Tossing and turning through a sleepless night of deep thought left me in a daze. Ever since the Chief Priest threatened that if I failed to complete his task of "creating an opposition faction and isolating the Mayor," more townspeople would be punished along with the Mayor for shared responsibility, his smiling face haunted my dreams and my stomachache only grew worse.
Today was finally the day I could go check on the orphanage.
I had several printing plates loaded onto a lesser beast along with a futon and a box of food supplies, then set out for Hass with
The Chief Priest and
"Lady
Gray priests and shrine maidens knelt to greet me. The four newcomers were awkwardly imitating them, kneeling and repeating their words of welcome.
I had the attendants carry the luggage out, then put away the lesser beast.
Looking around, I noticed that
"There was an attack by the townspeople, but it seems everything turned out all right. Nora and Mrtle are looking much better."
Nora looked up and, in the awkward, stilted tone she was still getting used to, asked timidly, "May I speak?" When I nodded, her expression softened with relief.
"They couldn't do anything. They couldn't even get in, and every time they swung their sticks or farm tools, they just got blown away… I was surprised, but I felt so safe. Thank you, Lady Rozemyne. I'm so glad I came here."
It seemed I had been taught to call Lady Rozemyne "Lady Rozemyne" over the past few days. The sudden mix of a formal honorific amid the casual speech patterns common to children from the lower town was amusing, and I narrowed my eyes.
Tull, who had been listening to Nora, also looked up and spoke.
"Me too, um, sis said there was no way they'd take you, and when I realized that, I was really happy. Plus, we get to eat properly every single day. All the other kids kept saying you were the one who set up this orphanage. You're small, but you're amazing, Lady Rozemyne."
Tull's word choice was still as rough as ever despite his excited, rapid-fire delivery, but those blue eyes no longer held that guarded tension from before. I could see respect and affection in them.
The gray priests kneeling alongside them looked as if they wanted to cry out in exasperation at the two's speech patterns, but considering they had taught honorifics to these four guarded children in just a few days, I thought they were working very hard at communication.
"Rick, I'm sure the
"Safety matters more than freedom. Mrtle has her smile back, and that's enough for me. Thank you, Lady Rozemyne."
Rick looked at Mrtle, his eyes softening, and Mrtle gave a small, bashful smile.
I definitely wanted to protect these smiles. Taking in these children couldn't have been the wrong choice. I wanted to find a way that would benefit both the lord's retainers and the orphans.
But isolating the Mayor and driving him out—how was I supposed to do that? I had no idea, and honestly, I didn't want to do it.
…My stomach hurts.
The day after I visited Hass, I had a meeting with the
With
"Lady Rozemyne, you don't look well. Shall I cancel today's meeting?"
Fran, who had brought breakfast, peered at my face with worry. Apparently I looked so unwell that he thought canceling might be the better option.
I shook my head vigorously.
"I'm going to the meeting. I want to see
"…Very well. Until then, I will bring you some books. Please spend the time resting."
"Thank you, Fran."
Fran pampered me, so I spent the time until the meeting reading and lounging about. Reading always seemed to empty my mind—or rather, kept me from thinking about unpleasant things—and put me in a very peaceful mood.
Then the third bell rang.
"Watch out!"
Brigitte's voice rang out at the same moment a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me backward. I blinked in surprise to find a thick pillar right in front of me. She had apparently stopped me before I walked straight into it.
"Ah… thank you, Brigitte."
"You were suddenly staggering toward the pillar, so I was startled. I believe today's meeting should be postponed."
My condition must have been bad enough that even my guard knight couldn't refrain from weighing in on my schedule. But it was precisely because I was in such a bad state that I needed to see Lutz.
Fran knelt before me as I bit my lip.
"Lady Rozemyne, would you permit me to carry you? Since you seem unwilling to change your mind, at least let me transport you."
"Please do."
Halfway there, Fran carried me in his arms, and we made it to the orphanage director's office. My sleep deprivation had apparently gotten far worse than I realized. Being carried by Fran alone was enough to make me feel drowsy.
And yet, the moment I closed my eyes, the Chief Priest's venomous smile floated before me, my stomach would start hurting, and I couldn't sink into deep sleep.
By the time I arrived at the director's office, the members of the Gilberta Company had already arrived.
Lutz, Benno, and
"First, allow me to guide you to the other room."
Fran said this and led us to the hidden room before we discussed any business matters. Fran, who usually insisted, "After we've finished our important discussion," was acting unusually.
Looking up at Fran as he lightly pushed me forward, he grimaced painedly and whispered, "I apologize for my inadequacy."
