Chapter 22: Alfeld La Molvarado

I was born in an oasis in the desert to the King and Queen of the Empire of Molvarado, a great power built near an oasis.

But my mother wasn’t originally a queen.

My father, the king, had a palace called the harem, and my mother was one of the members of his entourage that lived there.

However, for some reason, all the children born by the other members of the royal household were girls, and it was her who gave birth to the first boy and became the queen.

For this reason, my position as Crown Prince had been determined from the day I was born.

Before I go any further, I should mention that my sisters and I are on good terms with each other. I have a good relationship with my sisters’ mothers, and I get along well with them.

I was surrounded by so many women growing up, that I naturally learned how to handle women, and I knew how to smile to get them to like me.

And as I continued to watch the relationship between father and the women in his harem, I began to wish I had a harem of my own.

I immediately talked to my father about it and he promised to prepare a separate house with a harem for me so that it would be completed by the time I came of age.

Father also said he would prepare a selection of women for me, but I refused to do so.

I refused, because I wanted to find the women I could enter into my harem anyway.

I decided to ask various women to join my harem, and I decided to look for women I wanted to join my harem.

I asked for women from most of the countries and put some on the list, but I would like to meet more women from different countries.

Then I remembered our ally, Prince Kaiser, with whom I had been corresponding for a long time, and my interest in the women of his country was piqued.

I immediately asked my father to visit Kaiser’s country and it was decided that I would visit him.

I sent a letter to Kaiser beforehand to let him know that I was coming, and we arrived in the Kingdom of Beizelm after three days on a ship with a large number of donated goods.

Then I had an audience with the King of Beizelm.

When I entered the audience room with my retainers, who had brought an offering from my country, I walked under the king on the stage and looked at the women of this country out of the corner of my eye.

…As I thought, there are women with a different kind of beauty than the women of my country. Huh, I’m looking forward to this stay quite a bit.

I chuckled in my mind at the thought.

And as soon as I reached the royal family, I also checked out the girl who I thought was his fiancée, sitting next to the queen and a boy who I thought was probably Kaiser.

Huh~ As expected of a queen, her beauty is unparalleled. To be honest, if she wasn’t the queen, I would have put her on my list. But…that girl who is thought to be Kaiser’s fiancée is also quite a wonderful looking person. Her sparkling silver hair and beautiful purple eyes are so striking that even from this point on, they are unconsciously eye-catching. Well… although she’s Kaiser’s fiancée, that girl is definitely a top candidate for my harem’s top list.

I smiled my usual smile as I tried to do my part as a prince. The women who were present everywhere became excited.

I gave them a sidelong glance and winked at them, and some of them fell down with red faces.

Good, good, I guess the smiles and gestures women like are common in this country too.

I was convinced of this as I looked at the women who were being carried away.

Then I handed them a letter with an inventory of the gifts and took out a lustrous pearl cloth among the gifts.

I then took out a shiny pearl cloth from among the offerings and spread it out for the queen to see.

“This is a silk from my country, and I have brought it to you to be used in your beautiful queen’s wardrobe. I have no doubt that you will become even more beautiful than you are now.”

“Oh! I’m so happy!”

When I turned my words and my usual smile on the queen, her cheeks were dyed with joy and she seemed happy.

After all, what woman wouldn’t be delighted to be given a gift in person?

Then I opened the lid of a small jewelry box, which was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, and stared at it, revealing the earring inside.

But Kaiser’s fiancée did not react in the way I had expected.

She was smiling at the earring, but the smile did not seem to be sincere.

“Thank you. It’s a very nice item.”

“I’d like to see you wearing this, up close and personal, if possible.”

So I said that and gave my usual smile to Kaiser’s fiancée.

But even so, she didn’t have the same smile on her face like the other women.

“I’m sorry, Prince Alfeld. I am not allowed to show you myself up close and personal, so I will not be allowed to do so.”

“You don’t need to be so modest.”

I didn’t expect to hear the words of refusal, but I thought she was just embarrassed to hear them.

