As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World (LN) - Volume 1 - Chapter 4

Three more years came and went, and before I knew it, I’d turned nine. Throughout that time I’d grown quite a bit taller…and stronger as well.

The potential issue of suw overhunting was resolved fairly easily in the end. We went to my father to ask him to intervene, and he imposed limits on the hunting of suws that would ensure the local population remained stable. The punishment for violating the regulation was rather harsh, so the local hunters all took great care to not step out of line. On the less punitive side of things, Rosell did manage to invent several new traps that were designed to capture other types of animals. As a result, the suw limitations didn’t actually do much damage to the hunters’ bottom lines.

Anyway, the hunting situation aside, all sorts of things had changed over the past three years. The biggest cause of those changes was the fact that recently, my father had fallen ill with concerning frequency. He developed a chronic cough that came and went for no apparent reason, usually accompanied by a fever.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any sort of advanced medical knowledge from my past life, so I was unable to help diagnose his sickness. To be fair, even if I were a trained medical professional, there was no guarantee that the illnesses of this new world matched modern Japan’s. I knew that plenty of illnesses were caused by viruses and bacteria, and there was absolutely no guarantee that the viruses and bacteria in this world would be the same as those on Earth. If anything, it’d be weird if they were the same.

In any case, what really mattered was that my father was afflicted with a mysterious and unidentifiable illness. Nobody knew whether it was the sort of sickness that would pass with time, or if it was one that would kill him if it wasn’t treated properly. The one thing we knew for certain was that several months had passed since his illness began, and he’d been in very poor condition ever since. Whatever he was suffering from, it definitely wasn’t benign.

I tried to insist that my father stay in our estate and conserve his strength, but he was hell-bent on going out into battle regardless of my advice. I even offered to sortie in his place, but unsurprisingly, he wasn’t about to send a nine-year-old out onto the battlefield. Eventually, I concluded that there would simply be no persuading him, and switched gears to convincing him to at least take Rietz along with him. Rietz was the one person I trusted above all others, and I knew that with him around, my father would be safe even in the event of an emergency.

In consequence, of course, when Rietz was out at war, I was left without a tutor. Conflict was becoming more and more common in Missian by the day, and before long, Rietz was away more frequently than he was at home. We’d hardly even had any time to spend together at all in recent months.

I hadn’t neglected my search for talented new recruits over those three years, and I had found and hired several promising individuals, but it had been quite a long time since I came across anyone truly outstanding. I was starting to get the feeling that I’d picked out all the talent there was to find in Canarre, so moving on to a new city seemed prudent.

The problem, of course, was that traveling farther away was dangerous. The odds of getting attacked by bandits along the way were concerningly high. I’d have to bolster my personal guard before I could even consider making that sort of trek, but all of our capable fighters had been sent off into battle, Rietz included.

In short, long-distance travel was going to have to wait until peace was restored to the land. I really wished that would happen sooner rather than later, but I had no misconceptions about how likely that was.

○

One chilly winter’s day, I found myself in the estate’s dining hall, warming myself by the fireplace. Winter in Lamberg didn’t set in as swiftly or brutally as it did in other parts of the world, but it was still cold enough that the extra warmth of the fire was greatly appreciated.

A side effect of the cold rolling in was that fewer skirmishes broke out in the area. Nobody wanted to be out fighting in a frigid field, after all, and as a result, my father and Rietz were around more frequently. My father was at home on that particular day, so we even managed to eat a meal together.

We weren’t alone, either. My siblings, Kreiz and Wren, both ate alongside us─though they also finished their meals in unison, said their thanks, and leaped up from the table well before the rest of us did. It felt like the two of them had been babies just yesterday, but they’d grown up before I knew it, and were talking and running around with reckless abandon in no time at all.

Kids sure do grow up fast, huh?

Despite being twins, the two of them didn’t look exactly alike. Kreiz had my father’s golden hair, while Wren’s hair was black, like mine. Their faces were fairly similar, but you could still tell them apart very easily even without taking their hair into account.

I guess that’s just how it goes with fraternal twins.

“Let’s play, Big Brother!”

“Let’s plaaay!”

My siblings tugged at my sleeves, eager to drag me into their games, but I had something I had to discuss with our father.

“Sorry, but you’ll have to play with Rietz for now,” I said, attempting to punt the problem onto his plate instead.

“Aww!”

“C’mon, we wanna play with you, Big Brother!”

“Let’s plaaay!”

“Agh, okay, okay! I have to go speak with Father now, but I’ll play with you afterward, I promise! Just wait patiently until then, okay?”

That finally convinced them to run off and harass Rietz until I was ready for them.

Turns out that suddenly having to deal with a pair of siblings is pretty tough! Who knew?

After they left, I moved on to the topic of conversation I’d been planning to bring up.

“How have you been feeling lately, Father?” I asked, approaching him.

“I’m perfectly…” my father began, then descended into a series of hacking coughs. “…Perfectly fine, thank you.”

“That’s a little hard to believe after a cough like that,” I replied sheepishly.

“It’s just a cough. There’s no need to worry,” said my father, before succumbing to another hacking fit. It felt like his condition had been deteriorating as of late. Perhaps the cold was to blame?

“Umm, Father? As I’ve said before, I really do think you would be better off not marching into battle…”

“And as I’ve said before, that isn’t an option. Or do you expect me to tell Lord Lumeire that I can’t sortie while Missian burns around us because I have the sniffles?”

When my father referred to “Lord Lumeire,” he meant Lumeire Pyres, the Count of Canarre and my father’s liege lord. He wasn’t exaggerating about Missian burning around us, either. The duchy really was teetering upon the brink of utter chaos.

