Idle talk – Diary of a Maid’s Observation of Her Master (2)
“His Majesty has escaped again. We must arrest him immediately and throw him back into the office, where the Prime Minister is waiting for him!! If not, we will be forced to write massive amount of reports!!”
“You must be kidding, today is my wedding anniversary. Let’s have His Majesty make the sacrifice.”
I heard such statements on the way, which are unbecoming of retainers, but it’s a common occurrence. No one will blame you for catching the fleeing King and throwing him into the office. Rather, you will be praised. It is all the fault of His Majesty who runs away.
A Knight joined the other Knights who were going to search for him. He must have been in a great hurry, as he was gasping for breath. As I recall, that outfit is from the inside castle guards. In other words, he must be in charge of guarding the inner palace. The inner palace of this country has rooms for the royalty.
“Trouble!! His Majesty is taking Princess out of town!! I heard a letter was left in the Princess’s room saying that she was going to town with His Majesty!!”
“That bastard!! Take the guards with you!! I will hit him if anything happens to Princess.”
“I will put him in the sack and hand him over to the Prime Minister!!”
!! What did he say— I had a different maid assigned to guard and watch over her, but she must have fallen for Princess’s illusion. I immediately headed for the castle gate. Princess is probably not disguising herself. She doesn’t use magic to change her appearance within her own country. In other words, I can recognize her anywhere as long as she’s in the Capital.
Also… Your Majesty… aren’t you being disliked by the Knights too much? They probably don’t expect or trust that much of him in terms of work. It is true that he is not called a wise King. People say that he’s a solid King, but he is basically a warrior King. Moreover, he is an upstart, so he gets along quite well with the Knights. However, the Knights probably can’t hide their resentment at His Majesty’s daily escapades.
Furthermore, when His Majesty goes to town, he is usually at a bar. If he took Princess, who has become the Knights’ healer, to such a place, he would certainly be beaten to a pulp. Even if they hurt him a little, the Prime Minister will turn a blind eye, so I guess there’s no problem. I must find Princess as soon as possible, though.
I’ve been running on the roofs of the buildings in town for an hour. Why am I running on rooftops? It’s because there are so many people passing by on the road that I can’t see through them. Ah!! The owner of the butcher’s store was beating a man dressed in all-black with a meat club in the back alley. He is usually a mild-mannered person, so this is unusual… I mean, the guy in the black is suspicious.
“What is going on?”
I’m here anyway. He is also a good friend of Princess.
“Yo, comrade. He was stalking our Princess!! And when I questioned him about it, he just tried to cut me up. He was going to do something weird to Princess anyway, so I decided to beat him up.”
I see. He was No. 100,049 of the Hidden Princess Fan Club, so he couldn’t tolerate people who would hurt her.
“Beat him up moderately and hand him over to the Knights Order. As long as he’s alive, no one will complain if two or three of his limbs are shattered.”
Princess ventures to the town quite a bit, so she has a lot of acquaintances. And the stores favored by Princess have a status of their own. Moreover, if there is an injured person in front of her, she will treat them free of charge, so she is very liked among the citizens. Therefore, some residents who are fascinated with Princess stalk her… or observe her… or protect her from the shadows. That being the case, if I ask my comrades, I can easily find out where she is. By the way, I am No. 1, so what?
“By the way, where is the Princess now?”
“She was at the coffee shop a few minutes ago. Now she’s heading that way. We’ve got our comrades keeping an eye on her, so no bad guys can get anywhere near her. And there were a couple of perverts our comrades beat the shit out of, too.”
I need to get to her as soon as possible. I don’t need to worry about suspicious people. His Majesty will help with that. But perverts are another thing. I hear that these days there are new kinds of perverts who wear coats over their naked body and show their dirty sausages to girls. We cannot let such filth in the sight of Princess. If we are not careful, she may develop a phobia of men. If I were nearby, I would cut the filth in half before Princess could sense it… I don’t want her to see blood, so I would immediately pull them into a back alley and hand them over to comrades on standby. Those who do that kind of thing to Princess will be executed anyway. In a sense, It’s quite a brave of them to show such a thing to royalty, but we don’t need such brave men in this country.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
“Sure thing.”
After parting with the butcher store owner, I searched for Princess again along the roofs. I have to meet up with Princess as soon as possible…
But her environment is not good. I need to increase the number of maids as soon as possible. I am the only one who can oppose Princess, so without me, she can do whatever she wants. If I don’t secure some sort of essential opposition to Princess, she won’t be stopped without my presence. I am also busy to death.
“Caught you!!”
“Whaaah!!”
When I saw Princess walking down the street, I jumped down from the roof and caught her immediately. She went AWOL. I had to be firm with her, or she wouldn’t be sorry.
“I thought you knew you weren’t able to go out without a permission… hm?”
I’m sure I caught Princess, but what I was holding in my arms was the hateful dog.
“Grrr.”
“Oy, you mongrel. Where are you hiding, my Princess? If you don’t show me the way, I will bury you alive.”
However, I don’t understand dog language. He protested with a huff and puff, but to me, it looked like he was trying to provoke me. I don’t like this spoiled dog because he is adored by Princess too much. I’m definitely not jealous of him.
I threw the dog off and jumped on the roof to check the surroundings again. There is no way that a bad dog would walk around town without Princess. She must have somehow sensed my approach and switched places with him. I wouldn’t be surprised if Princess used some kind of magic.
However, there was no need for me to rush out to find her. She was looking at a nearby cake shop. Perhaps she was lured by the sweetness and forgot to run away.
“I’ve got you… now?”
I thought I had caught her properly this time, but for some reason, I had the spoiled dog in my arms again… is it a curse?