A few days after the night, where Zenjirou learned about the “soul of words”.

　　The temperature in the Carpa Kingdom continued to raise day by day and entered the hottest season of the year at last.

　　He didn’t know the exact temperature. Ever since the day, where the maximum temperature crossed forty degree centigrade during the day already, he had turned around the thermometer, so that he could no longer read it, to keep his sanity.

　　To him, it felt like the temperature was even higher than forty degree now, but he didn’t have the courage to check it on the thermometer.

　　In the past few days, Zenjirou had closed all the window shutters in the inner palace and lived with the light of the LED lamps in the middle of the day, even though it was “unhealthy”.

　　Still, this melting heat wasn’t entirely bad for him.

　　In this season, where the permanent high temperature could kill you for working normally, the palace established a three-hour break at noon.

　　Thanks to that, Zenjirou recently got to spend time together with Aura in the inner palace during the day, too, not just the night.

　　“Fuh, this cursed heat. Compared to my office, this is heaven.”

　　Coming into the room with all the window shutters shut, Aura headed straight to the refrigerator first of all.

　　“Oh, Aura. Sounds tough.”

　　Zenjirou called out to Aura, who looked into the refrigerator, while playing on a portable game console and lying on the couch.

　　“Mm.”

　　Still with her back to him, Aura gave a short reply and clattering took some ice out of the icebox, then put it into the ice crusher next to the refrigerator, all in in an accustomed manner.

　　“Lala~”

　　She spun the handle of the ice crusher with a complacent smile and when the container was full of shaved ice, she took the red bottle of strawberry syrup from the refrigerator and poured it generously over the ice.

　　Zenjirou must have watched her out of the corner of his eyes, as he fl.u.s.tered called out to her in a protest.

　　“Hey, Aura! You’re using too much!”

　　However, Aura was completely unperturbed.

　　“Do not be stingy, not like there is any harm done.”

　　Saying so, she put the closed bottle with strawberry syrup back into the refrigerator, took the gla.s.s bowl with the shaved ice in one hand and came over to the couch, where Zenjirou was lying.

　　“No, there is! The harm obviously is that the bottle gets empty!”

　　While protesting, Zenjirou closed the collapsible game console and sat up his lying body on the couch, giving Aura s.p.a.ce to sit on.

　　That he specially made room for her to sit on the same couch, even though there was another couch on the other side, showed how well the couple got along.

　　Aura scooped the shaved rice, bright red from the strawberry syrup, with a long, silver spoon and raised it to her mouth.

　　“Rest a.s.sured. I am having the cooks of the palace make something similar by boiling down fruits and brown sugar.”

　　Aura confidently responded like that, which caught Zenjirou’s interest.

　　“Oho, is it good?”

　　A boiled down substances from fruits and brown sugar. Maybe it was something like jam? If that was the case, it certainly could serve as a replacement for the syrup.

　　Zenjirou asked in antic.i.p.ation, but Aura kept her gaze on the shaved ice and avoided a direct answer.

　　“…Therefore, I will take this strawberry syrup. You can have that special fruit-sugar juice the cooks make so diligent.”

　　“Hey, does it taste good?”

　　“…Ahh, my brain is freezing. I cannot get enough of this cold-rush.”

　　“I bet it doesn’t taste good yet…”

　　As she felt guilty from her husband’s reproachful eyes, the Queen confessed while averting her eyes.

　　“Yes… The food culture of your world is just too outstanding. It seems pretty difficult to reproduce the exact same thing.”

　　Zenjirou sighed to the Queen’s honest confession. He hadn’t been hoping for much anyway, but he still felt disappointed.

　　“Hah… Then don’t waste it. I only brought one bottle of each: strawberry, lemon and blue Hawaii.”

　　“Yes, leave the strawberry one to me.”

　　“No, strawberry’s my favourite, too. Well, whatever.”

　　Zenjirou shrugged his shoulders and resigned to Aura.

　　The trick to keep a harmonic married life as a sponger husband, who got all necessities provided by the wife, was to yield at least this much to her.

　　Placing his portable game console on top of the table, he stood up and then headed over to the refrigerator.

　　There he removed one of the many wet towels, which were cooled there, from it and tossed it at Aura, who had just finished eating her shaved ice.

　　“For your sweat, Aura.”

　　“Oh, thanks.”

　　Aura was in a muck sweat all over, as she had taken in fluids so rapidly, and accepted the cold towel grateful, then wiped the sweat on her face and body with it.