So I sent a wink to Kaiser’s fiancée to give her a break.

But this time, I didn’t get the response I wanted, and instead, her expression froze for some reason.

I wondered if she didn’t understand and winked again, but I thought maybe she didn’t understand.

But Kaiser’s fiancée gave me a look that was the exact opposite of what I had expected.

I’m not sure if what I saw was real or not, so I opened my eyes and stared at her.

Then, as if she noticed my gaze, her expression immediately returned to her earlier smile.

However, I couldn’t shake the confused expression I had been wearing for a long time.

After the audience, I was relaxing in the guest room that had been prepared for me until the ball that would be held in the evening to welcome me.

It is true that the appearance of Kaiser’s fiancée earlier baffled me to the point of confusion, but now I changed my mind about talking to the pretty maidservants who were looking after me.

And so they all reacted in a lovely way, as I had expected, and I was able to regain my confidence, which had been a bit low.

Then Kaiser came to visit me.

“Hi, Alfeld, you’ve come a long way. I’ve been looking forward to your visit.”

“I was looking forward to meeting Kaiser too.”

“What do you think? What about this country?”

“It’s nice that the air is not as dry as in my country, and it’s great that the city is more vibrant with a lot of trade, probably due to its proximity to the sea.”

“Thank you, but the offerings from Alfeld’s country are all excellent. In particular, my brother was very fond of the ores, which he calls ‘Desert Roses’”

“There is someone in this country who knows about that ‘desert rose’? It’s a specialty of my country, so it’s not something that can be found anywhere else. It’s amazing that you know that, Kaiser’s brother is amazing.”

“Yes, when it comes to minerals, my brother is a match for…well, Cecilia, that is.”

“Cecilia is…I think that’s the name of Kaiser’s fiancée, right? I’ve learned her name because Kaiser often raves about her in his letters. That’s right! By the way, can you tell me more about this Cecilia?”

“…she’s my fiancée.”

“I know that, so things other than that.”

“She’s my fiancée!”

I had wanted to know more about Cecilia than I had seen earlier, but afterwards, Kaiser stubbornly refused to tell me anything except that Cecilia was his fiancée.

So, in a hurry, Kaiser left the room, saying he had to prepare for the ball.

I see…from the letter, it seems that Kaiser is in love with Cecilia. However, I’m interested in Cecilia, the person that Kaiser is so smitten with…honestly, it’s becoming more and more interesting.

I gave a small smile as I thought about it, so that no one would notice.

I went to the ball with the intention of having a direct and intimate conversation with Cecilia, but every time I went to the ball I was prevented from approaching her because of the interference of Kaiser.

A few days had passed since the ball, and as Cecilia did not seem to be coming to the castle, I decided to give up on her this time, and called out to the other women in the castle.

And so it was that today, in the corridor facing the unpopular courtyard, I was hitting on a pretty maidservant, wondering if she should be put on the list of candidates for the harem.

Then I took the hand of the handmaiden, who had become completely debauched by my words with a smile, and dropped a kiss on her hand.

Then I felt her eyes on me, and as I dropped  a kiss, I glanced in the direction where I felt her gaze, and to my surprise, I saw a silver-haired girl looking at me from some distance.

But the girl immediately turned on her heel and started to leave, so I let go of the hand of the maid and immediately chased after the girl.

“Wait! I believe… you’re Cecilia, aren’t you?”

I called out to her back, and she slowly and awkwardly turned back to me, her little shoulders shaking with a jerk.

For some reason I was very happy to find out that the girl was Cecilia, the one I had been wanting to talk to for a long time.

“I knew it. I couldn’t forget your beautiful silver hair.”

After saying this, I approached Cecilia, who for some reason had a puzzled look on her face as she looked behind me.

The reason for this was that the maidservant I had been hitting on earlier was still there, but the maidservant seemed to have noticed Cecilia’s gaze and left in a hurry.

I caught a glimpse of her back and immediately lost interest, glad to be alone with Cecilia in front of me.

