212) Glazing must continue on!

...

{3rd Pov}

"Okay... this is not what I had expected," Alec said in a somewhat terrified tone as he looked at the Crown Prince of his own nation talking to the Crown Prince of another nation, followed by the Red Dragon, Reid van Astrea.

'Is this guy some fucking noble or what?!' he screamed inwardly.

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that he would be walking through the grounds of the Royal Castle.

This was the home of the ruler of the nation.

To someone like him, even wealthy merchants were already considered high class people.

Nobles were figures he could hardly ever hope to meet.

As for the King? In Alec's eyes, the King was practically the god of the nation.

So, seeing not only the Crown Prince of his own nation, but also the Crown Prince of another nation standing right in front of him, was the last thing he had expected.

"Uh, you're back!" Reid was the first to approach them, laughing loudly as he threw an arm around Flugel's neck.

"You know I've been waiting for ya. I can't sleep properly without getting a taste of your creation," Reid said with a wide grin, further confusing Alec, who was standing beside Flugel.

"By the way, who's this weakling beside you?" Reid suddenly asked after finally noticing that another person was standing there.

"He is the friend I made today," Flugel replied calmly.

Reid, however, did not miss the slight edge in Flugel's voice.

The next moment, Flugel jabbed him in the stomach with a pair of chopsticks.

"You certainly deserve that and will get it today," Flugel said.

"It does put a smile on my face," Reid replied with an even wider grin.

Then, almost as if he had teleported, he appeared beside Alec and casually threw his arm around the poor inventor's neck.

"My lackey's friends are also my lackeys! So welcome, lackey number three!" Reid declared cheerfully.

Alec looked at Flugel with a terrified, pleading expression.

Of course, the Great Sage completely ignored him with a look of Sagely Wisdom on his face.

"Won't you introduce me to your friends, Farsale?" the Crown Prince of Charsis asked with an extravagant smile as he walked over beside them.

"Certainly, my friend," Farsale replied. "This is Sir Flugel, a wandering magician... and the man beside him..." He glanced at Flugel, silently hinting for him to continue the introduction.

"Alec Hoshin," Flugel said calmly. "A friend I made during the day."

As he spoke, he looked toward the Crown Prince of Charsis.

Yes, he was not even going to bother remembering this man's name and would rather keep referring to him as the Crown Prince of Charsis.

In the end, he simply was not someone worth wasting his memory on.

The Crown Prince's gaze shifted toward Alec.

Seeing the ragged brown clothes that clearly belonged to a peasant from the lower strata of society, he could barely hide the look of disgust that crossed his face.

"Sir Farsale, Lady Echidna and I will be having dinner separately. Don't worry, Reid, I will bring your food over to your table," Flugel said. He already knew what kind of person the Crown Prince of Charsis was, a snobbish brat.

His expressions did not lie and more importantly, neither did his soul.

"I see..." The Crown Prince nodded before looking at Alec's clothing with obvious disdain. "Farsale, while I would never presume to tell Sir Reid what to do, I would advise you to keep your distance from peasants."

Farsale's smile froze for a brief moment.

Before he could respond, Reid spoke first.

"Farsale, I'll be having dinner with my new lackey instead. Sorry, but you'll have to survive without me until then," he said with a grin.

Farsale suddenly smiled brightly.

"That is indeed quite a serious problem," he replied with a chuckle. "Although I have complete trust in my friend and in his nation, no one can say whether assassins might suddenly decide to attack us. My apologies, Your Highness, but it seems I shall be having dinner with my friends instead."

The Crown Prince of Charsis's expression stiffened upon hearing Farsale's answer, clearly not expecting him to choose his companions over royal courtesy.

A hint of anger flashed through his eyes.

He was not stupid and he understood exactly what was happening.

However, considering his own position and the fact that the young man standing before him was the Crown Prince of a far stronger nation with whom his father had just concluded a trade agreement earlier that day, he held back his words.

Yet, the moment he opened his mouth to speak, he suddenly started coughing, much to everyone's confusion.

His attendants immediately rushed to his side terrified.

Thankfully, after checking on him, they realized that he had simply gotten a small bug stuck in his throat while speaking.

Feeling somewhat embarrassed, the Crown Prince composed himself and looked back at the group.

"I see... that is indeed unfortunate," he said with a polite smile. "I do hope you can join us next time."

With those words, he turned around and left, followed by his attendants.

Meanwhile, Alec was still surprised by what Reid and Farsale had just done.

As a great inventor, he might be stupid, but he certainly was not that stupid.

"Sorry, Alec. It seems today we will finally get the chance to properly introduce ourselves to you over dinner," Farsale said.

Alec almost choked from how polite he was being.

"Now, Farsale, do not be that sweet, lest he gets diabetes," Flugel chuckled.

The other three immediately looked at him with confused expressions.

What the fuck was diabetes?

"Sir Flugel, your vocabulary is truly astounding," Farsale said dryly. "I hope I can understand the meaning of the words you use one day."

He was gradually getting used to Flugel casually throwing out random words that sounded as though they belonged to a completely different language while speaking as if they were perfectly normal.

"Haha! Enough of all this idle chatter!" Reid declared, rubbing his stomach with complete honesty. "I'm hungry! When's the food going to be ready?"

It was perhaps the most innocent expression that a man who bullied everyone around him and murdered someone every third day of the week could possibly make.