　　“…..”

　　“…..”

　　Time-wise it was the middle of the day, but at present, the room was illuminated by the LED lamps, since the window shutters were closed to keep the heat and sunlight out.

　　Amidst this night-like atmosphere, Zenjirou’s carnal desire naturally awoke when he saw his beloved wife wiping her body with the towel, even if she was still wearing clothes.

　　Noticing his obvious glances, Aura showed a bewitching smile while she turned her back on him.

　　“Anyway, I think I can never repay you for all the benefits I receive from the things you brought with you. And even while I told you that you would have nothing to do, I am having you study manners, common sense and magic.”

　　From Aura’s point of view, it was a legit claim.

　　Cold drinks and refreshment in the form of a combination of ice and the fan, every day. Aura had no recollection of ever having spent the hottest season of the Carpa Kingdom, which was known for its everlasting summer, in such comfort.

　　The closest thing would be the one summer she spent at the royal summer resort near a lake in the highlands as a child.

　　“It’s okay. Don’t worry about that.

　　I brought all this stuff because I wanted to use it myself anyway and from the beginning, I was prepared to learn its culture and customs to some extent as to settle down in a country different from my birthplace.”

　　On the other hand, Zenjirou’s words were genuine as well. Even if Aura had promised him that he “would have nothing to do”, he never considered it very likely that he would actually live like an indoor pet, doing nothing but eat, play and sleep all day.

　　Looking at the history of Earth, it was normal even for reclusive individuals like royal concubines to appear at official events. Taking that into account, Zenjirou considered it inevitable that he would have to learn manners and history of the country to some extent as not to embarra.s.s the royal family.

　　Besides, business hours in this world were affected by the setting sun, so the “tasks” here were nothing compared to his salaryman days, where he considered himself “lucky” when he was able to return home before the date changed.

　　Aura, unable to imagine these circ.u.mstances, finished wiping her sweat and put the towel on the table, confirming with her humble husband.

　　“Hey, Zenjirou. Is there anything inconveniencing you?

　　I know that you are refusing to get in contact with others because you properly understand my standpoint. And it is a fact that you are helping me with that.

　　However, it pains me to continue to restrict your freedom like this and not repay you in any way.”

　　It had been close to a month since Zenjirou married into the royal family.

　　Even Aura had figured out at this point that the conduct of his husband, never causing trouble or being selfish, was a restriction he had placed on himself to cause as few problems as possible, because he perfectly comprehended the standpoints of his wife and himself.

　　By the way, the attendants working in the inner palace, like the waiting maids or exclusive cooks, evaluated Zenjirou extremely favourable as of now.

　　An effortless Master that wasn’t selfish and overbearing. As an attendant, one couldn’t wish for a better Master.

　　After the instruction of the waiting maids centred around the supervisory maid, Aura had automatically told them “Do not take the current situation as the norm”.

　　Humans could get used to anything. It was surprisingly common that attendants, used to an effortless Master, couldn’t cope with their Master’s sudden selfishness.

　　Aura perceived her husband from a different world as someone that was too mindful of others and had the habit to stifle his own desires.

　　However, even when he was told all that, Zenjirou had no particular demands.

　　Sure, he felt the urge to leave the inner palace soon, but considering the troubles that came along with it, it wasn’t worth to push that selfishness through and even as the Queen, Aura couldn’t do anything about his complaints regarding the food or heat.

　　Lastly, his “sympathetic side”. It was irritating to Aura, but since Zenjirou was brought up in the plain old fas.h.i.+on of the common people, his values made him perceive selfishness as something “unsightly”, nipping the discussion in the bud.

　　“Well, I’m good for now. I’ll be sure to tell you if I’ve any complaints.”

　　“Not complaints, I want you to tell me your wishes. Oh well. Anyway, you do not need to show any reservation. I want to repay you for your devotion, even for a bit.”

　　Aura said that with a gentle smile, which fuelled Zenjirou’s love for her, but at the same time, his prankish nature, too.

　　He made a side-glance at the digital clock. The time was three minutes past one o’clock in the afternoon.

　　During the intense heat, the midday break approximately lasted until half past three in the afternoon.

　　Alright. There was enough time left.

　　After confirming the surplus of time, Zenjirou approached Aura on the couch, called out to her jokingly and jumped at her.

　　“Okay, if you insist… Repay me with your body!”

