Chapter 690

Report and wanted posters.
From the transfer room in our domain’s manor, I zipped straight to the transfer room of our royal capital mansion, and over tea, reported to Father that Prince Kaldor and his group had been running a stall in the marketplace.

"…… Seriously, what on earth is that boy doing?"

Father furrowed his brows like he had a headache.
Feeling sympathetic, I laid out some of the tropical fruits I had picked up from Prince Kaldor’s stall as samples.

"What is this?"

Father looked puzzled at the unfamiliar fruits.

"Apparently, these are what Prince Kaldor intends to sell next in our kingdom. They’re fruits that grow in Samonar’s climate."

"…… This sort of thing should be brought to us directly, but I can understand wanting to do market research first. Hmm, the colors and fragrance are certainly quite striking."

He examined the fruit platter carefully, then picked up the small fork and speared a bright-colored mango.

Mother, who had been fidgeting beside him, copied him and took a bite as well.

"How sweet! We rarely see fruit this sweet in our kingdom."

"Oh my… this is marvelous. To think it’s this sweet without being preserved in syrup."

Exactly!
Apples, oranges, plums—you can get those here, but most of them lean heavily on the sour side.
Sweet… but tart! That sort of thing.

Sometimes if you let them ripen longer, they turn pretty sweet, but the timing is tricky. To avoid spoilage, they usually ship them out as soon as they’re somewhat sweet.
And even then, people think they’re already sweet enough, so I can’t blame them.

In contrast, the fruits Prince Kaldor’s caravan brought in were at their absolute peak ripeness.

Well, they’ll probably spoil in a few days, so selling them all quickly in Ellisfeed was the right call.

"It’s a shame we can’t have these in the capital. Ah—but our family can move them with the transfer room, can’t we? Right, dear?"

"Y-yes… we’ll look into it."

"Thank you, dear♡"

Between Father and Mother, it was like little heart marks were floating in the air.
So sweet! Even sweeter than the mango!

"Judging by how naturally they blended into the market stalls, it seems they’ve been here many times before."

Oniisama, perhaps unable to stand the syrupy atmosphere any longer, cleared his throat and added his observation.

"I see. Just as Tirie reported."

"Eh?"

"You see, for some time now, bacon has been bought up in bulk by foreign merchants, and there’s been no end to complaints from those who couldn’t get any. Based on their appearance, we suspected Samonar people."

Ehhh… What are you doing, Prince Kaldor?
Well, we can’t say for sure it was him, but… pretty suspicious!

"So, what did you do?"

"Well, to start with, we issued chits at the guild to those who complained and had them exchange them the next day. After that, we arranged for the workshop to deliver a little extra to cover the chit claims."

Ahh, chits as reservation tickets! As expected of Father, so clever!

Apparently, they’d considered implementing it before, but worried about people being robbed for their chits or counterfeiting.

To solve that, they developed magical ink that glows when matched with its counterpart, had the guild write down the recipient’s signature on their copy (or write it for those who couldn’t), and checked both the chit and the name at pickup.
If the signature didn’t match, no goods.

If trouble arose at pickup—robbery, forgery, whatever—the culprits would be severely punished.

Yikes, that’s thorough!
But then again, it is theft or fraud, so fair enough.

Still, the workshop must have had it rough having to produce even more.
Poor Ash… stay strong!
I’ll ask Father about adding more staff to the workshop for him.

And I’ll bring him a treat when I go pick up the shaved ice machine.

"Prince Kaldor is set to sail home tonight, so we weren’t able to invite him to the manor. However, I did extend our offer to host him next time he enters the country, but he declined, saying he was here as a merchant. He did add, though, that on an official goodwill visit, he’d gladly come."

My brother delivered this as a matter-of-fact social report.
Well, yeah. Basically a polite brush-off.
He doesn’t seem like the stiff, formal type anyway, since he was fine messing around in the capital’s market.

"Even if he claims to be here as a merchant, a foreign prince wandering about the streets unguarded is unacceptable…"

Father’s brow tightened.

He’s right—if anything happened to Prince Kaldor, especially if he were injured or worse, it would blow up into a full-blown diplomatic incident.

"…… Shall we have guards patrol the domain market regularly to monitor his presence?"

Oniisama suggested it, but the problem is that our retainers can’t tell Prince Kaldor’s face apart from other Samonar people.
The capital staff might, since we’ve invited him to our mansion before, but no one wants to be reassigned away from the capital for that.

"And while Samonars are identifiable by their darker skin, telling individuals apart will be difficult."

Ah, that thing. Like how at first all Yahatoor people looked the same to me.

But still, Prince Kaldor is exceptionally handsome, and Tika-san has those distinctive narrow eyes, so I think they’d be easy enough to recognize…

"U, umm… I don’t know if this will help, but… maybe this?"

"Eh?"

Mariel-chan pulled a page from her sketchbook in her inventory and handed it over.

It was a drawing of Prince Kaldor and Tika-san.

"Eh… Prince Kaldor and Tika-san!? Wow, it’s so good!"

"Ho, this is quite impressive."

"My, how wonderfully done."

"True, though isn’t it a little… beautified?"

While Father and Mother praised it, only Oniisama was a bit critical.

I mean, he’s not wrong.
Or rather… somehow it gives off a very BL vibe?

Not the poses exactly, but the atmosphere, the chemistry… Prince Kaldor’s allure is like, 20% stronger here.

"Ahh, so that’s what you were scribbling in your sketchbook right after we got in the carriage."

Sei commented in admiration.

When I looked at Mariel-chan, she said, embarrassed, "Ehehe… I just had to capture this passion before it faded…"

Girl, that’s not passion. That’s fantasy!

Still, the portraits captured their features well enough to be useful, and Father accepted them.

The drawings were copied along with wanted posters and given to guards on patrol.
But apparently, the spares were passed around among some of the mansion staff (mostly maids).

Those who possessed them said things like:
"Just looking at this picture makes my heart flutter… No, it’s not that I have a crush on either of them specifically. It’s just… without these two together, the picture has no meaning."

… Wait.
Does this mean Mariel-chan’s “fellow fans” are in our mansion!?
Eh… what!?

What do you think about this chapter?