This shaman who claimed that I'm not in my rind mind a day ago is now in my custody. Since I'm a very kind person, I was not going to punish him. I just wanted him to stop the coin giving event.
I walked in front of the shaman with my arms crossed. I tried to look as much as intimidating I could then looked at him straight in his eyes.
"Why did you arrange the coin giving ceremony?" I asked.
"For the wellbeing of Your Highness!" he replied.
"You dare to lie in front of me?" I gritted my teeth. "I know that five of your nephews working here as maids. You have planned this for them"
The shaman now looked at me in surprise. Not only him, but even Victor was also a bit surprised. I thanked Venus inside my head for mentioning this information in one of the chapters where the shaman's misdeeds were brought to light.
"Tell the truth!" I demanded.
"Your Highness, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he panicked. "One of my nephews is going to get married soon. I had to do something to help them. I had to use this opportunity" he begged.
"I'll give you a way out of your crimes!" I announced.
"Your Highness! You're the epitome of kindness!" he blabbered.
"You know what shaman, I like to kill people with my kindness" I took the dagger which was residing in Victor's thigh holster, slightly titled my head and caressed the edge with my index finger.
"Y... Yo... Your Highness!" the shaman stammered.
I turned to him with a smile. "So stop the coin giving event!" I finished.
"But... But Your Highness, Her Majesty..."
"What's about Her Majesty?"
"She'll grow dubious of me"
"That's not my concern," I immediately shut him up. That's when Victor spoke for the first time.
"If he turned out to be untrustable to Her Majesty, your freedom will become a question mark.
Though I didn't like it, that made sense. She'll ban me from going out once again and will imprison my guards together with this shaman since the shaman was the one who recommended these people to her.
"So what am I supposed to do now?" I was lost in my thoughts so I accidentally spoke my doubt.
"What is your purpose for stopping the event?" Victor promptly asked.
"I'm not telling you," I said.
"Then how can I help you?" he asked.
I looked at him in confusion.
"Don't tell me you want to help me with this. I'm not going to trust that and I hate liers!"
"You not trusting me doesn't imply I'm lying"
"Whatever!" I shook my head.
I walked here and there for half an hour but couldn't come up with a better plan. The shaman closely watched me as I walked here and there turning his head. Victor was nonchalantly standing by the wall. After ten minutes, he casually leaned on the wall with one leg against the wall and hands crossed in front of his chest. I naturally felt irritated as I saw him standing there calm and composed. Out of annoyance, I walked to the shaman in quick steps with the dagger in my hand, placed it by his neck and asked him "Should I just kill you?"
"N... N... NO, YOUR HIGHNESS!" he shouted.
"VIC... VICTOR! SA... SAVE ME" he continued.
With a sigh, Victor straightened himself.
"Your Highness, don't play with the dagger. You may end up hurting yourself!" he walked to me ask he carelessly snatched the dagger from my hand and carefully placed it in his holster once again.
It'll be difficult for us to stop the event. Is there any alternative?" Victor asked.
"Alternative?" I asked.
"Mn," he hummed then went back to his comfortable spot, the wall.
I kept walking for a few more minutes. To survive two more years, I'd have to somehow stop the encounter curse from happening. Then suddenly, I got an idea.
"Victor!" I called his name. "There is an alternative!" I said.
With that, all the other three people in that room except Victor curiously looked at me.
"What is that?" Victor blankly asked.
"Flo..." I started then stopped in the middle. These three swindlers don't need to know about it. I went to Victor grabbed his hand and dragged him a little far away from them.
"Victor, now I'm about to say something important!"
He just nodded.
"I know you're very fond of Flora. But the thing is my brother too loves her" I whispered. With this, I looked up to see his reaction. With the satisfaction of seeing him frowning, I continued.
"But I don't want them to end up together!"
He frowned even further as if to ask me why.
"Because it's not good for the both of them. My bother will cause problems to Flora" I looked at him once again. He looked worried.
