Tsuyokute New Saga (LN)

Book 7: Chapter 6

Princess Sakura—the only daughter of the current king and next ruler of Sura…She was closest to the gods in this world, possessing immense magic power. Even Kyle had imagined they would meet at some point. That said, this was definitely not what he expected.

“Sakura…? Could she be…” Seran spoke up, to which the girl jumped in shock, tensing up. “No, I wasn’t planning on…”

—doing something, Seran tried to continue, but Sakura stepped backward as she sought help from Kyle. From the looks of that, she only had business with him, so Seran was technically just in the way. Receiving this kind of reaction was definitely a shock for him, but he knew that the guards or she had no ill intent, so he left the two alone while grumbling ‘Get stabbed, bastard’ to Kyle. Sakura seemed relieved to see Seran gone, only to tense up again when glancing at Kyle. Seeing that he was stuck in a vicious cycle, Kyle cleared his throat once and then called out to her himself.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Kyle. What did you need from me?”

“That’s…Well, like I said, I wanted to talk to you…”

Kyle would have loved to ask what exactly she wanted to talk about, but when he saw her fidgeting awkwardly, he decided to take it slow. She was rumored to be 27 right now, but the way she acted made it seem as if she was younger than Kyle. But that wasn’t because she was particularly shy or reserved, and more like she simply lacked experience in talking with other people. Let alone men, she most likely never talked much with other humans.

Well, with someone from the royal family, she probably is very limited in terms of who she can talk to.

Not only that, but the royal family was given the important duty of being an [Oracle], those who relay the will of the gods, making them servants of sorts, and the closest to the gods living in the skies. Only a few such [Oracles] exist in human history, and although it had more instances than the [Descent], the last one went back several hundreds of years.

Kyle didn’t know what was going on, but he knew that he was the one troubling the princess, and if people learned about this, they would hunt for his life, no doubt. And yet, she now came to meet him without any guards or followers. No way she just happened to see him and decided to go for a talk. She must have some agenda for being here. Kyle could think of several reasons, but none of them he was certain about. Luckily, he felt no danger to himself because of her kind personality, and the fact that she was interacting with him in this way showed her bottomless benevolence. The silence continued for a bit longer until Sakura eventually spoke up.

“So, well…Nice weather we’re having today!”

“Yeah…That’s true.”

“I…I like it when it’s clear like today, but I don’t particularly mind the rain, either!”

“Well…Yeah, the rain at night could be very comforting.”

Kyle was rather lost on what this conversation was even about. That said, he wasn’t entirely bothered by it because her efforts became very clear. Her face was beautiful, yet tense. She was forcing herself. Her smile was completely forced, which only made Kyle feel more guilty.

I haven’t even done anything…and yet this is starting to hurt me.

After that, they talked about the weather, the seasons, famous objects here in the area, and anything that she could probably think of. However, this couldn’t continue forever, so Kyle decided to cross the line.

“So…I really enjoy talking to you, but…can we talk about something else? I’d like to know more about you…”

He tried to be as kind as possible, speaking with his best smile. But since Sakura was already close to her limit, she spoke with a teary face, covering her eyes.

“I-I’m sorry! I can’t do more than this!”

Being apologized to for no reason threw Kyle off, almost like he got rejected for some reason.

“But, then…Well, why are you…?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Sakura began apologizing for real, as she started gathering more attention even in this isolated street. Thinking that any more of this would be dangerous, Kyle considered taking her somewhere else—Only for Sakura to still cover her face and run away.

“Wait! Be careful!”

And of course, she tripped and fell.

“Could’ve seen that one coming.” Witnessing the expected result, Kyle sighed. “Are you okay?”

“Th-Thank you very much…”

Kyle rushed over to help her up. But if people saw this, it would spell trouble. When Kyle took her hand, he could see her snow-white cheek turning red, her forehead crimson.

“P-Please excuse me!”

Kyle couldn’t hold her down any more than this, so he could only watch her walk off. From start to finish, just talking with Kyle didn’t seem to be her main goal. Rather, almost like she was forced to talk to him as some sort of punishment.

“Which…honestly just hurts to think about, but what even was all that about?”josei

Watching Sakura off, even as she fell over a few times, Kyle also had to sigh to cope with the confusion he had suffered.