LSK 5

Chapter 5

Among them, everyone praised Crown Prince Raven’s character.

He was strong, but he had never once used or abused that strength for his own benefit.

He was strong, fair, and kind to everyone.

Except for the Lady, that is……

I gave a bitter smile without saying anything.

The Vice Commander looked at me strangely.

“Ah, right. I have a favor to ask.”

When I asked the Vice Commander for a spare military uniform, he looked at me with a puzzled expression.

He still didn’t completely trust me, so my sudden change seemed suspicious to him.

“Why?”

“I was criticized for my clothes, so I should correct it. His Highness personally ordered it, so I don’t think he’ll say anything.”

After hearing that the Crown Prince himself had given the order, the Vice Commander nodded as if he understood.

Knock, knock.

When I knocked on the door, Crown Prince Raven’s voice came from inside.

“Come in.”

When Vice Commander Damian tried to greet Raven formally, he waved his hand as if it were troublesome.

The Crown Prince skipped the formalities and immediately explained why he had summoned him.

“I heard those northern bastards have been getting arrogant and forgetting their place. They dare cause trouble in my territory. I need someone to test my new weapons on, so this worked out perfectly. I’ve decided to set out in seven days. Have everything ready for immediate use by then. I think we’ll need about twenty percent of the troops.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

It was an impressive sight no matter how many times I saw it.

Despite his fourteen-year-old appearance, the Crown Prince spoke freely and confidently about military tactics. Then, suddenly, he showed a slightly hesitant expression that was unlike him.

Damian had never seen the Crown Prince hesitate like this before, so he became curious about what he was going to say.

“……Was the meal alright?”

“Yes, well. I feel like I had a proper meal for the first time in a long while.”

“……Really?”

The Crown Prince’s eyebrows slowly rose.

It was clearly the expression he made when he was in a bad mood.

“Yes. The others are pretending they aren’t satisfied, but they seem happy about it too. Even though I deliberately made their afternoon training harder, they were all full of energy. As expected, people need to eat well.”

“……”

The more Damian talked, the more deeply the Crown Prince’s brows furrowed.

Damian put on a fake smile and stepped closer to the Crown Prince.

“Don’t be so angry. At least have some of this. You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, have you? People naturally become irritable when they don’t eat.”

Damian forced the cookie he had received from the Lady into Raven’s mouth.

It could have been considered disrespectful to his superior, but Damian did it without hesitation.

He knew that Raven would never get angry at a trusted subordinate over a little joke like this.

Raven let out a small sigh and, as if he had no choice, bit down on the cookie that had been pushed into his mouth.

Crunch.

As expected, he was a kind and gentle person.

Ah, except toward one person.

Damian watched the Crown Prince eat the food he had given him and grinned.

“How does it taste?”

“……I see. It’s not too sweet. It’s just right. Where did you buy it?”

It must have come from a pretty skilled bakery.

Raven casually asked, thinking that he should let his subordinates try it later as well.

A small smile had already appeared around his lips.

“Ah, I didn’t buy it. It was made by, um…… what was her name again? The Lady made it. What was her name? ……Ah, can I even tell you this?”

But the answer from his direct subordinate soon ruined his mood completely.

“What?”

Suddenly, the rich, savory smell of the cookie left in his mouth felt unpleasant.

He felt so disgusted that he wanted to spit it out immediately, but he had already swallowed it.

“Annoying.”

“Why do you hate her so much?”

Damian had originally been the only commoner knight in the Imperial Palace, but after the Crown Prince recognized his abilities, he had recently become the Vice Commander of Distian.

In other words, he had not been in this army for very long.

He had heard so many rumors about Lady Celebi that he was sick of them, but to Damian, she was still a stranger whose name he could barely remember.

Today, he had finally met her in person, but she felt somewhat different from the rumors.

Rumors were always exaggerated, so he had believed only half of what he heard.

But after seeing her himself, he couldn’t understand how the real person could be so different from the rumors.

Once again, Damian realized how meaningless rumors could be.

