Chapter 477: Chapter 69 - My Parents Free Time
From behind the teleportation slash, I could see the front garden of Marquess Rommel’s Main Mansion filled with knights and several baggage carts carrying wooden boxes filled with food.
The situation was not much different from what I experienced on the military expedition, where my parents and I were both busy facing the war season between the nobles.
With such large food reserves and Marquess Rommel’s vast territory, making a careful planning and defense were necessary to counter every attack.
Tap...
Tap...
Without stopping my steps to enter the Main Mansion of Marquess Rommel with Mio, I was suddenly greeted by Sebastian, who happened to be taking care of the horse-drawn carriage, filled with food stock to distributed.
The night, accompanied only by the lantern light from the horse-drawn carriage, almost made Mio and me blend into the darkness. Several units of Black Maids watching from the shadows almost attacked me, but the silhouette of a long, cursed Odachi and a teleportation slash that shone brightly in the darkness gave me identity away.
The herd of stealth slimes assigned to protect Marquess Rommel’s Main Mansion also appeared from the darkness of the night, greeting me with a light wind magic that brushed against my body.
Swooosshh...
Swooossshh...
It felt cold, and make me shivered when I only wore this military uniform that showed off my skin.
"Welcome back, Lily-sama."
"You work so hard that you carry a wooden box full of report papers."
"Does this military expedition feel exciting in discovering something new and unprecedented?"
Sebastian greeted me as I approached the entrance of Marquess Rommel’s Main Mansion, his hands full with a wooden board filled with thick paper and a quill resting on top of a nearly empty ink bottle.
"Yes, and I’m home, Sebastian..."
"You’ve been working hard all night, too, haven’t you?" I replied, receiving Sebastian’s greeting.
His old face looked tired, but his eyes shone brightly as he carried out the task given by my father without any fatigue.
"Haha, yeess... some sudden jobs are coming in, especially with civilians coming from the outer regions of Marquess Rommel. They bring whatever crops they can harvest and go to Marquess Rommel’s main city, which is starting to be abandoned. To make sure they are not spies who will stab in the back once the war season between nobles begins, I need to check whether their food supply are suspicious or not," said Sebastian while moving his hand to pick up one of the potatoes that was dirty.
The potato Sebastian was holding looked small, so small that it almost look weird, or was it a new type of potato that I didn’t know about?
My hand reflexively reached out towards Sebastian, and I wanted to hold that potato, too.
Sebastian smiled and took some potatoes that he had just checked to see if they were suspicious or not.
"Here, Lily-sama..."
Three potatoes were in my hand. Unlike the potatoes I usually eat, which were large enough to fit in one fist, these potatoes were so small they looked like grapes.
The size is a little bigger than a grape...
And it’s too small compared to the potatoes I usually eat...
The hard texture and the signs of greenness spot that can grow in a damp room indicate that this is a... real potato.
"Uhm, what a quite unique potato..." I said to comment on this.
"Yes, this potato grows in a high and cold place, so it becomes a unique potato like this, Lily-sama."
"Ahhh, is that so?" I immediately returned the unique potato I was holding to Sebastian after hearing a faint sigh come from Mio.
With her hand still holding the wooden box containing important report papers, Mio gave me a small signal to immediately rush into the Main Mansion of Marquess Rommel to hand over the daily report to my mother.
"By the way, my parents... Aren’t too busy, are they?" I asked Sebastian before entering Marquess Rommel’s Main Mansion.
"No, they’re both not that busy... but Marchioness Amagi been quite clingy to Marquess Rommel lately, either because their daughters aren’t home or they’re taking this opportunity to be more... intimate," Sebastian replied with an ambiguous sentence that left me wondering.
"Huh?" I tilted my head to the side and let my long hair down.
"Cough! Well, they’re both not that busy, Lily-sama," Sebastian continued with a firm answer after considering various things in his head.
"A-Aaaahhh... I see," I was a little confused about how to respond to Sebastian’s words and ended up waving my hand before going to my mother’s study.
Swiipp...
Swiipp...
With a slow wave of my hand and continuing my steps to enter the Main Mansion of Marquess Rommel, I thought about the strange answer Sebastian had given earlier.
"Sebastian’s answer was quite strange, wasn’t it, Mio?" I asked Mio, who was walking beside me.
