Chapter 141 – A Gift from the Second Prince

“Marie. There’s a ton of packages at the front gate.”

Fernet poked his head out from the lab door.

“Packages?”

Who from? I had absolutely no idea.

I turned to look at Heart, but he just shook his head with a “Dunno.”

“Let’s go check it out.”

Hearing that, Heart set the book he was reading down on the desk and stood up.

I hurriedly stowed away the chemicals from my experiment and locked the shelf.

This was because, ever since the Lily incident, the management of chemicals in the lab had been strictly manualized.

On top of that, my research into anesthetic drugs had been pointed out by a senior priest as something that could cause serious trouble if misused, so it got banned.

He was right, of course.

I’d dreamed of cheat skills using my otherworldly knowledge, but apparently things don’t go that smoothly in reality.

So now I was limited to harmless research like antidotes and recovery potions, with even stricter handling procedures.

“Hurry up, hurry! There were tons of boxes.”

Fernet looked like he could barely contain his excitement over what might be inside.

“I wonder who they’re from?”

“Oh, I forgot to ask that.”

Fernet stuck out his tongue with a sheepish grin and dashed off ahead.

“Heh heh. Some things never change.”

“He’s always been like that.”

Heart let out a soft chuckle as he watched Fernet’s back.

Oh no. I’d just realized we were alone together.

We’d been alone in the lab earlier, too.

What do I do? My heart was pounding.

Now that I was aware of it, I had no clue how to act.

How had I been getting by before? I was even starting to forget how to walk.

Ever since then, Heart hadn’t brought up that conversation at all.

I had a ton of questions I wanted to ask, but I doubted I’d stay sane hearing the answers.

Besides, if he turned the questions on me, I’d be in trouble.

I glanced sideways at Heart, but he noticed and looked right back.

I quickly averted my eyes and looked down. Was that too obvious?

My ears were probably beet red by now.

Praying he hadn’t noticed, I pretended to be calm as I headed toward the front gate.

“Marie! They were from Second Prince Mels Debias!”

Fernet was bouncing around happily with the mountain of packages at his back.

“From the Second Prince? What’s that about?”

I had no reason to receive anything from him, and no clue why.

I jogged over to Fernet, and he handed me the letter he was holding.

It had already been inspected and unsealed. I skimmed it quickly and couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

“Ahahaha. All of these are the items I made the First Prince buy.”

That was right. He’d told me to pick anything I wanted, so Suzy and I had gone wild writing down whatever we pleased.

The letter said she’d already received her share and sent it back to her family home.

“Eh! Did the Second Prince propose to Suzy?!”

I yelled it out before regretting it instantly. Talk about words coming back to bite me.

But Fernet leaned in full of curiosity, peeking at the letter. “What, what?”

“Looks like his retainers pulled some strings under the pretext of a reward so he could marry Suzy.”

“Heh. That girl and a prince, huh…”

Heart leaned in from my side to peek as well.

So close. I was blushing hard. My heart was about to explode.

As I froze up, heart racing, Heart finally cracked. “Don’t make such a big deal out of it,” he said, shoulders shaking as he turned his face away.

Mmm. This isn’t funny.

Adult composure, huh? I’ve got zero resistance to this stuff.

“Huh? Aren’t these… seeds?”

Fernet had poured the contents of a small pouch into his palm.

Ah, right.

“That’s right. These are precious seeds you can only get over there. I pulled some royal privilege strings to get them. But is it really okay to take them out of the country?”

As I said that, I read the letter from top to bottom.

“As long as it’s just for cultivation… and research in my personal lab, it’s fine… Man, he’s sneaky.”

If it leads to successful mass production from some research breakthrough, we’d just have to request more from the neighboring country.

No loss for them at all.

“What about this one?”

He pointed to a large box, so I leaned in with a “Lemme see.”

“Ah! This is the latest analyzer! It uses rare magic gems, and you can only get it from the neighboring country…”

“Marie, you’re pretty sneaky yourself.”

“Totally. Must be Fernet’s bad influence.”

Fernet played innocent with a “Huh? What do you mean?”, while Heart peeked into the box and laughed.

“I ordered it on a whim with Suzy, but is that okay?”

“Why not? They said they’d give it to you.”

Well, yeah, that’s what Fernet would say.

Heart was already instructing the holy knights to carry everything to the lab.

“I’ve gotta write a proper thank-you letter. Heh heh. The price tags have way more zeros than I’m used to.”

“Ahahaha. That pricey, huh? As expected of Marie. Squeezing every last bit of compensation out of them.”

I shrugged as I said it, and Fernet responded with a thumbs-up and a wink.

Heh. We’ve been together since I was little, so maybe I’ve picked up some of his habits without realizing it.