299 - - 299Th, Goddess.
A warm breeze brought the scent of spring. The meadow was thick with green grass and butterflies were fluttering above it. In the midst of it all, there was a group of people walking along the meadow with unsteady steps that could neither be described as a stroll nor a march.
Upon closer inspection, I found that they were young girls, all of them with the same characteristics. In addition to their resemblance to ogres, they were all hunched over and had morbidly white skin. They all had the same facial features, and at first glance, one could almost feel as if some sort of optical illusion was being created.
Leading them was a woman in armor. Needless to say, this is Matkal, the wife of Agartha King Linos. She walks majestically through the meadow with her beautiful blond hair in a ponytail, looking very dignified. The ogre girls are following behind her.
When Matkal reached a certain point, he stopped walking and turned around. He then calls out to the girls who are now a little further away from him.
"Good, you did well today!"
When the girls come up to Matocalu's side, they fall to the grassy field as if out of air. Some of them are still on all fours, breathing on their shoulders. Matocal sighs loudly as he watches them.
"What kind of life have you been living ...... to be so tired after only five minutes of travel?"
No one answered her soliloquized mutterings. There was only the sound of the girls' breathing.
They are princesses of noble families who have taken refuge from the land of Miedai. They are the future princesses of the future emperor, but there is a reason why they are forced to march during the daytime, even in the springtime.
As soon as they moved from Miedai, the nobles offered them to live in a place where they would not have to deal with so many people. Originally, they have been living only with their families for a long time without any contact with the outside world. Therefore, they showed an unusual resistance to having their faces exposed to many people, even if they were citizens of the same country.
Fortunately, the village Linos had prepared for the nobles was located in the middle of the grassland and was isolated from the outside world to some extent, so the nobles were allowed to enter there first. However, since the village itself was small, the nobles were allowed to employ only the minimum number of servants. Therefore, the nobles gave most of their servants free time, and each family had only two or three servants.
On the other hand, the people were left without a place to live, but they could take shelter in the lodges and other buildings that the Crimeanists had built in the places where they had previously suffered from the plague of rulloinse, which still remained untouched.
The people were quick to act. In no time at all, they had identified the buildings in the forest, and the leaders of the five towns had gathered to divide them into townships and decide where they would live. Instead, they cleared the forests and began to cultivate the land, and began to live a self-sufficient life. This was indeed a surprise to the Linos, and they sent generous relief supplies and supported their cultivation work as much as possible.
On the other hand, the nobles who entered the village gradually became exhausted. They had never been in the habit of fending for themselves and were surprisingly unable to do anything on their own. They distributed relief supplies and provided food for the people, but even then, they insisted that the supplies be delivered to their own homes.
So the emperor sent out a message and ordered the nobles to fend for themselves because of the current state of national emergency. However, he only ordered them to go to the distribution center for rations and food, but the nobles held a meeting for three days straight, and after a heated argument with a faction that said they would starve to death if they had to do such a thing, they finally replied that they would send one of their retainers to fetch the rations. It was. However, this was not accepted, and the emperor ordered that basically the son of the family or the princess should be the one to come for food and daily necessities.
It was Rico who advised that the children of noble families be restricted.
One day, Rico happened to visit the village of Yugaimura for a soup kitchen, and was astonished to see the children of the nobles, especially the princesses, living there. The girls, who had been carefully tucked away in a dimly lit place deep inside the mansion, had poor eyesight and all had the same pale face and hunched back. ...... In Rico's eyes, they looked passive, as if they had no life of their own and their parents were solely in charge of deciding what to do with their lives. I saw it as a posture. In this sense, Auzin, who was raised by her father Kwang Pak to be completely laissez-faire, selfish, and active, was a different kind of woman from the aristocratic children, even though she was outwardly dressed like a child of the aristocracy.
But the sight of these women ignited Rico's sense of justice. A woman protects her family. It is women who educate their husbands and children. For this reason, women must be strong. But if they remain passive, they will never find happiness. Knowing this from her own experience, she began to educate the princesses of the noble families by encouraging them to go out as much as possible through the emperor, and by providing them with food.
She gently talked to each of the girls who came to pick up their lunch boxes, telling them what ingredients were used in the dishes, what their benefits were, and what a woman should be like. She told them that a woman who can only lift and lower chopsticks is a loss, and that she must make her own life.
Liko's words did not go over well, but after a week of visiting her under Matkal's guard, the mood of the girls began to change. All of them were still breathing on her shoulders, but the color of their faces and skin had visibly improved. Liko prepares food for the soup kitchen and serves it to each one of them, thanking them for their hard work. At the same time, Gon and his men gave rations to the servants who followed them.
"......What is this?"
Hayes, a.k.a. Octa, was watching all this. He had meticulously transferred to Agartha. He had finally located the settlement based on the information that he had seen people who had evacuated from the country of Miedai.
He saw an unbelievable sight. A group of what appeared to be noble princesses were walking in the sun. This would never have happened in the land of the Mideast. To confirm this fact, he completely disappeared and crept into the village.
The group of girls were indeed the princesses of the noble families of Miedai. They were exposing their faces in the bright sunlight, and even sharing a meal together. As I was wondering what was going on, I noticed a woman among them. She was clearly different from the rest of the group. She was talking to each of the princesses, with her long, golden hair swaying in the wind. He looked at her with a keen eye, as he had always had a liking for women.
Suddenly, the woman looked back. At that moment, he forgot to breathe.
The ...... ideal woman was standing there. She had beautiful golden hair, strong-willed eyes that hung high, and yet her eyes showed intelligence. She also had a smooth white skin. Her eyes, mouth, and nose ...... were all to his liking. He found himself walking forward to the woman.
"Well, how can I help you?"
The woman opened her mouth with a beautiful smile. Even her voice was to his liking.
"And you?"
He spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were floating in a fever. The woman looked a little strange, but soon returned to her normal smile and said her name in a firm voice.
My name is Licorette.
"Likolette ......"
"Can I help you? Which retainer are you ...... cack!"
Unconsciously he had taken Rico's arm. Rico tries to shake his hand away with a look of surprise on his face. But at the same time, he puts strength into his arm, and with his free hand he holds the staff of Latgis and draws a magic circle.
"Come on!"
Let go of me!
You crook!
Just as he is about to activate the magic circle, a sword is swung down on his head. Matkal, his bodyguard, noticed something was wrong and slashed at him immediately.
"d*mn!"
He ducked the sword just in time. When he tried to draw the magic circle again, his head was hit by a tremendous shock.
I'm ready!"
The next thing I knew, the white fox was standing right in front of me. At that moment, he realized everything.
"You're one of the princess's dependents! I knew she was working! It was a mistake to do what I did!"
At the moment he said this, his surroundings were enveloped in a dazzling light. At the same time, Rico and the others hear an unfamiliar sound.
"Queek queeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
When he came to, the man was already gone.
"Did you miss him? I must have failed to catch him with all my legal power..."
"Gong, what in the world is that man?"
"Rico, that's Hayes. That's the fox your master has been ordered to search for by his highness. The reddish-black streak that appeared on his face just before he vanished is definitely the fox Hayes.
"Rico-sama, are you all right?"
Matkal sheathes his sword and looks after Rico's body. She frowned, but still spoke back stoutly.
"I have a ...... bruise on my arm. But I'm fine. By the way, Gon, when she disappeared earlier, I heard some kind of strange crying sound, ...... what was it?"
Gong looked a little reluctant to say anything, but eventually he opened his mouth in a small voice as if muttering.
"...... that's a fox word..."
"Kitsune language: ......"
"See you again, my goddess. ...... that's what she said."
Rico's face grew tense.