36

 

In only a single month a lot of things had happened.
Leon-sama’s declaration of breaking off the engagement, the unexpected reunion with Chris-sama.
The revolt of the Duke, the meeting with Aren-sama and Anjiu-sama.
In the long time I had been engaged to Leon-sama nothing had happened, but as soon as the talk of the breaking off began developments have arrived like surging waves.
It seemed I felt a bit overwhelmed.
Because you see, today too another thing that I couldn’t make heads and tails of happened right before my eyes.

” .. and with that, Ririina, which one would you like?”

What do you mean ‘which one do I like.
Why are there so many of these things stacked on top of each other that even now it looks like they would topple over before my eyes?

“M-o-t-h-e-r, just what is here going on?”

Unwittingly I used broken language.

“Hm? You can tell just from looking, can’t you? These are marriage proposal portraits. They even come together with detailed introduction letters.”

.. I wonder just how many there are~ ^[1]
When I was at a loss Sana sent me a lifeboat.

“Liesa-sama, if you present this many portraits to Ririina, who had until recently been greatly troubled by Prince Leon, so suddenly she probably won’t be able to choose.”

“I guess~ but there are some pretty good one’s among these. Incredible, isn’t it, Ririina. The moment it was announced that your engagement to Prince Leon was cancelled this happens. There are even some among these that by all rights already have fiancees .. it’s fine to throw those out, isn’t it.”

Saying so Mother handed over a third of the portraits to Sana giving instructions to dispose of them.
Eh, one in three of these people was already engaged currently?
No matter how much you say it’s for politics, the good faith felt from these just is far too non-existant.

“Saa, with that the amount decreased a bit. How should we shake off the next batch?”

She somehow seemed to enjoy thinking about the how.
Mother is probably trying to find me a new fiancee quickly for my sake, but right now I honestly feel it unthinkable.
In addition ..

“Mother, instead of me wouldn’t it be better to find a fiancee for Big Brother sooner? Big Brother is going to succeed this territory, isn’t he?”

“.. Ricardo, huh. I wonder whether there’s any girl that is fit for that child?”

Mother was looking somewhere distant.
Are? Is the search for his fiancee going that badly?
Brother is a bit out there, but he is the next in line to the count, is the current active Commander of the chivalric order, is friends with Leon-sama and his face is reasonably good I think.
And yet why hasn’t a fiancee been decided for him?

“Mother. I haven’t questioned it much until now, but there are at least candidates for becoming Big Brother’s fiancee, aren’t there?”

In the hopes that this was true I inquired.

“.. there were, for what it’s worth.”

“Why the use of past tense?”

“That’s obviously because it’s a matter of the past.”

Ah, looks like I touched upon something I shouldn’t have.
Mother is getting a little agitated.

“That child is a bit of .. no, pretty much the foolhardy type, isn’t he? The type that isn’t much liked by the daughters of the aristocracy. And no matter how you look at it he isn’t going to turn into the typical noble son type anymore. To stay at the side of that child like that, moreover someone with enough spirit to help out with operating this region that flows over with monster appearances, such a girl isn’t really among those noble daughters.”

Complaining to me, Mother glanced over to Sana every so often.
What is wrong?
Speaking of Sana, she seems to be uncomfortable under Mother’s sight.

“Haa, isn’t there any kind girl around, who can hunt monsters, who understands that child and who could manage the territory with him, I wonder~~”

This time she is obviously speaking while looking at Sana.
.. Her target is Sana, isn’t it.
It’s true that if it was Sana she could keep Brother in check, and she even understands this territory. And she’s strong!
Are, hasn’t it been decided then?
At this rate, Sana will get surrounded by Mother before she notices it.

“Maa, let’s leave the matter of Ricardo for now. Ririina, honestly speaking, what is it you want to do? You have been enjoying yourself so far, but you surely don’t have any interest anyway in these kind of people that you never had any contact with before and still sent you these portraits the moment they heard that your engagement was cancelled. ^[2]”

Saying so Mother cleaned up all the portraits.

I was surely inexperienced in the matters of the heart, I felt.
So far I had received all sorts of trainings, but regarding love there was still far too much I was unaware of.

“Mother, I do not understand enough. At the time Chris-sama proposed an engagement to me recently I had some feelings of joy, but I couldn’t agree right away. I am sure that in some part of my heart I ended up wondering whether I could truly become capable of falling in love with this person. ^[3]
Even I myself don’t know what to ..”

“Ririina, I understand your feelings of unease. Even I never thought it possible for me to fall in love with someone until I met Leaf. But you hear, while getting to know him those feelings became uncontainable on their own. For you, too, there surely will come such a time. There had been a lot of circumstances with the engagement to Prince Leon so it had been difficult to refuse, but this time nothing like that will happen. That’s why go find your special someone.”

Saying so Mother left the room behind.

From here on, will I truly decide to spend my life together with someone?
For the me, to whom love had not even been close to until that point, to have something like that happen to me is something no one at the time could have imagined. Me included, of course, and also that person.

 

 

 

 

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Author’s notes

I will make a cut in the story at this point, for once.
Next up are some chapters from other character’s point of view, and some extras I want to write.

 

 

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Translator’s notes

And thus concluded my main goal for this translation. Originally I wanted to read ahead in the raws until the mocktopus fight way back, and then I translated the first few chapters on a whim and put them up. At some point I thought it would be an amazing accomplishment to cover the first climax of the story which was the revolt. I have accomplished it.
I did set a bonus goal for myself as well, on another whim and out of goodwill towards the best couple in the series so far so after this there are going to be another 9 chapters until I fully terminate my translation of this web novel. Can’t be doing this forever, after all. In fact, at the time you read this I probably have long since finished that bonus goal and am just putting out the chapters on the site from my backlog.

[1] I lied, I have actually no idea. For reference : ……一体何件分あるのかな?。 My best guess is that it’s some sort of wordplay on 紹介文 which are the introduction letters mentioned in the sentence before. Thanks to IamMe for pointing out that 件分 is a counter.
[2] I am not sure I interpreted the first part correctly, possibly messing up the whole meaning of the sentence. The word used was 遊んでみた which is generally to play around, to enjoy oneself, but may have another meaning that would change the implication of the sentence. ‘Cause right now it doesn’t make much sense to me.
[3] Japanese is a beautiful language. It is just as obnoxious in it’s ability to create inductive sentences as my language, if not more so. I do simplify the translation to an extend, though, so hopefully you don’t notice much of that.