Both my parents and the girls were pleased with it, so it was worth all the effort.
At the end of the party, I gave each of the girls the engagement ring I had crafted for them, then we ate the chocolate cake together.
It was a Sachertorte, also known as the king of chocolate cakes in my previous life. It was fun to see everyone so intoxicated by the taste that actually led to a lawsuit over the recipe, and Maha having the look of a businesswoman in her eyes.
And then…
As soon as the sun had risen, I had to send Maha home.
[I wish you could’ve stayed with us a bit longer, Maha-chan.] (Tarte)
[So do I. But I have work to do. Lugh-niisan has entrusted me with Orna, so I can’t neglect it.] (Maha)
Maha looked a little sad.
[We’ll come and see you again soon.] (Lugh)
[Yes, I’ll be waiting for you. With this ring, I feel like I can keep going through anything.] (Maha)
The sapphire ring on Maha’s finger was glowing blue.
[When that time comes, I’ll be there as well. I wanted to chat with you a bit longer.] (Dia)
[I’m glad to hear it. I was hoping to talk with you more myself, Dia.] (Maha)
In a single day, Dia and Maha had become good friends.
They seemed to have a good chemistry, and yesterday, they were having tons of fun together.
It was surprising how two people with such different interests and personalities could get along so well.
…No, maybe it wasn’t so surprising at all. They were a mage and a merchant. Even if they had taken different paths, they were both professionals in their respective fields. So of course they had some things in common.
[Well, I’ll be on my way.] (Maha)
[Take good care of yourself.] (Tarte)
[We’ll bring you souvenirs.] (Dia)
After that, I brought out my aircraft, then we took off.
Some time had passed since then.
I had to deal with all kinds of trouble.
The news of my engagement had had a much greater impact than I expected.
When the royal family in person sent me their congratulatory gifts, all of the nobles around this area went into a frenzy.
They already thought that I had the favor of the royal family for being a demon-slaying hero, but this attention was the conclusive evidence.
They were all desperately trying to get close to House Tuatha Dé somehow. My father even laughed bitterly at the tenfold increase in the number of people who claimed to be his friends or relatives in a single week.
In the Kingdom of Alvan, although the power of the nobility was strong, the prestige of the royal family was still present.
And the number of engagement proposals, of which I was already receiving plenty before that, had soared tremendously.
Normally, it would be foolish to ask for an engagement to someone who had already announced his own engagement, but this country allowed polygamy. So their reasoning was that since I had multiple wives, I might as well take their daughters too.
The most annoying among them have to be those high-ranking nobles who claim that they will tolerate Dia and the others and demand that I take their daughters as my legal wives with a condescending attitude.
This was a bothersome position to be in, but most of all, I was pissed off by the contemptuous content of those letters toward Dia and the others.
Replying to every one of them was gonna be major pain in the ass.
That’s another thing I’ll have to endure till next week.
I would be back at the academy next week.
Then I would be free from this irritating chore for a good while.
…Well, I presume there’ll be a few girls who will try to approach me at the behest of their households, but even their social status will become irrelevant on the academy grounds. In other words, I can simply turn them down.
The terminal in my room rang. Judging by the channel, it was a call from Maha.
[Oh! So you’re in your room today?] (Maha)
[Yeah, I was just mindlessly writing refusals to a mountain of engagement letters I received.] (Lugh)
[I see you have your own problems as well.] (Maha)
[“As well”? Is there something going on with Orna?] (Lugh)
[Well, of course. Because the representative of Orna has become the fiancée of the instantly famous Lugh Tuatha Dé, you know?] (Maha)
[Fair enough. …I guess I didn’t think this through. Maybe I should’ve saved the engagement for a bit later.] (Lugh)
[Don’t say that. I’m overjoyed that you showed us how you feel, Lugh-niisan. But that aside, here’s my usual report. So far, there’s no sign of demonic activities.] (Maha)
[I see. Thanks.] (Lugh)
Lately, the demons’ return to activity seemed to have subsided.
That’s why I had been on the alert for the possibility that the demons were actually up to something. However, as Maha said, there was no sign of the demons making any move.
On the other hand, there was another development that had come up in her report that was a bit more worrisome.
…It seemed that the Church was up to no good.
[You’re welcome. But from now on, it’s going to be a bit harder for me to contact you regularly. It’d be all too risky to try and extend the telecommunication network to the academy grounds.] (Maha)
[I took the time to think of all kinds of solutions. I’ll figure out something in the next few days.] (Lugh)
The cables and terminals of my network would be much tougher to install there than in a normal city.
But not impossible.
