"What... hugging and cuddling?"
Hearing Irene's wholly self-righteous complaint, Daphne and Bardess, who had been earnestly cross-checking documents, were in an instant struck as if by an immobilization spell, freezing right where they stood.
Bardess blinked her clear, large eyes a little dazedly, and the quill she had just neatly arranged in her grip slipped from her fingers with a soft clatter, landing across the official accounts ledger.
This Mason Commander, who had always had a very mild streak of compulsiveness, found her habit of putting everything in its proper place completely shattered in this moment—she didn't even bother to straighten the pen that had fallen askew.
Her healthy wheat-colored little face was written all over with bewilderment, and even her androgynous girl's voice carried a faint, incredulous tremor:
"Miss Irene, what you just said was... Your Majesty and who?
Hugging and cuddling? And doing those sorts of things too?
What on earth happened tonight!"
Beside her, Saint Daphne was likewise stunned all over her face.
Her pair of jade-green eyes, clear as limpid lake water, now fluttered with the utmost confusion and bewilderment.
The Lord Saint looked at the anxious-faced Irene, then looked at the Third Princess beside her, who was laughing so hard her whole frame trembled, and her entire being fell into a thick, deep fog.
In her understanding, Your Majesty was a supreme existence who toiled day and night for the new Order of the Northern border—who even deep in the night was earnestly poring over military registry archives in the Bedchamber. So how, in Irene's mouth, had she suddenly become entangled in such sticky, gooey affairs with the City Lord of Leighton and the lord of Black Stone City?
Facing the dumbfounded stares of the two, Irene grew even more puzzled instead.
The pink-haired girl scratched her disheveled twin tails a little innocently, her sapphire-like big eyes glancing back and forth around the main warehouse office:
"That's right, that's exactly what I think. The moment I close my eyes and picture that scene, my chest goes all stuffy here. Why are you two looking at me like that?"
"Hahahaha..."
Seated to the side, Victoria finally could no longer hold it in. She clamped the ivory folding fan tightly over her mouth, letting out a string of elegant yet utterly delighted low chuckles.
Her pair of golden eyes shimmered with flowing light, tears nearly laughed out from them.
This little Inventor Irene, who in the workshop could fiddle with black-powder fuse-cords with perfect clarity, was, when it came to matters of the heart, actually even more obtuse than her own deadpan Majesty.
Only after she had laughed her fill did Victoria slowly steady her trembling shoulders.
She gave the ivory folding fan in her hand a light flick open, and with the utmost elegance pointed the fan toward the empty chair across the long table, raising her chin at the helpless-faced pink-haired girl, signaling for her to sit.
Then the Third Princess revealed a flawless trademark smile, her beautiful eyes glittering as they locked onto Irene, her voice carrying a particular strand of gossip and teasing:
"It seems that this little one, who in the workshop only knows how to tinker with fine-iron protective gear and assembly lines, really is, in certain respects, a thoroughly dense block of wood. Seeing you in such a state, if This Princess doesn't trouble herself tonight, deep into the night, to impart to you some of the most basic knowledge of this world, you'd truly end up shouldering the heavy burden of a heart ailment for no reason at all."
Hearing Victoria say this, Irene—who was being tormented half to death by the inexplicable stuffy ache in her chest and was anxious to learn just what terminal illness she had contracted—had no mind for anything else. She immediately plopped down ramrod-straight onto the chair across from her.
Her two little hands rested obediently on her knees, her round face written all over with extreme thirst for knowledge, and she said loudly and urgently:
"Please, enlighten me! Sister Victoria, hurry and tell me, what on earth is going on?!"
Beside them, Bardess and Daphne, though listening in utter confusion, completely unsure of which wondrous chapter the courtly winds had drifted to tonight—
upon hearing of imparting knowledge to Irene and of matters touching upon Your Majesty's boudoir secrets, the two core members exchanged a glance, and with great tacit understanding both stopped what their hands were doing.
Bardess silently retrieved the just-fallen quill back into the pen rack, her pair of big eyes fixed unblinkingly on Victoria.
And Daphne too quietly set down the wheat-seed list in her hand, dutifully folding her hands together as she sat on the soft chair, her gaze following Bardess's toward the Third Princess.
Right now, Bardess and Daphne both felt rather dazed all over.
Seeing all three had quieted down, the smile on Victoria's face grew ever richer.
