Chapter 216: If Only Such Times Could Last Forever (5k)
Candlelight flickered, illuminating the cool autumn night.
“Is this a candlelight dinner this time?”
The silver-haired Empress placed her hand in Shaya’s, allowing him to lead her inside the room.
Upon seeing the furnishings in the living room, a faint glint appeared in her eyes.
“I didn’t expect you to be quite so sentimental.”
“As expected of my Empress’s Husband.”
“It is my honor to be praised by Your Majesty, the Empress.”
Shaya smiled.
“Originally, I was a little worried you might find these details and sentimentality meaningless, just a waste of resources.”
“It seems I was overthinking it.”
Isadorella removed her pitch-black gloves, hanging them along with her crescent white trench coat on the armrest of the living room sofa.
The faint candlelight on the dining table flickered unsteadily in the dim air, swayed by the gentle breeze.
It was also reflected in Isadorella’s crimson eyes, like the distant light of a lighthouse in a pitch-black ocean.
She pondered, “How should I put it.”
“If it were my past self, I might have rejected or even resented such actions.”
In line with Isadorella’s past decisive and swift actions as the Iron-Blooded Princess, she pursued the maximization of efficiency and profit.
Just like when she used to meet Shaya, always in her Black Vulture military uniform.
A romantic candlelight dinner and a simple meal consisting of compressed food and nutrient supplements had no difference in the function of “replenishing nutrition”; in fact, the latter was more efficient.
But in reality, which woman wouldn’t long for romance in her heart, for that sense of ritual that, though seemingly meaningless, could bring joy?
It was just that in the past, her heart was bound by the education she had received since childhood, the shackles of being “the heir to the empire,” “a candidate for the throne,” and “the Second Princess.”
The hopeful gazes from her father, the court officials of the royalist faction, and all the people bound the rise and fall of the empire to her alone.
She lived like a mirror, becoming the flawless “Second Princess” who could perfectly fulfill everyone’s expectations.
As a result, the true heart of the girl named Isadorella von Freysburg, outside of the identity of “the Second Princess,” was deeply suppressed.
Even she herself had almost forgotten it.
“Until—”
Isadorella smiled, “I met you.”
Thus, outside the identity of the Second Princess, the nearly forgotten little girl named Isadorella became vibrant once again.
“Although clumsy…”
“I’ve also started to try to have expectations for the outside world and for others.”
“Not living for the sake of the empire, but living for myself.”
Speaking of living for oneself, or to put it more bluntly – “selfishness.”
For most humans, even ordinary civilians, this is nothing more than an innate nature.
However, this nature that all beings should possess, Isadorella only truly acquired more than twenty years later.
“Leisurely indulging in admiring flowers and butterflies, gossiping with close friends, tossing and turning over every move of the one you love, and buying romance novels from the Royal Publishing House…”
“These are things I should have done in the past but never did, aren’t they?”
Isadorella gazed at the flickering candlelight on the dining table.
“Unfortunately, I only found that original intention now, at this late stage.”
“It’s just that, at my current age and status, even if I’ve found my original intention, trying to do those things like an underage maiden seems too late…”
“If I were to actually do that, I’d probably be laughed at by the ministers and the elders within the royal family.”
Her voice gradually softened.
Her words, though seeming to carry teasing laughter, also held an undetectable sense of loss.
But soon, Isadorella’s words were ruthlessly interrupted by Shaya.
“No, it’s not too late at all.”
Isadorella looked back in surprise, only to find that in the eyes of the black-haired youth beside her, there was a seriousness she hadn’t seen before.
“Whether one can do something doesn’t depend on your age and status, nor on what others think of your actions.”
“It only depends on whether you want to do it, and that’s all.”
Shaya leaned back lazily on the sofa, adopting a casual posture.
“Didn’t Your Majesty just say that from now on you would live for yourself, not for others?”
“How is it that in the blink of an eye, you’ve gone back to a dead end.”
His fingers moved slightly.
The next moment, a flash of silver light flickered.
A dainty little mink appeared on Shaya’s shoulder.
After sensing Shaya’s instructions through the Soul Pact, Yin gave Shaya a stern look.
Although she wanted to use her fluffy tail to hit her lazy master’s face, considering this was one of the rare opportunities for her master to show off in front of a woman, Yin ultimately suppressed the movement of her tail.
She leaped nimbly from the sofa and went to a corner of the living room, opening a double-doored metal chest.
The moment the door opened, an icy chill rushed out.
Of course, for Yin, who was born in the snowfields of Ceylon and whose race was the Snow Mink, this chill only made her feel quite comfortable.
The little mink used its snow-white tail to pull out two cans of beverage, still covered in frost, from the double-doored metal chest. Then it leaped back lightly to the side of the sofa and presented the two cans of iced drinks to Shaya with its tail.