[That’s a relief. I would hate to be unable to hear your voice, Lugh-niisan. I have to hang up. See you on our next call.] (Maha)
[Yeah, thanks for your efforts.] (Lugh)
And then, our call ended.
It seems Maha had her own share of trouble. Maybe I should drop by the company as Illig Balor sometime.
And keep an eye out for the most effective timing to show up.
I got off the carriage and passed through the gate.
Today, I saw Dia and Tarte in their school uniforms for the first time in ages.
Starting today, we would attend the academy again.
The students seemed happy to see their friends again.
[We’re attracting so much attention.] (Tarte)
[We- or rather, Lugh has done a lot while the academy was closed, after all.] (Dia)
As we walked around the academy, we garnered a lot of attention.
We had become celebrities through and through.
One of the reasons for those stares was that Dia and Tarte were head-turning beauties, and they had their engagement rings on their fingers.
Ever since I gave them their rings on the day of our engagement party, they had been wearing them almost all the time, except when they bathed or went to bed.
Sometimes, they would blankly gaze at their rings with a relaxed expression, and seeing them like that made me happy as well.
[I’m really not used to those kinds of stares.] (Lugh)
[I suggest you get used to them. Because you’ll be drawing a lot more attention from now on.] (Dia)
[That’ll never happen.] (Lugh)
[Yes, it will. I can’t even imagine you ever staying put.] (Dia)
[Tarte, please say something.] (Lugh)
[Ahaha… Well… if anything, I agree with Dia-sama more.] (Tarte)
I never thought even Tarte would say that.
Is this gonna be a daily occurrence?
The students merely watched us from afar, and didn’t have the courage to talk to us.
However, there were exceptions to everything.
A student I had deliberately avoided contact with until the academy was temporarily closed, and vice-versa, appeared before us.
And she was a celebrity herself.
The head of her class, and one year our senior.
[Lugh Tuatha Dé. I need to talk to you. Please come to my room.] (Nevan)
Nevan Romalung.
The daughter of House Romalung, one of the four major dukedoms.
Their ultimate goal was to create superior human beings, and she was the greatest masterpiece they ever conceived by combining superior genes.
[Yes, as you wish, Nevan-senpai.] (Lugh)
Shrill voices echoed around us.
…I did hear that Nevan was popular with boys and girls alike, but I didn’t know it was to that extent.
The students were amused by the pairing of two celebrities like Nevan and myself.
Until now, Nevan and I had had no interaction within the academy because as far as the Tuatha Dé clan’s assassination business was concerned, Duke Romalung was our boss, and they played their role by carefully examining the requests from the royal family.
Tuatha Dé and Romalung had to keep their connection a secret. There was such a status gap between their dukedom and my barony that if we got too close to each other, some people would wonder if there was more to us than meets the eye.
However, things were different now. With my notoriety, even if I got close to the daughter of a duke, no one would suspect a thing.
We walked side by side.
Nevan spoke to me using a unique vocal technique so only I could hear her.
[Now that you’re famous, it will be much easier for me to do my job.] (Nevan)
[My father told me about… how even Romalung’s secret services couldn’t be entrusted with the delivery of this new request. Looks like this is something you need to tell me personally. To be frank, this makes me feel a bit nervous.] (Lugh)
Before we left for the academy, my father informed me that we had received an assassination request.
Normally, the Romalungs’ secret services would deliver a coded message to us.
Those guys were top secret agents. Moreover, their code was so complex that even if the message was to be stolen, it was highly unlikely to be deciphered.
In fact, no request made to Tuatha Dé had ever been leaked to the outside world.
Yet this time, it was decided that Nevan herself would deliver this request to me in her room at the academy, which was, in a way, the place where information was the least likely to leak out.
[You will be surprised when I tell you. It’s a blasphemy of a request.] (Nevan)
That alone told me pretty much everything about it.
The hints were hidden in the information scattered all over the place that my ears and eyes picked up.
And if my inference was correct, then never mind killing the target, the mere act of expressing hostility toward that individual would not only warrant me a death sentence, but also the execution of my entire clan.
This could be the toughest assassination of my whole life, including my previous one.
[Well, that’s quite the thoughtful engagement gift you’re giving me here.] (Lugh)
[Glad to see you appreciate it. …And just so you know, even if I had become your fiancée, and you had been adopted into my family, I would have still made that same request to you.] (Nevan)
This wasn’t her personal judgment, it was House Romalung that had come to the decision that the target needed to be killed for the good of the country.
In that case, I had to face that request as a member of Tuatha Dé clan.
If after hearing her out, I come to the conclusion that it will really benefit the Alvanian Kingdom, then I will swing the blade of Tuatha Dé.
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