The moment I stepped inside, Lutz placed both hands on my cheeks and peered closely into my face. "I won't let you go until you've told me everything," he said, his green eyes narrowing.
"What happened? You look terrible."
"Lutz…"
The sense of security that he would accept whatever I said made the back of my eyes burn, and tears began to stream down my face. Ugly crying, I clung to Lutz.
"The Chief Priest gave me a new task, and it's a difficult one. I don't want to do it, but I have to, and just thinking about it makes me sick. I hate it."
Through hiccupping sobs, I told Lutz the whole story—from receiving the letter after taking in the orphans, to being assigned the task by the Chief Priest. I confessed that the thought of framing someone and driving them to death was terrifying, and that the Chief Priest's poisonous smile haunted me so badly I couldn't sleep.
When I relayed what the Chief Priest had told me—that the lord's retainers took priority over orphans, that I should isolate and drive out the Mayor of Hass—the reactions in the room split in two.
Lutz was indignant, saying, "There's no way you can do that!" while Benno and Mark looked wide-eyed and remarked, "That's surprisingly lenient."
"Lenient!? It's not lenient at all! I feel like I'm going to die!"
When I shouted, Benno let out a sigh and said, "Calm down," giving a slight shrug.
"The Chief Priest is acting as your teacher, so I'd call that a gentle response. But what's lenient is how they're treating Hass. That Mayor should have been executed the moment he disobeyed the first order, and when he attacked the small chapel the lord built, it wouldn't have been strange if every resident of Hass was burned to the ground, would it?"
"…What?"
I stared in shock at words I'd never even considered. The Mayor being executed was one thing, but I couldn't understand what it meant for every resident of Hass to be burned.
"The small chapel is a white building the lord constructed for his daughter. Attacking it is tantamount to attacking the lord's family. You don't need to think hard about what happens to someone who attacks the lord's family, do you?"
I swallowed hard.
Viscount Bindewald, a noble from another territory, had been imprisoned for the crime of attacking me—the lord's adopted daughter. Searching my memories, it seemed numerous other charges had piled up, but the decisive factor had been the attack on the lord's family.
If nobles were executed for such crimes, there was no way commoners would be exempt.
The townspeople of Hass had maliciously attacked the small chapel in an attempt to reclaim Nora and the others. Commoners were committing a crime serious enough to warrant a noble's capture.
The attack had been on a building, not a person, and not a single scratch had been marred on the door—by most measures, the townspeople had actually suffered more damage—so I hadn't thought much of it. But if attacking the small chapel was considered an attack on the lord's family, then as Benno said, the townspeople of Hass could be wiped out at any time and nobody would bat an eye.
"The moment the attack on the small chapel becomes publicly known, Hass is finished. There's no way they'd escape punishment. The only ones who know about the assault are you and the Chief Priest, and it hasn't been reported up the chain—that's the only reason Hass still exists."
The Chief Priest had left things as they were because he was keeping them as teaching material for me, and had decided to maintain the status quo for now. But if not for the Chief Priest's whimsical assignment, Hass could have already been destroyed. Realizing this made me shudder.
"The Chief Priest said it was good teaching material, didn't he? I agree. What they did is something that could have legitimately turned them into charcoal in an instant. It doesn't matter how you fail. Go all out. Creating opposition factions and stirring up trouble—merchants do that sort of thing all the time. As the lord's daughter, these are things you'll eventually have to learn, right?"
Benno declared flatly that there was no need to feel guilty when dealing with criminals, but I couldn't bring myself to be that decisive. Seeing me fall silent, Mark narrowed his eyes slightly as if recalling something, and a bitter smile crossed his face.
"I agree with what Benno-sama said. After losing his mentor shortly after reaching adulthood, Benno-sama stumbled through countless trial and error efforts on his own. If you have a teacher you can learn from while you still can, shouldn't you take advantage of that?"
As both of them said, if I was going to live as the lord's daughter, these kinds of machinations would eventually become necessary. But I was scared of carrying them out myself.
"You make it sound so easy, but just thinking about scheming to frame someone makes me sick… I can't do it."
Still clinging to Lutz, I shook my head, and Lutz gently patted it.
"Then just change how you think about it."
"Lutz?"
"The reason you feel sick is because you're thinking of it as 'framing the Mayor.' What if you thought of it as saving Hass—the Hass that could be turned into charcoal at any moment the Chief Priest or you leak word to the lord?"
I looked up at him with wide eyes, and Lutz gave me a teasing grin.
"You're not framing the people of Hass. You're saving them. The High Priest of Ehrenfest is a true Saint who can use real blessings, after all."
It was like scales falling from my eyes. If I thought of it not as framing the Mayor but as helping the people of Hass who could be executed at any time, my entire mindset shifted. I began to think positively about finding a way to make this work.
