Chapter 7: Fun

After a few weeks, the pain from the blisters began to fade.

My palms became covered in thin calluses that slowly made life easier for me. I no longer suffered as much when striking that damn dummy, and my wooden sword already had its first splinters.

On the other hand, I also resumed my solo boxing training, because I missed the feeling of punching the air and moving my waist.

Sir Marte showed interest in the techniques from my world, especially the hip rotation involved when throwing hooks and uppercuts to the chin.

In any case, my new change in attitude also reflected itself in my relationships with the people around me. I no longer limited myself to reading and learning things. I also allowed myself the pleasure of accompanying Sora during her rounds through the kitchen. I wanted to meet the women in charge of that area and also befriend the guards who patrolled the palace.

I wanted to be like Alda and rid myself of that stigma of superiority that came only from my rank. Of course, in formal situations, etiquette was essential, but being solemn twenty-four hours a day did not bring me much satisfaction.

“And that is how the economy functions. Do you have any questions, sir?”

Once again, the economics lessons refused to leave me in peace. No matter how hard I tried to get the hang of them, I always reached the same conclusion.

Boring!

“Actually, yes. Are you married?”

My question completely threw poor Gonzalo off balance.

“Huh? Why do you ask me that?” he questioned, visibly uncomfortable with my inquiry.

“We’ve been having lessons for months, and yet I barely know you. Come on, tell me about yourself. I want to know.”

“W-Well, unfortunately, I am single. I was never good with ladies. May we return to the lesson now?”

“Let’s take a break today. We’ve been working hard, and maybe it’s time to take things easy. Come on. Is there really no woman you like?”

“Perhaps, but I am already too old for that. I am thirty-four years old, and I was never able to marry. That is why I chose the path of becoming a scholar. At least books will not leave me alone.”

Gonzalo was a very thin man with short dark hair, already showing a few gray strands at the back of his head. He certainly was not attractive at all, but sometimes looks did not matter that much.

“Come on. You said there was a woman you liked. I won’t tell anyone,” I insisted.

In truth, I felt like having a little fun.

“T-There is a woman in the kitchen who caught my attention the year before last. She is a servant they took in from a raided village, and apparently, she is a widow. She does not speak much, but she always works hard to do a good job.”

Gonzalo’s expression became more tense. I did not know very well what kind of relationship those two had, but it was better to play it safe.

“And have you spoken to her?”

“I-I could not…”

“Then it’s decided! We’re going to the kitchen to find the girl, and then you’re going to talk to her. It’s about time you forgot those books for a while and awakened the handsome gentleman inside you.”

I gave him a playful smile to lighten the mood.

“Let’s go!”

“E-Eh… A-As you command.”

The truth was, I had never been good at flirting. I spent so much time busy with politics that I had never been interested in having a girlfriend during my high school or university days.

Even so, I liked reading romance novels, and I also watched anime in that genre. Therefore, my knowledge was practically based on fiction.

But my new friends did not need to know that.

We advanced through the castle’s busy corridors. Dozens of servants carried out their daily duties, and all of them bowed their heads when they saw me pass. After a few minutes, we finally arrived at the main kitchen. The place was packed with cooks moving from one side to another while carrying ingredients and metal vessels.

In the middle of all of them, the beautiful Sora was giving orders as if she were a general in wartime.

“Your Highness!”

My personal maid exclaimed, and when she did, all the cooks stopped their duties and lined up before us.

“What a pleasant surprise. Do you have a particular craving? We can prepare whatever you wish tomorrow, since we have already started cooking tonight’s dinner.”

Interesting.

I tried to deduce which of all the cooks present was the girl who had driven my tutor crazy. However, Gonzalo refused to blush or look at any particular servant. He kept that firm gaze that made him look like a soldier during a famine.

“Yes, I do have a particular craving.”

Discreetly, I handed Gonzalo a little note. He received it with the same stealth as a spy and slowly slipped it into his right pocket.

“I am craving a food worthy of the gods. A delicacy from a distant age that will make us fall in love with food all over again… Tomorrow, I want hamburgers for dinner.”

“Hamburgers?” Sora asked, a little surprised by the unfamiliar request.

“Yes. It is a secret recipe from a very distant land. Gonzalo says the formula is hidden somewhere in the royal library, but he cannot search for it alone. He needs one of you to help memorize the process and, while she is at it, serve as a backup source of information.”

