Chapter 38: Magnificently Beautiful
"Here’s Clarissa, Evelyn-sama," Eve says as she enters my room again. I nod at her with a smile, as I need Clarissa’s help with some things.
In general, it’s mainly for her to go out and buy random materials for me at a store, as well as pay the clothing store.
"Clarissa, I summoned you because I need you to take this money to the city with this paper. You should take it to this shop, and also stop by this specific materials shop and buy random things from them," I say, jotting it down on a paper for her.
I extend my hand to let her take the paper, but quickly pull it back to give a warning first, after all, I don’t want her doing anything stupid, falling for a scam, or being robbed by someone malicious.
"You should first show this paper to the gate guards, and to at least two different employees, so that if you get robbed, the castle is responsible for the lost money."
"Different people will provide different alibis, so they won’t be able to lie," I say authoritatively, trying to remember other loopholes they might try to use to cause me trouble.
"Even better, you should take a colleague with you or something like that, for your safety of course, you’ll be carrying a lot of gold," I tell her, and she nods.
"Understood, Evelyn-sama, I’ll do my best," Clarissa says with a strained smile, and I notice a mark on her neck, it looks like someone grabbed her neck forcefully.
"That on your neck..." I say, hinting for her to give me the answer. She briefly looks at Eve and then back at me.
"I-It’s nothing, can I go now?" She asks hurriedly, and I end up just letting her go without caring much about it.
"Hey, Eve, I have a place I want to go, shall we go together? Or do you want to stay here and take care of your sword? I’m sure with some of the materials in the room, you can at least sharpen the sword a bit, making it more keen."
"I’ll go with you, Evelyn-sama. The idea of sharpening the sword is tempting, but currently I’m the only one who can protect you, if I were to leave you to take risks, it would be an unforgivable failure on my part," Eve says with seriousness.
"Okay then, my goal is to go to the library." There are things I don’t know about this world, or rather things that weren’t explored in depth because it was a game and couldn’t have too many dialogues about certain subjects.
So I want to go to the library and read books about magic, the kingdom, its history, other continents, and various other things that I know a little about, but don’t really know how they are completely.
"Let’s go now, Eve, the sooner the better," I say, getting up from the bed and adjusting my dress.
"..."
"Evelyn-sama, could you tell me why you’re hiding a mirror in your pocket?" Eve suddenly speaks up.
"Urg..." I feel like I’ve taken a blow with Eve’s question. I had told Eve to warn me about certain things that could be problematic for me, regardless of the meaning.
"I-I swear it’s not narcissism, I’m taking the mirror with me to... to maybe appreciate my beauty a little, but it’s also because I can use it for something useful, you know? Imagine if I want to see something in a dangerous corridor, I can use the mirror’s reflection." I speak, but she doesn’t believe me much.
"Evelyn-sama, then will you tell me with 100% honesty that you haven’t kissed that mirror?" She gives another hard blow to my defenses.
"..." My eyes are mortified when she says this, as I freeze, wondering how she found out.
"M-Maybe, just maybe I’ve done that..." Eve comes up to me, holding my waist, and in a quick movement, takes the mirror out of my pocket, observing it momentarily before stepping back.
"H-Hey!!"
"Evelyn-sama, you don’t need a mirror, you’re beautiful and you don’t need to be constantly validating that," she says with a gentle smile, and it seems she’s misunderstood the situation, as if the mirror was because I had some kind of low self-esteem about my appearance, and this triggers something in my mind.
"Of course I’m beautiful," I say, making her lose her complacent smile, leaving her with a confused expression at the seriousness of my words.
"H-Huh?"
"Do you think I don’t know that? I don’t give a damn about others’ opinions, Eve. Those who say I’m beautiful have only spoken the truth, and those who lie and say I’m ugly are just dying of envy."
"I have a celestial beauty, like a divine level!! I would never need a mirror to constantly validate my appearance, even a mere drop of water understands my magnificence."
