Thief of Time

Count Nightfall and Caroline were in the middle of eating lunch with Dia and the others when a faint chime echoed throughout the house, and Risti got up.

“Farah’s back, probably.” Risti rubbed her hands. “I’ll bring her in. Don’t mind me.”

“Thanks, Risti.” Dia continued to slice the delicious slab of roasted chicken on her plate into small cubes. Small bowls of demiglace sauce sat in front of everyone, ready to be dipped into with meat or scooped out to decorate the mounds of rice on everyone’s plate.

“Didn’t know you had a talent for cooking,” Nightfall noted. “Does it come with the bartender job?”

“It comes with the bartender job, yes,” Schwarz replied. “My old man also said that men who know how to cook well are sexy, so that’s another reason. I’m not sure if the others think I’m sexy, though.”

“You’re good, don’t worry,” Dia replied.

“Hmm. Is that true?” Nightfall asked. “I must learn to cook some dishes, then.”

Schwarz twitched. “Count Nightfall, I suggest you learn from your cooks, rather than do it yourself. Amateurs have amateur mistakes, like adding Mystery Ingredient X that will inevitably wipe out an entire team of mana-users. I have heard my fair share of disasters and drunken complaints about chefs who just like to throw in weird stuff into their dishes.”

He paused. “I am sure Nero is a good example of one such idiotic chef. The drunkard is not good for anything…”

“Wait. Hold up. In that case, is it really safe to leave Nero and Kemata alone in that house?” Dia asked. “I mean, Claud and Lily might return to the house to see two poisoned corpses or something.”

“…Crap. What do we do, then?” Schwarz asked. “Does Kemata know how to cook? Or are these two idiots going to burn down Claud’s residence?”

“Uh. I think they can roast meat?” Dia cupped her chin. “At worst, they can go out into Monsville to buy some food or something.”

“You don’t sound very certain either.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really want to try our luck with things like this either,” Dia replied. “Besides, Claud will be hopping mad if the house really burns down.”

“…Okay, so what do we do?”

The two of them laughed awkwardly, before Schwarz changed the subject and said, “What’s keeping the two of them at the door?”

“Maybe the old butler came with Farah or something,” Dia replied.

“Butler?” Nightfall asked. “Farah has a butler? Hmm. Maybe she’s from a rich family. Excellent. I could do with some cash flow right about now.”

“That’s what you’re thinking about?” Schwarz asked.

“Uh. Yeah. You know.” Dia cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’ll go and take a look.”

Count Nighfall was still unaware that Farah was actually the Countess Farah of the same name, but she couldn’t quite blame him either. After all, who would expect a fully fledged Countess to be a fan of the heiress of a dukedom? That just didn’t make sense, if one went by rational thought processes.

Unfortunately, weird things like these rarely operated according to logic.

Scurrying out of the room, Dia soon found Farah and Risti, who were just talking about random things at the gate. Was it really necessary to be exchanging words at the gate? She’d nearly given the game away just because of that…

“Come on, guys. We’re waiting for you,” Dia called out. “Hurry into the house already!”

“Right, sorry.” Farah shook her head. “Nightfall’s here, right?”

“Yeah. Come on. Let’s not keep our guest waiting,” Dia replied. “You too, Risti.”

Shepherding the two weird fellows — they were like scabbards short of a sword — back into the mansion, Dia shooed them back to the table and let out a sigh. It was nice that they were all unified once more, but this also meant that they would be setting off to Lustre the next day.

How would they react when they finally learned about her identity? Dia didn’t know, but she couldn’t help but feel some dread at the prospect. She didn’t want them to treat her differently, or to exalt her or something; there was a reason why she never made any meaningful connections in her time in Lustre. There weren’t people who were that close to her — the maids treated her with polite courtesy, the kids of the lower nobles had darker thoughts, and the adults treated her like she was important as a symbol and nothing else.

There were suitors, yes, but none of them really looked at her as a person. And as for those who tried to make friends with her, none of them were sincere. She had tried to accept them, tried to be actual friends with her, but…all of them had been told by their parents to befriend her for the sake of their station and territory.

As for her own identity…she felt far inferior to Farah, who had risen to her station through her achievements — Dia knew that she was only Princess Dia because she had been born into the position.

She chuckled to herself, a bitter tone underlying the self-mocking laughter. Dia knew that she didn’t really have a right to complain, seeing as how the others had it far worse. They all had their own stories, and maybe even completed ones.

Dia didn’t have any such experience. Her story, at best, was in the middle of unfolding; it was nowhere near its end.

“Meh.” She perked herself up. She was still young; Count Nightfall and Caroline were over three hundred years old.

Fluffing herself up, she returned to the others, only to behold a red-faced Count Nightfall that was hugging Caroline for some reason.

“Uh…what happened here?”

“Oh, he wanted to try a drink,” Schwarz replied, with a tone that implied that he was doing something ordinary.

“Don’t make it sound like it’s an everyday deed,” Farah replied. “Your drinks are anything but ordinary, so why offer it to normal people like Nightfall? Now you’re causing inconvenience to Caroline.”

“It’s fine, really.” Caroline’s face was also flushed, but there was a palpable excitement to her flushed face. “I’ll, uh, bring him back now, you know. It’s rare to see Aran drunk. He acts like a child when that happens!”

“You sound very excited, though?”

“I am? Hahaha. Yeah. Maybe.” Caroline picked Count Nightfall up and carried him in a princess carry. “I’m going off to ready my pampering tools. Nightfall’s a traditional kind of person; he never demands me to pamper him. But if he’s drunk…well, you see where I’m going, right?”

“Oh. Great.” Schwarz rubbed his nose. “You’re one of them. Uh, why not take another bottle or two? Just speak up for us when you think it’s necessary.”

“May I? Thank you kindly, then. I won’t stand on ceremony.”

After taking a few more bottles, she hurried out of the room. Nightfall was already holding her tightly, and Dia had the feeling that if Caroline waited any longer, the next few scenes would not be healthy for the Moon babies that were strolling around town.

“So, he’s the more romantic and child-like kind when drunk.” Schwarz looked like he was holding back a smile. “I am suitably amused by this.”

“Heh.” Farah tried to cover a smile. “If I’d known, I would have not stayed at the gate for so long.”

“Right? Anyway, Farah, you should get some rest. Since you’re here, we’ll be leaving for Lustre on the morrow,” Schwarz replied. “Everyone wants to meet the princess who evaded capture somehow. Claud has instructed me three times to ask her how she did it too.”

Dia rubbed her nose.

“The princess truly is brilliant,” Farah muttered. “Just where did she hide? I mean, most of the information points to Licencia, but that information was so dated that she was probably long gone by then.”

“Most of them were fooled by our Dia too,” Risti added. “It was a masterful ploy, to be honest.”

“Indeed. Claud was also asking about doubles for him and Lily, you know. He was thinking about these things with the princess in mind…he has a lot of admiration for her skills at staying out of trouble,” Schwarz replied. “What do you think, Dia? Do you feel a bit useless at how good your mistress is?”

“Y-yeah.” Dia looked at her food, and decided to finish off her lunch as soon as possible. The amount of praise that was being heaped onto her was beginning to make her face burn. How could other nobles receive so much exaltations without feeling embarrassed?

They really were a weird breed.

Polishing off her lunch, Dia made a few random excuses and hurried back up to her room, before flopping onto her bed. Her ears were still burning, and her heart was in turmoil from all so many contradictory emotions right now.

It would be nice to stab her heart with a few swords, if only to get rid of all these things that were messing up her thoughts.