　　Aura instantly figured out her husband’s intention as he jokingly flung himself at her, and spread her arms to accept him.

　　She properly caught him and embraced him tightly.

　　“Fine. …Mm.”

　　With her arms around her husband’s back, she pa.s.sionately locked lips with him.

　　A tight embrace and pa.s.sionate kiss. If that was what her husband wanted, it was rather simple. She just had to be willing.

　　“…..”

　　However, the essential reaction of her husband was different from what she had expected.

　　Every night, if they hugged like this, he would a.s.sertively seek her lips and trail her body with his hands, but for some reason he was like a doll, stiff and not moving.

　　“…What is the matter, Zenjirou?”

　　Aura doubtful asked like that after their kiss.

　　“….”

　　However, Zenjirou didn’t answer and separated from Aura wordlessly, moving to the corner of the room and crouching down there.

　　“Zenjirou? Why are you poking the carpet in the corner of the room with a gloomy expression?”

　　First a pa.s.sionate embrace, then depressed a second later. Aura couldn’t follow the drastic change in her husband and called out to him bewildered.

　　In response, Zenjirou curled up into a ball in his corner and answered weeping while drawing circles on the ground.

　　“…Well, it’s not like I went all out. No, really, I didn’t jump with all my might. But still, my wife caught me head-on so easily, even though I tried to push her down, and what’s worse, she didn’t even realize what I was trying to do…”

　　Zenjirou didn’t have a “macho” mentality that took pride in physical toughness. However, as a man, it was a slightly sad fact that his wife could stop a body blow from him.

　　“Ah…”

　　Aura looked abashed on his words.

　　(Oops. I knew the hug was rather enthusiastic, but he actually wanted to push me down)

　　As Aura had gone through real battles for years, her body was sufficiently trained as a soldier. Due to that, she could absorb a sudden attack from Zenjirou, an amateur, like it was nothing, even though he was slightly taller than her.

　　However, this world was more patriarchic than modern j.a.pan and likewise, physical toughness was considered a virtue. Aura took the sorrow of a husband, who tried to push down his wife, but got caught instead, more serious than Zenjirou himself.

　　What should she do now? The Queen had unconsciously embarra.s.sed her husband and mused for a while. Then,

　　“K- Kyaah.”

　　At her wits’ end, Aura raised an affected voice and collapsed on the couch by herself.

　　“Too late! I never made a special tackle with such a delayed effect!”

　　“…Kyaah”

　　Not discouraged from his retort, Aura kept lying on the couch and continued to raise an affected shriek.

　　“No, like I said…”

　　“…Kyaah.”

　　“…..”

　　When the shrieking Aura writhed on the couch, her skirt with the deep slit rolled up and partly exposed her light brown legs and thighs.

　　He was used to the sight, as he saw it every night, but it was nevertheless delicious.

　　“…Ei!”

　　“Kya!?”

　　In the end, Zenjirou accepted the delayed effect from the tackle and threw himself at the fallen Aura.

　　* * *

　　Approximately one hour later.

　　After the workout on the couch, Zenjirou and Aura, still half-naked, threw themselves into studying.

　　Zenjirou sat in front of his computer in a pair of fas.h.i.+on trunks, whereas Aura, wearing small shorts and a towel around her neck, stood at an angle behind him.

　　A bundle of dragonskin parchment sat next to the computer. The taxes from last year of the Carpa Kingdom were recorded on them.

　　The tax doc.u.ments basically only consisted of “places”, “names” and “values”, so it was most suitable to learn the letters and p.r.o.nunciation of this world, or so claimed Aura.

　　Zenjirou didn’t take her opinion at face value, but still recorded how Aura read out the words written on the dragonskin parchments aloud while pointing at them one-by-one, with the camera every day and wrote it into a spreadsheet on the computer while checking with the video.

　　A few days ago, he had “programmed the foreign letters” by drawing all thirty characters of this country with the mouse as sprites and allocated a key on the keyboard to each.

　　It was extremely inefficient as he had to convert every single character on the input, but at least he could write the letters of this world on his computer now.

　　Then Zenjirou had made study materials to learn the readings of the letters by himself, by writing down the characters of this world from Aura’s tax doc.u.ments and adding Katakana or Arabian numerals to it.

　　Seeing as Aura especially prepared tax doc.u.ments from last year, it was obvious she had some other intention too, but the official reason was for studying.

　　“So, Zenjirou, are you done with the papers?”