Unhurriedly waving the ivory folding fan in her hand, her pair of glittering golden eyes fixed dead-on upon the pink-haired girl sitting bolt upright across the long table, she asked with a smile:
"Irene, don't be in such a rush. This Princess asks you—is it that the moment you think of Your Majesty being close and cozy with someone else, you feel terribly blocked up, terribly stuffy inside, as though there's a breath jammed dead in your throat that you simply can't exhale no matter how you try?"
"Yes, yes, yes! That's exactly it!!"
Irene's little head at once nodded like a chick pecking at rice, her sapphire big eyes brimming with the fervor of having found a kindred spirit. Straining her voice, she echoed loudly:
"Sister Victoria, you're truly amazing! That's exactly the feeling! Every time I close my eyes and picture those women below, wearing that sticky, gooey expression as they cling fawningly to Your Majesty, my heart feels just like a rusty forging hammer is pounding hard at it—agonizing beyond words!"
Victoria looked with some amusement at this little girl who was shrewd in the workshop yet utterly clueless in matters of the heart. She tapped the folding fan ever so lightly against her palm, the curve at the corner of her mouth hooking deeper still.
Reining in some of her teasing, she continued, guiding her step by step:
"Very well, then follow This Princess's words and imagine it from another angle—if, starting from tomorrow morning, Your Majesty pays you no mind at all. No matter how perfect a fine-iron padded armor you bring over first thing in the morning, she won't even bother to lift those pale-golden eyes, and won't even allow you to set half a step into the Bedchamber again—how would you feel then?"
"Your Majesty... ignoring me?"
Hearing this, Irene froze for a slight moment, then subconsciously followed the picture Victoria had constructed and filled it in within her mind.
In the world of her thoughts, if that silver-haired girl who always sat on the white fox-fur soft chair, deadpan-faced, eating red-maple cake while grumbling in distaste, suddenly revealed toward her a thoroughly cold and unfamiliar sense of distance—wouldn't even bother to say a single word to her...
The instant she pictured this scene, the pink-haired Inventor felt a bone-deep chill abruptly well up in her chest.
A flash of panic crossed the round face that had been flushed and rosy. She drew breath twice in a row, and a layer of crystalline mist had, unknowingly, settled over her pair of big eyes; even her nose grew a little sore.
She sniffled, dutifully drooped her head, and her voice turned low and honest:
"...It feels like I'd want to cry. If Your Majesty really never paid me any mind again, I'd feel as if a whole warehouse of black powder had been doused through with cold water—I'd be all hollow inside, unable to muster a single bit of spirit."
Seeing this, Saint Daphne and Commander Bardess, sitting to the side, couldn't help but exchange a glance.
Daphne looked with some heartache at this pink-haired girl who was usually lively and bouncing about, yet now was so wronged she was nearly about to shed tears.
But thinking it over carefully—if Your Majesty really paid her no mind either, she probably wouldn't fare any better.
Daphne's original wish had been for world peace, for there to be no war and no evil, for everyone to be able to live in happiness.
But ever since Your Majesty had come into her life, every last bit of all this had begun to revolve around Your Majesty.
As for Bardess, she scratched her hair a little dazedly—Your Majesty would never ignore Miss Irene; this Princess Victoria was up to her wicked tricks again.
Victoria looked at Irene's pitiful little appearance and nodded approvingly, yet feigned profundity with a long sigh, saying with some regret:
"You see, this really is quite serious. However, merely going by these sour pangs and flusters accumulated day to day, one still can't yet pinpoint that single most crucial possibility."
Hearing this, Irene, who had been waiting wide-eyed for Victoria to deliver a hardcore diagnosis, instantly grew anxious.
She lunged her body forward, both hands gripping the edge of the long table for dear life, and demanded urgently and loudly:
"Huh? What possibility?! Victoria, stop keeping me in suspense—is this stay-up-all-night terminal illness of mine even curable or not?!"
It wasn't only Irene—Bardess and Daphne, who had long since been listening in utter bewilderment, now had their curiosity thoroughly hooked as well.
What's this about Your Majesty being cozy with someone else? What's this about wanting to cry?
Bardess's hearty compulsiveness could utterly bear it no longer in this moment. She didn't even bother to smooth out the edge of the armor on her clothes, and, in that androgynous, pleasant-sounding girl's voice, leaned her tall, slender frame forward in unison with Irene, asking in the very same breath:
"That's right, Your Highness the Third Princess, what possibility exactly is this pointing to?"