"Yeah, perhaps... its caused by the Marquess and Marchioness are busy with their own affairs after getting married. So, this is the right time to build a romantic atmosphere for them while other noble families are busy with the war season between nobles, and their daughters are away," replied Mio, who gave two answer options that were quite reasonable in my head.
"Using this free time to be intimate as a husband and wife, what a strange married couple," I commented in a sarcastic tone.
"Lily-sama is the same, too. Always taking advantage of any opportunity to be intimate with other women."
"E-Eehh?" My heart suddenly felt sore when I heard Mio say something like that.
"W-What do you mean by that, Mio?" I asked as I glanced at Mio and continued walking into Marquess Rommel’s Main Mansion.
Tap...
Tap...
"Hmm~ what do I mean?" Mio asked while smiling softly at me, and her eyes looked like she was annoyed about something.
"It’s okay, Lily-sama. It’s not like I know that ’another woman’ has hugged Lily-sama or kissed Lily-sama’s lips, just from the smell of her perfume," Mio replied in a low voice and bit her lower lip.
The fine hairs on the nape of my neck suddenly stood up, and my body shivered.
"I’m aware of my position as a maid, so I don’t really mind it."
"Alice-sama and Alyssa-sama already noticed it, but they ignored it after their minds were filled with curiosity and inquisitiveness that wanted to decipher the principles of natural magic from the paper scroll that Miss Lisa gave to Lily-sama," Mio continued with a wide smile on her face.
I could only smile faintly after realizing it and sniffing my own body odor.
Sniff...
Sniff...
As far as I can smell with my nose, there is nothing strange about my body odor...
Or my nose being bad at smelling my own body odor?
Whatever it was, it seemed like I had just avoided some pretty big trouble from my twin sister and Mio. Without I knowing it.
"Huum~ Feel relieved now, Lily-sama?"
Just when I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, Mio suddenly surprised me with a terrifying question.
"Y-Yes?" I could only smile and admit it.
"Please be careful when you come home with the body odor of another woman, Lily-sama."
"Not all women have a great tolerance for their partners coming home with the smell of another woman’s body."
"I might be fine because of my position as a maid who always fulfills Lily-sama’s needs, but for the other women... Lily-sama will have a hard time to calming their jealousy," said Mio, who seemed to be warning me about the mistake I had made.
My face still kept smiling and nodding.
"I understand... I will be more careful after receiving a hug from another woman."
"Heee... so you really did get a hug from another woman?" Mio replied in a quick tone and smiled awkwardly at me.
It seems, I just confessed my sins to Mio and shocked her into make her smiling stiffly like this.
My footsteps that had entered the Main Mansion of Marquess Rommel felt heavy; it didn’t feel like I was returning home but rather like I was returning with a abundant of problems related to the women I love.
"I can’t refuse their hug, Mio."
"Heeee... can’t refuse it, huh? It’s true... a hug from a Duchess can’t be refused, even after Lily-sama made her as a loyal pet? Oh! That’s right, a pet that wants to be pampered by its owner with a hug? I almost forgot about that possibility," Mio grumbled, looking annoyed at something I didn’t understand, and keep talking to herself with lower voice.
I could guess what Mio was thinking, but there was no time left to straighten out the misunderstanding in Mio’s mind.
Tap...
Tap...
Inside Marquess Rommel’s Main Mansion, it was bustling with knights making final preparations for the upcoming war between the nobles. Even the butlers and maids assigned to Marquess Rommel’s Main Mansion were helping carry the knights’ belongings.
In such a complicated situation, I’m unsure how much free time my parents have to spend together.
Their schedules are too packed, and there’s no room to relax or intimacy.
Without disturbing the busy activities of the knights, butlers, and maids, I hurried through the corridors that led directly to my mother’s study, which was somehow in underground Mansion.
Walking down the dark stairs and seeing the remains of a recently extinguished candle with drip spilling onto the floor, I forced my way into my mother’s study by kicking the door open.
"MOM!! ARE YOU HERE?!"
Braaakkk!!
Without waiting for an answer and kicking the door into my mother’s study, my eyes were shocked by my father and mother sitting on the sofa, while my father holding my mother in his lap.
What Sebastian said proved to be true.
My father and mother were able to use their free time to be affectionate.