Loran looked at her helplessly while the girl under the covers felt guilty under his gaze, and she quietly slid down a bit further.
"Your Highness, if you slide down any further, you will end up sleeping on the floor with your blanket."
He sighed with resignation and picked up the porridge bowl from the tray before sitting by the bed, and only then did Chloe slowly poke her head out from the covers.
Loran thought the girl was just trying to act spoiled, but when he scooped a spoonful of porridge and held it out, Chloe just leaned against the headboard and opened her lips while waiting for him to feed her. She didn't even bother to move her fingers, and she kept them folded over the blanket.
One spoonful, two spoonfuls.
Loran lowered his eyes and saw Chloe looking up at him with a nearly innocent expression.
He sneered inwardly.
'Fine, I want to see how long you can keep this act up.'
Chloe swallowed the last bit of porridge and licked the corners of her mouth with her pink tongue.
"Mr. Loran, wipe my mouth for me."
Loran calmly set the bowl down and slowly picked up a napkin from the edge of the tray to clean her face.
Just as Chloe was about to make an even more excessive demand, such as asking him to help her wash up, there was a knock on the door.
Loran raised an eyebrow and slowly withdrew his hand while Chloe's eyes suddenly widened.
'Hehe, the person who can handle you is here.'
"Your Highness."
Elia's voice sounded from outside the door, and the girl's expression instantly turned from expectation to resentment. She stared fixedly at Loran, but he stood up to open the door in a great mood.
Elia was panting slightly outside the door with a thin blush on her pale cheeks, and it looked like she had run all the way here. She gave Loran a bow after seeing him, and her voice became much softer.
"Thank you for your help, Mr. Loran."
He stepped aside to let her in but did not leave, and instead, he leaned against the wall while looking at Chloe with a half-smile. Elia felt the atmosphere was a bit strange after entering the room, and she looked at Loran and then at Chloe, who was wrapped up like a silkworm cocoon, before asking in confusion.
"Her Highness is..."
"Her Highness says she is so weak that she cannot even hold a spoon, so I was planning to double-check her [Status] more carefully."
As soon as he finished speaking, Chloe's gaze became even more resentful.
Elia did not pay much attention to that, and she turned to gesture to the maids waiting outside while she personally wrung out a hot towel and leaned down to wipe Chloe's face.
Loran leaned against the wall and watched Chloe's mouth tighten under Elia's care, and he almost failed to hold back a laugh when he saw the flash of frustration in her eyes.
It really was a case of one thing conquering another, and Elia was the only one for the job.
The room became quiet again after the washing was finished. Loran blinked at Chloe, who had been staring at him intensely from the bed the entire time.
"It seems Your Highness's body... is doing quite well?"
Chloe pursed her lips and turned her head away huffily, and seeing her stubborn attitude, Loran didn't say anything more before turning to leave with Elia.
He had just reached the door when the girl's voice called out from behind him.
"Loran!"
He stopped and looked back at her.
"Do you have... any plans for today?"
Chloe's fingers twisted the corner of the blanket, but before she could finish her sentence, Loran nodded and spoke.
"Now that you mention it, I really do have things to do today..."
"...Since your condition prevents you from using teleportation magic, I naturally have to start packing my luggage for the trip to the Royal Capital."
"You're going with me?"
Loran nodded. "Yeah."
Chloe stared straight at him, and after a short silence, she suddenly threw off the blanket and stood up on the bed.
Loran watched her in stunned silence, and the moment his eyes hit the hem of her nightgown, he covered his forehead and turned around.
That nightgown clearly couldn't fully cover her figure, and as she stood up, the hem was pulled upward to reveal her porcelain white thighs and the faint outline of her panties embroidered with white lace.
The air froze for a second.
Elia's face turned as dark as the bottom of a pot, and she lunged forward to grab the blanket and wrap Chloe up completely.
"Your Highness!" the head maid's voice was full of anger. "Do you have even a shred of noble dignity left?!"
...
It was already afternoon when Loran returned to his room.
He closed the door behind him to shut out the busy footsteps of the maids in the hallway, and the only sounds left in the room were the occasional crackle of the charcoal in the fireplace and his own breathing.
There wasn't much to pack.
Loran stood in the middle of the room and looked around the place where he had lived for seven years.
The bookshelves were stuffed with magic books, and the letters branded on the spines glowed faintly in the firelight. A withered flower sat on the windowsill, which was a gift Chloe had given him three years ago, but Loran had forgotten to water it once and couldn't save it by the time he noticed. A map of North Youngton County hung on the wall with every corner he had visited over the years densely marked.
The boy pulled a few changes of clothes out of the wardrobe, all of which Elia had prepared for him over the years.
Next was the map, and Loran pulled out the detailed map of the entire kingdom that he had annotated, which had the location of the Royal Capital, Valgard, circled on it.
He had been to that grand city countless times in his previous life, and he was as familiar with it as his own home. But this time, a strange sense of unfamiliarity rose in his heart when his fingertip touched that circle.
Loran hesitated for a moment before stuffing a few books to pass the time into his [Magic Backpack]. As for the consumables for the trip, such as [Mana Crystals] and [Healing Potions], he had already asked Elia to prepare them, and they were currently stacked neatly on the corner of the table.
The [Magic Backpack] was a very convenient and common magical item that looked like an ordinary bag but was connected to a stable space inside.
Loran stuffed the items in one by one with somewhat mechanical movements.
He remembered when he first arrived, and Chloe had to stand on her tiptoes just to hand the backpack to him. Back then, the girl's silver hair only reached her shoulders and her voice was crisp, unlike now, where she had learned to play little mind games.
The footsteps in the hallway became dense again as the maids made the final preparations for tomorrow's long journey. Elia would also be going along this time to take care of Chloe's daily life, while Slud would stay behind to watch the house.
Loran lay down on the bed with his hands behind his head, and after a while, he opened his palm to summon that cool and exquisite square of the [System Interface]. He tapped it lightly, and the pages unfolded in the void while the gold and purple lines still lay there quietly.
For a moment, Loran felt as nervous as a student heading off to take a major exam.