But Cecilia was concerned about the departing handmaid, so I told her that I had already had my talk with the handmaid and that it was all right.

Instead, I told her that I wanted to talk to Cecilia now, and said with a wry smile that I couldn’t talk to her because he was interrupted by Kaiser at that ball.

“…So what kind of conversation would you like to have with me? As far as I’m concerned, I’m just heading home, so would you please excuse me from this?”

“…Well, I can see why Kaiser didn’t want me to meet you. You seem to be a bit different from the other women.”

I didn’t think that I had just asked to talk to her and she was clearly rejecting me, which surprised me, but it was also refreshing to know that I had never met a woman like her before.

I was shocked, but at the same time refreshingly surprised that I had never seen such a woman before, and then, as I approached Cecilia quietly and thought about something, I scooped a tuft of her beautiful silver hair out of her hand.

Cecilia looked at me with wide eyes, and I enjoyed the feel of the smooth texture of her hair with my fingertips as I put my face close to Cecilia’s face and gazed into her beautiful purple eyes.

“It’s still as smooth and soft as I thought it would be. And those purple eyes look great up close. I would like to kidnap you and take you back to my country.”

I whispered those special killing words to Cecilia and gave her my usual bewitching smile.

But even so, Cecilia didn’t fall to me, on the contrary, she wrinkled her brows and gave me a grim expression.

“…You’re the first woman who didn’t fall for me to this extent.”

“I’m not a cheap woman who falls that easily. And…even after watching you seduce another woman just a few minutes ago, this doesn’t move me at all. To be honest it puts me off.”

“…”

I hadn’t expected her to pull back on me while looking at me up close, so I froze in place, staring at Cecilia.

Then Cecilia pulled her hair out of my hand and quickly stepped back to open the distance between us.

Cecilia looked at me and fixed her eyes on me and let out a big sigh.

“Hah! Are you sure you’re not just someone who’s looking for women to put in your harem in this country?”

“What!? Whoa, how did you know that?”

“I’m not the only one who was asked to be taken back to the country anyway, am I?”

“…”

“And since I know of Prince Alfeld’s country, I can easily imagine that Prince Alfeld’s actions were a preliminary casing to get a woman he liked into his harem.”

“I don’t think that’s…”

“Well, every country thinks differently and that seems to be the way it is…but for the record, I don’t like people who surround themselves with a lot of women because they seem to disrespect women!”

“Huh!”

The fact that Cecilia was the first woman in my life to tell me so clearly that she disliked me for the first time in my life, shocked me greatly.

I didn’t think there was a woman who would dislike me… No, more importantly, I have to think about what Cecilia had said! Sure, I’ve approached a lot of women to find a woman to enter my harem. But they all seemed uniformly happy with my words and smiles, so I just assumed that they would be happy to be in my harem. But…Cecilia was right, my behavior is like disrespecting a woman. So shall I find my one and only queen?

As I was thinking this, I suddenly saw Cecilia in front of me.

My consort…already in front of me. Yes, Cecilia is worthy of being my consort. Cecilia is the first woman who can say so clearly that she dislikes me, the prince.

That thought came into my head and I stared at Cecilia.

“…You’re the first person to ever tell me so clearly that you hate me.”

“I’m sorry if you’re offended. But I thought it would be better for Prince Alfeld if I made my feelings known to him. So from now on, I don’t mind…”

“I’ve decided! I won’t make a harem, and I’ll only take care of one person!”

“What? Oh, well, if that’s what Prince Alfeld has decided to do, then that’s good.”

“Thank you. I’ll definitely be a man recognized by you.”

I declared to Cecilia with a serious look on my face.

She may be Kaiser’s fiancée now, but that’s not the point! I want Cecilia! Besides, as my father used to say. He said you have to take what you want, even if it means taking it away from someone else! But I’m not strong enough yet. Therefore, after I return to my country and firmly build up my strength to become a man that Cecilia can recognize, I will definitely come back to kidnap Cecilia!

So I had made up my mind.

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