Chapter 406: A Date With A Pirate (1/2)

There was no free lunch in this world, but Arthur knew that the price the pirate asked for wouldn't be money but something else. He saw her eyes glitter as she looked at the cold and aloof princess, and he knew what she wanted to ask.

”How much is it?” Diana, however, already had her pouches out to make the payment. The pirate raised his hand and backed away.

”I seek no monetary gain, as I am no lowly pirate. But, on the other hand, your company is the rarest of treasures.”

”Uh-huh,” Dia nodded with furrowed brows and turned to Arthur. ”You picked up a crazy pirate as your captain, Seika.”

”I sure did,” he sighed and glanced at the pirate's crumbling hopes. If there were a trivia question about the densest thing in the universe, it would be the princess regarding social matters, excluding politics.

'How did this girl manipulate those around her to love her before?' Arthur remembered it clearly, her acts to earn his pity. However, there was something more awakening after he used Greatest Harmony on her, which would be Dia's refusal for petty tricks.

”What I'm asking for is a simple date, just the two of us,” the pirate took off her hat and placed it on her chest. ”That is in itself the greatest gift one could receive: to be in the presence of someone as beautiful as you are.”

Arthur glanced at Dia and saw that she realized what was going on. As the realization dawned, her guard lowered around Eleven. There was even the hint of a smile on her face after knowing about the pirate's feelings.

”You have feelings for me?”

The question was blunter than a blind knife, and the princess tore down all pretenses around the pirate. Arthur silently stared as if he was witnessing a documentary about a spider catching its prey.

”Ah,” Eleven was surprised, and there was even blush on her face. ”Yes, I do.”

The change in her demeanor amused Arthur, and he turned around to see what Dia would say. However, the princess chose to look at him instead.

”What do you think?”

Arthur felt tremendous pressure for some reason. The princess's question was out of the blue, and he didn't know why she asked him. Did she want to see how he would react to someone liking her?

A million thoughts raced across his mind, calculating for every possible scenario that might unfold. One of them even included the world ending as he knew it, and others were less extreme that only had his death. He could tell with accuracy that this was the fastest his mind worked.

”Quite a bargain, isn't it?” there was nothing else he could say. However, like a game where you get a notification that you chose the wrong choice, Arthur knew that this wasn't what Dia wanted to hear.

There was no anger or any sort of expression on her face, and that was the worst result he could get from the cold princess, who he managed to soften in the past few weeks.

”I see,” the princess's face was apathetic. She turned toward the pirate and nodded, agreeing to the 'trade' that Eleven offered. ”Let's go out on a date then.”

***

There was a giant mast in the middle of Aquamia that touched the clouds, and no one seemed to have an idea why it was there, to begin with, but a theory was that the first sailors might have placed it as a monument.

Sitting on one of the mast's many planks was Arthur, and he looked down on the city. Then, probably unknown to himself even, he used the detection rune to find the princess and her current companion.

His detection allowed him to take a snapshot of the surrounding, and it appeared like a three-dimensional picture in his mind. The fact that it got transferred directly to his mind allowed him to find the princess quite easily.

”She looks entertained,” he muttered as a thin smile hanged on her face as she looked at the pirate's antics. It seems that after realizing the pirate had feelings for her, she began to like her.