The next day, or, afternoon, the Oriana Kingdom's Royal Family arrived, as expected. Preparations had already been made in order to welcome them, even when they entered the castle.
"Hm~ I can't wait to meet the Royal Family of this kingdom. Is that right, husband?" The queen of the Oriana Kingdom spoke with a light smile.
"Of course, me too. I still have a few agreements to make with Klaus, before that, meeting them is a respectful choice to make." Her husband replied, leading the way to where they are supposed to be.
Behind the two were the Royal Chancellor, and the Princess Rose Oriana, who currently was a year younger than our protagonist.
Alongside them were four royal guards of incredible skill and stature, aside from that, they're mob characters.
A maid led the Royal Family along with their Royal Chancellor to a large room where a long rectangular table was placed, it was enough for ten people to sit down.
And in this room awaited Klaus and his children, the youngsters focused on reading a book just before the esteemed guests arrived, which did make the three of them feel a bit dissatisfied.
Said book was about certain legendary figures fighting against an ancient Demon King, which made the Chancellor feel curious, even for a moment.
The redhead, Corneus closed the book calmly, raising his hand before a maid approached him. Handing over the book to the maid, she silently walked out of the room to return it.
"Ah, good afternoon, Lord Raphael! You've arrived just in time!" Klaus exclaimed, standing up from his seat to approach his fellow king.
"How many years have we last met, hm? Six? Seven?"
The two of them embraced each other for a few seconds, then after separating, Raphael noticed something off within the room.
"And where's Mary?"
For a moment, Klaus was a bit down. Sighing, he decided to be silent for a long moment. His thoughts were in a temporary disarray.
Raphael wondered why, and waited patiently.
This action of his attracted the attention of the Royal Chancellor and the Queen, narrowing their eyes towards him.
Yet, a freezing gaze coming from Corneus struck the two of them, leaving them unable to move, yet only capable of breathing for a few seconds.
The two of them gasped for air, looking around for whoever did that, yet couldn't do so as their sight was on somewhere else other than Corneus.
'No offense, the King of Oriana Kingdom is an NTR victim. I pray for him, but for now things have to happen. But for you, er... Woman of Oriana Kingdom and... Doem, no, Perv Asshat, I'll make sure your lives here will be like hell! Through pranks of course! Nothing serious, for now!'
Corneus, with all his confidence, decided to feel like he wanted to prank the two of them in strange ways.
Aside from that...
'And, Rose Oriana. In many loops I've experienced, she was kidnapped and sold to slavery after her family's second visit, for two years until the Oriana Kingdom's knights rescued her, which is reality were members of the Cult. Until in later loops, I decided to rescue her under my Diabolos persona many times. She's a good asset, really.'
Once he was finished with his thoughts, Klaus sighed once more and told his fellow king a lie.
"She's been sick lately, and we've started to treat her now, Mary will recover in a few days, and all will be fine."
"I see... Then all is fine!"
With a chuckle, Raphael tapped Rose's shoulder.
"This is my daughter, Rose Oriana. I'll let her play with your children for a few days. We have a lot of adult talk to be made, and children won't be able to comprehend them."
"Go on, I'm sure they'll be friends just fine."
A tinge of joy rose from Rose's chest, and she was relieved.
'F-Finally! I can finally be away from those two!' Rose thought, happily walking towards the three children of equal status.
And of course, the people here didn't really mind.
"Just don't go anywhere too far!" Her father advised, and his daughter replied with a happy nod.
The kings began to talk about agreements and peace talks in order to have both Oriana Kingdom and Midgar Kingdom allied to each other for a long while.
Corneus along with his sisters stood up facing the princess of the neighboring kingdom.
Taking a step forward, he put his hand on his chest, and the other on his back, then bowed in the right angle for a moment.
"Rose Oriana, right? I'm Corneus Midgar, and my sisters behind me are Iris, the one with the same hair color and Alexia Midgar, my white haired sister. Nice to meet you!"
With a greeting done, he extended his hand towards her.
She took it before exchanging introductions with Corneus' sisters, afterwards allowing herself to be led somewhere around the castle.
Aside from that, Corneus felt content, really. Meeting a certain princess at this day, which had never happened at all, then getting a chance to befriend her and leave her a bond that would allow her to be a useful asset to him.
It is a chance that he would never ignore. Not once.
'The technological developments of this current era is quite similar to those of the late 19th and early 20th century, mixed with elements of a medieval era because magic exists. And due to that, I have ideas on how to expand stuff.'
As he led her around, he pointed at a painting the size of a 00s Television. It was a painting of a woman with pure white hair and closed eyes, donning the armor of a Valkyrie.
Said woman sat on the ground, patting a child's head as she had a bright smile. A spear was planned beside her.
"Why are we even here?" Iris asked, glancing at the painting. Before, she realized something. "Ah, I see! You are here to give her a moment to sightsee about your paintings!"
Alexia nodded happily towards her.
And Rose was very surprised.
"Your paintings? You made these?" Rose had become awed, and decided to begin admiring the paintings. "That white haired woman, she so beautiful..."
Snorting confidently, our prince put his hands on his waist.
"Of course! I take major pride in my works, but I am not willing to sell some of those, they're precious to me!" He exclaimed, briefly reminding himself that he used a memory of the final loop as a reference.
His expression slowly returned to a neutral one afterwards as he glanced at the different paintings he made.
The woman on the painting actually was Freya, one of the Three Heroes, and her description was almost accurate.
And he didn't like to sell them for that reason.
"I wanted to paint like my brother, but I gave up after a while. I don't even know how to paint!" Alexia interjected, huffing a short sigh.
The four of them then walked towards a room where a piano is stationed.
Alexia and Iris looked at him, wondering what he really wanted to do. And in their minds, a single thought appeared in it.
"I know now... you wanted to woo her, right?" Alexia spoke, pointing her finger towards her brother.
In surprise he snorted, crossing his arms and shaking his head in denial. With confidence he smirked at them.
"What are you talking about? I figured we won't be able to see each other for a long time, so I decided to make these days and nights memorable." Corneus stated in order to let them understand.
"That's still wooing, you know?"
"Yeah, so what? It's not like I'm thousands of years old, you know."
And thus, the night was spent getting to know each other, and with Corneus showing off a bit of his skills, Rose had become impressed.
For a few days, the Oriana Kingdom's Royal Family had made a long time sightseeing and making chatter around the people, then getting to know who Corneus is and his title not being a mere exaggeration surprised the King.
And after they left, Corneus had decided to visit his mother. He has something to do with her now that some parts of her body were now mutated due to a magical overload.
"Mother..."
He was currently alone with her.
Mary's open eye looked at him, and tears had begun to come out from both her eyes.
It was difficult to move her body, and now that her mutated self was seen, by her own son, she feared he would leave in fear.
"Don't worry about it, I will save you from the demon that possessed you!"
His left hand glowed, and because he knew how to exactly cure the Demon Possession curse, he knew what to do.
At that exact moment, his father came in the room, horrified about him being here.
"What are you doing in this room, Corneus? Didn't I tell you to not enter!?"
[ ~ TO • BE • CONTINUED ~ ]
