Listening to Ariante’s words, Mayana couldn’t help but chuckle. The source of the rumor was Bainty, and it wasn’t surprising after all.

‘Really, she’s anxious because she can’t catch me in everything. For no reason, too. Such a strange person.’

There were people who would form cliques wherever they went, and would take pleasure in ostracizing those who didn’t belong to the group or were new.

Bainty was just one of those people, and Mayana wasn’t hurt by that pettiness. But the strangeness remained. Bainty had hated Mayana as if she were an enemy from the first moment they met… even though there was no reason for it.

“What do you think of Bainty, Princess? What are your thoughts on this?”

Ariante stared at Mayana as if she didn’t know what she was talking about.

“My thoughts?”

“Yes, Princess, do you think I sleep in a stable and, being from the countryside, know nothing?”

“That is…”

Ariante rolled her eyes with a hesitant expression. Bainty’s words made sense to her child’s mind, but she was reluctant to admit it outright.

Mayana said,

“Country folk know a lot in their own way. Things that nobles living in El Rautica can never know.”

“Like what?”

“How to pick delicious wild strawberries without getting hurt, or what wheat smells like when it’s ripening. What plants you can eat and what plants are poisonous.”

“You know poisonous plants too?”

Ariante’s eyes sparkled excessively. Mayana, with a deliberately exaggerated tone, replied,

“Of course. I know what to put in soup to make something very special. Something that makes your eyes pop out when you eat it.”

“Your eyes pop out?”

“Yes. I’ve never seen a person whose eyes popped out, but I’ve heard of such a thing. It’s a plant called ‘Spiderweb Grass’.”

I expected Ariante to ask more enthusiastically, but unexpectedly, she just walked away with a thoughtful expression. Mayana held her hand near the tree roots to make sure she didn’t fall.

After walking a little further, the dense trees that had obscured their view suddenly stopped, cut off as if by a knife, and revealed a large lake that was so blue and wide that it looked like a small sea.

“It’s a lake!”

Ariante jumped up and down with excitement. Mayana reached out to hold her hand in caution, but the child had already shrugged off her hand and ran towards the water’s edge.

“Princess, be careful! The water’s edge is slippery!”

Mayana, holding a basket with snacks, ran hurriedly after Ariante. The edge was shallow enough to dip your feet in, but only a few steps further, the lake was so deep that the bottom couldn’t be seen.

“Fish! Where are the fish?”

Ariante had already taken off her socks and shoes and was splashing around in the water, looking around. Mayana took out a dry piece of bread she’d snuck from the kitchen shelf.

“You need to sprinkle food for the fish to come. And if you make such a racket, they will all run away, won’t they?”

“Liar. Fish don’t have ears; how can they hear?”

“Fish have ears too.”

“No! I saw it when the old man selling fish came. The fish didn’t have ears! Even the ones he grilled and served didn’t have ears.”

Mayana pondered how to explain the existence of the inner ear but eventually decided to give up. That was something for the new teacher to explain; her expertise was not in science.

Besides, she had the feeling that if she explained it to Ariante, somehow the child would want to catch a fish and dissect it to see if it really had ears…….
Even though she usually wouldn’t bat an eye at trivial matters, she didn’t want to cut a swollen fish head in front of a sevenyearold.

“Here, Princess. Throw the bread crumbs.”

Ariante, who had picked up the broken bread pieces, dropped the bread right under her feet. She seemed to expect the fish to swim up to her toes.

“What, nothing’s coming!”

“That’s because you’re throwing it too close. Try throwing it a little further.”

Ariante, with bread crumbs in her hand, swung her arm vigorously as if throwing a ball. A round ripple formed silently on the water’s surface, and Ariante leaned forward as if she would be sucked into the water.

Along with a splashing sound, long shadows started to flicker beneath the water. It was just as Mayana had said. Fish almost as big as human forearms flocked, and a clamor arose as they scrambled to eat the bread crumbs thrown by Ariante.

Mayana said,

“See, Princess! I told you there would be lots of fish!”

She aimed a little closer and threw the crumbs. Now the fish were almost near Ariante’s toes. Whether they were carp or not, with their large, ragged scales, they weren’t particularly pretty fish, but Mayana was excited and looked back at Ariante.

“Princess, Princess, you also feed…”

But when she turned around, Ariante was gone. Startled, Mayana turned her head further and finally saw Ariante.

Standing on the grass with wet feet, having left the water’s edge, her entire face was scrunched up, her cheeks pale and trembling.