Luna’s brother’s house wasn’t big. It had a very simple style. All of the furniture gave off the vibe that they were made by so-so handiwork. There was very little furniture. There were only two divided areas. One was the bedroom, and the other was the guest room. In terms of furniture, the house only had one round table, eating utensils, chairs, cupboards and other necessities. There were no decorations.
I was currently sitting on one side of the table waiting for her brother to say something. I could tell that Luna’s brother was a miner at first glance. Even elven skin will get slightly tanned working in a mine. He looked at us with his arms folded. Luna wore a blissful smile, but I felt that the gaze he reserved for me wasn’t friendly.
After a long silence, Luna’s brother cleared his throat and then asked, “Have you done it?”
“What?”
I got caught by surprise. I had no idea what he was talking about. I had no idea how to answer the question that was suddenly thrust at me.
Luna looked at her brother, nodded, and replied, “Yes.”
My face literally looked like a big question mark. What’s he talking about? I don’t understand a thing. I looked at Freya only to realise that Freya couldn’t understand the elven language. She had no idea what we were saying, so I couldn’t learn what they were talking about through Freya.
“Is that so? I have nothing I can say then. In any case, there is no precedence of a human and an elf doing this sort of stuff. But I don’t think Mr Troy is a bad man. As long as you two are happy together, I will be able to give you my blessings as your brother. However, I can detect mana from Mr Troy’s body…”
Luna replied, “Mr Troy is mixed-blood. He is half-elven.”
Luna’s brother nodded and said, “I see. That means that there is precedence to your cross-race relationship. That’s good. But it would be best if you could stay, Luna. A family is happiest when they are together.”
Luna looked at me. I shook my head to indicate I didn’t mind. As I previously said, my original plan was for Luna to stay. It’s great that she still has a family. Her brother was right. A united family was the most beautiful thing, especially being able to reunite after going through such a disaster.
Luna looked at me. She held my hand tightly under the table. She looked at her brother and resolutely said, “No, brother. While I really miss you, I want to continue staying at Mr Troy’s side.”
“Yeah? …”
Her brother stood up. He then sighed and said, “Nothing I can do then. Just go with Mr Troy then. I can’t separate a husband from his wife after all. Let’s leave it at that then. I’m very glad to see that Luna could find her own happiness. I wish you two the best.”
“No… uhh… this…”
Luna pinched my thigh under my hand so I had to keep quiet and acknowledge it. I don’t know why it turned out like this. We said we were just going to see Luna’s family. How did it become me meeting her brother for marriage purposes? So this was the plan right from the start! But it’s true, so I can’t deny it…
It can’t be helped. I’ll just acknowledge it. This won’t really affect me, and I won’t do anything with Luna again.
Her brother left and said that he wanted to wait on us. There were only the three of us in the house. I turned around to look at Luna and made an open hand gesture to ask for her explanation.
Luna looked at me and responded as if it was a matter of course, “Oh… there is nothing to explain. Just consider it helping me, Your Highness… Help me leave a false impression that I am married to my love. I do not want to show a sad expression to the villagers after all. I want to put my brother at ease, so please be my shield this once, Your Highness. Nobody knows you are the prince either.”
I sighed. I could understand where Luna was coming from. I said, “Alright then. But not again.”
Luna giggled and replied, “Understood, Your Highness.”
“Aaahh, what were you saying? I didn’t understand a thing. I think that there’s still nobody who knows what my name is.” Freya lazed onto the table out of boredom. It was so awkward when she greeted the stableman so gracefully and yet he just ignored her. Honestly speaking, I really wanted to laugh. That was an awkward fail-moment. The stableman didn’t have a clue as to what she said due to them not speaking the other’s language. And so Freya’ self-introduction was for naught.
I laughed and then gently scrubbed her head and said, “Don’t worry about it. We were just talking about her family matters, so there was no need to understand it. There’s no need for you to communicate with others anyway, Freya. You just need to come up with ideas for me. Otherwise, you can just go and play with Luna. Oh right, Luna. When does the celebration start?”
Luna thought about it for a moment and then replied, “I am not too sure. It looks like they have spent several days preparing for this one already. If there are no delays, it should start in two days. They should be done with their harvests by then. The remainder of their work will, therefore, be to prepare for the celebration, like erecting the stage and so forth.”
“But are there this many people around before the celebration? Why do I feel that the village is really crowded at the moment?”
“Erm… I have never seen so many people before. When I was in the village, it was just an event where the villagers entertained themselves. There were no outsiders. But it looks like the villagers from around the area have come in now… I am not sure when this started either.”
Luna looked at the people outside who continued passing by non-stop, sighed and said, “The village is not large, to begin with, so where are these people staying? Do they set up temporary inns? But oh well. It is a celebration, so the more the merrier.”
I nodded and then said, “What would happen if the elves were to find out that humans were trafficking elves?”
Luna chuckled and replied, “Of course, they would start a small-scale war then. Nobody would just stand and watch their people get kidnapped, right? It is like stealing someone from another. Your highness, you should be aware of the nature of elves, right?”
I gave a nod. Most of the people here are elves. I haven’t seen everyone present so I can’t be certain if humans are among them. If they kidnap elves at this time, I bet they’d get beaten to death. It looks like I’m going back empty-handed this time. But there shouldn’t be a problem if I ask around.
It wouldn’t be easy for the humans to kidnap the elves from here unless the entire village was in cahoots with them. So why did the elves who got kidnapped all say that they got kidnapped in this village? Do the humans bring an army in? That would make sense if the empress wanted to capture them, but how does the church have what it takes to pull it off?
It looks like I have to re-investigate this trafficking case.
Why is it that I can’t get things done in one stroke regardless of which side I’m on? I have to seriously investigate the cases each time. I can’t just capture someone to ask them either since I’m just an ordinary person, and a human at that. What, am I just going to ask “are there any humans here”?
People will think I’m retarded.
But I think I’ll be alright in this village if I go as Luna’s husband. I assume the elves of this village don’t particularly like humans. But they probably won’t be rude to me considering I’m Luna’s husband.
As we were chatting, Luna’s brother brought back an entire rabbit leg. Luna stood up, walked up to her brother to take it from him and then went into the kitchen. Well, let’s eat first in whatever case. We don’t have time to go out today so let’s just get some good rest at Luna’s brother’s place.
Previous Chapter l Next Chapter