"The Chief Priest told you to isolate the Mayor, cultivate an opposition faction, and stabilize the town, right? If you complete the Chief Priest's task, then Hass ends with just the Mayor as a sacrifice. Let's figure out together how to minimize the number of casualties—even by just one."
"Yeah!"
The moment I started talking about wanting to begin with improving the townspeople's resentment toward me for taking the orphans to the small chapel, Benno physically pulled Lutz and me apart.
"Hold on. If there's no deadline on the Hass case, then for now things stay as they are. Think about it after the Italian Restaurant opens."
"…Benno, you'll help me too?"
"When the lord's adopted daughter asks, I can hardly refuse, can I? If I did, it wouldn't be strange if I was killed."
Saying this, Benno flashed a teasing grin.
"In exchange for my cooperation, put your worrying on the back burner. The Italian Restaurant opening remarks come first. With that face, you can't appear in public. Get yourself together first."
"Lady Rozemyne isn't very good at multitasking, so if she tries to do two things at once, both will likely end in failure. Let's focus all our efforts on the Italian Restaurant first," Mark said with a grin.
Having people who said they'd help me think through this difficult problem, and people who were concerned about my health—I let out a sigh of relief, and it felt like the heavy weight pressing down on me was being expelled.
"Now that I feel relieved, I'm getting sleepy."
"You can sleep after the meeting, you idiot."
We agreed to sign the Contract in a place where Fran would be present, and as we left the hidden room, Fran relaxed his expression slightly with what looked like relief.
I signed the Contract regarding the printing workshop as planned. Since Lutz knew the method of salt separation, he would be the one to teach them.
"Now then, regarding the Italian Restaurant's opening…"
It was decided that we would invite them to the Italian Restaurant after a meeting at the commercial guild where all the big shop owners would be gathered. It seemed that most of the invitations had been returned with acceptances.
"What about the menu?"
"I was thinking of using seasonal ingredients, if there are any good ones available…"
Benno was smiling amiably, but what he meant was for me to come up with something.
"Perhaps something less elaborate than what we served the lord? A slightly more casual approach?"
"Why is that?"
"People grow accustomed to things. If we hold back a little now and gradually improve, we'll have more room to truly surprise them on their second visit."
While imagining seasonal vegetables, I began composing the menu.
For the appetizer, I'd have thinly sliced a turnip-like vegetable marinated in sake and salt, then arrange a mille-feuille of marinade drizzled with Merrill oil and scattered herbs, a pomme-like tomato imitation, and steamed chicken, finished with a dressing drizzle as garnish.
The soup would be a minestrone that looked like an ordinary vegetable soup. The idea was that upon taking a bite, diners would be surprised by the consommé flavor. Since these were people who had only ever drunk soups that tasted of nothing but salt, I didn't think we needed to make a double consommé.
The first main course would be white sauce spaghetti loaded with seasonal mushrooms. White sauce had been very popular among the nobility, including the lord, so I was certain they would enjoy it.
The second main course would be tonkatsu. Pork was easier to obtain than veal during this season, making tonkatsu simpler to prepare. When I wanted to lower the budget further, it could become chicken katsu instead. The breast meat, when marinated in salt and sake beforehand, came out tender and delicious. Fried dishes were a luxury that required generous amounts of expensive oil. By the way, tonkatsu was Father's favorite dish.
For dessert, Ilse's new creation—a quatre-quarts made with seasonal fruits—and a pie made with birne instead of apple. How did that sound?
As I listed off the menu items, I could see Benno and Mark jotting them down one after another on their writing boards.
Once the menu was decided, we moved on to coordinating the day-of schedule.
"We would like Lady Rozemyne to attend for the opening remarks. Is that acceptable? The fourth bell will ring, and we will send a carriage toward the Temple."
They were probably saying it would be problematic if I arrived too early. I wrote on a writing board, "After the fourth bell, take my time."
"I just need to make the greeting and then return to the Temple, correct?"
"Yes. Please do take care of yourself."
As they said this in a roundabout way—given my poor complexion, I needed to manage my health properly before the day came—the three took their leave.
The tasks ahead hadn't changed, but having shifted my mindset and lifted my spirits, I slept soundly that night for the first time in days.
From the next morning, when I woke feeling refreshed and clear-headed, through the several days until the Italian Restaurant's opening, I prioritized recovering my health and spent relatively relaxed periods of time.
I worked on the text for a new picture book, began preparations for the Harvest Festival, and even wrote a letter to Mother saying, "My painter says she wants some paints. She'll paint one portrait for free, you know."
