episode_0055

“Okay, hurry up! Look closely, the males of Her Highness’s flock are coming!”

“Let’s recheck the cleaning status starting from the hallway. I’ll check from the inside, so you guys start from the outside.”

“The new recruit has outstanding looks, so after the rehearsal, assist the princess.”

I let out a gasp at the words of the feline maid, who seemed to be a bit picky.

“Yes.”

The place I am is the Imperial Palace, the villa where the Third Kingdom resides.

It was a space where the maids and servants in charge of the palace’s affairs gathered.

Why was I put between the maids and servants and became a new servant?

“Ain, is your time okay?”

“Yeah. What’s going on?”

After a few days of living with Ion, Elfin asked me.

“It’s nothing… No, I should say it’s nothing.”

We were standing in front of the fountain near the center of the Academy, the Hall of Knowledge, and talking while looking at the water spraying out from the fountain.

“What is it?”

I asked again, throwing a coin into the fountain. It couldn’t be anything so great that it would take so long.

“I saw your majesty last time… What, did you want to see your majesty?”

It was said jokingly, but judging by the look of surprise on Elfin’s face, it looks like he stepped on a frog while backing up.

“…Really?”

“Well, actually, it’s been a while since you asked me to meet. I think it’s okay to talk to you since I’m not that busy these days.”

Elfin said, sweeping her voluminous hair back. Her expression was quite different from when she was the Empress, so she didn’t seem that serious.

“Then let’s do that.”

“I knew you wouldn’t refuse. Do you want to leave after class tomorrow?”

“Hmm, I don’t know if I’ll have anything to wear when I meet the King.”

I said, thinking about the clothes in my closet. To be exact, I still don’t know what clothes I have in my closet.

This is because I only wore the Jugujangchang Academy uniform, so I rarely had a chance to wear other clothes.

At best, it was just what I wore when I moved to ask for permission from my in-laws after joining the group with the females.

“Don’t worry about it. Abamama doesn’t care about that kind of thing.”

“Then that’s good.”

After that, Elfin said that he would come with the Imperial Wizard when I finished all my lectures tomorrow and came to the Book Study Group, and I made a promise to meet him at the Book Study Group after I finished preparing.

“Your Majesty? This is interesting.”

That evening, when I told Ion that I would not swing the Holy Sword? due to visiting the state office, Ion, who had been doing heavy lifting as if he had been waiting, muttered.

“It’s not that it doesn’t make sense. It would be even more absurd to meet the Empress’s in-laws and not see Elfin’s father, Gukseo.”

“That too… Yeah, that’s right.”

I was moved by the sight of Ion sweating and exercising, which was quite sexy, but I’m not an animal and I can’t endure it for a day. Of course, we are animals and humans.

“So I was going to choose some clothes.”

“What are you going to wear?”

“I need to think about that from now on.”

While Ion was exercising, I was rummaging through the closet.

“You have more clothes than I thought?”

“I don’t have much to wear, so I have some.”

I added, “I don’t know these clothes, but I only said that in my mind.”

After finishing Ion’s upper body workout, I looked around for a while longer and chose a clean white outfit that contrasted with the color of my fur.

It may look a little plain, but there is a saying in the Perion Imperial Palace that ‘the most splendid things in the Imperial Palace are the Empress and the State Letter’, so I think that by wearing plain clothes, I will have the effect of elevating the State Letter… maybe?

“It’s pretty.”

“Then that’s good.”

Try on the clothes in advance and check them by moving your body here and there in front of the mirror.

“I’ll have to have Hela come over and clean up Hegemonia tomorrow morning.”

“Can’t you just clean it?”

“Just in case.”

As Ion said, I could clean my clothes myself, but since the person I’m meeting is the husband of the ruler of the empire, I need to take care of my clothes.

He leaves the room for a moment to leave his clothes and money with Hela, then returns and takes a book out of his bag.

“What is that?”

This time, Ion asks while lying down and doing lower body exercises.

I tried not to look at Ion’s shapely thighs and held the book cover out so she could get a good look at it.

“Aha, it’s the palace etiquette. I just glanced at it. I don’t have any reason to go to the palace, since my mother is there.”

“I wish I could do that too.”

I begin to read the palace etiquette and answer.

The etiquette book was published by the palace, so it was full of detailed etiquette and illustrations with magical movements that made it easy to follow and practice. That’s why the book was so thick.

“Wow, it’s quite a picture.”

As I look through the book and learn the movements appropriate for the palace etiquette, Ion finishes the exercise and sits on the bed smiling.

