If I were given even a little time and financial breathing room, I was confident I could survive well in this unfamiliar world, too. If I had the leeway to learn the writing and common sense of this place.
But the hardest thing for me to find here was that very leeway. I had to cling on and struggle just to solve food, clothing, and shelter right in front of me.
The Prince was holding what I needed most, waiting for my answer.
And on top of that—
“Ah, I don’t even know your name yet. What should I call you?”
After falling into this world, this was the first time anyone had asked my name. The Traveling Troupe had called me Speckled. Billy called me Country Bumpkin. The customers referred to me as “Hey,” or “You.”
“Please call me Jay.”
I’d liked that name a lot—the name that meant “to govern jade.” Sometimes, when someone asked if I was a diaspora kid, I’d even write the characters and show them. Maybe the reason I liked gemstones was because of my name. My father said he’d named me simply because he wanted me to make a lot of money, but still.
A name—what was it, really. It felt like my very existence was being acknowledged for the first time.
“Jay.”
It must have been because my body had become a child’s. Hormones weren’t something I could control at will.
I felt like I wanted to cry a little.
“Anything you need to pack up?”
“N-no, sir.”
“Let’s go.”
My throat tightened and I ended up making a goat-like sound. I was ashamed of a body that didn’t obey my will. Heat rose to my face, but the Prince turned his back without acting like he’d noticed. Before I could even cool down, I had to follow behind him.
It was around when we passed through the tavern door. I heard cheers. They were loud enough that the vibration thumped against my back. Startled, I turned around, and the people who had been lying prostrate had all gotten up at some point and were shouting long lives.
“Just like I heard, the Prince is truly benevolent. That kid’s luck has turned.”
“To see with my own eyes something I’d only heard about—today I’m definitely going to drink until my nose turns crooked!”
Beer orders flooded in. I could see Billy—who had always left every task besides cooking to me—carrying beer mugs with his arm muscles swollen up.
The people who snatched their cups from Billy as if stealing them chugged beer in big gulps like they’d made a promise. After emptying their mugs in an instant, they cackled and shouted, “One more!” It was behavior you’d never expect from people who, just a moment ago, had been unable to move, sprawled on the floor. They were simply happy that they’d happened to witness good fortune. At that pure thrill, I felt like goosebumps were rising on my back.
Leaving behind things I couldn’t understand, I turned my head forward again, and my eyes met the Prince, who was waiting for me.
“Don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong with them. They just can’t remember that they were crushed under my Pheromones, or the things you and I talked about.”
The Prince spoke in the lightest tone, but I couldn’t accept a single thing he was saying. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to ask back, so I just stood there blankly, and he only looked at me with that perfectly drawn smile.
On the way to the Prince’s residence, I was honored enough to ride in the same carriage as him. Wearing stinking, stained, shabby clothes, at that. I was worried I might even stain the velvet seat woven from real silk, not synthetic fiber.
But the Prince’s talk, which began with him saying that since I knew so little he needed to teach me basic common sense right away, was enough to shake my mind so that I couldn’t even think about my clothes anymore.
“Pheromones… can really do something like that?”
My brow furrowed on its own. The talk about Alpha and Omega, Beta, and Pheromones was nothing but shocking. A separate sex classification besides male and female. Pheromones that could literally dominate another person’s consciousness. Since I’d seen it in the tavern with my own eyes, I couldn’t exactly tell him he had excellent talent as a storyteller. But I also couldn’t fully believe what he was saying.
“You can’t believe it?”
I didn’t even have time to answer. I bounced off the seat cushion. It was an accident caused by the carriage braking suddenly. I’d slammed my nose into the Prince’s chest again, and I hurried to straighten myself up.
“Do you hear a horse neighing?”
The Prince asked as he grabbed my shoulder. When I lifted my eyes to look at him, he spoke again.
“The horse that was running stopped all of a sudden, but you don’t hear any snorting. Doesn’t that seem strange?”
I felt like I’d turned into an idiot. Only after hearing the Prince did I realize it was strange how quiet it was outside the carriage.
“Even now, you still can’t smell anything from me, right?”
“……Yes, sir.”
I was guided by the Prince’s hand and made to sit down like a real little kid. The Prince took his hand off my shoulder, curved his eyes like a crescent moon, and returned to his seat.
“Your eyes are big.”
Even when the Prince laughed and teased me for staring wide-eyed, I couldn’t refute it. The shock wouldn’t settle.
I looked around. I heard the driver urge the horse with a “Hyah!” and then the sound of the horse snorting. It felt like the senses that had been locked up were waking again.
“Can you trust what I’m saying now?”
“……Yes. I can’t not believe it.”
I muttered weakly. I was aware that it wasn’t the attitude I should show in front of the Prince, but I needed time. Time to understand and accept this unbelievable phenomenon.
“Honestly, you’re the one that’s more fascinating to me. You’re clearly a smart kid—how can you not know anything this much?”
The Prince didn’t lose his smile even at my irreverent attitude. He was interested, like he was looking at something extremely rare.
“You look like you came from another world.”
I blinked.
“I mean it as a figure of speech, so don’t look at me like I said something I shouldn’t.”
