yemalu

I held Aria\'s hand as she helped me off the carriage after Tiara.

Unfortunately, Katsuki isn\'t accompanying me today since she would be patrolling the shadows with the others to look for any hidden threats.

"We\'re here, Big Sister! We\'re here!" Tiara cheered while waving at me, causing the crowd around us to cheer as well in response.

I know the princess is really cute but I didn\'t think they would take to her so easily like that…

Is everyone here just simps for the Royal Family or something?

Then again… They are the Royal Family after all so I guess that makes sense… If you catch the princess\'s eye and befriend her, you would be able to get quite a lot of benefits.

I guess that\'s what the king and queen must be thinking for my case…

Tiara came up and held my hand, taking a moment to wave to the crowd before we made our way towards the entrance of the sweets shop that was reserved for us today.

In case you were wondering, it\'s the same shop that Lisa had brought me to. Or more accurately, it was one of the branch stores located in  the Merchant\'s District. There\'s many different branches for this in the capital after all.

And just to be clear, I was not the one who chose this place so I don\'t know if this was a coincidence or whoever arranged this knew about my recent visit here.

Unsurprisingly, a rather familiar young man was standing there waiting for us.

"Welcome to my humble shop, Princess Lehcarouc! I am Aruule Laruule, the owner of this establishment! I am deeply honoured to make your acquaintance!"

Yep, it\'s the guy that wanted me to be his poster girl but then rejected me after he knew who I was.

Figured he would definitely be here since the princess was visiting, there\'s no way a merchant like him would miss out an opportunity to get close to the Royal Family.

Tiara seemed to panic a little before quickly making a curtsy, "I… Ahem! Good day, sir Laruule, I am Tiara Lehcarouc, third princess of the Lehcarouc Kingdom."

I almost forgot that she actually received education on how to act properly in a formal setting given how she had been behaving with me so far.

Aruule then quickly gestured to the interior of his shop, "Please, allow me to serve you, Your Highness! I have reserved the best seat in the house for you!"

Tiara gave another curtsy though it was obvious she was not so sure of herself, "Umm… I… I thank you for your kind umm.. Consideration!"

Even like this, she\'s still cute.

I\'m quite thankful the owner hasn\'t realised that it\'s me since I\'m still wearing my mask, otherwise I think this meeting would be pretty awkward.

He opened the door and ushered us in, allowing us to step inside first before he shut the door behind us.

Tiara then let the serious act melt away to grab my hand, "Let\'s go, Big Sister! What cookies do you want?"

Aruule, who was in the midst of turning around to lead us further into the store, quickly swivelled back to gape at me.

"Big… Big sister? Princess--"

I raised a hand to stop him, "No, I\'m not related to the Royal Family. Princess Tiara simply views me as her big sister. That is all."

I even said this in a tone of voice that told him I would not be elaborating further on that.

He seemed to understand and turned back, quickly giving a comment about how the entire store was reserved for us today so that we could enjoy all the sweets to our heart\'s content just to change the topic.

"But I think enjoying sweets with others is nice though…" Tiara muttered beside me, though too softly for the guy in front of us to hear.

Well… It\'s hard to do that in such a setting since we can\'t be too sure if there\'s anyone who wishes to hurt her. And it would make it harder to protect her if things were to get chaotic with others around.

We were led to the centre of the store where a large area had been cleared to allow just a single table and chair to be arranged there. Standing all around said table were the various staff of the store, all of them with their heads bowed towards our direction.

Just by looking at it, it kind of feels like the scene where someone is being led to their execution or something.

Tiara tilted her head at the set up, "Mmm? Why is there only one chair?"

The sweets store owner in front of us seemed to panic slightly, "E… Eh? Is there… Is there something wrong with that, Your Highness?"

She puffed her cheeks, "Of course there is! There\'s two of us eating sweets and you only prepare one chair?"

Aruule turned to me and I simply nodded in response to his silent question.

He clapped his hands together, "Someone! Hurry! Rectify this at once!!"

One of the staff members quickly ran off to get a chair for us, placing it on the opposite side of the first chair.

"Pl… Please, Your Highness!" Aruule bowed while gesturing towards the table.

The Royal Knights accompanying us split up and formed a perimeter around the interior of the shop while Aria stood near said table.I think you should take a look at

That left myself and the princess to take a seat at it.

I was waiting for Tiara to sit first but she went behind one of the chairs and started trying to drag it over to the other side.

"Princess… Allow me," Aria offered.

"Nnnnghh! No! I\'ll do it!" Tiara rejected, her cheeks puffed up cutely.

Aruule and his staff looked absolutely aghast at what was happening and rushed up to try and help, only to stop in their tracks when Aria raised a hand at them silently.

It took her a moment but she managed to lift the chair up and bring it over to place it down beside the other one.

"I did it! I did it, Big Sister! I got stronger!"

Awwww~ She\'s so cute~

She jumped onto the chair she just moved and patted the seat beside her, "Here, here, Big Sister! We can eat sweets together!!"

I giggled, "Ufufufu~ You seem really excited Tiara."

"Yes! I\'ve also heard about this place before! This place has a lot of nice sweets right? I\'m sure they have lots of nice cookies too!" She cheered.

That seemed to be the cue for the staff as they brought out several tables worth of sweets in an instant to surround our table.

Everywhere we looked there were plates and trays filled with some kind of sweets.

"We are pleased to introduce our store\'s specialty to Your Highness, over here we have--"

Neither Tiara and I heard a single word that Aruule said as we busied ourselves with enjoying all the sweets that were on display.

Aria had already went ahead to gather up sweets to serve us and we were just stuffing ourselves with all the sweets being brought to our table.

Ahhhh~ The cakes are so soft!! So sweet!! And these marshmallows literally melt in your mouth!! There\'s so many different flavoured dips too!!! Ahhhhh!!!

And the cookies were so nice too~ Each of them had different textures and tastes!! You can\'t even get tired of them!!

There\'s just so much!!

Mmmmm~ I\'m in heavennnnn~

I let out a contented sigh as I leaned back in my chair, Tiara mimicking my actions beside me.

"Mnnnghh~ So good~" She moaned, the scent of cookies wafting from her.

We completely cleaned out all the sweets they had brought out and pretty much all of them had looks of shock on their faces.

I wonder why?

Hmm… How long have we been eating here? Do they still have more? I don\'t mind a few more of those really nice puddings they have~ Those were--

I felt something flying towards me and my instinct took over.

I dove towards Tiara and tackled her to the ground, though it seemed it was an unnecessary move on my part because Katsuki had also appeared in front of our table to deflect the throwing knives away with her daggers.

"Mistress… My apologies for letting this one slip through… But we are under attack."

"I can see that…" I muttered while pulling the stunned princess back onto her feet. "Who is it? Demons?"

"No, Mistress. It seems like Head Maid is right."

My Inugami maid nodded at the robed figure that dropped down from the ceiling.

His hood had fallen back to reveal a distinctly Mahun face while he drew the short sword on his waist.

"Sorry, but I\'m going to need the princess to come with me. You\'re needed for our plan to--"

He didn\'t even get to finish his words before two of the Royal Knights appeared beside him and stabbed him with their swords.

The hooded guy looked down in surprise, as though he couldn\'t believe he just got attacked for attempting to assassinate the princess in front of the Royal Knights.

What the heck, what were you expecting? You\'re outnumbered like more than ten to one and you thought this wouldn\'t happen?

Are these guys dumb?