…I'd been made to promise not to print Vilma's portrait, but I'd never been told not to commission Vilma to paint. I hadn't broken my promise. Hmph.
On the day the Italian Restaurant opened, I had an early lunch. If I went there on an empty stomach and my stomach started growling, it would be terribly embarrassing.
After finishing lunch, I had Monica dress me in attire befitting a high-ranking noble's daughter and fastened an ornate hairpin like the ones worn during ceremonies.
After the fourth bell, Fran changed into clothes for the lower town and came to inform me the carriage had arrived.
"Then, I'll be off."
"We await your swift return."
Upon arriving at the Italian Restaurant, I could see nearly twenty big shop owners kneeling in the hall the moment I stepped through the door. Their kneeling brought our eyes to roughly the same level.
The shop owners lined up in a row—I had heard of them through rumors, but they seemed shocked at how truly young I was. Some appeared to doubt whether I was truly the High Priest, since I was only dressed as a high-ranking noble rather than wearing the High Priest's robes. Their expressions held a mix of surprise and suspicion.
"On this blessed day of abundance watched over by the Wind Goddess Schutzeria, may divine guidance bring our meeting with a blessing."
The Guild Master, who had been kneeling at the front, bowed his head while still kneeling and offered the greeting addressed to a noble. I lightly infused my ring with Magic Power and returned the blessing.
"To our new meeting, the blessing of the Wind Goddess Schutzeria."
Magic Power overflowed from my ring, emitting a yellow light that served as the blessing of greeting.
These were all shop owners who had experienced blessings that only nobles could perform, having received them in noble residences before. The suspicion in their eyes transformed in an instant. Their expressions visibly tightened, and their bodies tensed with alertness.
"I am Rozemyne, recently appointed as High Priest of the Aub Ehrenfest's territory."
I mentioned the connection from when we built the workshop to save the orphanage, that I had invested in Benno's Italian Restaurant, and that I would be expanding the printing industry throughout the territory on the lord's orders.
"In order to expand the printing industry, I have secured the cooperation of both Benno and
When I smiled, I could feel burning, eager gazes directed at me—gazes from Benno and the Guild Master, and from the Guild Master's son and Frieda as well, appraising me, calculating where to gain an advantage.
Feeling a strange nostalgia for the intense atmosphere among merchants, I explained the Italian Restaurant's no-walk-ins policy.
"This establishment operates on a referral basis and only invites selected guests. As I am the High Priest and the lord's daughter, only customers who can be trusted are permitted entry."
I insisted that the reservation-only, no-walk-ins system—the whole troublesome setup—existed entirely for my sake, and had them promise strict adherence. The shop owners, who understood full well the dangers of nobles, all nodded in unison and showed their deference.
"This menu features noble cuisine, and I personally guarantee it—since I am the one who devised the menu and provided the recipes. Please, enjoy your meal."
As I finished speaking, waiters pushed in carts laden with dishes. Today's appetizer was the same one I had just eaten.
Scanning the shop owners' faces as they watched the plates being served with slightly widened eyes, I felt a certain degree of confidence.
"My presence might interfere with your enjoyment of the food, so I will excuse myself here. I hope you will continue to favor this establishment."
After finishing my remarks, I promptly took my leave. Benno and Mark saw me off, and Fran and I returned to the Temple by carriage.
"It was a huge success! Everyone was amazed by how good the food was, and they were all crowding around Benno-sama, hoping to secure a connection to the High Priest."
The next day, Lutz came by to report and flashed a wide grin. The Italian Restaurant had been over a year in the making. I hoped things would continue to go smoothly.
"The customers were overjoyed, but…"
Benno smiled with a complicated expression. Lutz and I both looked at him, wondering if something had gone wrong.
"Did something happen?"
"Hugo apparently wants to become a court chef. Apparently, the lord invited him directly? He said once his successor has been chosen and the training is complete, he'd like us to consider letting him go."
"Ah, he was indeed invited personally. But after the Star Festival… Oh!"
I could practically feel Hugo's dopey grin crumbling away like rubble. He had said he wanted to wait until after the Star Festival because there was a woman he wanted to marry. He must have been rejected.
I wanted to say something about him getting turned down, but the words were awkward to find. Benno seemed to read my mind and gave a wry smile.
"…Well, that's probably what happened. He kept saying, 'Once the other cooks are trained up, I'm going to become a court chef. I'm done with women. I'm going to master my cooking.'"
So Hugo had gotten rejected. Long-distance relationships were tough. Not much you could do.
Thanks to Lutz, my mood had lifted.
And then, the Italian Restaurant opened.
…Hugo, well. Keep living strong, and maybe a wonderful encounter will come your way someday.
Next time: discussions on reforming Hass.