Chapter 130: Casual Dinner
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Whilst I was thinking about random topics, I realize that Stanley had stood from his chair. Pausing my thought process, I glanced in the direction he was looking.

There was a newcomer to the room, a female draconian, presumably the princess based on her appearance. She wore a showy sparkling azure dress and had similarly colored scales.

Upon seeing Stanley stand up, a slight smile came to her face and she greeted him, “Lavar tecon, Stanley.” (Good to see you again, Stanley)

Whilst I hadn’t heard the words she’d spoken before, I can translate from judging from her body-language and tone of voice. It’s definitely an overly polite greeting of some kind.

The princess hadn’t even glanced in my direction since entering the room. My unnoticed ability was once again paying off dividends.

Stanley responded causally, without much “Ti non sovso-kovon, Amara.” (About… your promise, Amara?)

The princesses’ name is Amara, then?

… I definitely cannot be bothered to remember that. I dub her, Azure Princess. For she is blue (scale-color)… and a princess.

*Cough* Ahem, I would like to point out that - while it’s not the most creative of names – it has a distinct advantage of being impossible to forget whilst in her presence.

Azure Princess’ face slightly frowned. Although it was hard to tell, mainly because a draconian face had elongated snout. “Tu kon la-fon.” (Have you gone mad? )

Stanley responded with frown, “Kou, Lapo sevon kukon.” (No, we need to kiss in the moonlight.)

“Kon sevon koto, soto tevu tos.” Azure Princess responded, her face displaying a slightly annoyed expression. (That isn’t appropriate, we have guests!)

Giggling to myself at the completely made up narrative I’d created… Err, *cough.*

I mean… uhh- yes, that translation was completely accurate. It’s definitely what they said.

Word-for-word.

My understanding of the language has obviously suddenly risen in the past few minutes allowing this secret conversation to be translated and derived from the heavens. (Huh, what? Me? Lying to you? Absolute nonsense… these translations are completely unbiased and totally accurate.)

Whilst the pair continued their passionate lover’s talk, I took the opportunity to examine the princess.

Draconian biology was strange.

She looked mostly human, especially around the… uhh, chest-area. *Cough…* Although the scales and other distinctive features would have made it impossible to confuse her for human. The most unique of those features was the horns facing backward and lack of hair.

Instead of hair, Azure Princess has several hair-like flesh appendages flowing down from the back of her head toward her shoulders, which were covered with her light-blue scales.

Speaking of scale-color… this is the first draconian I’ve seen with blue scales. Most of the maids are red-scaled, with a rare few having green scales.

Is there some type of discrimination in draconian society based on scale color? Hmmm… well, I cannot really judge.

The main problem being a lack of language understanding preventing me from understanding the exact situation… but it wouldn’t exactly be surprising. Humans have discriminated based on skin color and other such nonsense for generations, discriminatory practices based on scale color isn’t exactly a foreign concept.

“Tobias, this is Amara.” Stanley greeted, turned toward me in the process. “Amara, terus Tobias.”

“Aetron.” I greeted with a simple hello. It was perhaps the easiest word to remember and simple to imitate the correct accent.

Azure Princess did a polite curtsy and responded appropriately, “Laporat aetrons.”

“She said that it’s nice to meet you.” Stanley interjected, translating the sentence for my interaction.

…Is that what she said? It sounded more like a polite greetings to me. Internally frowning, I vaguely felt that the Stanley’s translation wasn’t entirely accurate.

It was possible he was paraphrasing, but there’s another possibility. Does the translation system simply convey the intended meaning instead of the literal one? It makes sense… Rin never seemed completely confused by the literal nature of idioms. In fact, I vaguely remember her using some herself? Although that’s potentially explained by her save/load power.

“Please explain my situation to her and apologize for me.” I stated with a polite nod in her direction, suddenly aware that I hadn’t observed proper etiquette by sitting down whilst greeting her… Nor had I been able to return her curtsy with a small bow.

If the royal etiquette is anyone similar to old earth, I’ve probably been decently offensive.

She hadn’t seemed to mind, and sat down before returning to her polite conversation with Stanley. After a couple minutes, she made a silent gesture to the maids who promptly left and returned with trays of food.

Laying the food on the table, as they lifted up the trays I found myself frowning strongly in disgust. None of the food looked appealing.

There were barely any meat or vegetables. Most of the food seemed to be some type of fire elemental gems or ash. There were plant-like food, but each had an unappealing purple glow. In fact, most of the food sparkled with some light, there were even slight flames atop some of them.

Eww… Yeah, I think not. Some food looked more like what you’d see at a diamond store than a restaurant.

Thanks to the world tree tattoo growing on my chest, I wasn’t slightly hungry. While I could have eaten if the food tasted good, I’m definitely not interest in these.

Whilst I’d been internally complaining, Stanley to my side had picked out a few choice foods from the plant-like dishes and begun eating whilst chatting. The Azure Princess hadn’t taken any of the food yet, merely glancing in my direction before continuing their conversation.

Sighing slightly, I stared between the food and the two people conversing with one another in annoyance. They seemed to be conversing extremely casually with one another.