Flugel smiled.

"The ingredients have almost arrived," he said.

Almost as if on cue, a mountain of food ingredients came walking toward them.

Literally.

Upon taking a closer look, however, they realized it was actually Echidna, who was barely managing to keep the towering pile of boxes and baskets from collapsing.

Flugel instantly teleported beside her before calmly saying, "Let me take some of the burden off your fair hands my Lady."

He grabbed the base of the towering stack of boxes and baskets, immediately balancing the entire load with ease.

"Sir Flugel, I did as you asked," Echidna said with a giddy look on her face. "I went around the city and bought whatever food ingredients I thought would be suitable for tonight's dinner."

After saying that, she looked at Flugel expectantly.

It was obvious she was waiting for his approval.

Flugel smiled, his golden eyes flashing beneath the shadow of his hood.

"You look good in black, by the way," he commented.

Echidna froze as she slowly looked down at the black clothes she had happened to buy earlier that day and decided to wear simply because they looked interesting enough.

She had not expected Flugel to compliment her.

'Does that mean... I look appealing in these clothes?' she thought.

For some reason, she suddenly felt something stirring in her stomach.

She could not quite figure out what that strange feeling was.

"The feeling in your stomach is hunger. Come on now, help me cook these dishes. I'll be borrowing the Royal Kitchen," Flugel said as though he had read her mind, catching her completely by surprise.

'Truly worthy of the man who is Omniscient,' she thought.

Yes, in Echidna's dictionary, Lord Flugel was Omniscient.

He knew things that others could never comprehend.

He knew how the world worked.

He knew what other people were thinking and that belief of hers was only going to be reinforced even further.

As Echidna watched Alec Hoshin eat the food after he had finished explaining his story, her belief only grew even firmer. She glanced at Flugel, her eyes filled with nothing short of admiration.

The Witch of Greed had never thought she was even capable of feeling an emotion like admiration.

Because, within her logical reasoning, everything aligned perfectly.

Flugel had told her to buy whatever she considered important and to enjoy herself while exploring the city.

In reality, that had been a hint for her to buy the food ingredients needed to prepare tonight's feast.

Then he had befriended Alec Hoshin, a man who possessed the mind of both a failure and a genius.

And to introduce him to the chopsticks, he had prepared dishes using the very ingredients he had indirectly instructed her to buy.

The best part?

Flugel had met Alec Hoshin for the very first time today.

Which meant he had already envisioned everything that was going to happen beforehand.

As expected of the otherworldly Great Sage!

She admired him even more in her mind.

However, if Flugel could read her thoughts at that moment, he would have simply rolled his eyes and told her that she was overthinking everything.

It was not because he had predicted her predictions, which had themselves already been predicted by her.

In fact, everything that had happened could simply be called a coincidence.

Or perhaps it was the 'plot armor' he now possessed.

Basically, the timeline itself was trying to correct its own logic, helping Flugel's plan by creating all these perfectly matching coincidences that made him appear like a prophet on steroids.

After all, in this era Flugel needed to be glazed like crazy.

So crazy that a Witch who did not even know what love was supposed to be would eventually fall in love with him.

The World's Strongest had to consider him his closest brother.

Even the future Demon King, the Witch of Envy, needed to be utterly smitten with him, secretly harboring masochistic tendencies for brutal seggs with her 'You'.

So the timeline decided upon the best course of action.

It would glaze Flugel without end and the glazing must continue.

At this point, even the Supreme Narrator was starting to feel embarrassed by the sheer amount of glazing that was happening inadvertently because of its own actions.

Ahem.

Back to the topic.

After everyone finished dinner, they simply took out their beds in the King's garden and decided to sleep there. Of course, Alec could not enter the castle dressed in his current ragged clothes and shabby attire, and Flugel was not about to leave him outside by himself.

Farsale also could not bring himself to sleep comfortably inside the castle while the people he considered his companions slept outside on their own. As a result, the servants were forced to arrange his bed in the garden as well.

And, of course, Echidna quietly crept over to Flugel's side like the damn creep she was.

Alec Hoshin, being the newest person in the group, did not say anything. Naturally, he assumed that Flugel and Echidna were a couple. Thinking about the two of them, he silently wished them well, even offering a small prayer to Od Laguna that they would marry soon and have little Flugels and Echidnas running around them to keep them company.

Meanwhile, Flugel once again had to sleep with Echidna hugging him from behind for her "optimal temperature."

...

Sadly, the return journey was not an instant teleportation like Reid had hoped for.

Instead, he was forced to sit inside the carriage on his ass, enduring every single bump along the road with his poor bum taking the full brunt of it.

During the return journey, Flugel not only gave Alec Hoshin recipes for several Japanese dishes, or rather dishes that were best eaten with chopsticks, but also shared many other ideas from his own world.

Of course, he excluded the fucking mayonnaise.

Because that was a secret he would not reveal until Alec had become fertilizer.

Cough Cough

Well, it was because Subaru needed to be the one to reveal mayonnaise.

It had to happen that way.

After all...

It was the choice of Steins Gate!

And yes, Alec Hoshin decided to abandon the country where he had spent his entire life in search of a brighter future within Flugel's pockets, whose depths were just as unknown to everyone as the limits of his omniscience.

Thus, after one not particularly eventful journey, they finally arrived back in Lugunica.

To be continued...