Meeting the gazes of these three core pillars of Mason before the long table—each with a different expression, yet equally simple-minded in their thoughts—Victoria smoothed her robe ever so slickly.
Then, mysteriously lowering her clear and crisp voice, she slowly proclaimed, settling it within the main warehouse office—this most absurd and yet most blunt Black Rose courtly secret of the deep night:
"That would be... the possibility that you have actually long since surpassed the bounds of a vassal, and are madly, ardently in love with our Majesty."
"In love?"
Irene froze for a slight moment, then waved her hand with some amusement, her pair of sapphire-like big eyes full of disagreement, her voice crisp as ever:
"Sister Victoria, what kind of diagnosis is this? Your Majesty is so formidable, so powerful—with a casual flick of her hand reckoning over a ledger she can conjure up hundreds of thousands of catties of grain to fight off the winter, and she looks like a fairy too. Isn't it perfectly normal for everyone throughout our entire Mason home base to like Your Majesty?"
Hearing this, Daphne, sitting by the long table, gently crinkled the corners of her eyes in a tender smile too.
The Lord Saint nodded lightly in some agreement, a strand of heartfelt adoration surfacing in her pair of jade-green eyes:
"Yes, Miss Irene is quite right. Before I met Your Majesty, my original wish was merely to hope this Northern border plain could know world peace, with no war, and that all the homeless commoners could find happiness.
But ever since Your Majesty led me out, I discovered that everything Your Majesty does is the true supreme Divine Miracle that can let everyone eat their fill and dress warmly.
Unknowingly, all the aspirations in my heart... seem to have begun revolving around Your Majesty as well. I, too, like Your Majesty enormously."
"That's just it!"
The tall and upright Bardess slapped her thigh a little dazedly too, her androgynous girl's voice full of matter-of-fact heartiness:
"As a Mason Commander who came along with the army, the one I, Bardess, admire most and am most willing to pledge my deathless loyalty to in this life, is none other than Your Majesty Sophia alone! Seeing the way Your Majesty, at high noon today in the western Hall of State Affairs, propped her cheek on one hand, deadpan-faced, and utterly suppressed that Leighton vicious wolf—I like Your Majesty so much I can hardly stand it! How could that count as falling ill?"
Listening to these three simple-minded Black Rose pillars singing in chorus, Victoria, sitting in the high-backed chair, was nearly utterly defeated by this picture of their purity.
"Nay, nay."
Victoria shook her head a little helplessly, the ivory folding fan in her hand snapping shut ever so briskly, and tapped twice rhythmically against her snow-white robe.
She leaned her noble frame slightly forward, her pair of lovely golden eyes glinting with a kind of depth that had seen through everything, and slowly corrected Irene:
"The 'liking' This Princess speaks of is not Daphne's sort of veneration toward a deity, still less Commander Bardess's sort of deathless loyalty toward a sovereign. Rather, it is being in love—a love that carries a strong possessive desire, that wishes to claim Your Majesty as your own, the love belonging to the side of a lover. You two stop egging her on for now, and let this little one carefully tally up this account herself."
"Lo-lover? Possessive desire?!"
Hearing these two sticky, gooey terms that had hardly ever appeared in Mason's military-political home base, Irene, who had been so self-righteous, instantly flushed her whole little face at a visible-to-the-eye speed—red-hot in a flash, right down to the very deepest part of her earlobes!
The pink-haired girl stammeringly twisted her own fingers, even the pair of twin tails atop her head trembling lightly in some fluster. She was like someone who'd been scorched on the spot by a black-powder fuse-cord, stuttering and utterly unable to get out a single complete sentence:
"Th-this... how could this be possible! I'm just—I'm just Your Majesty's core Inventor, the one who makes rivet padded armor for Your Majesty in the workshop every day. How could I... how could I ever harbor that sort of improper notion toward Your Majesty..."
Victoria watched Irene's flustered, embarrassed-and-vexed appearance, the teasing in the depths of her eyes growing all the deeper.
She lightly propped the folding fan against her chin and cast out the most lethal inductive formula of the night:
"Heh heh, whether it's nonsense or not, won't you understand once you tally it up yourself? Irene, you may now close your eyes and set aside Liliana and the lord of Black Stone City in your mind. Imagine, just by yourself—if it were you who quietly stepped through that great door in the deep night, and you yourself who went to hug and kiss our Majesty Sophia, doing those sticky, gooey, intimate things on the couch that emanates the cool fragrance of Black Rose, where even your clothes couldn't stay properly on... just what would you feel?"
