Chapter 36 - Volume 2 (1/2)

Lately, there’s a topic that’s been astir in high society.

Namely, it’s about the relationship between that man, hero of the saved world, and the daughter of the Valentine family.

Although it’s been quiet, it’s turned into plausible rumors, spreading around everywhere. Naturally, it’s even the hot topic today as I attend a tea party with my friends, daughters of noble families.

They say things like 「He’s finally decided on a partner, hasn’t he?」 Or 「The daughter of the Valentine family is well matched to him.」 Or 「I’ve heard she visits Sir Agedilus every day, she really is serious about this, isn’t she?」 Or 「Even Lord Valentine can’t possibly have any complaints about it if Sir Agedilus is her partner.」

There can’t be any topic more delicious than this for young women of the kingdom. Entranced, each of them thinks about the love story between the hero that saved the world and the daughter of a grand aristocrat family.

Until now, they’d shiver just by speaking of that man’s name. I realize once again from this situation just how powerful the title 「hero of the saved world」 is.

Well, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I do somewhat think, ‘Why all this after you’ve been afraid of him all this time?’ But more than that, I think joyfully of how he’s certainly being praised now. It makes me happy that his small world is finally opening up like this. It’s also true that I feel slightly lonely at the thought of it, but that must be my own selfishness.

Indifferent to me, my friends are happily making lively comments over the matter at hand. It’s the sort of thing that a mentally [redacted]-years old lady can’t help but feel like murmuring「Being young is so nice」. They look so lovely as they happily talk about other people’s love stories, cheeks flushed, I feel like just being here is making me young again.

But it’s also true that at the same time, I feel bitterness and a feeling of something else that is difficult to describe, which are spreading within me.

——I haven’t told even them, my friends, about being married to that man……. Far from it, I haven’t even told them about being childhood friends with him.

The topic unfolding at hand here, right now, is about none other than the man who is my husband – it’s not just about anyone else. Even though I’m related to this rumor about him in a sense, I’m simply listening to their conversation, revealing nothing about my position. It’s rather petty, if I do say so myself.

It’s a rather inexcusable explosion, to deceive the ones who have been friends with me for so long. But if I ever tell them once, the fact that I’m married to that man would spread like a raging storm. Which is not something nice, from his perspective. Yes, from his perspective.

I put a lid over the gloomy emotions in my chest, about to burst out. On the inside, I nod, 「I see.」 Hmm, so this is what that man and Lunamerie have become to the world, huh?

As my friends say, there’s no deficiencies in Lunamerie as his partner, and vice versa. Even if he’s a ‘Black-Hair’, the honored title of being ‘the hero of the saved world’ is something hard to get for the Valentine family, who hold not only social position but political power. And from his perspective, there’s no reason for him to refuse a beautiful girl that adores him, unconcerned with him being a ‘Black-Hair’.

Yes, as my friends say, they certainly are 『well-matched』.