Chapter 185: A Sudden Engagement [5]

"I’ll go get some refreshments," Anastasiya said. "Is there anything you would like, Your Highness?"

Liselotte looked toward the nearby stalls for a moment, seemingly considering her options before her eyes settled on one selling chilled fruit drinks.

"Something sweet would be nice. Whatever you recommend is fine."

"Understood."

Anastasiya had barely taken a step when Ilya raised his hand.

"What about me?"

She stopped and looked back at him. "What about you?"

"Aren’t you going to ask what I want?"

"You can get it yourself."

"...."

Ilya watched his sister walk away without another word, slipping into the crowd before he could even think of a response.

Just a few minutes ago, she had been treating Liselotte with enough consideration to personally offer to fetch her refreshments, yet apparently that courtesy extended exclusively to the Imperial Princess and not her own flesh and blood.

Beside him, Liselotte tried to suppress a laugh.

"You two seem rather close."

"...Close? I’m not so sure about that."

"Well, to me, Lady Anastasiya just seems rather awkward with you."

"Yeah, I can guess that. It’s only recently that we’ve even been on speaking terms."

"...Is that so?"

Liselotte gave him a knowing look but did not pry any deeper.

Whatever circumstances had led the two siblings to become so distant in the first place were none of her business, and if Ilya wanted to tell her about it someday, then she would simply wait until he chose to do so himself.

With Anastasiya gone for the moment, however, Ilya finally had an opportunity to bring up something that had been bothering him since Liselotte first walked into his classroom.

"By the way, Miss Liselotte, what’s all this about?"

"Pardon?" Liselotte blinked before understanding what he meant. "Ah, you mean the engagement. Isn’t it fun?"

"But it’s not true, is it? We haven’t even had a ceremony, and I’ve yet to meet your father, His Imperial Majesty."

That was right.

Whatever this was, to Ilya, it seemed like Liselotte was jumping the gun when nothing had actually been made official yet.

There had certainly been discussions about an engagement between the two of them, and both of their families seemed to have every intention of proceeding with it, but intentions were still intentions.

Ilya had never met the Emperor and formally received his approval. There had been no engagement ceremony, no public declaration from either House, and as far as he was concerned, none of the formalities expected of a marriage involving an Imperial Princess had actually taken place.

Yet Liselotte had walked into Holy Trinity Academy that morning and introduced him as her fiancé as casually as though all of those matters had already been settled months ago.

She placed the stuffed wolf beside herself on the bench and turned toward him properly.

"My father has already given his approval, Ilya. Your father has given his as well, and neither of us has objected to the arrangement. The ceremony is only a formality that hasn’t happened yet."

"Only a formality?"

"Mhm."

"That particular formality involves the Emperor."

"My father."

"The Emperor to everyone who isn’t you."

Liselotte laughed softly at that, but Ilya remained unconvinced.

He understood what she was saying, and perhaps from her perspective, there truly wasn’t much uncertainty left.

Their fathers had already discussed the arrangement. Neither family opposed it, and Liselotte herself clearly had no intention of refusing.

"But our agreement is still in place, right?"

"Of course." Liselotte’s expression turned serious. "You, Ilya Valentinovich Belozersky, serve to ward off the men who could’ve been engaged to me, as you have earned my trust. But speaking of trust, there’s something you haven’t told me yet."

"And what’s that?"

"The men I entrusted to you when you were dealing with that problem a few months ago."

"A few months..."

Ilya was confused for a moment, until the memory finally returned to him.

"Ah."

Helene.

Back then, Liselotte had lent him several men to help deal with the situation, giving him resources he otherwise wouldn’t have had access to.

Unfortunately, the entire matter had spiraled far beyond anything either of them could have anticipated when Helene transformed into a Distortion.

As a result, the men Liselotte had entrusted to him had all died.

"Did you know a Black-Labeled Distortion would appear?" she asked.

"It was a coincidence."

"A coincidence, huh?" Liselotte studied his face for a few moments before eventually nodding. "Then we’ll leave it at that. Still, do you have any idea how much trouble I was in afterward?"

"Uhm...?"

"I don’t have an army of my own, Ilya. Those men weren’t actually mine. They were under my sister’s command, and she was rather furious when I had to explain that every single man she lent me had died."

"...Sorry?"

At the time, he had been too occupied with Helene and everything surrounding her to question the matter, and after the Distortion appeared, there had been far more immediate concerns than tracing the exact origin of Liselotte’s assistance.

