In a room, filled with elegant, but simple furniture, only decorated with pearls, sat a young woman who looked around twenty five years old. She was wearing a long, white dress and wore a pearl necklace and earrings. She had a round face with exquisite features and her black hair was tied up at the back on her head in a bun, showing her beautiful neck. She was the youngest, the fourth, wife of Alexander Maxwell, the king of the Sun kingdom, mother of ‘nightmare’ Zia, queen Hua. Nick did guess correctly, Zia’s blood was half from a different race – her mother was from the Eastern continent, and, until she became queen, she was actually the second princess of the Lethe kingdom.
In front of her was standing a man, dressed all in black, with a sword on his back. His name was Ling and he was one of the three Qi sword masters who served queen Hua even before she came to the Mainland continent. Their task was to protect to her, but, after Zia was born, Ling was assigned to keep an eye on the little princess.
“… thus the young miss made teacher Bernard gather all the books about famous swordsman. When he brought only three, she kicked him because he ‘didn’t listen to her’ and ordered to gather more. Then she spent the whole afternoon checking those books one by one. When teacher Bernard wanted to start a drawing lesson, she kicked him again and told to go and gather more books about swordsman or to get out. She continued to look through the books till the evening. I’m not sure what she was looking for, but it seems she wants to learn sword, just like you, master.” Ling reported.
“Sigh, we only wanted her to live a life without any worries. Maybe it’s just a small whim and she’ll forget about it soon.” Queen Hua smiled a beautiful sad smile, “What do you think prompted this interest?”
“Yesterday I already reported how the young miss met a child hunter Ben brought with him, the one that’s around the same age as her. He was the one who gave her idea to make those ‘bunny boots’. Today, in the early morning, they ran around the palace and then talked for a while. As per your instructions I respected her privacy and didn’t listen to the contents of that conversation, but that might be where she got the interest about the sword.” Ling explained.
“Let them play and report to me as usual.” Queen Hua dismissed her guard.
‘Do you really want to learn the sword, my dear daughter? Are all the women in our family with the same fate? I wonder if you have the talent as well.’ She thought to herself while staring out the window in the distance.
It was almost dusk, when Nick finally was ready to ‘cook’. While preparing the ingredients and the equipment, he explained to Ben, “I call this ‘ The project pizza’. If I am successful, you will enjoy one of the best possible meals in the world! Well, in short, to my knowledge there is nothing tastier.”
But to make pizza, Nick first had to make something that was not used in this world, at least from what he could tell – cheese! During his time in the Holy Order he got a huge shock when he realized that people didn’t know what cheese actually was, thus the only option was to make it himself.
He didn’t remember many details on the cheese-making process, but the main guidelines were clear. He bought the milk of a rank three beast because it should be the one with the most fat and, probably, energy and vitamin value. Also, he didn’t have any artificial coagulants, thus he decided to use the fresh product that had turned a bit sour and will coagulate itself when heated.
Since he purchased four buckets, he would try to make four different recipes of cheese – one plain, another with salt and two more – each with the juice of one of the citrus fruits he bought. He hoped that the sourness of the citrus fruits would help milk to coagulate in different ways and there will be a higher chance that from the four parts of experiment at least one will be successful.
For the next step he poured milk form the first bucket in to the big pot and started heating.
Nick couldn’t figure out more ways to make cheese for now, so he used the same method for all the four recipes. He heated milk up, then stirred while not allowing it to boil, and continued for some time when the curd formed. Then he filtered the whey by pouring the contents out from the pot on a thin piece of cloth, pressed the ball that was formed within the cloth a bit and then hung it up so the whey would continue to seep out. Then he used the same milk buckets and put them under the cloth so the floor wouldn’t get wet.
The house slowly got filled with a sour aroma. Ben went to bed right after the second part of the experiment started, but Nick finished when it was already past midnight. Still, after cleaning everything up, he had high hopes to see his favorite food on the table real soon. This was only the first step though, tomorrow he had to set up a formation that will let the cheese ripen during the next couple of months.
He almost didn’t get to sleep at all when Ben woke him up for the morning hunt. Tired, sleepy, but still in a very good mood, Nick followed Ben to the Royal woods. They did the usual routine, except this time Ben was ordered to hunt deer as well.
After they entered the kitchen, they were greeted by a cheer.
“Nicky!” Zia was already waiting for them.
“Have a breakfast first!” Nigel laughed and pointed to the side for Ben to put down the game and then poured the soup for both hunters.
Zia also requested the soup and then they ate, mostly in silence. Both Ben and Nigel felt extremely uncomfortable, they even thought it would be better if the small ‘nightmare’ could boss them around. At least in that case they knew how to behave. This new, obedient princess made it hard for them to comprehend the situation.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Turns out Zia was still the same. Immediately after the breakfast she dragged the tired Nick away.
