Swan watched the ferret beastman until he left the throne room and sighed. She quickly hunched her back and lowered her head as dealing with so many people drained her out of her life force.
It made her want to just tuck into her blanket and hide from the rest of the world.
’How long do I have to do this? So far, I’ve only been dealing with small matters in the kingdom, but what if I have to make an important decision when Gale isn’t around? Surely, he wouldn’t believe in me too much, right?’ Swan thought. ’Ah, it makes me nervous whenever I imagine what will happen once Gale finds out about my true identity.’
’I really like him though, I hope he can at least spare me. I’m fine being thrown away somewhere in the forest if it means I wouldn’t need to die in his hand,’ Swan thought as she began imagining the worst case possible.
However, her imagination was interrupted when Gale walked into the throne room while carrying a sack. His lips curled up the moment he saw Swan sitting on the throne. Her small body seemed to have been swallowed by the throne, and it made him feel bad because he kept on leaving her to handle the kingdom’s matters.
This sack of pearls should’ve been more than enough to compensate for her hard work. He couldn’t wait to see the big smile on her pretty face.
"W-welcome back," Swan welcomed him bashfully as she tried to scoot to the corner of the throne to give a space for Gale to sit. "Uhm, there are a few kingdom matters I dealt with just now. I can tell you all of it..."
"No need, I trust you on that," Gale said as he carefully put the sack right under her feet, "Look at what I’ve fetched for you."
Swan looked down to check on the sack as Gale opened it, and her eyes brightened when she saw a bunch of lustrous pearls inside.
They were all so beautiful, even the expensive pearls Aria had held no value against these.
She took one pearl from the sack and inspected it.
It was smooth, and usually pearls would have some odd shapes, or even a little bump here and there. But this pearl—and almost all that she saw inside the sack had a perfectly round shape, and each of them shone brightly under the light.
The more she stared at it, the more she was hypnotized by its beauty. After spending time with Aria for years, she knew this pearl would be much more expensive than any of her collections.
Gale noticed Swan’s fascination for the pearl in her hand and commented, "If you like them, I can always ask the fishmen to get more. These are the best quality pearls they can get from the West Sea. If you wait for a while, they can harvest more of these."
"Or, if you don’t want to wait, I can go to the North Sea and ask the fishmen from the north to gather more," Gale added.
"N-no need for now. We still have to sell these to the nobles first!" Swan exclaimed.
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