Bonus Epilogue
The crown prince entered a sitting room where the King and princess Charlotte were chatting. He did not hesitate to interrupt his sister. “Father, how did your conversation with Duke Garfield go?”
“About the same as always. You need to throw common sense out the window right from the start. Oh, the Duke is opening a second shop here in the capital.”
“He is? You mean… that type of shop?”
“Yes. He even agreed to invite you over once the place is ready.”
“That’s great! Didn’t you also need to punish the Duke for interfering with the capital?”
“What do you mean? Before, you clarify… think carefully. You’re the crown prince and need to start speaking like one.”
“The Duke apparently created a fake city and pretended to be the King, didn’t he? I don’t think he should be executed or anything, but that’s a major offense against the kingdom and the crown. We can’t allow citizens at any level to get away with such behavior unpunished, right?”
“My son…” The King paused to take a deep breath. “Are you aware that the Duke relocated Bretten, in its entirety, with his magic during that affair?”
“Of course, father. It was obvious to anyone who looked outside for a moment.”
“In that case, are you encouraging me to discipline a man who is capable of moving this entire city on a whim?”
“D—Don’t we need to enforce the rules equally for everyone?” Even the crown prince was losing confidence in his position.
“Unbelievable. Let me ask you this. Do you know why the Duke moved the city, created a fake one, and inhabited the throne room?”
“Uh, it had something to do with defeating that evil guy from south of the Dragon Mountains, right?”
“Charlotte, what do you think?”
“I’m sure my brother is correct, father. Duke Garfield most definitely moved the city to keep us safe. If he pretended to be the King, it was part of his plot to defeat a powerful enemy. There’s no way he’s interested in being the King.”
“What? Why wouldn’t he be interested?” her brother asked. His tone revealed that he couldn’t conceive of such a mindset, which was unsurprising given that he was the crown prince.
“Brother, if Garfield was the King, and you gave him even half as many headaches as you give our father, Garfield would probably force someone else to become the king and run away to another nation.”
“I don’t know what you mean about headaches, but why would he do that?”
“My son, think about what Dukes normally do in this kingdom and what Duke Garfield spends most of his time on.”
“Hm?” The prince stopped to think for a few seconds, hand on chin. “Doesn’t he have that Assistant Duke of his manage affairs here, and a dark elf manage his domain? He seems to spend most of his time traveling around adventuring with that Polonio girl or fighting in one-sided wars.”
“Brother, that Polonio girl is my knight!”
“Fine, sorry Charlotte. Father, Duke Garfield hardly does anything at all that Dukes normally would.”
“Precisely. He lacks the ambition you seem to assume all people have.”
“Why would he lack that ambition?”
“That’s a good question. I assume it’s due to his incredible magic as well as his background from before he entered the kingdom. Charlotte, do you know about that?”
Charlotte did not immediately respond to her father’s inquiry.
“…Charlotte?” her brother followed up.
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“Father, I think I know more about that than I should…”
“Charlotte, then you must tell us! Unlike your brother, I’m not so foolish as to think we are going to discipline Duke Garfield, but knowing a little about his background could be crucial to the safety and prosperity of the kingdom!”
“Father, do you believe I care deeply about the future of the Fenwick Kingdom?”
“Of course, Charlotte!”
“Then, please trust me when I tell you that it’s precisely because I don’t want tragedy to befall this kingdom that I cannot speak at all about Duke Garfield’s past or the nature of his magic.”
“Sister, has the Duke threatened you to remain silent!? Are you under the influence of one of his spells? Has he won your heart and already turned you against us!?”
“B—Brother!?”
The King held up a hand to stop his son from continuing. “Let me guess, Charlotte. None of those are true, right?”
“Of course, father. Garfield has no desire to undermine the crown.”
“Just what does he want?”
“Why don’t you ask him, brother?”
“Perhaps I will.”
“Charlotte, when your brother has this conversation with the Duke, I want you there.”
“Why, father!?” the prince protested.