"M-me and Your Majesty... doing that sort of thing?!"
Irene let out a startled cry. Though deep in her heart was flooded with extreme shame and absurdity, as a top-class artisan with formidable execution power, within a ten-thousandth of a second of hearing Victoria's description, her mind had, as a matter of course and subconsciously, constructed that entire scene in full—
It was a still, deep night even cooler and more profound than tonight.
The wall lamps within the Temporary Palace Bedchamber gave off a hazy, dim halo of light.
Your Majesty Sophia, ever cold as frost and ever flawless in her schemes, was at this moment wearing nothing but an extremely thin, plain-white silk nightgown.
Her head of silver hair stirred faintly in the cool air released by the ice blocks, and that pair of pale-golden dead-fish eyes, in this instant, shed all their world-weariness and indifference, abruptly turning intensely aggressive and profound.
Your Majesty's porcelain-white, jade-like little hand braced against the wall with the utmost crispness and domineering force, carrying a strand of supreme, undeniable majesty, and pinned her hard against the rough edge of the stone wall in a wall-slam.
Before she could even snap out of her alarm, Your Majesty's body, carrying the faint cool herbal fragrance of Black Rose, pressed in entirely.
A pair of warm fingertips, with the utmost flirtatiousness yet incomparable tenderness, pinched her chin and forcibly tilted her cheek upward.
Meeting the moonlight pouring down all across the sky, those rosy, dewy lips, without the slightest superfluous hesitation, with the utmost overbearingness and full of possessiveness... fiercely kissed forcefully down upon her...
"Eeek—! No more, no more!! This is too embarrassing! Too mortifying!!"
Irene abruptly snapped open her pair of sapphire-like big eyes, her whole self like someone who'd just sat down on a black-powder barrel that had blown up. She hurriedly shook her head in frantic wild swings, her pretty little face flushed so red it nearly dripped water on the spot.
She clutched tightly at her little heart, which was nearly leaping out of her chest, even the rhythm of her breathing thoroughly scrambled into a tangled mess.
Watching the pink-haired girl in this comical state of nearly melting away entirely, the knowing smile at the corner of Victoria's mouth finally rippled out in full.
She tapped the ivory folding fan lightly against her palm and asked gently:
"So then, Miss Inventor. Just now, when you were doing those improper things with Your Majesty in your mind... did you feel disgusted in your heart? Did any negative, repulsed feedback arise?"
"Repulsed... disgusted?"
Irene sat frozen and dazed in the chair, all of her in a stupor.
She blinked her eyes a little absently, recalling that grand scene just now of being kissed forcefully while Your Majesty pinched her chin—and though she was so embarrassed she wished she could dig a crack in the floor and crawl in on the spot, in the very deepest part of her heart...
not a single trace of revulsion had welled up.
On the contrary, that heartbeat mingled with sweetness and runaway acceleration had faintly given rise within her to an irrepressible longing and joy.
Looking at Victoria's knowing expression of "This Princess has long since reckoned it all out," then glancing at Bardess and Daphne beside her, who had likewise weathered into stone-like petrification, having thoroughly fallen into a stupefied state—
Irene used a pair of little hands soaked through with scalding heat to clutch tightly at her own utterly red-hot, flushed, delicate face. Her pair of sapphire big eyes fluttered between the gaps of her fingers, and a little bewildered yet incomparably honest, she murmured to herself in the deep-night office:
"There's none... not the least bit disgusting. Could it be... could it be that This Inventor... am I really, beneath the banner of the Black Rose... madly, ardently in love with our great Majesty Sophia?"
Within the silent office, the air seemed to congeal utterly in this instant.
Yet at this moment, the one fallen into a stupor was hardly Irene alone.
Daphne and Bardess, sitting to the side, having finished listening to Victoria's blunt proclamation about possessive desire and lovers, also had the expressions on their faces stiffen at an uncanny speed.
Daphne's pair of jade-green eyes, clear as limpid lake water, widened slightly, her mind sliding involuntarily along this direction.
She had originally firmly believed that her feelings toward Your Majesty were pure faith—but if she swapped that "hugging and kissing" scene from Irene's mind just now for herself...
The Lord Saint's earlobes instantly flushed so red they nearly dripped water.