My request sounded quite coherent. In a world with little to no literacy, memorizing recipes was extremely important when it came to passing knowledge down to common people.

Man, maybe I needed to start making a future plan to promote literacy among the commoners…

But I would handle that later.

“That makes sense. Do you have one of my girls in mind, Your Highness? I cannot accompany him because I must supervise this place.”

Sora pointed at the ten young women working in the kitchen. All of them remained silent with their gazes lowered. The rules of etiquette prevented them from showing any kind of informality toward their sovereign.

A rule I would gradually like to change.

I glanced at Gonzalo, and he finally blushed.

Hell yeah!

“You choose, Gonzalo,” I ordered.

“Yes, Your Highness…”

The chosen one finally made her appearance.

“Miss, could you accompany me to the library, please?”

My tutor pointed at a woman with messy, tangled black hair. She had bangs that covered her eyes as if she were the protagonist of an H-novel.

Even so, her appearance did not go beyond average. She was thin, with brown skin, like any other girl from the peasantry. In fact, her features looked Mexican.

“As you command.”

The woman timidly bowed to us again and then took a step forward.

Long live the bride and groom!

Well, no.

This was only an excuse to get them together. I had personally written the recipe on the little note and given it to Gonzalo, so when the time came, he would hand it over.

The goal—aside from donating the recipe to the world—was for the two of them to get to know each other better.

“Thank you for your time. We will be taking our leave.”

The servant accompanied us for a few meters, and that was when I realized an important detail.

I couldn’t stay so close, or she would never talk!

Damn it. Being king did not let me gossip in peace.

“Gonzalo, come here.”

My tutor brought his ear closer, just as I asked.

“You won’t be able to interact if I’m nearby. I’ll hide behind you, so don’t screw this up.”

“A-As you command,” he murmured, almost reluctantly.

“I’ll be right back. I have some errands to run. I’ll leave you two alone.”

My disappearance was the most half-assed thing in history. I simply turned around and walked until I had put some distance between us, then hid behind a decoration shaped like a giant chalice.

As soon as I left, the servant finally took a deep breath and decided to speak first, whether out of courtesy or simply to relieve the stress.

“My name is Aura. It is a pleasure.”

“I am Gonzalo. The pleasure is mine.”

The introduction went well.

“Aura is friendlier than she appears.”

Suddenly, a familiar voice called out from behind me.

“Do you think they’ll manage to become friends?”

“Sora, shouldn’t you be in the kitchen?”

I did not expect my chief assistant to be a gossip like me.

“I left them with their respective tasks. I would not miss this for the world. I have always wanted to see the strict Gonzalo acting like an idiot over a woman.”

“You are a box full of surprises, Sora.”

“Go, Gonzalo!”

Another meddlesome voice called from behind us.

“You came for the gossip too, Alda?”

I was not surprised by her arrival. In fact, I found it strange that she had not joined the mess earlier.

Now that the group had gathered, we followed this potential couple through the castle corridors. They moved forward while ignoring the other employees and talking about topics of no particular importance.

For example, Gonzalo explained his hobby of reading encyclopedias and how hard he worked to teach me about economics.

Aura barely spoke, but she did listen to him with a polite smile. She did not look uncomfortable at all. I even saw her smile genuinely on a few occasions.

Once inside the library, time passed without anything interesting happening.

The usual intellectual and work-related conversations, or so they seemed.

Between the lines, however, there was an invisible spark that Alda failed to notice, because after half an hour, she already looked desperate for a more direct development.

Sora, on the other hand, remained silent, analyzing Aura’s gestures like a proper shipper.

“Just do something already,” Alda whispered.

“They have done plenty,” I answered in a discreet murmur.

We were hiding behind a platform of books, and we did not want to be discovered too easily.

“Look at Aura’s gestures.”

The woman had slowly started playing with her hair, and she also made her knees point toward Gonzalo. These small movements implied high-level nonverbal communication. I had studied them myself during my previous life, since I had taken workshops on human psychology.

“You are quite observant, Your Highness.”

Sora nodded, leaving innocent Alda speechless.

“There are so many books here. I have been working here for a while, but I had never come to the library before.”

Aura played with the sleeves of her dress again and adjusted her dark hair once more.

