William, who had been carefully observing the minerals, raised his eyes and glared at Waburn.
“But Count, didn’t you know that gold mines must be reported? If you extracted minerals without reporting it, I plan to inform His Majesty of this matter as soon as I return to the palace.”
I nodded while listening to William’s words. Although the Stamili Empire had a decentralized system, it wasn’t feudalism. While they divided territories and established lords, they didn’t give these lords complete authority. In a country where the Emperor’s power was immense, not reporting a gold mine constituted treason. Yet it was strange that he didn’t try to hide anything when asked about the mine.
Waburn laughed heartily and pointed at the table with his finger.
“Your Highness, please look carefully at the minerals there. Do you see any gold?”
William shook his head.
“No, there doesn’t seem to be any.”
“As you can see, the mine in Ekisan is not a gold mine. Still, just in case, I contacted them, but I only received the answer that if it’s not a gold mine, there’s no need to report it.”
“The administrator lacked flexibility.”
William nodded at my words.
“May I examine the minerals?”
When Waburn gave permission, I carefully examined the minerals placed on the table. How wonderful would it be if the bluish one was sapphire and the reddish one was ruby?
While thinking this, a good idea suddenly occurred to me.
Weren’t gems originally just stones that were processed and made beautiful, then given the name ‘jewels’? Then… the stones in front of me now could definitely be made into gems too.
“Danny, did you come up with some good idea?”
I smiled and held up a bluish mineral.
“Your Highness, please look at this. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“It is indeed. Looking at it this way, it seems somewhat similar in color to lopeia…”
At the unfamiliar word, I stared at the empty space next to the mineral. An information window was floating there.
[Lopeia: Not as valuable as diamonds, but treated as a precious gem of the next tier down. A popular mineral for noble accessories and decorations in various countries.]
‘What about this mineral I’m looking at? Is this lopeia?’
[Correct.]
‘What about the price? How much is it? How much wheat could I import with just this one?’
[Based on unprocessed mineral standards, 100 grams could import 100 kilograms of wheat.]
Oh yes!
I was so excited I almost shouted right there.
I never thought I could get such a harvest from Putdy, where I came to obtain food.
“What? Why are you suddenly smiling?”
William stared at me and asked. I told him confidently,
“This is definitely lopeia!”
“Hmm? For lopeia, the color seems rather dull…”
“That’s because it’s before processing.”
When I looked at Waburn with the meaning of asking him to confirm if my words were correct, he nodded.
“As rumored, Daniel-nim’s eye is excellent. This mineral is definitely a lopeia gemstone. Although it’s not a gold mine, since minerals as valuable as gold come out, I reported it to the imperial palace… but they said it was an unnecessary procedure if it wasn’t a gold mine, so I was wondering what to do about this matter.”
Since he had completed the report in advance, there was nothing to worry about.
William tapped the lopeia gemstone with his fingertip and smiled brightly.
“Good. This will be sufficient.”
***
Count Waburn Putdy said we could do whatever was helpful to the empire. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that all my prejudices about lords ruling northern territories, which I had formed from reading fantasy novels, completely disappeared after meeting Waburn – he was such a relaxed, comfortable, and ungreedy person.
With a lavish meal no different from imperial palace dining before us, we began serious conversation. Waburn, who heard about the Ridden family’s monopoly and tyranny, nodded with a serious expression.
“You must have had many worries.”
After finishing his words, Waburn suddenly raised his head and looked back and forth between William and me. His expression looked surprised by something.
“What’s wrong?”
Even at William’s question, Waburn hesitated for a moment before finally answering.
“Then, are you saying that you two came up with the idea of using barley bran to solve the food problem? Without anyone else’s help?”
When I nodded casually, Waburn showed an even more surprised expression.
“How did you two know something that even I don’t know? Something that even I, who rules Putdy, the origin of barley, don’t know.”
William glanced at me with suspicious eyes, so I winked at him. It meant let’s talk about it later and focus on persuading Waburn first. However he interpreted my wink, William suddenly raised his chin and made an arrogant expression.
“My concubine and strategist Daniel Lambert is quite capable. I was troubled by the food problem, but that very day he started reading various old books in the imperial library and came up with an extraordinary method.”
That was fabrication beyond bluffing. Of course, I did get help from a book, but strictly speaking, it wasn’t a book but an information window, and with just that one book, there was no reason to spend days in the imperial library…
As I stood there bewildered, Waburn’s gaze reached me. His eyes seemed to look up to me with admiration.
