Chapter 29 – Couple (Aria’s POV)

Me and Letty are officially a couple now. As I expected, her uneasiness went away after my confession. She is back to being her usual self.

Currently, it’s nighttime and we are about to go to bed.

“Aria, how would our relationship work?” she asked while getting on the bed and sitting beside me.

“What do you mean? You are my girlfriend now, we are a couple” I replied.

“But you know that you will make a lot of enemies after declining so many proposals and ending up taking your servant as your lover. Moreover, your reputation would take a huge hit among nobles” she said.

Her concern isn’t unfounded. I need to maintain my reputation if I want to inherit the estate and run a proper business, even if it’s annoying.

But the solution is equally simple.

“Isn’t it obvious? We will buy you a noble title in a foreign country first. Then declare you as my fiance. If you contribute enough money, anyone can buy a title, and I know just where we can get one for you. Although it’s not cheap, nothing is too hard for me. Very few people know that you are working as my maid. So don’t worry about silly things”

It is as my dad says, ‘Money is Power’.

“Un, but I don’t want to stop working as your maid. I don’t want to leech off of my girlfriend. There must be a way around it!”, there she goes again.

“But you won’t be leeching off of anyone. You are my personal assistant, isn’t that enough?”

“I enjoy my responsibilities as a maid, attending to all of your needs. Do you hate having me take care of you?”, she said.

There is no winning now.

“Alright, alright. Stop twisting my words. But remember one thing, if you want to be officially engaged to me, you will have to take on a title. There is no way around that”

“I understand…” her face immediately turned sour.

“But… we can keep it a secret for now. At least for a couple of years, I can keep rejecting marriage proposals. So we can hide our relationship from the public eye until then. But you’ll have to accept the terms by then. If not, you’ll be putting me in a rather difficult spot”

“Yes! Thank you so much, Aria” she tried to pull my face towards her breast to hug me.

Not so fast.

I dodged her arms and instead closed the distance between our faces.

“This is for stressing me out for no reason”, I said while aiming for her lips.

I could feel her breath on my face. Without giving her a chance to react, I kissed her deeply.

Let’s control myself, she is too innocent and pure for this.

“Mmhm… You are so unfair… It’s your fault if I can’t fall asleep tonight”, she said in a cute manner, and I could see a clear blush forming on her cheeks.

I love to see her face turn red. Simply adorable.

***

The next day,

I entered the dining hall for breakfast with Letty walking closely behind me.

“Mom, Dad. I want to tell you something important”, both of them gave me their attention.

I took a breath and said,

“As of yesterday, Letty and I are a couple”

“Absolutely not! You are too young for it. I won’t allow it” Dad instantly screamed.

“Sigh, stop it. Can’t you see they are past the point where you could intervene?” Mom defended.

“What? Weren’t they just friends? When did this happen?”, he said.

Mom turned towards me and said,

“Sooner or later, I knew this was coming. So ignore your Dad’s words for now, he just needs some time to come to his senses. You have our blessings, come here, both of you”

She hugged both of us and congratulated us.

“I am so happy for my daughter as well as for my student. You’ll make a great couple”, while Dad was still bewildered.

“So, when do you want to get engaged? Should your dad take care of purchasing a title or will you do it yourself?”, she asked.

I explained the situation.

“I see. But it might get tricky to keep it a secret. Letica, you should change your hairstyle and clothing while you are outside with Aria. That way nobody will recognise you once we buy you a title”, Mom said.

I was going to suggest it either way.

Mom whispered something to Dad, and he silently nodded. I guess Dad still needs a little more time. I’m sure he’ll come along.

***

I was in the middle of planning a nice little date with Letty when I was interrupted by a call.

It was Carolina.

All her issues are sorted, and she should be busy dealing with the dungeon affairs, so why is she calling now?

I answered the call.

“Good evening, Aria. It’s me, Carolina. I called to tell you that I am on my way to your house with my brother. I’ll arrive there in three days, so be prepared to receive us”

“WHAT?”

