Chapter 645: ‘Do Your Best?’

"How was what, Sister Louise?" Lucas asked as he put on the most innocent face he could muster and spoke in distinctly child-like tone.

Not falling for this bad act, Louise rolled her eyes, leaned in, and whispered meaningfully, "How was Tina’s chest? I wasn’t kidding when I said she had ’grown’ quite a bit, right?"

"You mean her Spirit Steel chestplate?" Lucas asked back with obvious sarcasm, "It was cold and hard, like any other sheet of metal."

"Tch, you’re no fun at all," Louise grumbled under her breath, but was clearly not discouraged as she continued trying to egg her future brother-in-law on.

This continued for a few more minutes before a certain young red-head dashed over, somewhat out of breath, and asked, "Where’s Sister Tina?"

"Oh, it’s your first wife," Louise muttered under her breath, earning her a side-eye from Lucas who then promptly proceeded to explain, "Tina was feeling a bit under the weather, so she headed back to the house first, Eris."

"What?!" Eris, hearing that her Junior Sister Disciple wasn’t feeling well, immediately looked concerned, then somewhat guilty.

She had been handling an emergency request at the Rising Phoenix Guild just now, which was why she wasn’t at the dock waiting for Christina to arrive despite knowing her ship would be docking soon.

"I’m heading back to the house!" Eris promptly declared before turning on her heels and dashing off.

"Christina’s found some good friends here," Louise commented cheerfully, patting Lucas on the head as she did so.

"Uh," Lucas wanted to say something, but before he could, he was cut off by his hair being tussled roughly.

Looking up to his side, Lucas silently asked what that was for, only to be met with an unusually serious expression.

The silence between them held for a few seconds before, staring into the young boy’s eyes, Louise said in a solemn tone, "From what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think I need to worry about this, but I’ll say it anyways. Don’t hurt them, Christina or Eris, or I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your very short life."

"I won’t," Lucas replied immediately and forcefully, "I will always do my best to protect them and make them happy."

"You’ll ’do your best’?" Louise raised her brow, a slightly unfriendly look creeping onto her face as she asked, "You can’t even promise you’ll protect them, and never hurt them?"

Lucas wasn’t intimidated, however, and simply shook his head, "It would be a lie if I said I could always guarantee their safety and happiness. I’m not a god."

A somewhat wry look then appeared on the young boy’s face, one that was a mixture of self-mockery and helplessness, "Besides, both of them are stronger than me, and probably always will be unless something dramatic changes."

After that comment was made, silence fell between the pair, with the doting older sister and the strange young boy staring each other down for about a minute before Louise let out a sigh and grumbled under her breath, "Honest, earnest, hard working, dedicated, smart, caring, talented, rich, cute, definitely going to be handsome in the future... if only you were a bit older, then I could just have you marry me too."

"Please don’t make such bad jokes, Your Highness," Lucas stumbled and nearly fell, his face twitching hard at just how easily Louise had destroyed any sense of seriousness in the atmosphere.

"Hah! You think I’m joking?" Louise, however, just scoffed.

Letting go of the boy, she straightened up and declared without any hint of shame, "Ever since that stubborn old man of mine finally let me go on my first date, I’ve been in several relationships, but all of them ended terribly!"

"Those bastards all pretended to be nice, pretended to have an interest in my life, pretended to support me and my pursuits, but it was painfully obvious they only saw me as a princess and only cared about my political position and what being together with me could do for them!" Louise complained aloud, quite clearly not caring who heard her.

Her anger steadily rising, the First Princess of the Rockwell Kingdom continued, "I mean, I get it! I do! I’m from the royal family, so it’s only natural that men wouldn’t be able to separate me from my background, right? I knew that, so I was willing to tolerate their attitudes to a certain extent, but I can only take so much! I’m a woman too! Is it too much to ask for them to give a damn about me and not just my title?!"

"Uh, Your Highness, maybe this isn’t the best place to..." Lucas tried to get a word in, but was swiftly cut off.

"This is all your fault!" Louise snapped, turning to Lucas and pointing at him accusingly.

Huh!? How the hell is your bad dating record my fault!? Lucas screamed to himself, though he knew better than to interrupt now.

"You!" Louise glared hard at him, "You don’t give a fuck about Tina being a princess! You don’t care what she can do for you, or what doors she might be able to open, you only care about her! You’re proof that good men... er, good boys exist! Do you know how jealous that makes me!?"

Turning to a stack of nearby crates and kicking them hard, all while scrambling her own hair, Louise looked practically frantic as she cursed, "God damn it! How did Tina get so lucky while I can’t even find a half-decent sop to have some fun with!?"

By now, everyone else on the dock had wisely moved away, or turned their attention elsewhere so they could pretend they weren’t hearing the presumptive heir to their kingdom’s throne whine about being unable to find a man.

Unfortunately for Lucas, he didn’t have that option. All he could do was stand there with a blank look on his face and nod.

It was several more minutes before Louise finally calmed down, at which point she let out a very, very long sigh and began stomping away from the dock.

Seeing this, although he really didn’t want to, Lucas knew he had to ask, "Um, where are you going, Your Highness?"

"To get a drink!" Louise shouted, not even looking back as she stormed off.