So it was that those aspirations in her heart, which at some unknown point had begun wholly revolving around Your Majesty, had long since surpassed any hopes placed in a deity.
And the tall, upright Bardess stood frozen stiffly in place too, her wheat-colored skin unable to conceal the blush rising on her face.
She scratched her head a little woodenly, thinking: every time she saw those outside women trying to approach Your Majesty, that urge in her heart—wishing she could blast the other party away with her greatsword—could it be that it wasn't merely a Commander's defensive instinct, but rather... jealousy?
Victoria, at her leisure, watched these three core pillars before her—as if petrified, expressions dazed—and couldn't help but heave a long, languid sigh.
Every single one of them—usually so shrewd on the defense lines and in the workshop—the moment they ran into Your Majesty's boudoir grand-ledger, all instantly turned into clueless little dummies.
However, before Victoria could open her mouth to say anything to guide this pink-haired girl whose heart had just awakened to love and whose face was full of shame, the Irene across the long table suddenly underwent an unguardable great shift of thought.
As a genuine, bona fide Transmigrator, Irene, though she had no practical experience whatsoever in matters of the heart, still—she may never have eaten pork, but had she never seen a pig run? Before transmigrating, she had at least watched countless novels, anime, and films!
Once the fuse-cord of her thoughts was lit, those bizarre symptoms that had originally been tangled into a mess linked up in this very second, and she thoroughly figured it all out!
So it was—the reason that every day, while she tinkered with the assembly lines in the workshop day and night, Your Majesty's figure kept irrepressibly surfacing in her mind, was because she liked her!
The reason she desperately tried to forge every piece of fine-iron protective gear to a flawless, seamless fit and eagerly delivered it before Your Majesty, just to win a single glance and word of praise from that pair of pale-golden dead-fish eyes, was also because she liked her!
So, the reason that at high noon today, the moment she saw those vixens Liliana and the lord of Black Stone City vying for favor in the Hall of State Affairs, her heart had felt so blocked up—even to the point that, deep in the night, she'd wanted to shoulder a black musket and set an ambush at the city gate—was not any myocarditis or heart ailment at all. That was plainly and clearly the purest jealousy!
"So that's how it is... so that's how it is!!"
Irene abruptly slapped the long table, her whole self springing up into a perfectly straight, ramrod line.
The earlier shame and fluster were swept clean away in an instant, replaced by an extreme exhilaration as though she'd discovered a brand-new manufacturing procedure.
Her pair of sapphire-like big eyes shone astonishingly bright, staring dead-on at the Third Princess across from her, and she shouted loudly:
"Thank you, Victoria! I understand it all! I thoroughly understand!!"
Victoria was so shaken by this sudden, exceedingly crisp voice that the ivory folding fan in her hand gave a tremble.
She stared blankly at this pink-haired little Inventor before her, who one second ago had been so embarrassed she wanted to cry and the next was full of fervor on her face, and opened her mouth a little hesitantly and uncertainly:
"Uh... it-it's good that you've figured it out..."
"Yes! I've figured it out!!"
Irene fiercely clenched her little fists, her round, pretty face full of an unshakable, mechanical-artisan's resolve, and proclaimed loudly:
"Since This Inventor likes Your Majesty, then what is there to wait for?! Rather than sitting here feeling stuffy and flustered, This Lady is going to go conquer-strategize Your Majesty right now!!"
"W-wait, wait? Conquer-strategize??"
Victoria's eyelids twitched wildly, faintly sensing that something was greatly, greatly amiss.
But before this scheming-savvy Third Princess could reach out a hand to stop her, the thoroughly enlightened Irene had already, like a crazed pink lop-eared rabbit, turned around and charged hot-bloodedly toward the office door.
In the corridor, that exceedingly crisp, pattering rush of little leather boots once again rang out, accompanied by the pink-haired girl's utterly unrestrained crisp shout in the deep night, spreading madly all the way toward the side hall:
"Oh, conquer-strategize, conquer-strategize! Tonight I'll first go grind out a wave of affection points!! Your Majesty, wait for me—!!"
In the office, Victoria, Daphne, and Bardess stared dumbstruck as wooden chickens at that wooden door still swaying faintly, and for a moment fell into a dead silence.
Bardess watched Irene's vanishing back as she dashed off in a streak, then looked at the quill on the long table that had been blown slightly askew by the gust the closing door had stirred up.