“I am Baron Youngsik of Ain Frostgarm.”

When we greet Ion in accordance with palace etiquette, Ion folds his arms and crosses his legs.

Perhaps she is imitating the Empress Alexandra within her.

“Your face is quite half-and-half. Come and serve me.”

“I will obey your command.”

I told Ion that I wouldn’t swing the holy sword today, but since this was clearly her provocation, I could claim my innocence.

“Huh?! Ain, you said you weren’t going to do it today?!”

“It’s your fault.”

Their clothes were flying around outside the bed.

“I have arrived, Your Highness.”

“Thank you for your hard work.”

The next day, Elfin and I, who had finished preparing, arrived at the teleportation magic circle inside the palace, with the help of the castle wizard.

After following Elfin for a while, she made me stand in a place similar to an audience room and said, ‘I’m going to speak to Abamama, so wait,’ and then disappeared somewhere.

“Is this the palace… I don’t really have anything to do in the game.”

In Academy Story 2, visiting the Imperial Palace requires you to have Elfin as your companion and go through several events to be able to visit only limited areas of the Imperial Palace, but since I was in a rush, I was able to visit an unknown area called the Villa.

“This is all content.”

As you look around the reception room and out the window of the reception room, the outside of the villa comes into view.

The exterior is clearly meticulously maintained. To say that the view is beautiful would be an understatement.

Is this really the imperial palace of the strongest empire on the continent?

As I was looking around for a while, someone suddenly barged into the meeting room.

“You, new? What are you doing here?”

A female cat suddenly barged in and nagged at me. She was probably a maid in the villa, but before I could answer her, I noticed the clothes she was wearing.

“Oh no.”

The maid’s clothing color scheme matches mine almost exactly.

If you look closely, you can see that the design is quite different from what I’m wearing, and that it’s more luxurious, but as the saying goes, you have to look ‘closely’, and since I deliberately chose a plain design, it makes sense that if a maid or servant’s clothes had that design, she wouldn’t even recognize me and would talk to me like this.

“What kind of a thing is this? Hurry up and follow me! Her Highness Princess Erpeion’s small country has come to visit, but the preparations are still insufficient!!”

The maid shouted like that and grabbed my hand and dragged me along. Before I knew it, I had arrived at a place full of maids and servants.

…and then the situation I first described occurred.

“Newbies, are you familiar with all the palace etiquette?”

When the polite female maid pressed me, I nodded. It is true that I studied the palace etiquette last night.

“But I…”

Before he could finish his sentence, he was grabbed by the hand by the Elfin Princess’s group and dragged away by her again.

“There’s no time, so skip the test and assist the princess when she meets with the Sogukseo. Do you know where the meeting is?”

“Oh, no. I don’t know.”

It seems like Elfin went to see the king to inform him of that, but how did things end up like this?

At my bewildered answer, the cat maid beat her small chest as if she was frustrated, and dragged me somewhere.

As I was being dragged away, I saw Elfin passing by across the hallway, so I tried to call out to her, but I was being dragged away faster than she could.

Although I was confused, I thought of this as an event, so I was curious about how this incident would end, so I followed the cat maid obediently.

The place we arrived at was a very ornate reception hall that seemed to be the largest in the villa.

Already, numerous servants and maids were busy preparing for the banquet, and in the center of the hall, there was a place that seemed to be reserved for the state letters and for me and Elfin, and it was decorated splendidly.

“According to what I have learned, Your Majesty is from the north, prefers frugality over extravagance, and prefers warm food. That is why I have prepared the best tea in the empire to serve you, so please do not make a mistake.”

The cat maid showed me a table for the servants, not far from the central reception area, where various kinds of tea and a splendid tea set were prepared.

“Kukseo and Your Highness the Princess, please keep an eye on the table of Sogukseo. Make sure the tea and snacks are always available, and always bow your head until they allow you to do so. Do you understand?”

“Oh, yes.”

She frowned as if she didn’t like my clumsy answer, but then looked at my face from all angles and sighed.

“I wouldn’t ask a newbie like you to do this unless you were born with it, but please approach it with the mindset that you’re training for real. Fortunately, all three of you are tolerant of the mistakes of those below you, so it will be a good experience.”

“…Okay, I understand.”

I wonder if I was lenient on the mistakes of the lower class, or if there were any lower class in the first place, but if it was known that way, then it must be so…

I tried not to forget (for some reason) the cat maid’s constant reminders of what to watch out for.