“Good job, Yin. Dinner tonight includes a chicken leg.”
“Ying ying, ying (Master, do you think one chicken leg can bribe me, a ‘Snow Mink’ who has already reached the body of a demigod?)”
“Ying, ying (It should be at least two, no, three.)”
“Three it is.”
“Ying!”
Having received Shaya’s satisfactory reply, Yin chirped and transformed into a silver stream of light, returning contentedly to Shaya’s Soul Pact Space to continue her long sleep.
As a Familiar connected to Shaya by a Soul Pact, she knew very well how much Shaya had improved during his five hundred years of deep sleep at the bottom of the abyss.
And as Shaya’s main Familiar, just as a Familiar’s promotion can feedback to the Beast Tamer, Shaya’s own improvement as a Beast Tamer could also feedback to Yin.
She had been sleeping more frequently these days, but for the Snow Mink, who specialized in illusion and mental power, the dream created by sleep was itself a part of her self-cultivation.
Yin had a premonition that the day of her next breakthrough was not far off.
“Speaking of which, if Yin breaks through again, won’t its race evolve from ‘Snow Mink’ to ‘Divine Snow Mink,’ becoming a genuine Mythical Creature?”
Shaya couldn’t help but get lost in thought.
“What is this?”
Isadorella witnessed Shaya’s actions and softly inquired.
“That is a household magical appliance for refrigeration, which I call a refrigerator.”
Shaya pointed to the double-doored metal cabinet by the living room: “The only function of a refrigerator is refrigeration. The principle of its composition is also very simple; just engrave a miniature refrigeration rune inside the metal storage cabinet. The cost is very low, and even families with a little spare money can afford it.”
“Refrigeration…”
Isadorella looked at the double-doored refrigerator, her delicate eyebrows furrowing slightly.
As the Empress of the throne and the empire, she was certainly not unable to understand simple things like refrigerators.
In fact, large-scale ice and snow domains also existed within the royal family, engraved with super-large cooling rune arrays specifically to assist ice-attribute Beast Tamers within the royal faction in their cultivation.
“But… with the specifications of this small iron box, it’s impossible to fit a large enough cooling array, and it can only be used to fit miniaturized magical runes.”
“This level of refrigeration effect, let alone assisting ice-type Familiars in training, even for storing high-risk magical reagents that require specific low-temperature storage, seems insufficient. The stability cannot be guaranteed…”
“So, Your Majesty the Empress—”
Shaya’s laughter interrupted Isadorella’s questioning murmur.
“In terms of political acumen and governing the country, you may indeed be a perfect Princess, a perfect Empress.”
“At least if you asked me to deal with the mountain of scrolls, I would only get a splitting headache and then just give up.”
“However, as Isadorella, as my lover and fiancée, you still have many things to learn.”
Shaya picked up the still-frosty cola.
“The use of a refrigerator is not as grand as Your Majesty might think.”
“The small refrigerator in our house has only one purpose: to chill drinks.”
“Carbonated drinks that have been frozen taste better… that’s all.”
He opened the can with his finger and took a big gulp.
Feeling the stimulating gas explode in his mouth, Shaya lazily slumped back onto the sofa with a sigh of satisfaction.
“If viewed from a traditional perspective.”
“My current status has surpassed the limits of a Throne holder; even in the First Era, when Mythical Creatures roamed freely, I would undoubtedly be considered a person of high rank and power.”
“And my age, if you count the five hundred years I slept at the bottom of the abyss… I’m already approaching sixty, in terms of hundreds of years.”
“A Throne holder who has lived for hundreds of years, in the public’s perception, should be sitting on a mysterious throne, looking down on all beings with a majestic gaze, right?”
“Like that thing I casually made in the First Era, which the elves called the Frozen Throne.”
Shaya waved the iced cola in his hand.
“But no one knows that I actually regret it to death.”
“To strike a pose, I imitated the Frozen Throne created by a certain ‘filial and loving sword master,’ and it did look cool.”
“But how could a throne made of steel be as comfortable as a soft sofa?”
“After posing on that iron block for over five hundred years, I felt like my backside had completely lost all sensation.”
“How can anything be more comfortable than lying on the sofa drinking ‘Happy Water for Otakus’?”
“As for the majesty and mysterious aura that outsiders believe a Throne holder should possess…”
“What does it have to do with me?”
Isadorella watched Shaya, who seemed to be glued to the sofa, with an expression of utter contentment and indifference.
She watched for a long, long time.
Indeed.
Come to think of it, Shaya today, whether in terms of age, experience, or accomplishments and prestige, could indeed be considered a superior individual of high rank and power.