　　“Yeah, finished them yesterday. I’ll print them out now.”

　　Zenjirou sent the fruit of his labour, the spreadsheet data to the printer. He had brought this printer with him as an extra, since it would have been a waste to throw it away.

　　He had only three capsule of the valuable ink for each colour, but if he didn’t use it, it would clog up with time anyway, rendering it useless.

　　Therefore he wasn’t particular stingy with the printouts and printed the data from yesterday’s efforts in good quality.

　　Aura curiously watched how the machine automatically coughed up the papers and when she confirmed that it finished before long, she took the bundle of papers in hand and looked through them.

　　“Okay, then let us check if your p.r.o.nunciation is correct. Zenjirou, read it out aloud from the first page.”

　　“Okay, here I go. The first is the County of Albeniz. The tax yields are dragonskins: One-thousand, bags of wheat: two-thousand, lumber: ….”

　　While Aura was looking at the printouts, Zenjirou directly read from the spreadsheet on the computer display.

　　Aura, listening with nods and agreeable responses, pointed out any mistakes with p.r.o.nunciations or numbers.

　　“Ah, this one does not read as ‘Viscount Bonija’, but ‘Viscount Bonilla’.”

　　“Okay, ‘lla’, not ‘ja’.”

　　The places and family names were proper names, so the “soul of words” didn’t work and he heard the correct spelling even when someone spoke it out, which might make it perfect for becoming familiar with the letters. Furthermore, Zenjirou even learned about n.o.bles esteemed enough to appear on royal tax doc.u.ments, on the side.

　　In that way, it wasn’t necessarily wrong to learn how to read basic letters from “tax doc.u.ments”.

　　For example, even an unknown text could be read somewhat when you knew a hundred or two hundred vocabularies.

　　Either way, this world had no optimized books for beginners to learn the letters like language textbooks for elementary school students in modern j.a.pan.

　　He had no choice but learn it the hard way, even if it was a bit inefficient.

　　When the reading lesson with the tax doc.u.ments ended before long, Aura expressed a question she suddenly thought of in the end.

　　“Hey, Zenjirou. Why are some numbers written in ‘red’ and some in ‘blue’?”

　　Zenjirou answered Aura’s question with a rare profound smile.

　　“Yeah, the different colours make it easier to understand when the calculated value from the program varies from the value on the tax doc.u.ments. The red colour indicates a shortfall compared to the calculation, the blue colour a surplus.”

　　“Oho…”

　　Aura raised a quiet voice with an inexpressive face in response to Zenjirou’s answer.

　　Even if they were tax doc.u.ments submitted to the royalty, there was no way all the numbers would get checked for mistakes in the palace.

　　After all, they were a lot of them. It would take a ridiculous amount of dragonskin parchments and personnel expenses to recalculate everything.

　　The usual procedure only consisted of skimming through them and recalculating a few random sheets after finding mistakes that could be spotted on a glance.

　　And “for some reason”, even these random checks rarely came upon influential higher n.o.bles or n.o.bles with good connection to the inquisitor.

　　However, Zenjirou could do these kind of calculations all by himself without any problems by using the calculation program. After all, he only had to make a template and correctly input the numbers there. Anyone, who had done a bit of office work for a company, could do that.

　　“Zenjirou, could I borrow these for a bit?”

　　He had perfectly antic.i.p.ated her question, so he made a smile as innocent as possible and answered.

　　“Yeah, sure. Go easy on them, okay. Wait, I‘m in no position to say that.”

　　“Got it.”

　　The Queen replied to her husband, who scratched his head, with a grim tinted smile.

　　* * *

　　Afternoon on the same day. Aura, alone with Secretary Fabio in her office, took out the copy papers she borrowed from Zenjirou at noon.

　　Keeping an inexpressive face, Secretary Fabio only raised one eyebrow.

　　“Your Highness, what is that?”

　　“The tax doc.u.ments of important n.o.bles from last year. I had my husband look through them under the pretext of ‘learning letters’ to test his understanding about statecraft, but he recalculated everything in a few days and pointed out flawed numbers.”

　　“…Oho.”

　　The eyes of the secretary with the slender face got an alarmed glint on Aura’s words.

　　Seeing Secretary Fabio being cautious about Zenjirou as always, she said without hiding her wry smile.

　　“You never let your guard down against my husband, do you? He is not so ambitious that you would need to be so cautious about him.”

