Plans

"Savior is the one who is not one of you..."

I opened my eyes with hitting the table next to me. I realized that I had fallen asleep on the sofa in my study room while I was reading some documents. The word above was the last part of my dream.

After I stood up and sat, I held my pounding head while muttering "I have to find them...".

I don't know why I have been dreaming this words somedays. I don't know what it means, either. Those were a magical creature's last words for me from the years ago. And, this is another story which I'm going to tell you on other time.

To recap the current story, I am the crown prince of the Lunaland Kingdom, Alexi Eadred Lunaria III. You can call me Eadred. I returned to the capital after a war that lasts two years with a victory. Now, I am expected to marry a suitable bride-to-be and ascend to the throne.

In this kingdom, Crown princes usually get engaged at 16 and marry at 19. They take the throne after marriage. Because It's believed that this kingdom gets powered by the queen. The perfect queen brings abundance and prosperity to the kingdom. Therefore, it is sacred for the king to enter the palace with a queen while he is enthroned. Finding the most suitable queen for his kingdom is the crown prince's main task.

Without marriage or engagement, I am 24 years old, the oldest single crown prince in the history of the kingdom. I kept putting off getting married for both a prophecy told years ago and for personal reasons. That's why there is a rumor in the palace about me that I am homosexual and that at this rate I will place a male queen on the throne. Even this rumor has reached the ears of the king.

Even though the other princes call me "gay prince" behind my back, I don't really care about this gossip. There are things they don't know.

If I return to tell the today's story, there is an unpleasant meeting in afternoon. Until meeting, I had fallen asleep in the office while reading some documents and seen some weird dreams.

After I returned to my desk, my door was knocked and a servant came in. "Would you like to drink some tea, Your Heighness?" he asked.

"I want a cup of coffee with some cake," I replied without raising my head from the notes. I'm sure that the servant got surprised as I wanted to eat cake. It's known that I don't like sweet things. But whenever I saw this kind of dreams I always crave sweet things.

In this two years when I went to war, this drink has been more popular in the capital. I heard that a noble observed a traditional drink when he travelled south-west seven years ago. He tried coffee and loved it. Then he discovered this drink keep people awake and brought some samples to present to aristocracy.

Later he became the biggest distributor of coffee in our kingdom but the rumor about him has always intrigued me.

After a while my orders was being brought, my henchman Sir Alexi Ateleraia entered in the room.

"It smells so good," I got out of my thoughts with this. "Whenever I drink coffee, I think the rumor about the noble who brings the coffee beans to the kingdom, Duke Caion Sariante. They say he found the coffee in that city as if he put there himself." Alexi added.

Yeah, I was talking about this rumor. That duke's business acumen is admirable.

Anyway, I have some time that I want to spend quality with my coffee and I'm not going to spend it while thinking about a middle-aged man's intelligence.

I am trying to make a budget for the festival that will be held next month by evaluating the profits that I have received from the institutions that I have management responsibility in the royal. Although this festival is a traditional arts festival, I changed the concept by using the war victory as an excuse.

Three days of artistic magic shows will be held in the capital's main temple to give thanks to Gods. Having shows in one space means all noble families will be in the same place. I will be able to see many people at the big ball that will be held on the last day. In this way, I will have the opportunity to observe, one by one, most of the noble girls three years and less younger than me, whom I have made a list of. This is going to be too tiring for me, but I can't trust anyone with this. Not even Alexi was with me when I made this list.

Why am I thinking that girl is a noble?

I can say this based on a conversation I overheard years ago. A girl group that can easily talk about giving gifts to Duke Haruel Wonright (He is a duke now.) and congratulating me is probably made up of nobles. The academy aims to minimize social segregation, but girls who are regular citizens cannot imagine being able to talk to noble men. Even if the girl I'm looking for was an ordinary citizen, it wouldn't matter though.

As for the Haruel issue, as far as I can remember, a girl named Elene wanted to give him a gift. I searched around Haruel, hoping that Elene was still friends with the girl I was looking for and that she would confess her feelings to Haruel.

Either Elene is not a name but a nickname just like D.D. and Haruel's wife is this girl's friend or Elene has failed at it. Of course, it's still appropriate to ask Haruel if he's ever had a confession from a woman named Elene. I'll have finished my research around Haruel by next month's festival. If the "plan to search Haruel's environment" fails, I'll go over the list of peer girls I'll be minimizing at the festival.

I would like to go up to the terrace of the palace and use my magic-enhanced megaphone to say, "I am looking for a girl who is suitable to be a queen but does not want to be a queen, whose nickname among her friends at the academy is D.D." However, this is not a method I can resort to as it will scare the escaped bird more.

I know that the girl I'm looking for is pretty good at hiding herself over the past seven years. Maybe she may even have married someone whom she thinks does not restrict her freedom. Although there is such a possibility, it makes sence to start with single women first.

I have a lot of work to do. The first of these, unfortunately, will be the meeting I will be holding shortly.