"I've been given a letter to deliver to the temple director. We want you to come over to our mansion soon for an interview with Father," said Cain, smiling. He gestured to the chair beside him with an outstretched hand.
Ilvalino glanced at the chair, but he shook his head.
"We just came back from the fields. You're the one who said we stink. I'll go take a shower," he said.
"All right. Well, then, everybody – how about we play for a little longer?"
Cain nodded to Ilvalino, and then turned to the group of younger kids beside him and invited them to play. Cain, who could teach them all kinds of new ways to play without any toys, had become quite popular among them.
While waiting for Ilvalino, they all played games like Red Light Green Light, Musical Chairs, and Duck Duck Goose. Of course, Cain taught them these games with songs and terms that people in this world could understand.
"Cain-sama! I think we can beat the older kids at the games you taught us today!"
"Cain-sama, you should join us for Musical Chairs! Mister Knight, can you sing the song for us?"
"Huh, me?" asked Arnoldia, "Cain-sama's singing is a hard act to follow."
"Well, then, we'll all sing together. Arnoldia, please give us one loud clap whenever you want. That'll be the signal for everyone to take a seat. How's that?" asked Cain.
"Okaaay!"
Cain and the little kids sang nursery rhymes and children's songs while circling the chairs. When Arnoldia signaled by clapping his hands, everyone sat down at once.
When a little kid hurriedly sat down and ended up coming down on Cain's knee, Cain jokingly replied, "You're so light that it felt like a feather just fell on my knee. Are you hiding angels' wings, somewhere?" Cain was just acting as he always did around Diana, and it wasn't anything unusual to him, but the kid that fell on his knee looked down and hid his bright red face.
"Oh, stop saying those lovey dovey words so much! It's as easy as breathing to you, isn't it? You do it to boys, too?" said Ilvalino, giving Cain a slap over the head. Cain looked up to see him in tidy clothes and slightly wet hair.
The boy who had sat on Cain's knee got up in a hurry and jumped off.
"I need to talk to Ilvalino for a second, so everyone else, keep playing without me, okay?" said Cain.
"Okaaay. Thank you, Cain-sama!"
Cain grinned and got up from his chair, then brought it out of the circle and over to the table a little ways away. He sat down on it.[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the "Novel Multiverse dot com" website @ novelmultiverse.com]
"Ilvalino – Like we talked about before, I want you to become my chamberlain. Father says he'll decide on the matter after interviewing you, so I want you to take the interview."
"…"
"If you become my chamberlain, I want to ask Father to put me in charge of charity work in connection to the orphanage. Then, you can help me coordinate visits here. What do you think? Anything you have doubts about?" asked Cain.
Cain thought that Ilvalino might be worried about what would happen to the children at the orphanage, so he asked about Ilvalino's doubts, in advance.
Ilvalino raised an eyebrow and made a serious face that wasn't fit for a child, and he glared at Cain. Cain kept his expression friendly and waited for his response.
"…What's the deal with what we talked about before – the possibility of keeping my other job?" asked Ilvalino.
Ilvalino was talking about how Cain had said he wouldn't mind if Ilvalino remained an assassin. Cain nodded, remembering what he had said.
"I wouldn't mind if you kept your job, of course. Until I enter school, I'll be studying with tutors, so I don't think I'll be leaving the house much, and even if you're not around sometimes, we can arrange for things to continue smoothly. I would just ask you to refrain from disappearing, all of a sudden. Just fill me in beforehand with things like: 'I'll be gone on these days at these times to go kill this guy at this place, okay? ♥'. If you could do that for me, I'd be grateful."
"You haven't told anyone that I have another job as an assassin, have you?"
"Nope."
Cain turned the chair around and sat with the backrest in front of him. He propped his elbows and forearms up on the backrest, and put his chin on his forearms, and watched Ilvalino.
Ilvalino was still standing, and so their eye lines were at very different heights.
"I won't ever treat you badly. Of course, I'll be a lord, and you'll be a chamberlain, so you'll probably have to stay aware of our difference in status. I said this before, but I have my own motivations for doing this. I'm doing it for myself. I'm hoping we can take care of your needs and goals, too, though," said Cain.
Cain didn't want to die, and he didn't want Diana to die. He hadn't met any of the friends he'd make at the Academy, yet, but he assumed he wouldn't want them to die, either.
The worst-case scenario, the Assassin Route, in which Ilvalino would kill everyone, was something that Cain wanted to avoid at all costs.
Cain thought that if he managed to become allies with Ilvalino, he might be able to avoid an unfortunate ending for Diana. Then again, Ilvalino would likely become a master assassin and making sure he wouldn't end up killing people was no simple task.
"All right. I'll go to the interview. Whether I pass the interview or not is beyond my control, so I can't make any promises," said Ilvalino.
"Thank you. This is you we're talking about, so I bet things will work out," said Cain.
As Cain stood up and stuck out his hand, Ilvalino made a slightly bewildered face, but then he grasped Cain's hand and shook it.
Is it possible that there's no such thing as shaking hands in this world?
Cain thought about this and panicked a bit, but he thought to himself that if shaking hands didn't exist, this could be a kind of secret greeting between them. Cain spun it in a positive light.
In the middle of the next week, Ilvalino arrived at Duke Elgrandark's mansion.
He was there for an interview with the Duke himself.