"Edward will try to get close to Flora using this coin giving occasion!"
Victor continued to look at me with a frown.
"So we'll have to stop it!" I said. "If that's not possible, we'll prevent the both from meeting each other" I finished.
"If your brother wants, he can meet her any time. There is no need for him to wait for this event," Victor replied still with a frown.
I widened my eyes, made my face serious, and started to lie in a trustable way.
"You don't know Edward. He doesn't usually enter the princess's palace. Also, Flora doesn't leave the princess's palace. This is the only occasion for them to meet!"
"But"
"Don't think too much Victor. It's not only good for me. It's beneficial to you too right?" I winked at him with a smile.
His frown disappeared as he looked at me. He raised his eyebrows and nodded, "Indeed. Let's do this!" he said.
"That's my boy!" I patted his arm once then went back to the shaman. "Victor has saved you today," I told him with a 'kind' smile then found my way out of that dungeon.
There were only five more days for the coin giving ceremony. Within these five days, nothing much could happen since everyone will be so focused on the preparations. The people in the princess's palace will not leave the palace. The outsiders won't bother to enter as long as I'm alive and fine. So my only worry was about the day of the coin giving function. Still, Victor would be there with me, I chose to not worry and put an ounce of trust in him.
'He is the second male lead and of course the great future villain of this universe. He must be able to prevent them from the meeting," I thought as I exited the dungeon.
But then, I heard two familiar voices gossiping. It was none other than my precious soldiers.
"That Victor, he looks so handsome!" said Merlin.
"Yes. They are a perfect match for each other!" said Henry.
"No. I wouldn't say that. Our princess is even more beautiful!"
"I won't deny that!"
"When will they get married?"
"I have no idea. They now only started seeing each other!"
"Yes. It must be love at first sight for Her Highness!"
"How do you know?"
"I'm sure that her Highness met him in the inn. After that, she immediately invited him to her chamber!"
With this, the two of them looked at each other with an awkward expression. I could witness their ears turning red.
"What the..." I couldn't help but murmur.
"But Merlin, he too loves her a lot. See what happened to the shaman who called our Highness crazy?"
"Yes. Also, he had joined imperial guard troop for her"
"Yeah yeah. What an ideal couple they are?" Henry said.
For a second, I thought whether all those couples whom I ever thought of as an ideal were misunderstandings just like this. 'It could be. Who knows?' I shook my shoulders then brushed the rumour off my mind and walked to them.
"Merlin, Henry... Where is Nilo?" I asked.
With my sudden intervention, the two got up. I could see that they were startled. They looked even more startled when they saw Victor behind me.
"Your Highness! He went to check the safety measures around the princess's palace.
"Is it?" I smiled at them. Originally I thought it was ok for these two to misunderstand the relationship between me and Victor. I couldn't have hidden his identity for long but with this misunderstanding, they will not doubt my interactions with Victor in the future.
As I was thinking further, he surpassed us and started walking ahead. Maybe their conversation had already annoyed Victor, When I saw him go away, I suddenly wanted to tease him a bit more.
So I immediately raised a question at my soldiers.
"Merlin, Henry, how did you accurately guess the relationship between me and him?" I asked as I pointed to Victor with my right hand.
With this Victor's legs paused in its track. I could sense his head turning in my direction.
"Your Highness! We are sorry since we gossiped" the two immediately apologized. Since I was enjoying the show of Victor's expressions I couldn't get angry at that moment. I was indeed having fun. "No need to apologize. I'm just amazed because of your intelligence," I said.
"It's god-given, Your Highness!" the two chorused.
"Oh, is it?" I seriously asked, as I finally averted my gaze to Victor. He was still looking at me with an unreadable expression, something in the middle of confusion, anger, and aversion.
"It is not only that Your Highness! We could identify any people in love easily!" I heard my two soldiers say as Victor averted his disinterested gaze from me and dispassionately turned away and started walking again.