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On the day Maria disappeared, my mother welcomed me into her room with open arms.
And she immediately noticed that Maria wasn't by my side.
"Oh? Raymond, where's Maria?"
I think my mother has become especially beautiful since she started seeing my father more frequently.
My mother, whose sharp, upturned eyes used to give a somewhat stern impression, now expresses her emotions more honestly than before and has simply turned into a tsundere.
And, for the time being, she has a fixed attendant.
It's hard to imagine from my mother, who had to change attendants daily.
"Come, Raymond. Come sit on your mother's lap."
I gave Bossa a hand signal to leave and go to General Baltzar, and Bossa nodded as if he understood and was about to leave, but that wasn't the case.
"Eh, Lord Raymond sits on Lady Maya's lap!? What is that, it's so rare I want to call an artist and have it painted!"
"Well, I'm a seven-year-old, okay? And Bossa, do your job. Quickly going to call Master Cyrillos is the only first step you can take to restore my trust in you, okay?"
"Is this a seven-year-old...?"
I felt like I was being told something very rude, so I glared at him.
"Y-yes, I understand. Then, Lady Maya, Lord Raymond, excuse me!"
After seeing Bossa hurry out of my mother's room, I turned to face my mother again.
"Well. I heard that Nialkos was not here, but the successor is, how to say, a free person."
I nodded and agreed with my mother, who put her hand to her cheek as if troubled.
"By the way, Raymond, Maria isn't here today? It's rare for neither of them to be here, Nialkos too."
My mother is probably genuinely worried. However, all of my mother's attendants are daughters of Maya faction nobles.
I can tell that everyone in the room is concentrating on us as they take care of my mother and stand by her side.
Well, of course they're curious, right?
Even though they became my mother's caretakers for etiquette practice like Maria, they were originally nobles. They must have been told to report to their fathers to the extent that they know.
"Yes, Maria is off today."
"Oh, is she sick...? Rowena, do you know anything?"
"No. I haven't heard anything like that."
However, most of the women who come to the palace for etiquette practice are women like Maria who come to make connections for their future without attending the academy, or to learn about unspoken understandings and power relationships between nobles.
In other words, they are greenhouse-grown women who are not accustomed to war or rough stuff.
They have genuinely worried expressions on their faces.
That means that at least the women who are my mother's caretakers are not involved in this matter.
"I haven't heard anything either. It's the first time this has happened, and I thought your caretakers might know something, Mother... I see..."
Honestly, I thought that using my mother's caretakers would be the easiest way to kidnap Maria, so if I don't find any clues here, there's nothing I can do right now.
My mother gently stroked my head as I was feeling down because my guess was wrong.
"Raymond, I'll talk to Abramo-sama too. Maybe there was something urgent in the Grimaldi family."
I wish that were really the case.
I wouldn't be able to bear it if Maria got hurt because of me.
If Maria was really kidnapped by the Maya faction nobles because of me and her life was in danger, then I would ask General Baltzar for help.
Since my older brothers are there, there would be some inconveniences, but she wouldn't be exploited completely.
My mother put her hand on my cheek as I was unknowingly looking down.
When my mother lifted my face, her grey eyes, which were more upturned, met my eyes.
"Raymond, I'm unreliable, aren't I? I was driven by jealousy and couldn't even honestly convey my feelings until I was told by my son."
It's sad that I can't deny that, huh.
"Hey, you guys. I want to talk to Raymond for a bit. Would you mind stepping back for a while?"
My mother's attendants bowed and tried to leave the room, so I waved my hand lightly to see them off and received smiles.
Is this the power of a shota?
I and my mother faced each other again.
She still had her hand on my cheek, tracing my eyes with her thumb.
"It's my fault. Those eyes and hair of yours... It's because I said you were going to be the Crown Prince."
"Even if you hadn't said it, Mother, someone would have said it eventually when they saw my coloring."
"Raymond is kind. He's like Abramo-sama."
Saying that, my mother hugged me tightly.
"I'll protect Maria as much as I can. It was originally a seed that I sowed."
"Don't push yourself too hard. You have to be happy too, Mother."
When I said that and hugged her back tightly, she hugged me back just as tightly.
"Hey, Raymond. Do you want to be king?"
Asked in a gentle voice, I shook my head from side to side.
"No, not at all. I'm not suited to be a king. Federico-niisama should be the one to become king."
"Then what do you want to be, Raymond?"
When I was asked "what," I realized that I had never thought about "wanting to be this" before.
Becoming an adventurer is a means to live freely.
There was no specific wish, like wanting to become an adventurer because I wanted to do this.
"Hmm. I wonder."
Since my older brothers are specialized in their respective fields, I had a wish to be active in other fields, different fields.
I somehow didn't like being called a second edition, and I didn't think I could be active in the fields where my older brothers were active.
That's why I wanted to become an adventurer that no one had become yet.
"I don't necessarily hate it if I'm not an adventurer, but I want to travel around the world. I also want to meet the Dragon Knight in Ost that Maria told me about a long time ago."
Come to think of it, that's what sparked my interest in the outside world.
Maria, who was holding me, who couldn't move freely on my own yet, showed me the eastern sky and told me about it.
Dragons, divine messengers who live in the steep mountains where God sits, far east from the Middle Lands.
The existence of Dragon Knights who communicate with those dragons tickled my fantasy mind.
"That's right. The imperial family of the Ost Empire all live with dragons. I was a girl and I had older brothers, and I was going to marry somewhere someday, so I didn't get my dragon, but boys, especially the eldest son who inherits the country, are always given a dragon. You're not an Ost imperial family, so you can't get one, but I'm sure if you ask your older brother or father, they'll show you."
"Yeah. Someday, I want to show it to Maria too."
"I see. Well, Nialkos isn't here today, so leave Maria's search to Baltzar-sama. Instead, let's talk with your mother together?"
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