　　The secretary replied agreeing, yet obstinate to Aura.

　　“Yes, I fundamentally agree with you. Judging by his actions in the past month, it is quite unlikely that he has any ambitions in politics. However, I have to stress that is only unlikely at best. We cannot rule it out completely.

　　To begin with, the more I get to know about his intelligence and education, the more unbalanced his lack of ambition becomes. We cannot ignore the possibility that his behaviour so far is a well-performed act.”

　　Zenjirou was an extremely unnatural being to Fabio.

　　A plebeian would never concede to his own position. And a n.o.ble would never lack ambition towards power and status.

　　Could there be such a convenient “man” in this world, who more or less comprehended how his position as the Prince Consort affected others and thus behaved discrete and considerate as not to bring any harm to the Queen’s political power?

　　Well, the different world might actually have such a person, since it was kind of obvious that the common sense of this world didn’t apply to someone from a different world.

　　However, since it couldn’t be ruled out that Zenjirou was just pretending to be harmless and cooperative while actually sharpening his fangs, it was necessary that at least one person stayed cautious of him.

　　“I presume it is for the better that you are not vigilant, Your Highness. It is an extremely difficult task to keep one’s innermost thoughts hidden from the person you share meals and bed with. Instead, I will keep an eye on Zenjirou-sama’s actions.”

　　“Fine. Sorry to trouble you, Fabio.”

　　“Yes, it has been nothing but trouble ever since I became your secretary.”

　　The middle-aged secretary completely agreed to the Queen’s favourable words.

　　“…Normally you would respond with ‘No, not at all’ or ‘This is nothing in the services for my Queen’ in such a situation, would you not?”

　　Aura indicated a wry smile, whereat Fabio, still inexpressive, shrugged his shoulders a bit

　　“I see my job as speaking the outright truth.”

　　and boldly said so.

　　In fact, his home truths statements had helped her numerous times so far, so Aura had nothing to retort.

　　She sighed, then got back on topic.

　　“Anyway, I had a look at the ‘numerals’ from my husband’s world in the last few days, and I have to say, they are quite convenient. I believe it would be rather beneficial if we implement them in some kind of way.”

　　At the same time Zenjirou learned the letters of this world, Aura learned how to read and use Arabic numerals from him, too.

　　Needless to say, Aura mastered the Arabic numerals in no time as she only had to learn ten numbers from 0 to 9 in contrast to Zenjirou, who had to remember all letters and vocabularies.

　　Calculating with the Arabic numerals was still out of question, but she already understood the values from reading the written numbers.

　　The convenience of Arabic numerals was very clear from looking at the tax doc.u.ments she had borrowed from Zenjirou.

　　To draw an a.n.a.logy, it was as convenient as telling the same number apart when once written in English and once in Arabic numerals.

　　“2932” was a short number when written in Arabic numerals, but became extremely long when writing it as “two thousand nine hundred and thirty-two” with the Latin alphabet.

　　The tax doc.u.ments had hundreds of such numbers. Even if it only saved a little bit of time for writing or reading it individually, it became a huge saving for bundles of hundreds or thousands.

　　Introducing the reading and writing of them would improve business to no end and it was possible that the uneducated ma.s.ses would turn into a cla.s.s that “cannot read letters, but at least numbers”, like Zenjirou had said before.

　　That said, it was uncertain whether the birth of a common cla.s.s that could calculate with numbers was advantageous or disadvantageous to the country or royal family.

　　Secretary Fabio became a bit absorbed in thought on Aura’s positive opinion, then answered.

　　“Indeed. I agree that numerals are beneficial, but I object to suddenly implement them all around. It will bring along great confusion at the workplaces and no matter how easy it is to remember them, learning something unknown from scratch is never an easy task.

　　If you force them to learn it, it will definitely bring about opposition, though I do not know how much.”

　　“Mh, I see. You are right…”

　　Fabio’s realistic insight made Aura be lost in thought for a while with her hand on her chin.

　　“Okay, then we will distribute a reading table for the numerals to the workstations that deal with calculations first, add the numerals to the existing written-out numbers on all royal doc.u.ments from now on and see how it goes for while. What do you say?”

　　“That would require to obligate at least the civil servants in the palace to learn the numerals, though.”

　　Fabio articulated a solely objective doubt to Aura’s suggestion.

　　“Is that a no?”

　　Asked back, Secretary Fabio fell silent for a while, then shook his head.