This Mason Commander with the very mild streak of compulsiveness silently sighed, stretched out her slender fingers to set the pen seamlessly straight, and then turned her head, asking a little dazedly in that crisp and pleasant androgynous girl's voice:
"Princess Victoria, Miss Irene just dashed off so hot-bloodedly like that... is this really all right?"
Victoria lightly tapped the ivory folding fan against her palm and gave two awkward little coughs, masking the teasing smile that was nearly hooking all the way up to her earlobes:
"Ahem ahem... it should, probably, be nothing major. This Princess merely gave her a bit of the most basic common knowledge. Who could have foreseen that this little girl who usually knows only how to deal with sheets of iron, once she awakened in matters of the heart, would have such thunderous, decisive execution power."
Meanwhile, outside the tightly shut, luxurious great door—
The moonlight, still like a length of soft silver silk, lay coldly spread across the marble floor of the corridor.
The cool air released by the ice blocks seeped quietly out through the gaps of the great door, making this heavily guarded defensive line seem exceptionally cool.
The red-haired General Delilah, still propping both hands on that broad ruby heavy greatsword, leaned against a stone pillar with her eyes closed, resting her spirit.
Around the cloister, several women guards in charge of the outer defensive line walked past on tiptoe, fearful of letting out even the slightest sound of armor scraping that might disturb Your Majesty within.
"Pat-pat-pat-pat—!!"
A string of exceedingly familiar little leather-boot footsteps—even brisker and more hurried than before—abruptly shattered the corridor's silence once again.
In an instant Delilah snapped open her pair of dark-red beautiful eyes, a sharp edge sweeping out, only to find that the one who had come running back was none other than the earlier jumpy, flustered Irene.
Now the pink-haired girl's little face was full of the rosy, flowing glow of one thoroughly enlightened, and her pair of sapphire-like big eyes shone almost frighteningly bright.
Delilah pressed a hand on her sword hilt and knit her brow, asking a little puzzledly:
"Irene? How did you come back so quickly? Has Daphne finished blending the spirit-calming herbal decoction for you? Is your heart-pulse all right?"
"Hee hee, Delilah! Let me tell you a great secret!"
Irene leaned over grinning, both hands clasped a little mysteriously behind her back, even the pair of twin tails atop her head swaying along with her.
She tilted up her slightly heated little face and brashly proclaimed loudly:
"This Inventor just had Sister Daphne run a full inspection on me with Holy Light! I'm actually not sick at all—my heart and heart-muscle are perfectly fine!!"
"Not sick?"
Delilah's two lovely fine brows knit tighter still, that head of hair red as raging flames undulating faintly in the night breeze.
She sized up this lively, bouncing pink-haired girl before her a little uncomprehendingly, her voice low and grave:
"Since you're not sick, then why earlier would your chest go stuffy for no reason at all, even to the point where you could hardly catch your breath? Within the Temporary Palace defensive line, any abnormality in the body of a core vassal cannot be neglected in the slightest."
"Aiya, that wasn't any heart ailment from staying up all night at all!"
The moment this came up, Victoria's just-taught knowledge of being in love and of possessive desire surfaced once more in Irene's mind.
A flush of the most delicate rosiness swept rapidly across the pink-haired girl's cheeks, yet she ever so self-righteously puffed out her chest, grinning a little proudly:
"Sister Daphne said that the reason This Inventor felt so wretched earlier was purely because... This Lady's heart has fluttered for Your Majesty!!"
"Heart has fluttered?"
Before Delilah's head—long accustomed to slaughter on the battlefield—could turn the corner on this sticky, gooey term and thoroughly grasp it, the now fully self-aware Irene had already displayed the terrifying action power belonging to a top-class Transmigrator.
With the utmost crispness, she dashed in a streak straight around Delilah's heavy greatsword, broad as a door-plank, and rushed right up before the tightly shut Bedchamber door. Stretching out her fair little hand, she gave the heavy wooden door a clean, crisp knock.
"Knock, knock, knock!"
In the silent deep night, the crisp knocking sounded exceptionally clear.
Within the room, there soon came Sophia's ever-unfluctuating voice, cold and clear to the point of deadpan:
"Come in."
"Your Majesty! I'm here!!"
Irene let out a cheer, her whole self like a crazed pink lop-eared rabbit, ever so deftly yanked open the wooden door and slipped right inside.
Right after, with a "bang," the heavy carved door, before Delilah's very eyes, mercilessly clamped tightly shut once again.