"I am the definition of beauty, dictionaries should have my image next to the exact definition of beauty, countries should stop wars just to observe me, gathering all the beauty in this world still wouldn’t be 1/3 of what I am and... w-what I mean is..." Eve looks at me with a little smile, making me stop.
"F-Forget what I said, let’s just go!!" I say, blushing with embarrassment and looking at the ground, I just realized I’m humiliating myself like an idiot.
"Hahahaha," Eve laughs at me, making me even more embarrassed.
"I’m glad, I saw that they treat you very badly, I thought you had low self-esteem, but it seems it’s astronomically high," she says, which worsens the embarrassment, leaving my face as red as a tomato.
"Y-You idiot," I give her several little punches, which obviously don’t do anything to her, as I’m too weak, so the scene just seems funny to her.
"L-Let’s go!!" I say, running to the door to get out of here as soon as possible. I don’t need to be more embarrassed than I already am, I’ve already understood that I’ve said a lot of nonsense in a short period of time.
She follows me in silence with a little smile as I practically bolt through the corridors to the library. Because I’m running, I almost run into a door that opens, but I dodge it just in time.
Being more careful for the rest of the way, but without stopping to run, I don’t want Eve to see how embarrassed I am for having said so many self-compliments, it was strange, it just came out when she said that.
In the end, she kept my mirror, I don’t know how she found out about the mirror, but now I have to get another one... or better, I probably shouldn’t get another one... yes, I probably won’t get another one.
Trying not to think about it, I arrive at the library in a few minutes, Eve never losing sight of me, as she’s easily able to keep up with my run, which is slow for her.
"Haaa..." I let out a sigh, feeling a slight fatigue from running, I hate this weak stamina of E-rank, just running fast for a few minutes has tired me out.
’Isn’t this the literal stamina of a normal person? Great, if I had even less stamina, it would be equivalent to a baby.’ I have the stamina of a regular person, who gets tired from running for a few minutes, not very pleasant, but it’s all I have, so I have to accept it.
"Are you okay, Evelyn-sama?" Eve asks as she approaches me. I nod, a little less embarrassed now that I’ve distanced myself, even though running as if I was fleeing is more embarrassing.
"Eve, since this is a library, silence is necessary, understand!! But you can go read the books you want, hardly anyone would attack me inside the library, so I’ll be relatively safe."
I say to Eve, who nods. Soon I open the library door, entering and seeing the various shelves, extremely organized by sections of type, area, and function, which will help me find what I want.
The place is so huge that you can easily get lost here and even spend hours trying to get out, as the place itself seems like a repetitive labyrinth of books, the smell of dust, and bookshelves.
"Eve, if you want to know about swords, go to that shelf, there should be a lot of useful stuff," I say to Eve, who nods hesitantly, the place is a bit too big and easy to get lost.
I think she’s worried about getting separated from me, but I really trust that I’ll be relatively safe here.
"Evelyn-sama, if you need help, you can yell for me and I’ll come, or just use any command," she says, remembering that I can easily call her from anywhere in here through our connection.
"Yes, yes, I will, now go study a bit, Eve, and speak quietly, this is a library," I say to her as I start walking towards another section. Eve nods and heads in the opposite direction, seeking knowledge about swords and fencing.
As for me, I’m going to the history section, magic is interesting, but the fact is that magic practically won’t help me now, and the books about the past will, since a lot of each character’s past can be discovered through interactions, conversations with others, and even books.
Esther always lied in the game, so maybe I can get clues to know what she’s hiding deep down and her deep feelings in the books, of course the books won’t talk about what she feels, but they can be clues that will help me understand the past.
And consequently, understand more about her, since many characters are affected by the past they’ve had, so maybe Esther also has secrets in this area.
"..." I stop, seeing Lucien, and Lucien also notices me as he closes a book and stares at me. I think about what to say, or if I should just ignore him, but maybe it’s a good chance to gain favorability.