Venus Rouge

Something to Prove

I don’t think I’ve ever sincerely wanted to strangle a small child as much as I do right this instant. I tamped down on the impulse to whack the little booger with my sheathed sword and leveled him with a baleful glare.

“Brat!” I hissed at his infuriatingly superior expression, “What have I told you about jumping in front of my sword like that?”

“Hmph!” He crossed his arms, not looking even the slightest bit remorseful. “I only jumped in because you took so long to kill those goblins. It was obvious you were having trouble. Shouldn’t you thank me for jumping in to help?”

I growled dangerously.

“N-no now, Mistress,” Reggie said soothingly, ever the peacemaker, “I’m sure young Master Leon was just trying to be helpful.” I rolled my eyes. A nuisance is what he’s being. Those goblins would have been taken care of way quicker if he didn’t jump into chaos of my fight. Again.

I leveled him with a dark glare, “You’re gonna get yourself sliced in half.”

He demonstrated his astounding maturity by sticking his tongue out at me.

“Master Leon,” Reggie said, quickly cutting in before it could turn into a full blown argument, “I’m sure Mistress can take care of a few goblins herself, and it’s dangerous to just jump in front of her when she’s fighting like that. You could get hurt.”

Leon huffed and grumbled under his breath before stalking off to the other side of the clearing from us. Reggie sagged in relief when it was clear that the situation had been defused.

I couldn’t help grumbling under my breath. I swear the little brat gets more annoying by the day, and lately with the way that sugar sales had been soaring and conjuring thick stacks of paperwork from thin air, he couldn’t cling to Mama like a leech as much anymore.

It made him positively unbearable. He’s been especially tetchy since the start of this latest string of excursions to subjugate monsters in the forest. Mama had to raincheck so he could attempt to put a dent in the ungodly mountain of paperwork that was piling up on his desk.

Today was our last excursion before buckling down for some more sparring on the estate until the adventurer activity in the forest is long over next month. Sadly, Mama was still on the tail end of his last bit of paperwork for the day and couldn't finish in time to head out with us this morning, so Leon sulked all the way here. From the way he was proudly strutting his new sword this morning, I assume he planned to show off to mama, but since that was now impossible, he’s resorted to showing off his sword skills to everyone else… by kill stealing.

Four times, he’s jumped in front of my sword as I was about to bring it down on a goblin only to have to pull up short to avoid cleaving off a chunk of the blonde menace. It’s definitely unnatural for one person to be so irritating!

I sighed heavily and attempted to calm down. I chalk up a good fifty percent of my current short temper to be because we were constrained to hunting goblins near the outer edge of the forest these days as a result of the ongoing subjugation effort against the out-of-control monster population that Mama ordered. We were strictly banned from going too deep into the forest at the moment, which is annoying since I’ve reached a level where low level monsters like goblins and slimes just aren’t challenging me as much anymore unless they’re attacking in swarms. Then they’re more annoying than challenging.

Even the guards were bored. I could tell by the way that they seem to be staring off into space… And Reggie is eyeing up Ian more often than usual.

What the hell is going on there, by the way? It’s definitely what I think it is, isn’t it? Anyone with eyes could see that the boy maid is crushing on the young guard so hard that it’s a bit uncomfortable (there’s almost fire in his eyes…).