His eyes were still sparkling with mischief.
I couldn’t be fooled by that light-looking mood. My brain, like it was oversaturated, sent up a sense of crisis. Instinctively, I knew I had to say only the facts.
“It’s true that I came from a place that’s practically another world. My hometown is a rural fishing village, but because a typhoon caused a famine in the village, I followed a Traveling Troupe to the capital to find a way to live. When I first came here, I thought it was a completely different world. There were so many things I’d never seen in my life. And then, a year ago, when I was still in my hometown, there was a time I got seriously sick, and when I got up again, I couldn’t remember anything. I even forgot how to speak, so for a while I had to keep my mouth shut and live that way.”
There was no need to say that I really had come from another world. Saying something he wouldn’t believe would only make me look suspicious.
“I heard you were living at an inn, but…….”
He was someone who had come after hearing rumors about my knack. Of course he’d looked into me, and this back-and-forth was probably cross-verification.
But the Prince’s expression was strange. It wasn’t a face like he was hearing my background for the first time. If it had been, I would’ve doubted the Prince’s abilities. Or I would’ve slapped a “cannot be trusted” label on him as an employer who was acting too skillfully. Either way, I would’ve concluded he wasn’t someone I could rely on for long.
“You’re brave.”
The Prince was empathizing with me. If anything, I was the one who was flustered.
“It’s not such a special story. There are lots of kids whose parents sell them off themselves. Still, I found a way to live by my own will.”
It was true that I’d suffered and been exhausted, but if you removed the part where I’d had a life on Earth, it was also true that it was something kids around my body’s age commonly went through in this world. It wasn’t some special story worth a high person like the Prince pitying.
“You must’ve tried really hard. You’ve been through a lot.”
Even so, having my hardship acknowledged felt a little special.
My new employer, who had seemed like he was only going to convey warmth, flustered me the moment we returned to the mansion.
“What do you mean, sir?”
In my heart, I wanted to ask if he was in his right mind. If I didn’t have service work experience, I would’ve blurted out the voice in my head.
“You’ve got a face like you want to ask if I’m in my right mind. But my judgment is perfectly correct.”
Putting aside my lack of expression management for now, I couldn’t help but doubt my new employer’s state of mind.
Could he really be a strange person? Was he bringing in street kids like me because he couldn’t obtain attendants through normal procedures?
I couldn’t not be suspicious.
Because he had told me—
『Do you hate becoming my exclusive attendant that much?』
He’d told me to become his exclusive attendant. Since when had he even been watching me?
Even boldness had its limits. To make the first kid he’d met into an exclusive attendant.
Even if it was an exclusive attendant, I didn’t think I’d be handling any major secrets. Still, if it were me, I would never assign a post like this. It wasn’t a matter of liking it or not. It was strange that, instead of getting angry and saying I was daring to refuse my master’s order, he was asking my intention.
“Can you trust me?”
“Not yet.”
The answer came immediately. That firm answer made me a little relieved. If my employer’s judgment was seriously flawed, it would be the employee who suffered. Of course, I still had doubts about the judgment of making me his exclusive attendant.
“Could you explain what you mean?”
At that moment, the butler—who had come out to greet his master and had suddenly ended up responsible even for exclusive-attendant training—requested in an extremely polite manner. I was impressed inwardly. That unshakable attitude even with a sudden increase in workload.
“Jay doesn’t react to my Pheromones.”
“I see. As you command, I will educate that child.”
The stubborn-looking butler accepted it in an instant. And this brief exchange was a hint to me, too. I swallowed down the thought that he could’ve just explained that from the start. It seemed like he’d been trying to see my reaction in the first place.
“Do you have something you want to say?”
When the Prince looked at me again, I asked without hesitation.
“Perhaps… are Your—your Pheromones on the stronger side compared to others?”
“Yeah.”
“And sometimes you can’t control it, too?”
“That’s right.”
The Prince nodded with a smiling face. He looked like a teacher praising a student who’d done their homework well.
I understood what he was getting at.
“So, what’s your conclusion?”
At the Prince’s prompting, I opened my mouth again.
“Then since I’m not affected much by Your—your Pheromones, that means I have the qualifications to be an attendant.”
“Exactly.”
The Prince notified me I’d passed, then flicked his eyes toward the butler. That back-and-forth with me was probably his way of introducing me to the butler.
“It’ll be worth teaching him.”
“For today, let him wash and rest first. Even if he’s less affected, he still took in quite a lot of my Pheromones.”
“Yes, sir.”
And it had been a test of me, too.
“I’ll be in the study, so guide Jay first.”
“Yes.”
“Ah, and as for how you address me, ‘Duke’ is enough. Duke Wesel.”
That last line was directed at me. The butler’s expression, looking at me—a man who didn’t even know the exact form of address for his master, yet had become an attendant like a parachute drop—was surprisingly calm. He seemed extremely loyal.
As for me, I tried to keep my face calm.
Now that I thought about it, the Prince seemed to dislike being called “Your Highness.” Even at the tavern, when he was called “Your Highness,” he’d seemed to show a more intimidating side.
Why?
Was it because of the Pheromones—strong, but not properly controllable?