Chapter 57 – Imperial Palace ~ Master of the Cherry Blossom Palace 7
“Don’t come this way…”
Sentinels who display the behavior of experts in assassination, infiltration, and disguise, called ninjas. The scene where Aiko started shaking as soon as she saw me was funny.
“Does saying that make you want to get closer? “Is this a hunting instinct?”
I stopped walking, suppressing the feeling of wanting to treat him harshly the more he showed weakness.
When she didn’t hear any footsteps, Aiko gently opened her closed eyes and realized that I wasn’t coming, so she took a few steps back and opened her eyes fiercely.
“Do you really want to tell the whole world what I’m going to do? Let everyone outside the imperial palace know that right next to Natsuki is a clumsy woman who has been watching her all her life and has a crush on her?”
“This is really…”
Aiko trembled with anger, but when she realized there was no benefit in fighting, she made no reply and tried not to open her eyes fiercely.
“Why did you call me? “I’m busy.”
“Okay? “I also have important business.”
She cut Aiko off while she was trying to run away, saying she was busy, and made her focus on me.
How did Aiko get caught by this bitch? She muttered the same words to herself and looked at me with a fake smile.
“It’s nothing else. “I’m so bored right now.”
“… Are you going?”
“When someone speaks, you have to listen to the end. It’s pervert.”
“What if someone hears it!”
Aiko didn’t even realize that her voice was much louder, and a sinister smile appeared on her face as she looked embarrassed.
“Listen. I’m free right now, so I want to help Natsuki. So, do you know where Natsuki has gone now and what I can do to help?”
Aiko muttered, blinking her eyes with a blank expression on her face.
“… Surprisingly, it was the right reason.”
“Surprisingly. Even if we hadn’t been around for a long time, I could tell that Natsuki was busy and called out irregularly.”
The same goes for the Chil-Ilje incident, which still makes her angry when she thinks about it.
I can’t help Natsuki by having her perform ancestral rites and pray for 7 days without stopping.
I felt pitiful and frustrated that all I could do was tremble with anger.
“It was like that when I came here from the maid’s quarters. Suddenly, at dawn, when I was coming to the Cherry Blossom Palace, they sent a messenger and told me that I didn’t have to come.”
Aiko, who was hovering around Natsuki, could easily understand this just by saying this.
As I expected, he must have immediately remembered the seven-day festival, so he frowned and nodded.
“It was funny how old people who only knew about their own interests would fight with their necks raised against each other, saying it was tradition and etiquette.”
Aiko lowered her gaze to the floor and thought briefly before nodding her head.
“Okay. I think Natsuki wanted us to have her by her side, so we could have enough time to get to know each other, but the imperial palace is not a place where you can be so foolish.”
When he said that he had abandoned the right to succeed to the throne, he meant that Natsuki could be attacked from many directions at any time.
“Hmm. “Is it okay for you to make your own judgment?”
“… You’ll be scolded. However, it is my job to point out parts where Natsuki’s perception is poor. I have to do it.”
Aiko, who had not even tried to meet her eyes until now, sighed briefly and looked into my eyes.
“No matter who becomes your enemy, are you really Natsuki-sama’s ally?”
“Yes.”
She and Aiko continued their eyeball fight for a few seconds, but she was the one who gave up first and took her attention.
“Follow me. “You can protect your own body, right?”
“If it means buying time.”
Ain protects me, and my basic strategy has been to use magic or other methods to defeat my opponent, but I knew at least self-defense techniques.
Aiko put her finger on her lips as if to tell her to be quiet from now on.
After nodding her head and looking around her, Aiko lowered her head slightly as if asking her to follow and walked quickly through the interior of the cherry blossom palace like a busy maid.
She moved close behind her, mimicking her posture.
When I looked around slightly from the corner of my eye, I saw that I was heading towards the side gate in the direction close to the area where the royal family lives in the Cherry Blossom Palace.
Arriving at her side door, Aiko briefly showed the sign to the guard guarding her door, and the guard removed the window blocking her side door and nodded at her.
“What about the back?”
“Companion.”
“It’s a big deal.”
That was the end of the conversation.