If she hadn’t known Shaya and had only heard of his deeds, her imagined image would be that of a middle-aged man wearing white gloves, with his fingers interlaced on his chest, inscrutable, and deep in thought.
But in reality—
The Shaya that Isadorella knew was, rather, the opposite of this image.
In the eyes of traditional Throne holders and Mythical Creatures, a Throne holder lounging on a sofa drinking carbonated beverages would undoubtedly be a disgrace to the strong.
And when interacting with Shaya, Isadorella never felt like she was dealing with a Throne holder.
It was as if from beginning to end, despite experiencing who knew how many storms—
Shaya remained the same as when Isadorella first heard of him: a third-year student at Saint Roland Academy who hadn’t even reached the Third Ring, who had shone brightly during the Ash Cult invasion, spirited and youthful.
Even those around him had become much younger in spirit.
*Pfft—*
Isadorella suddenly laughed.
It wasn’t a faint smile befitting a monarch’s demeanor.
It was a laugh that was inconsistent with her past image as Empress, a laugh that surprised Isadorella herself, an uncontrollable chuckle.
“You’re hundreds of years old already, yet you still present yourself to outsiders as a ‘spirited seventeen-year-old black-haired youth.’ Aren’t you just pretending to be young?”
“If you say so, I suppose I might have a bit of a tendency to pretend to be young.”
Shaya scratched his head.
“But I genuinely do consider myself that way.”
“It’s too difficult for me to play the role of a majestic person of high rank and power. Showing off occasionally is fine, but maintaining that facade all the time would be too tiring.”
“Since that’s the case, it’s better to just be myself and live the way I want to live.”
Shaya picked up another can of beverage and handed it to Isadorella. “Want to try some Happy Water?”
Isadorella took the drink, imitated Shaya by opening the metal pull-tab, and took a small sip.
The next moment, her delicate eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“Did this drink go bad?”
She put down the drink in her hand.
She stood up and opened the double doors of the refrigerator.
Then, from the refrigerator, she took out a can with packaging different from the two Yin had brought earlier; not blue, but red.
She pulled the tab again and took a small sip.
This time, Isadorella nodded. “This one with the red packaging is fine. Did that blue drink earlier really go bad?”
“It tasted like toilet cleaner.”
“Hiss—”
Shaya gasped.
“I didn’t expect Your Majesty to be a ‘Coca-Cola fan’ like Little Ai.”
“‘Coca-Cola fan’?”
The silver-haired Empress frowned. “What does that mean? Is it a new faction emerging in the Imperial Capital? Why have Diris and Fiolen never mentioned it?”
“It’s nothing… I just feel like we might have some minor friction in our married life.”
Shaya waved his hand, cleared his throat, and his expression returned to normal.
“So, Your Majesty, you should know what I mean, right…”
“Since the time of your childhood was lacking, with too many things left undone and too many memories unattainable—”
“Then why not fill those regrets together in the future…”
“And create more memories?”
Isadorella looked at the youth before her and took a sip of the cola in her hand.
“Smooth-talking fellow—”
“You’ve probably said these lines to many people before, haven’t you?”
“However…”
Isadorella smiled.
“I don’t dislike it.”
At this moment.
She suddenly recalled the words her late mother had once said to her many years ago.
“Life, in essence, is a continuous process of encounters and meetings.”
In the past, she hadn’t quite understood the meaning of this sentence.
However, Isadorella now understood it a little.
“Shaya… classmate?”
The clear and pleasant voice, at this moment, was tinged with bone-chilling coldness.
The words sent a shiver down Shaya’s spine, and a few drops of the cola, which Isadorella had called toilet cleaner, spilled out.
“You asked me and Miss Sylvia to prepare the meal…”
“And then you secretly flirt with Her Majesty the Empress?”
The blonde maiden wore a pristine white apron, her light golden long hair tied up in a neat ponytail, dressed like a little chef.
At this moment, she was holding two steaming dishes, and her eyes, as she looked at Shaya, held a chill that was the opposite of a chef’s demeanor.
A few drops of cold sweat trickled down Shaya’s forehead. “If I summon Yin out now to meet its mother after five hundred years, will that have any effect?”
“Will it have any effect?”
Aerora put on a thoughtful expression, but the floor, which was being cut by fine scratches from the sharp aura of the Holy Spear, revealed everything.
“Who knows?”
“Perhaps it will.”
“Hmph.”
The icy air of the love triangle enveloped the entire living room.
Along with it came the aroma of delicious food that permeated the entire room.
And on the other side.
Isadorella watched silently as the drenched Shaya summoned his army of Familiars, attempting to use a charm offensive to get past Aerora.
After an unknown length of time, she uttered a soft, unheard whisper.
“Such times.”
“If only they could last forever…”