The red-haired General, left standing in the middle of the corridor, stood stiffened beside the stone pillar as if she'd weathered into stone.
"Heart has fluttered...?"
Delilah pressed her sword hilt and, in that low voice, repeated a little dazedly the word Irene had left behind.
Wait.
"Heart fluttering"—in those vulgar love-poetry collections of the old nobility of the Northern border, did it not seem to be used to describe... having fallen for someone?
So, that was no danger warning of bodily overload at all—that was plainly—
Delilah's pair of dark-red beautiful eyes abruptly went wide, glaring fiercely, and within a ten-thousandth of a second the veins on her forehead bulged up with a throb—her whole self flushing red-hot in an instant!
"—Oh no!!"
The red-haired General let out a nearly maddened roar of fury in the depths of her heart, both hands pressing the heavy greatsword trembling violently from the extremity of her shock.
Tonight, deep in the night, she had guarded against a thousand things, a myriad things—even fully armed, she had pinned that westernmost vicious wolf Liliana dead beyond the western great door in the night's darkness.
Yet what she could never have reckoned was that this little pink rabbit from her own home base's workshop would, after awakening, directly take a shortcut to the rear, swagger straight through the great door, and thoroughly breach the deep-night Bedchamber defensive line she had so painstakingly guarded!!
The night breeze over the corridor seemed to lose all its warmth utterly in this instant.
Several Mason patrol women soldiers, clad in fine-iron chainmail and leveling black muskets, were just then walking past the corner with exceedingly regular steps.
As they passed beside General Delilah, their peripheral vision keenly caught a terrifying scene that made their very souls shudder—
There stood General Delilah, her head of hair rolling like raging flames, her whole fair, valiant countenance now cold as a god of slaughter come from the abyss.
She had not even drawn the ruby greatsword at her waist—she had merely stretched out one little hand covered in thin calluses and clamped it tightly over a protruding marble dragon-head relief on one side of the cloister.
"Crk, crk, shh..."
Without any violent rumble, and without any surging storm of combat aura, under that strength so overbearing it defied all reason, the entire chunk of hard stone—weighing a full several dozen catties—was actually crushed bodily into a slick of the finest white powder within Delilah's palm, pouring down soundlessly through the gaps of her fingers and scattering all over the ground.
The patrol women soldiers who witnessed the entire process kept their muskets level on the surface and looked neither left nor right, still maintaining the solemnity peculiar to soldiers—yet within their hearts a wave of mad screaming had long since surged up, each crest higher than the last.
Heavens!! Did you see that?!
General Delilah actually... actually, in order not to disturb Your Majesty the Queen resting within the Bedchamber, would rather wield such terrifying inner force to crush a several-dozen-catty boulder bodily into powder, than emit even the slightest sliver of a sound!
Is this the Black Rose First General's sacrosanct, inviolable cherishing and consideration toward Your Majesty?!
This tenderness and control refined to the utmost subtlety—truly worthy of being Your Majesty's most trusted iron wall of a guard!!
Terrifying! Far too terrifying!
And within the Bedchamber on the other side of this single door, the air was suffused with the pleasant cool released by the ice blocks—truly more soothing to one's heart than the coolest morning of summer's height.
At this moment, Irene had already stepped over the threshold, grinning.
The pink-haired girl's round, plump pretty face was flushed and rosy, her pair of sapphire-like big eyes glittering bright—where was there any trace left of the earlier despair and fluster from thinking she'd contracted a heart ailment?
Behind the long desk at the innermost side of the room, Sophia still maintained that standard posture of propping her cheek on one hand. Her pale-golden dead-fish eyes lifted steadily from that thick stack of military registry archives concerning the surrendered Olan troops, and she slanted a cold, indifferent glance at the approaching Irene, her voice cool and clear as ever:
"What is it?"
However, the now-enlightened Irene had none of her usual reserve as a core vassal.
She behaved with the utmost naturalness, not even sparing a single glance for the official documents on the long desk, but briskly kicked off the little leather boots from her feet and swaggered straight toward that independent bathroom on the inner side of Sophia's Bedchamber—the one she and Daphne had carefully fitted out.
Using some special methods, they had made a shower head and a constant-temperature water tank, and had Daphne use magic to keep the water inside warm.
This way, Your Majesty could bathe whenever she wished.
A faint rustle of metal clasps on an artisan vest being undone and clothing being rubbed off came briskly out from the bathroom.
