Even the faces of the other kids who had never paid me much attention before...... every last one of them......

From far away, Sortie was just entering the hall. She covered her mouth, smiled, and mouthed, “Oh my. Is hide-and-seek over?”

Feeling a little embarrassed, I quietly buried my face against Dad’s shoulder.

“Ah, ah! I see, I see! Goodness, Duke! How do you do! Haben! You should greet him!”

“Huh? No, I mean, yes? No, I mean....... why...... is she there.......”

Haben still looked completely out of it.

Count Abellus hovered nearby with an entirely different energy than before.

“Priiincess! So it was you, Princess! Oh, my.”

“So. Did you write the name down?”

Dad lightly ignored him and asked me.

Before I knew it, his blade-sharp gaze had landed on my knee. My skirt must have lifted a little.

A small scab had formed there, and anyone could tell it was the kind of scrape you got from falling.

Mm....... Dad seems to have roughly figured it out.

I looked at Haben, trembling with a white face, then glanced at the Count standing next to him.

Then I answered with a smile.

“Nooo. I got along really well with the other kids!”

Haben’s shoulders jerked.

“Look! I even made a friend! His name is Jerdin!”

When I pointed, Jerdin, who had gone pale as flour, bowed his head stiffly.

“H-h-hello....... D-Duke......!”

“Right. Jerdin, is it? Thank you for being friends with our Ruby.”

“N-no, not at all. Ru....... I mean, th-the Princess has helped me so much......”

Jerdin stammered his way through it.

Watching him, I snuck a glance at Haben.

What Haben did was bad, but.......

Still, he was a kid too.

Sure, the apology had probably only happened because of the penalty points, but he had apologized to Jerdin in the end.

And it was not as though he had ever posed enough of a threat to me that I wanted Dad to punish him.

If he has a brain, he must have learned something.

Isn’t that what going to school is for?

And honestly, I had enjoyed getting revenge on him and making him suffer a little too......

So ratting him out outright made me feel a bit guilty.......

“But...... what in the world happened to your name badge?”

After finishing with Jerdin, Dad frowned at the name badge dangling from my chest.

“I really have no idea what my youngest has been doing at the Academy.”

“Heh-heh.......”

I just smiled and tried to muddle through it.

Right then, Count Abellus, who had clearly been waiting and watching for a chance to cut in, spoke up.

“Haha. Ha ha. P-Princess. Your hair color has changed, and your name badge was quite, ah, distinctive, so I failed to recognize you.”

“......”

“Well, it seems you and our Haben have grown somewhat close during camp. Why don’t you come this way and chat a bit.......”

I stared at the Count, smiling like some oily little sycophant, then turned my head away with a snap.

“Dad, can I write down the name of the person who bullied me now?”

The moment I said that, Dad held out his palm without even a second of hesitation.

“Write it.”

On his broad, solid palm, I carefully traced the letters with my finger.

“......The Count has a rotten personality?”

“Nooo!”

Ugh!

In the end, I drew a long arrow.

Toward Count Abellus.

“Ah.”

Dad’s eyebrow lifted.

“Earlier, that man kept pointing at me and Jerdin and looking down on us for being commoners...... and glaring at us and bumping us and stuff, ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ so I was a little scared.”

I whispered it near his ear while making sure everyone could hear. Count Abellus’s face turned deathly pale.

He must have thought I would not notice because he had not been openly sneering, but I knew perfectly well, mister.

He told Haben to use me to make a connection?

Using children, whether it was me or Haben, rubbed me the wrong way.

“N-no. That’s a misundersta—”

“I see. So that’s how it was.”

The air around Dad turned cold and heavy.

The rotten Count sucked in a sharp breath, and Dad set a hand on his shoulder and pressed down with weight.

Crunch.

Blue veins stood out all over the hand gripping that narrow shoulder as if it might crush it.

“We’ll definitely have that private meeting later, Count.”

A black shadow fell over the slender body. Cold sweat beaded across the Count’s forehead.

“Wh-what? N-now that I think about it, I-I believe perhaps that won’t be necess—”

“The workshop run by the Count Abellus family has been receiving supplies of our northern minerals, if I remember right?”

The business partner smiled coldly and offered a handshake.

“Let’s work together to scale that business down nicely.”

“Aaagh!”

Well.......

This was adult versus adult.

They could handle it themselves, right?

*****

I climbed down from Dad’s arms. I might not look it, but I was an Academy camp graduate now! Then I walked across the banquet hall step by step.

As I headed for my assigned seat, the crowd parted in a long sweep like the Red Sea, making a path for us.......

Dad looked thoroughly used to that.

“She was the princess.......”

“No way....... Why was she pretending to be a commoner?”

But once I realized all that attention was focused even more on me, it felt......

So embarrassing!

All those stares sticking into my face now that the mask was off! I felt naked!

I was about to slip behind Dad’s arm out of habit when suddenly I felt an intense stare.

I looked up and met Dad’s eyes as he gazed at me.

“Hm? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Dad moved his lips, then shut them again.

A moment later, he let out a short laugh and tousled my hair all up.

“Don’t do that! I’ll turn into a lion!”

“I’m looking at what I haven’t seen for ten days. Don’t interrupt.”

“Hah, then I’m looking at you too, Dad.”

I stared right back at him stubbornly.

I expected some teasing answer like Don’t be cheeky, or You can look all you want, but Dad only hesitated a little and closed his mouth again.

What’s with him?

He had seemed really careful with his words since earlier.

Dad bent down, straightened my ribbon tie neatly, and said,

“Ruby. Later tonight...... shall we talk for a bit?”

His voice was gentle.

“Hm? Sure! What are we going to talk about? Wait, did I do something wrong? Did you find out I didn’t eat my bell peppers?”

“It’s not that.”

Dad smiled as he smoothed the hair sticking to my forehead back into place.

“Not eating bell peppers isn’t doing something wrong either.”

“Huh?”

“There’s never been anything you did wrong.”

Mm.......

Did seeing family again after a long time make people soft?

Then again, I think I’d be okay even if Dad grabbed my nose really hard right now!

So what was it about? Was he going to tell me about the trip? Had something interesting happened?

Whatever it was, I was happy, so I just grinned.

Right then, the Class A kids came into the hall. Since the last day’s event was shared by both classes, there were a lot of them!

“Khaaal! Over here!”

I waved both arms wildly at Khalid as he came through the entrance.

The moment he spotted me, he walked straight over.

“You’ve grown again since I last saw you.”

Dad got to his feet and thumped a hand onto Khalid’s head.

As usual, Khalid just rubbed the top of his head and answered in his flat way.

“I haven’t really.”

“You have, brat.”

Dad gave him another playful tap.

Good. Khalid doesn’t have his parents here, so I need to take good care of him!

I made that solemn vow and pressed right up against Khalid’s side.

“What? Why?”

“There’s a reason. I’m sticking to you all day today!”

“......I have no idea what that means.”

But even while grumbling like that, he did not move even a little away from me. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

And then, not long after—

Bang!

The doors flew open, and a lion charged in with terrifying force.

“Liiittle ruuunt!”

Gasp, good grief.

How on earth did Grandpa get here?!