Me, the Weakest Member of the Hero’s Party? I’m the Villain Though? - Chapter 127
The Paper-Thin Line Between Worry and Jealousy
While I was spending a heartwarming reunion with the hero’s party, Caesar suddenly cut in between us.
“The path gets a little rough from here, so make sure you follow closely.”
“Sure.”
I answered with a reluctant expression and followed behind him. While firmly enduring Kyle’s wary gaze, Caesar came over and stood beside me.
“Sorry about earlier.”
Caesar said, gesturing with his eyes toward the wound on my neck. For someone apologizing, his tone and expression were indifferent.
I wasn’t the type to accept an apology with a smile anyway, so I simply nodded quietly and let it pass.
“There was a misunderstanding, so it was understandable.”
I thought it was a rather heartwarming scene. But Kyle suddenly wrapped a hand around my waist, pulled me toward him, and asked sharply,
“Who are you to speak so familiarly to Lysian?”
Kyle, who usually talked warmly with other people, somehow tended to act prickly only toward people involved with me. The first time I felt that was with Derek, and now it was the same with how he treated Caesar.
Caesar’s sharp eyes briefly touched Kyle’s hand, then moved away.
“My name is Caesar, and I’m that person’s son.”
The one Caesar indicated with the tip of his chin was the Fairy King. So, in short, Caesar was a fairy prince. No wonder he seemed to resemble the Fairy King a little.
“And you, do you not know that when you hear someone else’s introduction, you’re supposed to introduce yourself?”
When Caesar asked bluntly, Kyle lifted his chin.
“I am Kyle Delos, the Seventh Imperial Prince of Helana.”
Sure enough, even though no one had asked, he once again said he was an Imperial Prince as if boasting.
However, even at the word Imperial Prince, Caesar didn’t look especially surprised or flustered. If anything, his reaction had been more intense when I said I was an ordinary passerby.
“Your name is Lysian?”
Caesar soon lost interest in Kyle and instead looked at me with greater interest. Kyle’s displeased face was in front of Caesar’s face, so the contrast felt somehow uncomfortable.
“That’s right.”
“What a pretty name. It suits the way you look.”
But at Caesar’s following answer, I went beyond discomfort and felt the hairs on my body stand on end.
Pretty? Who, me?
Maybe the fairies’ standards of beauty were different from humans’. Even so, Lysian absolutely didn’t have a face that could be called ‘pretty’…
“What… What did you say?”
Kyle must have been surprised too, because he flinched and raised his voice as he asked back. At that, even the others who had been standing some distance away turned to look this way.
“I mean it. I’m not very good at empty flattery.”
Caesar said that as if tossing it out casually, then walked ahead to where Kakaros was.
Frozen for a moment, I stopped walking. Because of that, Gerard, who had been following behind me, almost bumped into me and fell over.
“W-What is it? Why are you suddenly stopping and making a fuss? You startled me!”
Gerard, startled, said something or other, but it no longer reached my ears. And I wasn’t the only one shocked.
Kyle was also staring blankly at Caesar’s retreating back.
“He seems… strange, doesn’t he?”
At Kyle’s mutter, I nodded with genuine agreement.
“I don’t know what conversation we still need to finish, but let’s end it quickly and leave.”
Recovering from the shock faster than I did, Kyle pulled on my hand now.
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
Still in shock, I followed behind the Fairy King through the forest for quite a while, and soon a cliff appeared.
At the edge of the cliff stood a structure like a temple, and it was the most unique and beautiful building I had seen since coming to this world.
“Is this the newly built palace?”
At Kakaros’s question, the Fairy King nodded with a somehow proud-looking expression.
“Yes, it’s much smaller than the place we used to live in, but I put quite a lot of care into building it. What do you think, do you like it?”
“Yes, Your Majesty’s aesthetic sense is always excellent.”
Kakaros answered as if flattering him, but everyone in the group agreed with it.
Then why did his son call me pretty? It seemed he hadn’t inherited his father’s aesthetic sense.
“You must be hungry for now, so let us have a meal right away.”
Expectation welled up inside me the entire way to the dining room. It wasn’t because I was hungry, but because I was extremely curious about what kind of food the forest fairies ate.
But when we actually arrived at the dining room and saw the prepared food, disappointment washed over me.
It was nothing but grass.
