My Childhood Friend Is An Archmage Chapter 118
Translated by d6y (ko-fi)
Chapter 118
Traveling alone with Lancer.
To be honest, I get excited just thinking about it. Even though the destination was up in the North, where temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees in the winter.
"I’d love to go!" I reply immediately, without a care in the world.
But as soon as I say that, the reasoning fairy in my head starts screaming.
‘Wait! You're going to the North in the middle of winter? Why are you going through all the trouble? What if you freeze to death?’
Ouch! I come back to my senses and quickly turn my answer around. "Go, I'd love to go, but… Lancer, honestly, I think it's impossible to go to the North in this weather."
At my words, he tilts his head. "Impossible how? I heard you can get there in three days by carriage."
When I say impossible, Lancer, I mean the kind of impossible that is actually possible, but which we shackle ourselves to as impossible because we don't humanly want to do it.
Hmm…. How do I explain this?
Meanwhile, my brain is doing all sorts of logic to somehow reconcile the idea that I don't want to go to the North with the idea that I want to go travelling with Lancer.
Yeah, travelling is supposed to be hard!
Sitting in a carriage, scanning the scenery with your eyes, and sleeping in a comfortable hotel is not real travelling!
Descending into an icy hell of minus thirty degrees, freezing the mucous membranes of your nose, trudging through thigh-deep snow, and nearly freezing to death in the middle of the night!
How fun! I'm dying of excitement just thinking about it!
And then years later, after all the memories have been made, we'll laugh and say, ‘Yeah, That happened!’
Yeah!
As I happily contemplate making unforgettable memories with Lancer in the North (maybe for the last time), I shake my head.
“Lancer, it's understandable that you want to go to the North…. Actually, I don't understand. Let's go there during another season. Like… summer. And summer.”
At my firm persuasion, Lancer frowns. "But Princess Julia has offered to let you travel with me if you'd like to join. She's even arranged for a carriage...."
Hmm? This is a bit unexpected. Julia even considered me and Lancer travelling together?
I thought back to the last time I attended her birthday party. I had unwillingly eavesdropped on her inner thoughts. She seemed to privately hope that the Crown Prince and I would not marry.
So she's scheming in her own way….
Why are all the imperials in this country so unique? I'm sure Julia suggested that because she has something in mind.
But….
A trip to the North in the dead of winter!
I decide that if I ever see her again, I'll try to find out what on earth she's thinking when accepting Lancer's request.
"Hey, Skyla...." When I said nothing for a moment, too busy thinking about Julia, Lancer, who's been quietly gauging my reaction, speaks up slowly. "I… Skyla, I've always dreamed of travelling with you, just the two of us."
I glance up at Lancer's eyes staring down at me. Desperate, wistful eyes. My heart sinks as I gaze into them, which look like transparent crystals, ready to burst with tears.
He's always had a gentle, puppy-like demeanour, but when he shows such an expression, the effect is even stronger.
Lancer gently grabs the cuff of my sleeve. "I'm sorry for picking the North as a destination, but… can we, please?"
"Yes." I blurt out the answer right then and there, as if mesmerized.
And that's how my and Lancer's trip to the North was planned.
* * *
"Skyla, my precious daughter, what do you mean you're going to travel to the North this winter?"
"Yes, that's what happened."
"How?!"
"It just did," I mumble in response to my parents' barrage of questions.
We're in the private residence of the Duke (and Duchess) of Kaerun.
The very moment Lancer and I agree to travel north, I lead him to my parents' office.
My father sighs heavily and looks back and forth between me and Lancer. "You may be an archmage with flames shooting out of your eyes and fire breathing out of your mouth, but do you realize how bad the weather is in the North right now?"
"Father, Lancer can't use magic like that."
"That's right, Duke. I use the opposite kind of magic, my eyes breathe fire and my mouth shoots flames— ouch." I pinch his cheek.
My parents look at us with even more shocked faces.
"Lancer, did you just...!"
Are they surprised by his eyes somehow breathing fire?
"Did you just… feel pain when Skyla pinched your cheek?"
"Oh my god, for an archmage, you can feel pain. I thought you were a painless wooden doll!"
Why is that the point of surprise?
My parents clutch each other in shock. I continue with what I want to say to them. "Anyway, Lancer says that Princess Julia has offered to lend us her imperial coachman and imperial carriage so that for our leave."
"At any rate, you said that the Crown Prince is coming tomorrow, and I'll tell him in person."
"What do you mean to tell him?"
"I'm going to tell him that I'm travelling with Lancer." My mother gives me a strange look when I reply as if she has asked an obvious question.
"And why would you want to tell the Crown Prince about that?"
I can hear my mother's inner thoughts behind her words.
‘Skyla, can you hear your mother's thoughts right now?’
I narrow my eyes on her.
When she confirms that I can hear her, she continues.
“I don't think it's necessary to tell the Crown Prince, he'll be too busy with his other duties to care where you're travelling.”
‘Skyla, if you tell the Crown Prince that you are travelling with Lancer, he might become jealous of the relationship between you and Lancer!’
It's unusual for my mother to scold me from the bottom of her heart. For once, I come to listen to her.
"So there's no need to say anything unnecessary to him tomorrow."
‘Or maybe you should just take him along on the trip!’
"...?"
I'm listening to my mother's inner thoughts, but I can't help but ask myself if I have heard her correctly.
If it's just me and Lancer, the Crown Prince might get annoyed. So we should just take him with us?
"Mother, what is that...."
"Oh, it's the time the jeweller is supposed to come!" Mother clasped her hands together. "I'm sorry, children, but the Duke and I are supposed to be working on a couple’s brooch together. Go out in the garden and kick a ball around."
"If you're hungry, you can munch on the garden grass!"
With that, my parents hold hands and leave while laughing hysterically.
"...." I watch my mother's backside disappear through the door, unable to react.
What the hell was my mother thinking, taking the Crown Prince on a trip with me and Lancer? Was she expecting us to stay together and freeze to death in the North?
I wonder if the Kaerun Duchy is plotting some nefarious scheme to take over the imperial family without my knowledge…. No. I don't think my mother and father are intelligent enough to have such a high level of scheming….
As I mull over my mother's bizarre advice,
"Then let's go play!" Lancer grabs my hand and pulls me along.
"Where are we going?"
"Brother Hubert has the day off today, and he told me to meet him at the Clock Tower!"
The Clock Tower?
"Why are you telling me that now?" I never heard of this before. I can't hide my surprise at the sudden news.
His expression softens a bit, as though he's apologizing. "I'm sorry. I meant to tell you earlier, but I was answering your questions…."
Ah.
Yeah, I'd been bombarding him with questions about why he was going to the North as soon as he arrived….
"Well, I'm going to change into something thicker."
"Okay." Lancer nods.
Sure enough, Lancer wears the coat he has shown off to me at Julia's birthday party. She must've returned it to him.
Ready to go out, we take the carriage straight to the Clock Tower.
Commonly called a Clock Tower, it was literally a campanile with a giant clock hanging from it for people to see.
Built in the imperial capital, it was an old tower, built before clocks were universally available. Every hour that passed, a bell at the top of the tower would ring to tell the commoners the time.
Of course, now that most people have clocks in their homes, the clock tower has lost its original purpose. So, the tower keeper no longer rings the bell once an hour.
The clock tower was replaced by an automated clockwork machine that rang the bell on its own, and then one day it stopped ringing altogether.
However, the bell that remained in the tower was so clear and high-pitched that many people missed its sound.
The Emperor listened to the people and decided that the bell should be played once a day.
That is, at 5 pm. The bell signalled the official rest time for the entire country, as declared by the Emperor.