Why? And why with her brother? Isn’t she supposed to be busy?

Moreover, they must have left about three days ago if they’re gonna reach here in a few days. So why is she only calling now?

“Ahem… Is there any particular reason for your sudden visit?” I asked.

“Yeah, so I accidentally slipped your name while talking with my family. So now everyone knows that it was you who gave us the tip about the dungeon. Sorry about that”, she said nonchalantly.

“Why? You promised that you wouldn’t tell anyone. This is not fair”

“I know, and I really am sorry. You know my condition, right? I just blurted it out without thinking. But don’t worry, my family members won’t tell anyone. We are indebted to you, so my brother wanted to personally express our gratitude. And maybe ask a question or two… oops! You didn’t hear that from me”, of course they have questions. Now I’ll need to come up with apt answers.

“Anyway, I am just tagging along since I have nothing else to do”, she continued.

“Are you not busy with dungeon-related stuff? I figured you’d be super busy” I asked.

“Not really. I have four older siblings. They are all hard at work, and I would just get in their way”

Right, they have a huge family.

Thanks to all my skipped classes, I am pretty bad in terms of general awareness of noble houses.

“I see. Have a safe trip. I’ll be prepared to receive you”

Sigh, this is gonna be a headache.

***

I talked with Letty about the matter.

Aw man! I was so excited to take her out on a date, but now we are forced to deal with this situation.

“How about this? I’ll forge an anonymous letter explaining about the dungeon’s whereabouts, then blame it on some stranger’s help” I suggested.

“No, this won’t work. Firstly, why would the stranger address the letter to you? And secondly, there is no way any suspicious, no-named letter could make its way to you. You’ll be surprised by hearing the amount of spam letters you receive every day”, Letty said.

“Aaaah! What should I do? I can’t lie to her. Or even if I do, I can’t get caught lying, or they won’t trust me in the future” I said, clutching my head.

“Let’s think about it calmly. I’m sure we can figure something out”, Letty comforted me.

After brainstorming for a while,

From the way I told her, it must have sounded like a prophecy.

Prophecy…

“I got it!” I screamed as I got up from my chair.

“Yes, this will work. In the novel’s mid-chapters, there was a little brother character in the city of Lerio. He was gambling in some shady areas when the protagonist protected him from the thugs. It was then revealed that he needed to make a lot of money for his single father’s treatment. The protagonist helped him by finding a rare herb and helped him to cure his father. It was a very wholesome mini-arc” I continued,

“But most important of all, he is a prophet. Although he is not that powerful, he can sometimes predict the near-future with great accuracy. This was what led him to gamble in the first place”

Sorry protagonist, I will be stealing your to-be little brother. He was only featured for a few chapters, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. His powers are very limited and very easy to detect, but Carolina doesn't know that.

After hearing this much, Letty figured out what I was getting at.

“I know. We can help him with his father’s treatment and ask him to lie for us. He’ll probably agree to help his benefactor”, she said.

“You are a little off, but something like that. His father might not be sick yet, so we’ll have to convince him to help us somehow. Well, throwing money around has worked out well for me until now. I hope it works out this time as well, or else we’ll just have to straight up lie to them as a final resort”, I said.

Well, I hope the former plan works out. The latter will probably result in the loss of a potentially good enchanter.

If it weren’t for the enchanters charging ridiculously for their services, I could have gotten away without Carolina. But a little lie is a small price to pay for a good enchanter.

“It will take about half a day to reach Lerio city, due to the mountainous terrain. Moreover, we don’t even know his address. How are we going to find him in such a short amount of time?” Letty asked.

“It’s that far? Oh God, we won’t be able to make it back in time. Sigh, alright, Letty, here is what we do. We’ll leave right away after having a little chat with Mom. I’m sure she’ll come up with some excuse to stall them for a day or two in the worst scenario. Go and arrange a carriage and guards in the meantime”, I said.

Sigh, so much for all my date plans.

I guess this will have to do for our first official date. It’s not too bad, I’m sure we’ll make it work somehow.