Qualia and Lobelia went to a tavern in town.
Lobelia dressed casually and put her hair in two buns, and that was enough for her to blend in with the general population, without anyone realizing she was the second princess of the Kingdom of Acacia.
She sat at a table, with Qualia on the other side.
“How old are you, Qualia? I’m seventeen, so I can’t drink alcohol.”
“It has been fifteen years since Qualia was born.”
“You really have a funny way of expressing things… You should just say you’re fifteen.”
Lobelia was aware of Qualia’s supposed foggy memory, so she laughed it off.
“…Tasty, tasty, tasty.”
Qualia ate the food brought to him, while the area around his mouth kept getting dirtier.
Lobelia put her elbows on the table and her hands on her face, as she watched the clumsy but somewhat refreshing way Qualia was eating, with a lot of curiosity in her big round eyes.
“You’re a nice one to feed.”
“Request explanation. What about creating smiles?”
“Oh, so you don’t just eat, you actually remembered. Your big sister here is happy with that.”
Lobelia sounded impressed, as she put her arms on the table to use as a pillow for her chin, and moved her eyes up to look at Qualia.
“Qualia, you sounded passionate about protecting smiles before, but what exactly are you planning to do?”
“Response on hold. Under analysis.”
“I have a proposal for you. This is important, so make sure you listen!”
Lobelia smiled brightly like she wanted Qualia to pep up, and put up her index finger.
“Qualia, I want you to join my order of guardian knights, Hello World, and remove threats pressing upon this country. Basically, to protect the smiles of the people of this country from bad guys. I guess you’d call it protecting ‘tasty’ faces?”
There were two kinds of chivalric orders that composed the military force of this country. One fought other countries and went to dungeons to eliminate monsters, while the ones known as guardian knights maintained peace and order in the kingdom, by dealing with attacks from monsters and other countries.
Lobelia was talking about the latter, the last fortress of peace, guardian knights.
And among these guardian knights was the Hello World chivalric order, which was under the direct command of Lobelia.
“Well, we’re still putting Hello World together. That’s why I’m scouting for knights.”
Said Lobelia, seemingly exasperated by what she herself said.
Guardian knights mostly dealt with three threats.
First, monsters directing their violence at the country. Second, criminal organizations and rebels. Third, foreign invasions, starting with the Zero Day Empire.
Incidentally, there was not yet certain information about the possibility of the Zero Day Empire starting a war.
But for Qualia, this was all too vague. There were fifty thousand other guardian knights, as far as Qualia knew, so he did not see why they were establishing a new chivalric order.
“…Request explanation. Lobelia. What are you trying to accomplish through Hello World? What do you want to do by creating Hello World?”
“Clean the Kingdom of Acacia.”
Lobelia answered immediately. The reason why she wanted to work on this single country was of course because she had the benefit of her bloodline.
“There’s a lot to be done about that… The current knights have all sorts of problems.”
“What problems?”
“It’s incredible… They are way too attached to privileged classes and powerful religious organizations.”
She whispered this while covering her mouth, as though what she was saying was taboo.
“Of course, this is all common throughout human history. That sort of give-and-take has its merits, but it leads to them taking arbitrary actions unbecoming of guardian knights.”
“What kind of actions?”
“For example… Ignoring people instead of helping when they know of incoming threats. Or being discriminatory or violent to beast people and lower classes.”
Qualia thought of Ina, and felt as though the blood flow in his chest had stopped.
“We need guardian knights who are not bound to evil, who won’t yield to even feudal lords, and are faithful to their mission.”
“Situation understood. It seems beneficial to accept this proposal on a trial basis.”
“Great… Welcome aboard!”
Lobelia pumped her fist triumphantly, perhaps happy that they got this far with their talks, and put out her hand for a handshake.
But all Qualia did was look at it.
“Oh… Qualia, don’t you know what a handshake is?”
“Error. Word ‘handshake’ not registered.”
“Pufuh… You really are strange… Sorry, interesting.”
“Detecting smile. Different from ‘tasty’, but not without high value.”
The distinctive way the artificial intelligence spoke was very funny to Lobelia, and it was all she could do to stop herself from laughing loudly.
It was not the ‘tasty’ smile Qualia was looking for, but it was not wrong either.
“Sorry sorry. Put out your right hand.”
Qualia did just that, and Lobelia placed the palm of her hand on Qualia’s
“When you become friends with someone, you put your hands together like this, and say something like ‘I hope we can get along’, or something like that. This is a handshake.”
“Situation understood. Handshake registered.”
“Yes. How about you try it? Say ‘I hope we can get along’.”
Qualia thought about the words he was awkwardly memorizing.
“…I hope, we can, get al-ong.”
“Same here.”
Lobelia tried her hardest not to laugh, but still nodded with a happy look on her face.
The artificial intelligence received his first role that day, and at the same time, reached an optimal solution.
“But there is one condition.”
“What?”
Qualia negotiated with the princess without any hesitation.
“Request that Ina accompany Qualia.”
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I really appreciate that the knight order is named “Hello World”.