“Charlotte gets along well with the Duke. If you say something really foolish, her presence will hopefully stop him from losing patience and moving you to some distant location from which you can never return.”
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“I think you two are ready to move on to hands-on training. Normally I wouldn’t do it quite like this, but given that you won’t have any trouble defending yourselves if needed, let’s try it.”
“Hannah and Solana nodded and waited for Lilah to explain their next task.”
“Pretend you’re employees of this shop. Without using any abilities or even using any words, you two need to motivate a couple of male customers to follow you home. Once you’ve confirmed their intentions, bring them back here to me.”
“Why only male?” asked Hannah, but Solana had the same question.
Lilah laughed and replied, “You’ll have much more luck at first with men, but women are fair game too, I suppose. I’ll admit, I’m not that knowledgeable on how to ensnare other women, so you’ll be a bit on your own for that.”
“Okay!”
Lilah wasn’t specifically aware of the vampires’ ability to sense compatibility with others through a smell-like sixth sense. Further, she had no way of knowing that this ability couldn’t be turned off, or that this sense was growing sharper by the day for both of them.
“I’ll just say that the tricky part about women will likely be that the majority aren’t attracted to you no matter how hard you try. Unless you have a way of figuring out at a glance whether they might be potentially interested in you, your success rates will be low.”
They didn’t mention that they could change their appearance to look male if they wanted. After all, Garfield had already forbidden them from changing their appearance (other than apparent age) in order to manipulate or seduce others.
Over the next few days, Lilah observed the girls at work in the shop. Although they were slightly slow learners when it came to her lessons on flirting and body language, they had an uncanny ability to choose the right targets from the start. She was hoping they could explain how they do it to her. She was also hoping they’d stop targeting the other employees as much as the customers.
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“Hi Kay, how are you?”
“Duke! Welcome! Please, come in!”
“…What are you even up to here?”
“Oh, just an experiment.”
“Let me guess. You’re attempting to show that the planet rotates by monitoring a large pendulum over an extended period of time?”
“Duke! How could you… No, I should expect this from you, shouldn’t I?”
“Well, I’ve seen it done before.”
“You have? I haven’t heard of anything like this, though…”
“Oh, there’s no way you would have heard of it. It’s called a Foucault Pendulum.”
“Ah! The Empire beat me to it!”
“Uh, no actually. It’s uh… a different Foucault. From my previous world.”
“Oh, I see. So perhaps I’m first here, but not there…”
“You’re way ahead of your time though, Kay. I’d say you’re several centuries ahead in fact. Still, this is hardly a magical experiment. Why are you doing it?”
“I thought understanding the planet’s motions could help me with the development of certain magic.”
“So you just need to understand basic astronomy?”
“I’m sorry?”
Garfield spent about an hour walking Kay through everything he could remember about astronomy, keeping it general since this solar system is somewhat different than the one he first learned about. He even demonstrated solving for the elliptical orbits of two objects in space and gave a brief aside on cosmology, which he figured was probably mostly the same as in his previous world.
“The latest developments I heard about in my previous world were how scientists observed some asymmetries in the distribution of galaxies throughout the visible universe, suggesting an external influence such as an introduction or removal of energy. I didn’t think anything of it until I learned about the gods here. I guess I could just ask them to clarify some of the remaining mysteries of the universe, but that wouldn’t be fun.”
Kay looked back down at the math Garfield had scribbled down while he explained astronomy to her. “Garfield…”
“Hm?”
Kay stood up and stepped closer to Garfield, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “Teach me more! Teach me everything you know! Please! I’ll do anything!”
Garfield knew it was probably a mistake to literally teach Kay everything he knew, no matter how well-intentioned she was. Still, he had a soft spot for unbridled inquisitiveness. He decided he’d meet her halfway.
“I can’t teach you everything, but I don’t mind passing along a good chunk of what I learned previously. What in particular do you want to know?”
“This! First, this!” Kay gestured at the paper. “How did you solve this? I can’t follow it…”
“Okay, I’ll teach you the math, but please promise me you won’t name differential calculus after me.”