The bathhouse of House Rosemary.
It was as spacious as a public bath, and within it stood the lustrous figures of three beautiful young women.
The ones bathing were this estate's young ladies—Viola Rosemary and Primula Rosemary. And... their blood-soaked guest, Yuri Cattleya.
All three had stripped down and were in the middle of soaking in the bath.
"So then... would you care to explain?"
Viola spoke on behalf of them both.
She fixed her sharp, upturned eyes on Yuri and pressed further, determined to get to the bottom of things.
"Um... I'm sorry. I was wrong."
Confronted by a friend whose intensity was unlike anything she'd seen before, Yuri shrank like a scolded puppy.
She must have finally realized just how terribly she'd been acting.
"I'm sorry... I was so caught up in the excitement of defeating my father. I should have sorted things out with the two of you before proposing marriage to him. I'm truly sorry—I think I've fallen in love with Rest."
Now that she thought about it... she'd been sorely lacking in basic decency.
She'd fallen for Rest, the fiancé of her friends Viola and Primula, and then gone and proposed to him.
"But... there's no one for me but Rest. I don't need to be his wife—even a concubine would be fine. Couldn't you let me stay by his side?"
"That's fine with us."
"Totally fine with us."
The Rosemary sisters shook their heads vigorously at Yuri, who sat hunched and small in the water.
"We already knew you had feelings for Yuri. It was that obvious, after all. It's only natural."
"He was clearly treating her differently from any other guy... It would've been weird if she didn't like him."
Viola and Primula exchanged glances and nodded at each other.
They'd known all along that Yuri had feelings for Rest.
And... they'd also accepted that Rest would likely take multiple wives.
The problem lay in what came after.
"We're fine with it... Celestine becoming Rest's wife is practically settled, and if Yuri joins too, that's no issue."
"So Celestine is marrying Rest too? That's going to be lively!"
"Hey, be quiet for a sec."
"Ugh... sorry..."
Scolded by Viola, Yuri drooped once more.
With Yuri quieted, Viola continued.
"However... the question is whether that's acceptable to you, Yuri. If you become Rest's wife, you'll be treated as a secondary wife, you know?"
Rest was simultaneously the head of House Clover and the heir to House Rosemary. This was a decision already approved by the king.
Naturally, the primary wife would be one of the sisters... most likely Viola.
Yuri, who would be marrying in later, would be relegated to the status of a secondary wife. For the sole young lady of a marquis's house to receive such a treatment—under normal circumstances, that would be unthinkable.
"Lady Celestine seems to have accepted it. But that's because she has no other option."
Even if Celestine had resigned herself to being a secondary wife, she had no alternatives.
There was no one more suitable than Rest.
It was far better than marrying into the Gaiselle Empire, which was rife with internal strife.
"But... you're different, aren't you? You're the only young lady of House Cattleya—there's no shortage of suitors for you."
"Rather than deliberately putting yourself in an unfavorable position, Lady Yuri might find greater happiness seeking another match..."
Viola and Primula, worried for Yuri, made their case.
Celestine's high status as a duchess of royal blood ironically meant there was no suitable groom to match her. Had the royal family not wanted to bring in the hero who had slain the magic beast Sabnock, even her marriage to Rest would have been difficult.
But with Yuri, a suitable match could surely be found.
There was no need for her to resign herself to the role of secondary wife.
"If you marry Rest, you'll be below me, below Primula, and below Celestine—who is a duchess and marrying by His Majesty's own will. You'd be fourth in line or lower. Are you truly alright with that?"
"Oh, that doesn't bother me at all. I don't care about that."
"You don't care..."
"Rank and all that—it means nothing to me."
It should have been a fairly weighty topic, but Yuri answered with a breezy "Is that all?" as if it were nothing.
"What matters is being with the person you love, right? As long as I can be with Rest, I don't care what number I am. And being together with the two of you and Celestine sounds even more fun, if anything. If anything, this is exactly what I wanted."
"Huh...?"
"Wh-what...?"
"Oh, good. I thought you'd be angry about me confessing to Rest without asking. I'm so glad this didn't turn into something that would make you cut ties with me!"
It didn't seem like a trivial matter, but Yuri stretched out in the water as though the difficult conversation was over and done with.
"Now I'm Rest's fiancée too! Oh, say—since we're all here, how about we take a bath together next time with Celestine too? All five of us!"
"Uh, sure... that sounds nice."
"Sure... sounds nice."
"Ahh, that feels wonderful. A soak after washing off the sweat and blood is the best!"
"..."
"..."
At Yuri's innocent demeanor, the Rosemary sisters sighed in unison.
Their warnings had been out of concern for Yuri, but it seemed they'd meddled where it wasn't wanted.
Yuri Cattleya would marry Rest. Before long, the two families would be one.
"Well... I suppose it's fine."
"Yes, it's fine..."
"Oh, that reminds me."
The sisters were only just reconciling themselves to everything when Yuri suddenly perked up, as though something had just occurred to her.
"Oh, by the way—I heard the daughter of House Lavender likes Rest too! I haven't heard it from her directly, so I'm not sure, but..."
"Tell us everything!"
"We want to hear it!"
"Whoa!"
At Yuri's bombshell announcement, the sisters swarmed her.
The three of them ended up soaking for far too long and turned completely red from the heat.