Another silence fell between the two. For a long while, the only sound was the rhythmic clatter of hooves. Aries, lost in thought, paid no mind to whether Raymund was watching her or not.
How can I win Seiana's heart?
Though Seiana tried to hide it, Aries could sense her wariness.
She looks so delicate, as if a gentle push would make her tumble backward, yet she's surprisingly resilient...
It was troublesome that she wasn’t easy to approach, but that was part of the appeal. She didn’t want a doll-like companion who agreed with everything.
Aries needed someone who could remind her of her ordinary past life, not just a maid who said yes to everything.
'To make up for my first impression... Should I get her a gift?'
Giving material things would be the simplest way to open someone's heart. The problem was that Seiana wasn't from a family that would be lacking in material possessions.
Most likely, the count had already given her whatever she could want.
And asking Raymund was difficult too. If he had given Seiana gifts she liked and didn’t already have, he wouldn’t just let Aries be the first to give her something.
'It's difficult.'
If she gave something common, Seiana would likely be indifferent inside, even if she didn't show it, so it was hard to choose carelessly. She would have to give something rare and hard to get...
'But I can't give her something only royalty can use... Ah!'
Suddenly struck by a bright idea, Aries’s face, which had been clouded with worry, instantly lit up. She had thought of something precious and rare, something not easily obtained.
Raymund narrowed his eyes as he saw Aries smiling to herself, thinking she had found the perfect gift. He had been on guard all along, so even a brief change in her demeanor didn’t escape his notice.
“What are you thinking about?”
His voice was low, laced with suspicion, as if bracing for some trick. It was a clear warning that he wouldn’t just stand by and watch whatever she had planned. But Aries just scoffed.
In a way, they were rivals for Seiana’s affection, so Aries had no reason to share with him what might win her favor.
Trying to brush him off, she intended to ignore his suspicion, but Raymund wasn’t about to let it slide. His vigilance remained sharp to the end.
[Tell me. What were you planning?]
“Ugh!”
Aries felt like an ant under a giant’s thumb, overwhelmed and powerless, forced to watch as a massive finger pressed down on her from above.
Her whole body tensed as if crushed, and she wanted nothing more than to bow her head to her opponent.
“You bastard…”
[Tell me.]
"Using the ability of Dominion to get an answer..."
Aries was simply flabbergasted. The ability of Dominion that Raymund possessed had other powers besides arbitrarily using all ability users' powers as his own.
It was domination in the truest sense—the ability to make others obey him whether they wanted to or not.
One reason was that his body condition worsened when he used the ability, but a greater reason was that it made him feel bad.
Aries's ability to control attraction and repulsion or abilities like teleportation seemed similar to magic at first glance, so they didn't cause such repulsion.
But Dominion was different. When used strongly, it was an ability capable of turning a person into a puppet.
As royalty with authority, there was usually no reason for him to use such ability, and using this kind of ability made him feel even more like a monster, so Raymund was reluctant to use his Dominion.
Yet, he used the ability he had been avoiding just to make Aries open her mouth. For Seiana's safety.
Aries tried to resist, but due to Raymund persistently trying to make her talk, she finally couldn't hold back and had to spill it.
"Did you know? Seiana likes fairies. She thinks of them very specially. Recently, a book by a new adventurer named Misquit is popular, and it's about fairies. I don't believe in such things, of course, but Seiana believes it. Isn't she just so cute? She was seriously talking about how to become friends with fairies with the girls she met at the gathering today. I want to make up for the mistake I made today by giving Seiana something related to fairies. How happy would she be to receive that? Maybe Seiana will consider me her closest friend for giving her something hard to get. So..."
Aries poured out her words like a chattering woodpecker. Her tone was definitely friendly and filled with anticipation, but her face was heavily furrowed in anger as she spoke.
Raymund, who had been carefully listening for some wicked plan, was startled when the fairy story came up. For a moment, he felt sorry for misunderstanding, but then his face became intrigued by Aries's continuing words.
As someone who only wanted to give Seiana the most precious things, he couldn't stand by and let Aries gift something rare to Seiana instead of him.
"Don't steal my idea!"
[So, what exactly is this fairy-related item? And how do you plan to get it?]
“You devil… you evil…!”
Aries, having let all her words out, was fuming with a flushed face and huffing angrily, but Raymund didn’t mind.
When he demanded she share the method too, Aries got really mad, but there was no way to resist his insistence.
After explaining once more in detail what item she intended to give and how she planned to obtain it, she urgently warned him:
“If you steal my idea, I’ll kill you!”
Even seeing Aries so angry that her hair seemed to puff up, Raymund just sneered.
The only way for Aries to get what she wanted was to request it from the royal family or the Esteban Duchy.
Since she had grown to despise her own family, she wouldn’t stoop to begging the duke’s household, so she had no choice but to rely entirely on the power of the royal family...
“You’re not getting it by your own strength anyway. You’re just getting it through someone else’s power.”
“...That’s the same for you, isn’t it?”
“But it’s different with me. At least I’m someone from inside the royal family.”
After all, he was a royal himself. The royal family was his household. So when both of them gave the same order, Raymund’s command took priority.
For example, if he ordered that Aries’s request be ignored, she wouldn’t receive a thing.
Raymund smirked. Aries, sensing the sneer behind it, angrily called him petty, but he dismissed her with a single remark.
“Then why don’t you use your family’s power?”
Her side would value Aries’s request more than Raymund’s order.
Normally, Aries would have snarled at the suggestion of using her family’s power, asking if he’d lost his mind, but this time she was quiet. In fact, she seemed to be seriously considering it.
Inside the quiet carriage, Raymund breathed heavily and leaned deeply into his seat.
His body felt worn from using his abilities repeatedly, but since there had been some gain, he was satisfied.
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