Liselotte leaned back against the bench and sighed.

"I had to explain why I borrowed them, why I lent them to you, why none of them returned, and why their deaths somehow involved a Black-Labeled Distortion appearing in the middle of what I had described as a relatively simple problem."

"That does sound difficult to explain."

"It was impossible to explain. I didn’t even know what happened."

Ilya scratched his cheek.

He supposed that was fair.

From Liselotte’s perspective, she had entrusted him with several men for a private matter, only to later discover that every single one of them had been killed after becoming involved in an incident severe enough to include a Black-Labeled Distortion.

Worse still, she had apparently been responsible for explaining all of that to the person who had actually commanded them in the first place.

"I suppose I owe your sister an apology."

"You owe me one first."

"Sorry."

Liselotte blinked.

She had apparently expected more resistance than that.

Ilya didn’t see much reason to give her any. Regardless of whether the appearance of the Distortion had been his fault, Liselotte had trusted him enough to provide help when he needed it, and those men had died while assisting him.

If that decision had caused problems for her afterward, then an apology was hardly unreasonable.

A faint smile appeared on Liselotte’s face, but it disappeared again as she looked down at her hands.

There was clearly still something else bothering her, and judging by the way she had brought up the incident after several months, Ilya doubted the deaths of those men were the only reason.

"My sister asked quite a few questions about you afterward."

Ilya glanced at her. "What kind of questions?"

"The kind that made me regret ever mentioning your name to her."

That didn’t sound promising.

Liselotte turned toward him.

"So, congratulations, Ilya. You’ve managed to catch the attention of another Imperial Princess."

Ilya closed his eyes. Somehow, that sounded considerably more threatening than it should have.

After that, their conversation moved on to considerably less troublesome matters.

Liselotte told him about the classes she had been assigned after completing the rest of her enrollment paperwork, and the two compared their schedules to see how often they would actually encounter each other during the week.

There were several classes they would be taking together, although there were just as many where their schedules went in completely different directions.

They spent the next few minutes going through the rest of her schedule, with Ilya giving her his impressions of the professors and classes he was already familiar with.

Liselotte occasionally asked about something that caught her attention, particularly the courses they shared, while Ilya warned her about a few professors whose classes tended to be more troublesome than their course descriptions suggested.

By the time they ran out of things to discuss about the academy, the conversation had wandered toward a handful of other mundane topics.

Neither of them brought up the engagement again, nor did Ilya return to the matter of the men Liselotte had lent him several months ago, and before long, he noticed Anastasiya making her way back through the crowd.

It wasn’t long before Ilya spotted his sister making her way through the crowd again.

Anastasiya carried three drinks with her, along with a small paper tray balanced awkwardly against one arm.

She handed Liselotte her drink first before passing another to Ilya, which already came as enough of a surprise that he briefly wondered whether she had accidentally bought too many.

Then she held out the paper tray.

"This is yours."

Ilya looked down.

Inside were several pieces of the fried pastry he had noticed at one of the stalls earlier, still warm and covered with a thin layer of sugar.

He looked back at Anastasiya.

"You bought this for me?"

"Don’t make a big deal out of it."

Anastasiya turned her face away almost immediately, suddenly finding something in the opposite direction extremely interesting.

"You were staring at that stall earlier, so I assumed you wanted some. That’s all."

"....’

Ilya blinked.

He had looked at it earlier, although only briefly. He hadn’t said anything about wanting it, nor had he planned on buying any after Liselotte dragged them farther into the carnival.

Apparently, Anastasiya had noticed anyway.

"...."

For a moment, Ilya didn’t know what to say. His fingers tightened around the paper tray without him realizing it, bending the edges inward until he nearly crushed it in his grip.

"If you’re too nice to me, it’ll only make things harder..." he murmured.

"What was that?" Anastasiya asked.

"Ah."

Ilya looked down and noticed what he had done to the tray. He immediately loosened his grip, carefully straightening the bent edge with his thumb before anything inside could spill.

"Nothing. I said thank you."

"I’m pretty sure I heard something else."

Anastasiya gave him a suspicious look, but Ilya had already picked up one of the pastries and taken a bite before she could question him any further.

She continued staring at him for a few seconds before eventually letting the matter go and turning back toward Liselotte.

"Whatever."

Meanwhile, Ilya continued eating, his expression returning to normal as though the brief exchange had never happened.