Before I finished guessing in my minds, Captain Jullius squeezed the wood pieces between his fingertips. He looked around once more to make sure there's no one saw him, then his hands moved in a flash. The wood pieces that looked like needles, fled towards the chandelier one after another at an invisible speed. The candlelights that reflected between the crystals on the chandelier, faded away in the blink of eyes.
"Ah!"
"What happened?"
The banquet hall instantly became dimmed as if the sun was setting and the guests looked up at the chandelier on the ceiling while murmuring in confusion. Some lights on the banquet hall were still on, but not bright enough to illuminate the whole room like chandelier. At this moment, Countess Canaly also looked at the chandelier with the other ladies without paying any attention on us.
"Is it the wind?"
"Who opened the window on the second floor?"
In the midst of the commotion, Princess Aranea instructed her people to light up the chandelier again. As soon as the lights went out, Captain Jullius quickly used his fork and filled up his plate. And of course, I also quickly piled up a mountain of chocolate desserts onto my plate. Ha…I knew what you meant. Before the chandelier turned back on, I casted a glance at Captain Jullius to follow me.
Let's go this way.
We have to move quickly before getting caught. We moved to a dark spot and quickly slipped out to the balcony. This time, I didn't forget to remove the curtain's decoration. From the balcony, there's only darkness spreading out at the garden below. The lights from the decorative lanterns was shining like a group of fallen stars on the ground. I sat down on the balcony railing while holding a plate and a fork.
"Countess Canaly won't be able to find us here."
She couldn't just opened any curtains when she didn't know who was behind the curtains. She might run into other's secret meetings if she shamelessly searched for every balconies. Opened up the curtain even though there's already a sign that indicated the place has been occupied, was a rude behavior, unless there's any crucial issue. That's why, finally we can rest assured here.
In the meantime, the lights from inside the banquet hall leaked into the balcony through the curtains so we knew that chandelier has been lit up again. After eating a chocolate ball, I picked up another chocolate ball with the fork and fed it to Captain Jullius. He received the chocolate ball into his mouth and ate it like he always did. Actually we've been warned not to use same tableware to feed others but, nobody see us right now so it's okay.
"When are you going to meet with the High Priest?"
I haven't asked the exact date yet. Even if I need to wait, it should be just a month at most. Captain Jullius replied while feeding me a piece of tiramisu from his plate.
"In a week."
"There isn't much time left."
"If we can't get engaged until then, you'll have to wait for another one month."
"Hmm, I see."
Jeez, the time is too tight. Maybe I should pay a visit to the Count while bringing a sword and threatened him to let me get engaged. Well, or perhaps should I just blackmail the Countess instead of the Count whose face I haven't known yet? Even though it wouldn't be easy to blackmail the Countess but… threatening the Count seemed better after all. I can tortured a man but I felt reluctant to touch a woman.
(T/N: not the literal meaning of 'touch' like skinship. But more like hit/beat/torture/etc…)
"Today we've let the public known about our relationship, so the next thing we have to do is to get engaged. Based on the Imperial Law, children under twenty-two years of age couldn't get engaged or married without their's father permission. Am I right?"
Captain Jullius nodded to answer my question.
"That's what I heard."
If there's no father, then you need to get the permission from the mother. It was an old way by the noble families to prevent noble children that hasn't coming of age yet, from sneaking up to get engaged or married to people from lower class. Although recently those kind of cases have reduced quite a lot, but in the past, the nobles placed an utmost importance to preserve their so-called pure blue-blood.
No matter what, I need to meet with the Count, but… it's quite impossible to get his permission easily.
"As long as we could get the permission, then we could just have an informal engagement ceremony… did Ortzen not say anything on this matter?"
"He…," Captain Jullius hesitated for a moment before saying, "has some doubts about Miss' purpose for meeting with the High Priest."
"What?"
I've a puzzled expression on my face and lowered my voice that was raised for a moment.
"I just want to see the High Priest as a clergy candidate. He didn't even properly ask for my explaination and just placed his doubts on me as he pleased though."
"He said that Miss is suspicious because you will eventually meet with the High Priest sooner or later after you become a clergy anyway, but you insisted on getting engaged to be able to quickly meet with the High Priest."
Uhh… that's right. No matter what excuse I said, it's still suspicious unless I revealed the real story. Sadly my head couldn't think of any convincing reasons. Ortzen was very annoying but I could understand his reasoning. Not to mention that I'm also part of Count Epheria family which was related with the demon king, so it's normal for him not to trust me completely even though I've holy power.
I sighed and looked up to face Captain Jullius.
"But, are you allowed to tell me all of these? Like this, it'll be useless for Ortzen to hide his doubts against me."
Or perhaps did he tell you to inform me today? After he heard my words, Captain Jullius stayed silent while biting down his fork in his mouth for a while before finally said something.
"… I want to tell you."
That's what he muttered. At that very moment, I felt like my heart raced by those words. Captain Jullius! Turns out the Captain believes me!
"And I also didn't hear he forbid me from telling you this."
"Erm, but you should have known that usually you don't tell the related person, right?"
"…. is that so?"
If I met with my deputy again in the future, I must told him that I wasn't the most clueless captain out of other existing squad captains. Captain Jullius is far worst than me! I'm already good enough! I threw away the empty plate and the fork to the garden below. Then, I climbed up to the railing and hugged Captain Jullius' head.
"Even so, Captain Jullius still told me because that person is me, right?"
"…, yes." Captain Jullius whose head was still in my embrace, said in a low voice.
"There are only a few people talking to me anyways."
"I also don't have many people talking to me either…"
I just have my comrades in the Holy Knight Squad, the High Priest, and few priests as friends to talk to. Although I often met with many young noble ladies who adored me, but I had a hard time to understand their conversations and I wasn't interested in their conversations either. It's enough for me to keep a smile while my mind was wandering around when they were having a chat. And they're already happy even just by having me there to accompany them. Occasionally the ladies also asked for my opinion and at that time I would just replied with 'yes?' or 'well, I'm not sure', then they would say 'ah, Sir Roel is a holy knight so it's as expected of him'. And thanks to that, I grew a habit of pretending to listen to the conversation while in fact I was thinking of something else. Thus, my deputy really hates that one habit of mine.
I stroke his fine black hair for a while and placed my chin over his head then opened my mouth.
"I don't want to wait for another month. Hah… it's troublesome."
It would be hard to get enganged without Ortzen assistance. No, it might be better for him not to provide any assistance rather than he become a hindrance.
"I need to talk to him after the banquet."
I should try to solve this matter by having a conversation with him. If it didn't work, uhh, what should I do? Well, I'll just think about it again when the time comes.
——-the end of book 1——-