Chapter 7
After that day, Wise was lectured by Lycaon for several hours. The thiren butler talked nonstop about medical knowledge, magic, and the psychology of the sick. In general, he reminded Wise that he shouldn't let the sick person move too much, not to mention how much pain and discomfort Harumasa was in.
Obviously, saying no couldn't make up for what Harumasa had endured, so Lycaon told Wise to apologize to Harumasa. Not knowing whether he was still angry or not, the prince was forced to kneel on the washboard for several hours. Belle passed by and just sighed, shook her head, and muttered when her brother asked for help: "Harumasa is very angry this time, I can't help you. After all, you did it, so bear it yourself."
It was not until evening that Harumasa forgave Wise and reminded him not to do it again, otherwise, he would be angry too. Wise knew that although Harumasa normally looked easy-going, friendly, and lively, he would be very scared when angry. So Wise nodded repeatedly, promising not to do that again.
After a while, Harumasa got better and returned to his work position. His magic power had recovered quite a bit, and his magic power recovery speed was much faster than normal people. The price to pay in exchange for this power was very high, so Harumasa was always careful when using magic power.
Wise and Belle's eighteenth birthdays were only a few months away. As the prince and princess's close servant and childhood friend, Harumasa was obviously racking his brains thinking of a gift. The other party was a member of the royal family and had seen many expensive, precious, and unique items since childhood, so he had to think of a way to give a truly different gift.
While Harumasa was sitting and thinking with Ellen curled up beside him, suddenly someone appeared from behind, grabbed both of them by the collars and lifted them up. Without looking, both of the shirkers knew who had come.
"Get back to work now."
It was Lycaon, the head butler.
Having been grabbed by the scruff of the neck and brought back, neither of them could escape halfway. Although it was still a few months before the prince and princess' birthday, preparations had already begun. After all, this was an important event, so it was only natural that it would be held lavishly.
Almost all of the invitations sent to the nobles were handwritten by the maids. Rina herself had selected maids with beautiful handwriting to write the invitations and decorated them to look elegant and royal. The dishes that would be served that day were also being carefully studied. They wanted all the dishes to be beautiful, delicious, and fragrant. This took up a lot of the chefs' time as they continuously experimented with new recipes.
The team with the biggest headache was probably the team preparing the birthday cake. They wanted the cake to be beautiful, unique, and splendid for the eighteenth birthday party, an important milestone in the life of the prince and princess. The second team with the biggest headache was the team decorating the hall. They were wondering what gold items to use, what flowers to decorate, what color ribbons, and what fruits to display.
Everyone was busy, so as a senior butler, Harumasa was also assigned a large amount of work. One of them was personally delivering invitations to the high-ranking noble families, which meant only families with the titles of dukes and marquises. Although the number of people with those titles was not large, the distance was far, so Harumasa felt too lazy to go personally. For the remaining nobles, someone else would deliver the invitations.
Harumasa carried the invitations placed in envelopes with the royal seal down to the stables to find a horse. He sighed, led out a brown horse, and climbed on its back. Normally when going hunting with Wise, Harumasa would also wear a butler uniform and ride a horse, although it was a bit uncomfortable. But thanks to that, he got used to riding a horse.
Because Wise rode so fast, Harumasa had to speed up his horse to chase after him, and once the horse galloped, he had to know how to control it to avoid falling and getting hurt. So every time he finished hunting, Harumasa was so tired that he sometimes fell asleep while adjusting Wise's blanket at night. There were a total of ten invitations, if he delivered them quickly, he would probably return to the palace before sunset. Thinking and doing, Harumasa tightly grasped the horse's reins and quickly rode out of the palace. The horses raised in the stables in the palace were different from normal horses, they looked much braver. Because the horse's reins were a different color from normal horses, when passersby saw them, they immediately made their way. Although at first, they wondered why a butler was in such a hurry to ride so fast. But when they caught a glimpse of Harumasa's brooch, they suddenly remembered that it was time to deliver the invitations to the high-ranking noble families.
Harumasa rode his horse along a fixed route to make it easier to deliver the invitations. Since he was the prince's personal butler, having a close relationship with him meant getting closer to the prince. So when Harumasa arrived, the servants there all warmly welcomed him as if he were a high-ranking noble. They even served him expensive teas and rare, expensive sweets as a way to flatter and please him.
Although Harumasa was not a person who liked sweets, he did not hesitate to accept them. If he was not mistaken, the maids loved sweets, so he would bring them back. After all, they had already stuffed them into his hands, refusing would make them lose face. Instead of making more enemies, it was better to accept them graciously and make one less enemy. Harumasa used his magic bag to hold all the sweets during the entire process of delivering the invitations. When he returned to the palace, the maids would have a cake party. After all, they were servants, so they rarely got to eat sweets.
"As expected of Harumasa, these cakes are more than enough for the maids here to eat to their heart's content," Ellen commented while eating a cake that Harumasa brought back. The taste was not a problem, after all, it was a gift for the prince's senior butler.
"Maybe they don't know that I don't like sweets. Or maybe they trusted the wrong source from some servant." Harumasa stretched, relaxing his body after riding a horse all day to deliver the invitations. He wanted to get a good night's sleep, but right now, there were still many things he had to do. Among them was preparing gifts for the prince and princess.
"Those foolish nobles, they should know that bribing the prince's close butler is impossible."
“That sounds harsh, Ellen. They are the ones who make money for our royal family after all. They are just a little better than ‘idiots’.” Lycaon stood behind the two people who often shirked their work, sighing inwardly. These two people really had no respect for nobles at all. He finished his work for the day and quickly changed into a less conspicuous outfit, wearing a dark hooded cloak, completely hiding his thiren appearance.
Lycaon left the palace at night, moving quickly to avoid being discovered or followed. He walked out of habit, easily entering the black market hidden in the residential area. He walked to a tavern without a sign. In the morning, this place was just an ordinary house with people coming and going, but at night, it became a place that provided a lot of information that even the royal family did not know about.
He chose a table in the corner and then knocked on the table three times. Soon, the only waiter in the tavern arrived right next to him. That person had bandages covering most of his face and one eye, only the other eye was visible. Such disguises were normal, after all, they were information traders, and the danger of the profession required them to always carefully conceal their identities.
"Welcome, what kind of wine would you like?"
"I heard that the tavern has just imported a new type of wine. Get me a glass."
"I understand, please wait for me a moment."
The waiter quickly prepared a glass of wine, he brought out a tray with only a glass of wine, it seemed to be grape wine. After placing it on Lycaon's table, the waiter quickly left. Lycaon sat there for a while then picked up the glass of wine, underneath was a small piece of paper neatly folded. He carefully opened the piece of paper, making sure no one could see its contents.
[The Aku Empire has taken action. There is a traitor in the palace. 18th birthday.]
Lycaon frowned, the Aku Empire, the neighboring country of the Eridu Kingdom, however, the two countries did not have any friendly relations. The two sides had never cooperated with each other because of their different views on magic. The Eridu Kingdom valued conventional magic and developed various types of combat magic to protect others. But for the Aku Empire, magic was developed in the direction of black magic, manipulating time and human life. They even summoned terrible monsters to conduct experiments on them and they did not care about the consequences of that.
Not to mention that the Aku Empire had been quiet for a long time and had never made any connections with any neighboring countries. Their actions were always mysterious and suspicious. No one could predict what the next action of the head of the empire would be. The sudden action of the empire must be related to the 18th birthday of the prince and princess of the Eridu Kingdom.
But who was the traitor in the palace that this piece of paper mentioned?