Chapter 6 - Volume 1 (1/2)

Every day was peaceful, and then, just a little boring.

With that man who was my fiance already determined, I didn’t feel the need to go all the way to attend evening parties or tea ceremonies. I spent each day idly in the estate, or rather, silently, working hard at embroidery or reading.

This sounds like an excuse, but that’s just what a daughter of a noble family does. It’s not like the Adina family was giving me a lot of land that I had any space to do some philanthropic work, and it’s not like I was going to succeed my father the way my brother was. While it was fine to a certain extent, it’s not like I could set my heart on the secret art of transcribing magical books in our house. Embroidery and reading were all I could do.

That reminds me, in that daily life full of more free time than I knew what to do with, I was sometimes asked by other noblewomen to ghostwrite letters for them. Since I’d done nothing but read books from a young age, one of my few special skills were writing love letters. Look at my daydreaming power!

They were quite different from the letters I once wrote him, ornamenting my writing style with endless pomp and splendor. And for some reason, they were all delighted at it. But well, I stopped once rumors started going around.

A daughter from a noble family ‘earning money’ is not something admired. There were rumors tarnishing my father’s reputation, saying we lived in such poverty that the daughter was forced to work.

I definitely didn’t stop because I got rolled up in some misunderstanding over my writing love letters and faced a lot of trouble. It also was definitely not because I had already reached my 50’s on the inside and wanted to try out early retirement. Yes, indeed.

I had long given up on going against the customs of marriageable age in this world.

Several years had passed since my reunion with that man and the marriage that had been put off with 「Until I’ve settled down」had no further development, with no hint of him finally taking the next step. I half-felt an impending sense of danger, that it would soon really be unwise to keep putting it off, and the other half of me felt a careless feeling like oh well, whatever. I spent every day thinking I’d just leave home and try really being a ghostwriter if it came to that.

Without realizing just how precious that peace and boredom was.

And then, those days came. The news of the demon king’s comeback shook the world.

I’ll be honest. When I first heard that news, I foolishly thought things like 「LOL demon king, TFW you’re in an RPG.」 And I also thought it was strange that demon kings really exist in the world of swords and sworcery. Basically, I couldn’t grasp that this actually was real. I knew the stories of demon kings and heroes from the picture books I read as a child, but I hadn’t thought that could ever be real. It was also true that my heart throbbed with excitement at the beginning of this high fantasy story.

But that excitement vanished in the blink of an eye.

Endless destruction being caused from demonic beings set free everywhere. Noble families thoughtlessly buying up all the goods and fleeing. The anxiety being whispered about here and there in the royal capital also crept into my own heart.

Somehow or another, I understood this was a war. I had no choice but to understand.

Despite that, I still lived in the capital since I was blessed with being a noble, so I endured it——no, that’s wrong. I wasn’t enduring it, I was averting my eyes from it. I wanted it to be someone else’s problem. Even though a war with the demon king was everyone’s problem.

Even I heard the story that the recent operation to overthrow the demon king, where they sent wizards along with the chivalric order of knights, had ended in a failure. The chief knight, along with a few others, barely escaped with their lives and returned to the royal capital. And then the other day, a hero was finally chosen by the holy sword.

Well then, what was to be the next step?

「Oh goodness, Edi. What are you doing at this time of night?」

That was late at night, the day the news of the hero being chosen had rushed about the country. He had shown up suddenly as usual, drenched in night dew.

I had put on a gown over my night clothes and gone out to bring him in. He spoke frankly, saying this: 「I had an audience with His Majesty.」