“Oh… you must be someone with great intellect. Moreover, you’re someone overflowing with love for the empire’s people. You’re truly worthy of being His Highness William’s one and only concubine. I too will gladly cooperate if it’s for the empire’s people.”
I had only tried to make William a wise ruler to survive.
I felt embarrassed that this thought was misunderstood as love for the empire’s people.
I scratched my head and looked at Waburn. He had an attendant pour tea into William’s and my cups, then raised his teacup high first.
“For the empire’s peace and Crown Prince William’s health!”
After William and I smiled and raised our cups to drink, we began eating in earnest. The delicious food seemed to completely wash away the fatigue accumulated during our travels.
***
“What is all this?”
I doubted my own eyes looking at the bedroom spread before me.
There was a bed under walls covered with red gems, with ornately carved pillars at the four corners of the bed. Thin fabric was draped around them, flower petals were scattered on the floor, and a subtle fragrance filled the entire room.
The atmosphere alone was enough to warrant a rating unsuitable for minors.
“What do you mean what? It’s where we’ll sleep tonight.”
“Perhaps… shouldn’t I ask for a separate room?”
“Why?”
“Well…”
No matter how I thought about it, no proper reason came to mind. Since the Crown Prince brought his concubine when he came out on an imperial inspection mission, it would be stranger not to sleep together.
“No. It’s my first time seeing such a bedroom, so I misspoke.”
“How boring. Let’s change clothes and rest quickly. I’m tired.”
“Yes.”
William spread both arms. I stood in front of William and unbuttoned his clothes one by one. Since becoming an official concubine, I hadn’t helped William dress, so it was something I was doing after a long time.
By touching him directly like this, I could tell that William’s body had changed a lot over the years.
“You must be exercising hard these days.”
When I grabbed his forearm and pressed firmly, William flexed his arm and frowned.
“The martial arts teacher is demanding. He says posture gets sloppy if muscle strength is lacking, so I’m focusing on strength training. But Danny.”
As I was unbuttoning and trying to remove his outer garment, William suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“You feel different today somehow?”
“…What?”
“Instead of undressing me, it feels like Danny is touching my body.”
“How can I undress you without using my hands?”
“That’s true, but… it’s a bit troublesome if you keep touching me like this.”
“Should I call another attendant?”
“No! Who said I wanted that!”
When I tried to take my hands off William’s body, he suddenly hugged me tightly.
“Your Highness… I haven’t finished undressing you yet.”
“Huh? Did you forget because it’s been so long since you helped me dress? You’re doing this to untie the strings in the back, right?”
“……”
William’s laughter reached my ears as I stood frozen. Only then did I realize he was teasing me.
With my face pressed against William’s chest, I untied the strings at the back of his waist.
“I’ve untied them all. Please let me go now.”
“Already? It seemed to take much longer when you were young…”
“That’s because my hands were small then.”
“I liked it better then.”
I separated from William and removed his upper garment. The moment I put my hand on his waist to unfasten his belt, William gasped and pulled his body back.
“…Why are you touching me like that?”
“I’m not touching you, I’m just unfastening the belt.”
“It seems like you’re touching me lewdly…”
I had already noticed that William was teasing me, but if I tried to get him back here by going one step further, William would act even more mischievously, and if I told him to stop joking around, he would obviously say he never did such a thing.
“It’s written all over your face, yet you’re pretending it’s not!”
Saying that, William grabbed my waist and lifted me up. Then he sat me on the bed.
“Danny, tell me. Why is your face red?”
I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t speak. He wasn’t releasing pheromones, and his breathing wasn’t rough like last time. So this was just an action to tease me. It seemed like he would keep this up until the end if I didn’t play along, so I decided to let myself be teased.
I turned my head slightly to the side and smiled shyly.
“You keep saying strange things.”
“What did I say?”
“You said I touched you when I didn’t, and you said my face was red!”
When I spoke seriously, William finally burst into laughter.
“Sorry. You were so cute I couldn’t help it.”
I don’t know who should be saying that to whom.
When William occasionally looked at me with burning eyes, I wanted to run away and felt scared, but when he played around like this, he just looked like a cute kid. Still, it would be better to maintain the concept I decided on, right?
I stroked my chest with my palm.
“If you keep saying things like that, it makes me nervous. My spine gets chills and I break out in cold sweat, like I’ve met a tiger.”
William gasped sharply.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