　　“No, that much should be okay. I will prepare for it at once.”

　　“Yes, please do.”

　　Aura nodded satisfied.

　　It was regretful that it couldn’t be implemented all over, but dynamic reforms like this one often ended up in a failure when rus.h.i.+ng it. In the worst case, they might be better off to rely on “the next generation to use numerals” by adding the Arabic numerals to the training menu of the newcomers.

　　For the meantime, it was better not to expect any visible improvements from implementing the numerals.

　　The calculations Zenjirou did with the numerals for these “tax doc.u.ments” were far more suitable for an immediate benefit than the numerals itself.

　　“Marquis Bervides, Baron Colunga, Feudal Knight Daviino and Feudal Knight Gamez. The discrepancy in their tax doc.u.ments is especially intolerable.”

　　While reading out the names, Aura licked over her lips with her red tongue.

　　As to rebuke the Queen, who showed a smile like a predator, Secretary Fabio declared with a calm voice.

　　“Your Highness, even if the numbers are incorrect, it is a precedent we have overlooked so far. It could trigger an outburst when you suddenly put pressure on them.”

　　“I know. I am not so foolish as to use drastic measures like finding them guilty. We will merely use it to show them who is in control and get them to compromise.”

　　Saying so, Aura wrinkled her nose a bit irritated.

　　The interesting part about humans was that they misapprehended their wrong acts as legitimate when it was left unpunished for years, even though illegal acts were statutory.

　　When you suddenly tried to punish a person with such a perception according to the laws one day, he would fly into a pa.s.sion with “You never did anything before, why now!”.

　　That was an emotional point of view, but if there were several of them, even the Queen would find herself in the line of a harsh retaliation when she neglected to show sympathy. The power of the Queen and royal family in the Carpa Kingdom was overwhelming, but not so overwhelming that they could ignore the influence of conspiring n.o.bles.

　　“And if I may add, all of these people you mentioned, contributed greatly to the previous war.”

　　“…Right. We cannot deny the fact that their services in the war were part of the reason that our country emerged victorious.”

　　Aura nodded, honestly acknowledging what Secretary Fabio had added.

　　At present, most of the remaining n.o.bles were survivors of the previous great war. Barely anyone of them was so incompetent as to falsify taxes to the Kingdom or pocket heavy taxes from the people in their fief simply for their own good.

　　Most of these incompetent n.o.bles, who only leeched off the Kingdom, couldn’t protect their family during the war and perished.

　　That was the reason why the remaining n.o.bles were so troublesome.

　　The n.o.bles mentioned by Aura earlier used the evaded taxes on their private military preparations. This very military power had shouldered a part of the defence for the country in the previous war, so it technically couldn’t be denied that these unpaid taxes were used for the good of the Kingdom in a roundabout manner.

　　However, it was likewise a fact that these taxes could replenish the royal army better if they were collected properly.

　　The royal family stipulated the reinforcement of the royal army through taxes to optimize the troops and the local feudal lords couldn’t drop the effort to strengthen their own troops as the royal army was useless for defending the own territory due to their inflexibility.

　　Both weren’t mistaken in their approaches, so it was rather natural that discord emerged between the royal family and feudal lords.

　　It was clearer than crystal clear that the inner power balance would be disturbed sooner or later when the uncovered tax evasion would be tolerated and the feudal lords strengthened their military power even further.

　　In the worst case, the feudal lords could band together to revolt against the royal family, so a balance of power, where the royal army could easily suppress such an attempt, should be preserved.

　　At present, there was no one so disillusioned amongst the important feudal lords to pointlessly go against the royal family,

　　but there was no guarantee that all successors in the next or after next generation were just as capable and quick-witted.

　　“Still, illegal remains illegal. I will be temperate and careful not to hurt their honour and prestige, but I will have them pay a suitable compensation.”

　　Aura declared flatly, whereat Fabio mused for a while.

　　“…Then how about we notify them informally about the discovery of inconsistencies in the doc.u.ments so far and ask them ‘to cooperate of their own initiative‘, so something like that never happens again?”

　　Before long, the secretary settled his thoughts and suggested a compromise plan.

　　“Well, that sounds reasonable. Okay, I leave the details to you.”

　　“Yes, certainly.”

　　The matter was settled, so Aura suddenly broached a different subject.

　　“Come to think of it, how goes the tutor search for my husband? I would a.s.sume they are a.s.sembled for the most part?”