“Nicky! I checked a lot of them, but there were no secrets. Did I do something wrong?” She asked.
“Wait, wait! What did you check?” Nick was confused.
In fact, despite the good mood he had in the morning, he ran through the forest with Ben half asleep. And he was not fully woken up even now.
“The books on the sword arts. There was nothing interesting in them.” Zia complained.
“Slow down. You want to learn sword arts? Why would you do that?”
“What do you think? I want to be the strongest! I will be stronger than my dad!” She was all fired up.
Nick tried to concentrate, “Where did you get the books and what they were about?”
“My stupid teacher Bernard brought them after I asked. But all those books were about lives of old people and not interesting at all.”
“Of course, they weren’t. Those probably were biographies. Does your teacher usually teach you something like music, arts, literature and the likes?” Nick asked.
“Yes, he is very boring.” Zia nodded.
“There you go. I bet he doesn’t even know where the real books on the sword arts are kept. There must be a library in the palace – you should look for the good books there on your own.”
“Let’s go! You will help me!” Zia tried to pull Nick somewhere.
“Zia, listen. I didn’t sleep last night almost at all and after the morning hunt I am really tired. Let’s do that another day.” Nick tried to persuade her with a weak smile.
“No! Let’s go now!” Zia stomped her foot, “You are my follower, remember? So follow me!”
Nick turned serious, “If you want to ask for my advise or have fun, we can be friends, but if you want to order me around – find someone else. I’m tired and dirty, I just want to wash up and go to bed.” Nick turned away and slowly walked back towards the kitchen.
Zia stared at his back and tears started forming in the corners of her eyes. Then she suddenly smiled and ran after Nick.
“Fine, I’ll help you wash up. Let’s go!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him in another direction with her usual power and speed.
Nick didn’t even manage to react. They were running through the corridors for a while, until a pleasant sweet aroma assaulted Nick’s nostrils and he felt a warm steam in the air.
Zia turned another corner, opened the door and pulled Nick inside.
In front of Nick’s eyes appeared a huge hall, full of steam in the air. It had big pots of colorful blooming plants everywhere, and several big bath tubs full of steaming water in the middle. In few of those bath tubs young girls and women were sitting and standing, and few half naked servant females were washing them. Nick’s eyes almost fell out on the floor.
“Come, I’ll help you wash your back.” Zia tried to pull Nick’s hand.
But Nick darted out of the hall even at a faster speed compared to when he dashed out of the wardrobe to attack the grand elder back then.
‘I’m dead, I’m dead! Why did she kill me? Did I really insult her that much?’ At this moment Nick had woken up completely and was panicking.
Zia caught up to him confused, “Why did you run, didn’t you want to wash up?”
Nick grabbed his head in hands while running further away, “Why did you do this to me, Zia? I thought we were friends!”
After some time he was finally out of breath. At any given time he could still run few laps around Aurora city, but with the last night’s exhaustion in addition to the panic attack he had just now, Nick had lost all his strength.
“Ha! Finally you were tired sooner than I!” Zia happily stated.
But Nick collapsed on the floor, devastated. He survived the torture in the freak sect and managed to escape the definite death at their hands only to die here in the Sun kingdom’s palace because a naughty princess brought him into a hall full of naked princesses who were taking their morning baths!
Zia stared at him dumbfounded, “What’s the big deal? I wash there all the time. Why are you like this?”
“What do you mean ‘big deal’? I was too tired to go to the library with you and you decided to kill me?” Nick looked at her with tears in his eyes.
If someone wanted to catch him in the palace, there was no way to escape, there was no Angel to bring him away at the very last moment. And no excuses could help in this situation either – who would blame the innocent princess? Of course, he was the perverted one!
“Do you think my sisters would mind? When their friends from the aristocratic families stay in the palace they also bath there! If you are my friend, why can’t you do that too?” Zia got more and more confused.
Then Nick finally understood – this girl thought that he was also a girl! How was that even possible?
“Zia, that’s a female bath. You bringing me in there is the same as killing me! I am a boy after all!” Nick said, clenching his teeth. Ben was right, he was going to get in trouble and it happened so soon!
Zia’s eyes widened in the size of a plate. She pointed at him, “You, you, you! You lecher! You pervert!” And then began to kick him.
Nick tried to reason, “You brought me there on your own, I didn’t want to! I didn’t even see anything!”
She kicked him for a couple of minutes and Nick didn’t try to dodge, but only covered his head. After trying few excuses he didn’t bother say anything. If it didn’t happen to him, he might even find this situation a bit funny.