At his question, Raven answered irritably, as if Damian had asked something completely obvious.

“She keeps clinging to me.”

Damian thought.

Ah, could it be that this Crown Prince was overly self-conscious?

I didn’t know he was that kind of person.

The type who was so confident in himself that he thought every woman around him liked him.

That was the only explanation Damian could think of.

Because the Lady he had met for the first time today didn’t seem interested in the Crown Prince at all—

“She doesn’t seem very interested in Your Highness.”

“What?”

Ah, damn.

I hadn’t meant to say that.

But the Crown Prince’s excessive self-confidence was so irritating that the words accidentally came out of my mouth.

Raven’s eyes widened as if he had just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world.

Perhaps it was an unconscious reaction, because Raven covered his own mouth after raising his voice.

Soon, he lowered his hand and spoke with a slightly annoyed expression.

“You saw it yourself. You know how crazy that woman is about me. That sticky way she looks at me, and even these cookies are suspicious. She must be plotting something against me again.”

“……”

If that was the standard, the Lady had even held his hand today and smiled brightly at him.

It would actually be more believable if the Lady said that she liked me.

But I wasn’t overly self-conscious like someone else, so I didn’t misunderstand anything like that.

That was why the Crown Prince’s claim that “the Lady is crazy about me” sounded like complete nonsense.

“That damn stalker. She’s a truly creepy woman.”

Well, they say men sometimes want to show off.

The Lady wasn’t his type, but she was quite pretty.

I shouldn’t hurt the Crown Prince’s pride anymore.

It would only be troublesome.

That was what Damian thought.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

It had been five days since the Crown Prince began fasting.

The reason? What else could it be?

Obviously, it was because of me.

The Crown Prince hadn’t left the Commander’s office at all, so it didn’t seem like he was eating anywhere else either.

But ever since that day, the kitchen work had naturally become my responsibility.

No one wanted to do the tiring and troublesome kitchen work.

Since I had willingly taken on the difficult work myself, no one complained, even if they secretly laughed at me and thought I deserved it.

During the first few days, the soldiers cautiously picked at their food, worried that I might have put poison in it.

But they also knew that I had no reason to poison them.

Still, their trust in me was at rock bottom.

They didn’t just dislike me—they looked at me as if they wanted to kill me.

So, at the very least, they needed to make sure the food was safe.

Before every meal, I had to taste the food in front of them first before they would pick up their spoons.

But today, just as usual, when I was about to taste the food first, the soldiers casually waved their hands and started eating the food I had prepared without hesitation.

Hmm.

That was a good sign.

Could I say that we had formed at least a tiny bit of trust?

Even so, the only trust I had earned was the obvious belief that I wouldn’t poison their food.

Our relationship was still based on a level of trust thinner than a transparent glass wall that would shatter the moment either of us touched it.

Anyway, ever since that day, I hadn’t seen the Crown Prince at all.

He was always in the Commander-in-Chief’s office.

He sometimes seemed to go to the Imperial Palace, but unless he had some business there, he didn’t bother visiting.

The Crown Prince’s blood relatives in the Imperial family weren’t warm enough to be called a family.

The Imperial Palace was a place filled with bloody palace struggles twenty-four hours a day.

It was impossible to feel safe there.

Especially for the Crown Prince, who was always under the threat of assassination.

For him, staying here was probably more comfortable both physically and mentally.

The Distian military base was one of the safest places in the world.

If only I weren’t here, aiming for his chastity.

Because I had cornered the Crown Prince in front of his subordinates last time, his image of me was probably at its absolute worst right now.

Rumors were spreading among the soldiers.

“The Commander-in-Chief has been acting strange lately.”

“Every day, it sounds like he’s cursing Lady Celebi inside his office.”

At this rate, I felt like he might suddenly kill me before he even became an adult.

No matter how generous he was toward everyone in the world, he was strict only toward me.

Compared to what Lady Celebi had done to him, I suppose he could still be called somewhat generous……

Anyway, my priority was to get him out of that office.

Dealing with a sulking child who refused to eat was easy enough.