes Empress. Then we won’t have to hold these meaningless formal luncheons anymore.”

“Well, anyway, after the formal luncheon ends, we can eat delicious food to our heart’s content, so how good is that.”

“That’s right! I really don’t know why the princesses always leave such delicious food.”

Since the food left after the formal luncheon became the servants’ share or was distributed to the poor outside the palace, there were quite a few people secretly looking forward to it.

They chattered about what food would be nice to have left today and finished setting the table.

[This is the timeline separator]

“Your Majesty, you really must prepare now.”

The chief attendant Harmann repeated the same words for the fifth time.

“I will.”

But Kai only answered perfunctorily and didn’t budge. His gaze hadn’t left the pile of documents for hours.

Harmann was anxious.

“The princesses are now entering the Sun Hall one after another.”

Only then did Kai toss the document he was holding. Harmann’s eyes sparkled, thinking the emperor was finally moving.

But the emperor didn’t move as if his buttocks were glued to the chair, and Harmann crumpled his face like wrinkled paper.

“You’ll cry if you keep that up.”

Finally standing up, Kai looked at Harmann, who was making a sullen face, and chuckled.

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