“I cannot read, though. It is a shame. I am sure these books have many things to say.”

“Books take you to wonderful worlds, and they can also offer you unique skills. Not only recipes.”

When Gonzalo spoke about books, his gaze seemed to go beyond imagination. He looked so happy and sure of himself that even Sora could not recognize him.

“Amazing…” Aura whispered.

“Would you like to learn how to read? My lessons with the young king take place in the afternoon, but I have the night free. If you like, you may come here, and I can teach you a few lessons.”

“Do you mean it?”

Aura smiled from ear to ear. She raised her voice and almost earned herself a scolding from the librarian, except I shot him a stealthy glare to keep him quiet.

This was abuse of authority, but I did not care at all.

They were almost setting up a date!

“And what time do they kiss?” my adorable sister whispered again.

“Miss Alda, love is not instantaneous. Before reaching kisses, you must first get to know the other person and be certain whether you like them or not.”

Sora patted her on the head while patiently explaining the process of romantic love.

“But in the stories of Lily the Princess, there were always kisses and romantic scenes right from the beginning.”

“Oh, Alda. The stories of Lily the Princess are only that: fantasy tales based on the controversial Lily I.”

Once again, Sora ruffled her hair.

Anyway, back to our little couple…

“Of course. I like you, Aura. I-I would like to spend more time with you.”

Oh, not bad, Gonzalo. Not bad at all…

Aura blushed and tried to hide her expression behind her messy hair.

“Thank you…”

The task I had entrusted to them became secondary. They continued talking about simple things, like their favorite foods and hobbies outside of work. Even I was surprised to learn that Gonzalo loved raising horses and caring for the messenger pigeons we used during military campaigns.

The young servant also revealed some interesting information. She was twenty-five years old and came from a village raided by the men of the King of Apolo.

Until that moment, my face had not stopped smiling, but hearing that detail made me uncomfortable.

The Kingdom of Apolo…

A country to which we owed our freedom and our resources.

Hearing her testimony firsthand made me realize there were many other “Auras” like her. Defenseless orphans who had been forced to survive in a violent world.

She truly seemed grateful for the offer she had been given, since it was not every day that someone shared their time to teach you a difficult discipline.

“It’s decided.”

And after that promise, they continued the useless search for the recipe.

Nearly fifty more minutes passed until Gonzalo finally took the small white note out of his pocket. Then he slowly placed it inside a thick book that had been abandoned in the corner.

“By coincidence,” my tutor’s hands ended up on that book, and after “accidentally” opening it to that specific page, both he and Aura saw my recipe.

By the way, paper in this world really was completely white, due to the strange trees that produced a blue fruit nonexistent in my world of origin. And it was not only paper. Furniture and weapons also had a slightly lighter color than normal. That was only the case with the ash tree, as the local gardeners called it.

“I think we are finished. Could you read the recipe out loud to me a few times? That way, I can memorize it.”

“Of course, but let us do it outside. It is not polite to speak loudly in a library.”

“True,” Aura replied.

Immediately, my band of gossips ran out of the place. We slipped into the rear corridor so we would not be seen, but unfortunately, we could no longer hear what they were saying.

“That is enough for today,” I said, feeling very relaxed about my professor’s excellent performance.

“B-But nothing happened. They did not even hold hands…”

“Alda, you and I are going to have a serious talk about romance. You cannot rush things!” Sora exclaimed.

“But waiting is boring! The best romances are the ones that happen instantly and passionately!”

Ugh. What a mindset for a girl who was only ten years old.

What the hell was she reading?

Better not to know.

“That is it. It is settled. Prepare the snacks, because our talk is going to be very long.”

Sora smiled maliciously while pulling my sister’s cheeks. I couldn’t help smiling from ear to ear at such a funny scene.

What an entertaining afternoon!

“Ouch, that hurts… But I want snacks, so I accept! Sorry, Brother. Today will be girls’ tea time only.”

“Go for it, then. I’ll see you later.”

I turned around without anything more to say, because getting caught in the middle of a feminine discussion went beyond my capabilities as king.

In any case.

Ever since I decided to live while accepting this world, my afternoons had become fun. I enjoyed food more, as well as the company of my loved ones.

Even so, my duty remained the same: to train myself to become a great monarch.

And for that very reason, I needed to see my people face to face…