　　Secretary Fabio wasn’t fl.u.s.tered by Aura’s sudden question and replied affirmative.

　　“Yes. Three self-applications and thirty-one recommendations. The greater majority are young, unmarried women with high magical power.”

　　Unmarried women in a marriageable age with high magical power. Aura made a sarcastic laughter to these obvious candidates for a concubine.

　　“G.o.d forbid! They are just incompetent if they recommended them without realizing my intention, but it is a bit troublesome if they did so while clearly knowing what I wanted. Am I being underestimated that much?”

　　Sending in a candidate for the concubine of the Prince Consort while ignoring the Queen’s real intentions. Even if it was done in the cause of preserving the lineage, it equalled picking a fight with their Master.

　　“Rather than underestimating you, I would say the appeal of sending in a p.a.w.n as Zenjirou-sama‘s concubine, got the better of them despite the danger.”

　　Aura screwed up her nose displeased.

　　“Hmpf, I do not think that my husband is so careless as to be manipulated by the wirepuller behind a concubine.”

　　“I agree, but we can say that because we know his actual condition.”

　　“Well, yeah. In that case, I guess we will have to ask beldam Pascuala to be my husband’s tutor after all.”

　　Saying so, Aura stretched herself on her chair as to relax her stiff body.

　　In response, Secretary Fabio opened his mouth, hesitant on a rare occasion.

　　“Well, regarding that matter, there is one candidate that we cannot afford to ignore. Count Márguez recommended his own wife, Lady Octavia.

　　As you know, they call Lady Octavia the model of a n.o.ble woman. Knowledge, education or magic skills, there is nothing to criticize about her.

　　Moreover, she is already married, so she meets your requirements for the time being, Your Highness.”

　　“Th- That old geezer…”

　　Hearing an unexpected name, Aura squeezed out her words from the back of her throat.

　　An already married woman excelling in knowledge, education and magic. Just listening to the recited characteristics, she indeed fulfilled all of Aura’s conditions.

　　But then, that only applied if the other facts about her were ignored. Even if she was the wife of Count Márguez, she was only his second wife. Currently in her earlier 20s, she was young, beautiful, well-behaved and compliant, so she had been called “the celebrated flower of the royal court” until a few years ago.

　　Incidentally, the son of Count Márguez, Raffaello Márguez was a former candidate for being Aura’s husband and one year older than his stepmother Octavia.

　　“That d.a.m.n geezer would not dare to instigate his own wife to adultery, would he!?”

　　Secretary Fabio shook his head to Aura’s speculation.

　　“No. Judging by his character, I doubt he would take it that far, though that is just my personal opinion.

　　As you may know, Lady Octavia is the “perfect n.o.blewoman” by our country’s common sense. She is a woman proficient at natural compliance, tickling a man’s self-esteem and giving him a dynamic confidence.

　　Maybe he wants to draw out Zenjirou-sama’s a.s.sertiveness by having him be in direct contact with such a woman for some time, and thus damage your relations.h.i.+p with him.”

　　Most men would get ahead of themselves when a conservative beauty praised, flattered and gave them respectful glances. They would feel like they could do anything if they tried. And if she could incite Zenjirou’s mentality into pursuing politics, Count Márguez would have a convenient direct line to royal authority in Zenjirou.

　　To say it with a bit more blatant words, Secretary Fabio guessed that his aim was to “pull Zenjirou from under the Queen”.

　　If his guess was correct, the problem was that Lady Octavia herself, in the middle of events, had no ill intentions even when the wirepuller Count Márguez was full of them.

　　If everything Aura had heard about Lady Octavia’s character so far was accurate, then she was a person, who would simply pour all her energy in her job as a “private tutor” without any ill intentions.

　　On the surface, she was the perfect candidate for Zenjirou’s tutor.

　　“What will you do, Your Highness? We could always come up with some kind of reason and decline her.”

　　Even while Aura felt a bit annoyed over the blunt glance Secretary Fabio gave her as to probe her for her intentions, she shook her head and answered.

　　“No, it is not worth to get on the Count’s bad side for this. My husband will have to appear in public to some degree anyway.

　　I cannot reject everything. Count Márguez’s schemes aside, there is no problem with Lady Octavia. In fact, it is a very beneficial choice for my husband. Hire her.”

　　“Yes, Your Highness. I will get everything prepared then.”

　　On Aura’s order, Secretary Fabio answered with a courteous bow.