Please Die, Your Highness - Chapter 97

Prince Declan returned to the empty house where they were to stay before the sun had fully set. He did not come empty-handed. In both hands, he held three potatoes and a couple more unidentified root crops.

The young donkey had decided to stay overnight at the house of the child Prince Declan had helped. He said they liked each other so much that the two didn’t want to part. He also said that the newborn baby the child carried would stop crying and laugh whenever it saw the donkey.

Maeve sat at the empty table, silently listening to the stories Prince Declan babbled on about breathlessly as soon as he entered. When Prince Declan finished his story, he could not hide his awkwardness and gave Maeve an unnatural smile.

“I know. Yes.”

“What do you know?”

Prince Declan came to the table where Maeve was sitting and spilled out the root crops he had brought.

“I was a mess today.”

“…….”

“But I don’t regret it. In the end, it turned out well. Didn’t it? Even if I turned back time, I would still save the child and help fix the old woman’s stairs.”

Maeve stared at the Prince with an expressionless face.

“You’ve never fixed stairs before. I saw earlier that the others had to tear them apart and fix them again.”

At Maeve’s pointing this out, Prince Declan’s face turned red as if it were about to burst.

“But the principle was simple. And I knew a fair amount from learning.”

“From whom, Your Highness?”

Prince Declan looked into the distance, blatantly avoiding the answer. One could roughly guess it was a ‘book.’ Prince Declan was a devotee of books. Being a Prince who grew up in a castle, how could it be otherwise? He wouldn’t have been the type to enjoy hunting, and since he wasn’t the heir to the King, he wouldn’t have learned monarchology. He likely spent most of his time studying.

It was a moment when the sense of kinship and pity for that Prince, which she had forgotten, began to creep up. Maeve, trying to shake it off quickly, picked up a potato and brushed off the dirt.

Prince Declan tried to change the subject.

“More importantly, you heard the child screaming too.”

“Yes. I think I heard it. But I didn’t care. Children that age usually scream while playing. And no matter what was happening behind me, my only thought was to pack what I needed and get out immediately.”

Making his effort pointless, she dragged back the part he wanted to avoid.

“Whether you regret it or not, Your Highness—that is not important. We were just lucky today. As you saw earlier, those people eventually intended to rob us.”

Maeve used a knife to carve out the parts of the dirt-brushed potato where sprouts were about to grow. As expected, the condition couldn’t have been good. If healthy food were overflowing, it wouldn’t make sense for the people here to be so thin.

“And it was because those people were originally ordinary people that we survived. From what I hear, those people.”

“Carpenters.”

“Yes. They are a group of carpenters. They are used to handling blades, but they likely haven’t used them to threaten people before. Until they migrated here, they were people who lived quite ordinarily amongst their neighbors, and their nature wasn’t evil. Above all, it ended like this because they were clumsy, having done such things for only a few years.”

Prince Declan just listened quietly to Maeve’s quiet lecture, or rather, something that wasn’t quite a lecture.

He did not harbor much resentment. It was because he knew well that this kind of nagging, above all else, came out of interest, or even further, affection.

And in fact, her words were correct.

“I understand. Maeve. You are right. But since it turned out well anyway, can’t we get along with those people?”

“…….”

Maeve stared fixedly at Prince Declan with a face that seemed to ask where on earth the words she just spoke had gone.

Prince Declan spoke steadfastly.

“In any case, they aren’t such bad people. Hearing them talk, there were many who felt guilty about doing such things. Apparently, opinions were divided even internally. That they shouldn’t extort travelers.”

“…….”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong. I said it, didn’t I? That you’re right. Since things have turned out this way, I want to get along with them without suspicion before we leave.”

She truly did not know. Where that bottomless trust in people from the Prince came from.

“I partially agree with your opinion, Your Highness. But I do not agree with the statement that we can let down our guard. They are people hungry enough to pick the pockets of travelers or merchants, so it wouldn’t be strange if they changed their minds right now and did anything.”

“…….”

“Do books say things like this too? That if you meet a beast in the mountain, you should avoid a starving beast above all else. The books I read taught me that. And in reality, it was correct with a high probability.”