Right after, Irene nimbly poked half of her little head out from behind the small door.
Tugging at her long twin tails with fair fingers, she hollered in a crisp voice that was almost domineering yet self-righteous:
"Your Majesty! It's been so long since I last slept with Your Majesty—just now in the workshop I suddenly missed Your Majesty so much! So I've decided, tonight This Inventor is going to share the covers with Your Majesty!!"
Watching Irene's carefree, even somewhat blustering, domineering little manner, Sophia, sitting steadily on the white fox-fur soft chair, had—across her whole porcelain-white, deadpan face—the edges of those lovely thin lips curve ever so faintly, imperceptibly, slightly upward.
Sophia slowly and casually closed the archive volume before her, and a strand of exceedingly faint mockery flitted across her pair of pale-golden dead-fish eyes as she coldly let out a single line:
"Is that so. This Queen had thought you intended to shoulder your black musket tonight and keep watch in the corridor outside, holding the line all night long with Delilah."
Hearing this cold-and-clear teasing from Sophia, which carried not the slightest hint of dismissal, Irene's pair of sapphire-like big eyes instantly shone bright as stars in the night sky.
In fact, in the very deepest part of the reincarnated Queen's heart, she had long since grown utterly accustomed—couldn't be more accustomed—to this behavior of Irene's, who every few days would clutch a pillow and come to share a set of covers with her.
Never mind it—back in the day at the Royal City of Mason, whenever it rained hard deep in the night, or whenever Irene's workshop accidentally blew up in chaos, she would always come swaggering into Sophia's Bedchamber to seize half the couch.
Sophia had long since grown used to the warmth of this little pink rabbit clinging to her side.
Accompanied by the soft sound of the great door clamping shut, Irene, like a pink rabbit that had stolen a big fat carrot, bounded and hopped headlong into the independent bathroom on the inner side of the Bedchamber.
Reaching back to lock the exquisite brass latch, and by the soft halo of light cast by the magic wall-lamps on the wall, the smile at the corner of Irene's mouth had already nearly split all the way to her ears.
She deftly stripped off the artisan vest hung all over with wrenches and little copper hammers and smeared with wrought-iron powder, casually setting the somewhat heavy garment neatly on the white porcelain bench to the side.
As layer upon layer of clothing slipped off, the pink-haired girl, treading on her gleaming bare feet, eagerly stepped into that luxurious bathing pool steaming with curling hot vapor.
"Splash—"
The warm, clear flow of water instantly enveloped her entire being. Daphne had specially blended Black Rose spirit-calming essential oil into the water, and a few dark-red petals drifted leisurely upon the surface, giving off an exceptionally crisp, cool fragrance.
Irene sank her whole body comfortably into the water, exposing only a round little head and a pair of pink twin tails swaying gently above the surface. The warm spring water not only thoroughly washed away the fatigue accumulated from her days of high-intensity overtime in the workshop, but also greatly soothed her little heart, which had been racing out of control from her sudden awakening.
Scooping up warm water with her fair little hands and splashing it over her slender shoulders, she watched her reflection on the water's surface, and couldn't help but smugly waggle her head, beginning to madly tally up tonight's grand odds of victory in her heart.
A great victory!! This is absolutely the most successful crafting procedure This Inventor has ever pulled off in all history!
The others outside schemed back and forth and couldn't even touch the hem of Your Majesty's robe, while This Lady not only got to freeload Your Majesty's reinforced private bathroom, but in a little while, once she'd washed up all fragrant and stepped out, she could go straight and lie down in Your Majesty's great white-fox-fur bed that emanates that cool fragrance!
What you call the straight-ball wisdom of a Transmigrator!
Those sticky, gooey old-noble tactics, before the most direct straight-ball conquest-strategy, are all utterly worthless bad debts producing no value at all—not worth a single mention!
Your Majesty truly does still like me best—the obedient, useful, core, adorable Inventor who can churn out iron-wall padded armor for her every day, hmph hmph~
"Splash."
The more Irene thought, the more elated she grew, and she couldn't help but happily kick up a splash of water in the bathing pool, her sapphire-like big eyes brimming with boundless yearning for the shared slumber to come.
That whole flushed, rosy cheek, under the steaming of the water vapor, not only failed to cool down, but, owing to those lingering warm fantasies in her mind, faintly flowed forth a deeper layer of delicate rosy blush.
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