Why am I even here? Maybe, I should’ve just refused to come. I’m not hungry, this entire experience is unpleasant.

Letting out a breath of air, I shook my head.

It doesn’t matter, I’m here now. Nothing I can do about it.

Listening to their conversation without speaking, I mentally tried to listen to any reoccurring words and keep track of anything I could understand.

They seemed to be talking about… plans for leaving? I guess Stanley plans to leave soon as well?

Stanley planned on asking the princess about the map, right? Maybe they’re talking about something similar to that.

The maids had already left the room after handing over the food.

Not wanting to inject, I politely tried to wait for them to pause their conversation. Sadly that never seemed to happen. Instead, their conversation seemed to have less pauses and more argumentative than before.

Thus, I sat there awkwardly unable to speak and unsure how to interject into the conversation without seeming rude. The conversation continued and I watched in silence.

Eventually becoming fed up with waiting around for an opportunity that might never come, I forcefully interjected. “Stanley, can I interject to ask about the possibility of a map?”

“Ah, sorry.” Stanley held up a finger pausing his conversation and looked toward me with slight surprise, “I forgot you were here. You should speak up more often.”

Forcefully suppressing my eyes from twitching in annoyance. I wanted to shout at him that they simply hadn’t given the opportunity…

Instead, I remained polite and repeated myself. “Map.”

“Working on it.” Stanley replied whilst glaring toward the princess. “What are you thoughts on the princess leaving with us?”

“Us?” I focused on that specific part of the sentence because I never agreed to be leaving with him. I’d planned to leave on my own. “Wait. Hold on, why would she be leaving with us?”

“She… dislikes this planet. Wants to go out and see the universe.” Stanley slowly and carefully worded his sentences.

My expression varied between doubt and disbelief.

What?

First of all, why? The universe is dangerous and isn’t that interesting. Secondly, that has literally nothing to do with us. She can just go out on her own!

I doubtfully inquired. “That doesn’t answer my question. Why is she coming with us? She can do that on her own.”

“The draconians don’t exactly want her going out and exploring the universe.” Stanley stated insinuating a larger point existed that he’d left silent.

“You mean, we’d be stuck as babysitters.” I visibly frowning as I reinstated his point.

Essentially, the princess wants to sneak out and act naughty without the families knowledge. They definitely would blame us if she got hurt, so we’d have to babysit her.

Stanley explained, “Not permanently, it’d just be until a ship and picked her up.”

“How long that take?” I asked, before stopping and realizing something important. “No, wait-wait. Why would a ship pick her up?”

Stanley explained, “She would hire them to pick her up and take her off-world. After that, she’s gone. We wouldn’t need to be taking care of her.”

“Yeah… okay, so she’d be running away.” I briefly summarized the situation.

“Essentially.” Stanley thought about the situation and acknowledged it with a single word.

The princess wanted to abandon her responsibilities to see the universe. What a whimsical and idiotic notion.

Azure Princess is going to get herself killed, or kidnapped… potentially both.

Presuming there’s a class system based on a Draconian’s scale-color, it would be immediately obvious to anybody that she is an important figure. Combined with the fact we’d basically be assisting her, regardless of the truth, it’d seem like we kidnapped her. If she actually got kidnapped, then the situation would become a million times worse.

We’d probably become enemies with all the remaining draconian on this world.

“That is, quite possibility, the worst idea I have ever heard.” I stared at Stanley with an expression that questioned his very sanity. “Why are you even asking?”

“She’s trying to negotiate with providing the map for escape from this place with us.” Stanley answered

“Is- is that a joke? She going to get herself killed if she tries that.” I seriously asked, before he reconfirmed his words.

“Well, that’s what she wants.”

“Definitely do not agree.” I shook my head with a slight chuckle form the shock, “The map really isn’t that important. It was just a casual question of whether they could provide one for convenience sake.”

I already have a basic understanding of the layout of this zone of Hell Difficulty. I was merely trying to refresh my memory and see if they had any detailed information. Attracting a world full of trouble for a simply map and getting a naïve princess killed? Not worth it.

Surprised that Stanley even considered it. There’s no way that idea would end well.

Turning back to Stanley returned to his conversation with the princess, who had silently been watching our interaction.

Communicating with her further Stanley (assumably) delivered the bad news, although her facial expression hadn’t changed even slightly in the process and she didn’t seem even remotely surprised.

She glanced away without a care in the world and began standing up to leave.  

“Without our help, she’s going to do it anyway. Just without our help.” Stanley explains back to me, relaying the important information to me.

“Still seems like a terrible idea.” I stated, giving my opinion.

Stanley nodded in agreement, “She doesn’t seem to care.”

Feeling a headache begin to occur from this ‘transaction’, I sighed and internally berated myself.

Don’t listen to their nonsense, it will pull you in and confuse you. Just refuse, have her deal with the consequences of her own actions.

“Sorry, at the very least, I don’t plan on helping her run towards her own death.” I apologized to Stanley.

I can tell from the slight undertones of regret in Stanley’s voice that he was seriously considering her offer. However, there was no way her final outcome would ever be good if she actually did contact the outside world.

Better for her to say here and be a princess honestly, instead of her going out and causing trouble.

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