As soon as her guard opened the door, Aiko moved into her identical position. She was like a maid in a hurry, moving as fast as she could without violating etiquette, so she had to grit her teeth and follow.
“I’m saying this because I have a long-awaited opportunity.”
“Huh?”
“… “I am not an incompetent pervert lez watchdog.”
She didn’t know if she was incompetent or not, but she was a pervert lez guard, so she tried to argue, but she couldn’t open her mouth because the palace guards passed by.
Since she couldn’t refute it right away, I felt bad for her when I saw her smiling face as if it was her victory.
She couldn’t speak, so instead she spanked her lewd buttocks, which were twitching from side to side right before her eyes.
She almost made a loud noise, but luckily it didn’t spread to the surrounding area because a horse was crying loudly in a nearby stable.
Aiko pressed her butt into her palm and looked back with a teary expression on her face, then poofed. She did, and she clicked her tongue briefly, and then she looked in front of her again and moved.
So, to make her realize that she wasn’t talking nonsense, she squeezed her buttocks with her palm and then let go.
Aiko made an expression as if she was in pain, but as the security guard passed nearby, she had no choice but to swallow the pain and move on.
After carrying out such a trivial battle, the place we arrived at was a large shrine built on one side of the imperial palace.
It was a spacious and extravagant building built to honor past emperors and empresses, and the square was opened to the common people only on very special days.
Natsuki was a member of the royal family who gave up her right to succeed to the throne, but since she held the position of shrine maiden, it was not strange that she was at the shrine.
“… “Don’t look around.”
I bowed my head again at Aiko’s point. She turned her body slightly and pointed with her fingers to her eyes and ears. It was a warning to be careful because, unlike the cherry blossom palace, she has many eyes and ears to see here.
She naturally thought that since it was a shrine, there would be many eyes and ears, but Aiko did not enter the main shrine building, but instead turned her body in a direction closer to the outer wall of the imperial palace. That direction was the way commoners came in when the shrine was opened.
“Either join the line! Anyone who makes a lot of noise will be dragged out immediately! Remember!”
In front of me, there was a line of people who looked like commoners, and I could see the imperial palace guards and knights standing on guard with their eyes blue, making sure they weren’t doing anything foolish.
When it was their turn, the commoners went into the tent made of pure white cloth and lay down, while people dressed in white cotton clothes walked around busily looking at them one by one.
“A medical officer, a female medical officer and… “
Natsuki was seen looking at each commoner with a serious expression, with beads of sweat on her forehead, and pouring out her magic to heal them.
Once the coughing patient was in a comfortable state, Natsuki whispered something into the ear of the assistant doctor next to her. The doctor relayed the message to her patient in her solemn voice.
“A disease is useless if the cause is not treated. Clean the house as soon as you return.”
“Thank you… !”
It seemed familiar here to forcibly drag a person who was bowing down to the point of hitting his head on the floor, saying that another patient was waiting for him.
But how many people can follow that advice? These people do not have the money to receive treatment at a clinic in the capital city, so they waste time getting treatment here for free, so the living environment is obvious.
Aiko spoke quietly, hiding in the shade of a tree far enough away that Natsuki wouldn’t notice us.
“Natsuki, you know that this advice is useless.”
“Did you even read my mind?”
“Because it’s one of the things I whisper behind my back to Natsuki, who is sweating hard here to save the people. And. You also went on a stealth trip together. Did you see a bird in the imperial palace that doesn’t know anything about the world?”
“Not at all.”
She answered with a sigh and then looked at Natsuki. She really wandered around non-stop. Anything that could be solved through healing was solved through healing, and things that required medicinal herbs rather than magical power were given over to the medical officer.
Most of the doctors seemed to have just passed the exam, but as time went by, the speed at which they diagnosed and treated patients seemed to increase.
“So. What can I do to help Natsuki? “I think it would only be a hindrance if we went without specialized knowledge.”
“Of course. You can leave those things to Natsuki and the people around you. What we have to do is…”
Aiko took out a small dagger the size of her palm from her sleeve and threw it at me.
As she stood there, the dagger passing by her head made a sound like it was hitting something soft behind her.
When I turned around, one of the assassins who had tried to stab me in the back was lying on the ground.
“It’s garbage cleaning.”
“Aha.”