Almost precisely one year ago, the Duke of Missian had collapsed. He’d barely managed to cling to life, but his illness had sent him into a coma that he had yet to wake from. He’d left a letter to be opened should he be indisposed that named his younger son his successor, but said letter’s authenticity was quickly called into question. The duke’s older son was especially loud about his suspicions and accused his brother of forging the letter outright.

Frankly, I wasn’t entirely convinced that the elder brother was wrong about the letter being a forgery. Although he’d been considered inferior to his younger brother for most of his life, he’d recently found great success on the battlefield and racked up a surprising number of accomplishments. Where once the duke’s vassals feared the day that his eldest son held the duchy’s reins, now they seemed downright optimistic.

Thus, when the younger brother was named the duke’s successor, the elder found himself with an ample supply of nobles who harbored their own doubts and were willing to back him up. However, there were also plenty of nobles who firmly believed that the note was written in the duke’s hand and allied themselves with the younger brother.

And so, in no time at all, the duchy was split in two. The precise situation that everyone feared had come to pass. War was unlikely to break out in earnest while the duke still lived, but the instant he passed away, a major conflict was all but inevitable.

Lumeire, the Count of Canarre, had chosen to ally himself with the elder brother. In contrast, the Count of Perreina, the county to the east, had chosen to back the younger brother. The resulting tension between the two counties had caused no small number of border skirmishes.

To make matters worse, the duchy that Canarre shared a border with, Seitz, was ready and willing to take advantage of the chaos in Missian. They had already started interfering much more proactively in Canarre’s affairs. The situation could hardly have been any more perilous, and while House Louvent’s military force wasn’t especially large, we did have an unusually well-trained crop of soldiers. With a track record like my father’s, it was inevitable that he’d be sent into battle time and time again.

“In that case, I’m perfectly willing to sortie in your─”

“Not on your life!” my father roared, cutting me off. “I’ve told you a thousand times, Ars. A boy who has yet to see his first battle has no business commanding an army!”

I had thirty years of life experience in another world, but I knew perfectly well that none of it was worth a damn when it came to knowing how to handle a real-life battle. My father was right. I couldn’t look him in the eye and declare that everything would turn out well if he left me in charge.

I desperately wished that I could prove myself─that I could show him that, even at the age of nine, I was capable of taking to the field─but I knew that it was simply beyond me. And so, all I could do was clam up and turn around, ready to depart from the dining room.

“Wait, Ars,” said my father. “There’s something I forgot to tell you.”

I turned back around to face him and asked, “What is it?”

“It seems a letter from your fiancée has arrived. I’ve entrusted it to Rietz, so feel free to read it when you can spare a moment.”

“Oh, from my fiancée?” I replied, then paused.

Hmm? Wait…fiancée? Surely I must have misheard him? A fiancée would be a woman I’m engaged to be married to, right?

“Umm, Father…? I think I might be misunderstanding something. Did you just say it was from my fiancée?”

“Oh, did I never tell you? That’s right. You have a fiancée,” said my father, blithely turning my whole world upside down.

I have…a fiancée…?

I shook my head. Really, this wasn’t that shocking a development, was it? I was a noble, after all! A lord’s son being engaged at an early age was perfectly reasonable! The fact that my father hadn’t said so much as a single word about it up to that point, on the other hand, was significantly less reasonable and more than a little shocking!

“So, wait,” I said. “I’m actually engaged? And you just…never told me? Why?”

“It slipped my mind,” replied my father.

How does your son’s engagement, of all things, “slip your mind”?!

My father might have looked like a shrewd and cunning individual, but every once in a while, he exposed the fact that he had a dangerously careless side to him.

“Your fiancée is the daughter of the Lord of Torbequista, a region of Canarre,” explained my father, before being interrupted by another coughing fit. After the attack subsided, he continued. “That lord, Hammond Pleide, is an old friend of mine. Around a decade ago─a year before you were born─Hammond had his third child. He already had two boys, who were six and four, but the third turned out to be his first daughter, so we vowed that if I ever had a son, he and Hammond’s daughter would be wed.”

My father’s explanation, punctuated by the occasional cough, didn’t turn out to be the complicated political affair that I was expecting. Of course, my father was an upstart as far as nobles went. Our bloodline was far from extensive or prestigious, so expanding our circle of relatives was quite important.

Needless to say, that lack of an extended family tree would remain a problem after I inherited my father’s title. Taking that into consideration, being engaged to a genuine, by-birth noble wasn’t all that bad a deal for me. Marrying the person you fell in love with out of a pure desire to be together was considered the norm in my old world, and I couldn’t deny that part of me still fantasized about walking that path myself, but I supposed I’d just have to give up on that sort of romanticized, well, romance.

In any case, Rietz was supposedly in possession of the letter, so giving it a read seemed like the logical next step to take. Thus, I went on my way to seek him out.

○

I eventually found Rietz in the study. Rosell, Charlotte, and the twins were all there as well. Charlotte was keeping the twins company while Rietz and Rosell were busy hitting the books. I’d tasked Charlotte to join them in their studies recently, considering her apparent lack of any sort of basic education. Judging by what I’d heard, though, her memory left much to be desired.

“Good morning to you, Master Ars.”

“Good morning, Ars.”

“Oh, Master Ars. Morning.”

The moment I stepped into the room, Rietz, Rosell, and Charlotte greeted me in turn, and I returned the gesture. All three of them had changed substantially over the last three years.

To begin with, Rietz was now eighteen, and the somewhat childish roundness of his features had completely vanished. He looked every bit the adult he was. I mean, by Japanese standards, eighteen was still quite young, but Rietz had been through so many battles and seen so many of the horrors of war that there wasn’t so much of a trace of childishness left in him. He’d grown taller, too, and had to be nearing the 6’3” mark.

His experience in battle had done wonders for him as well. At the moment, his stats looked like this:

Every single one of them had gone up, and all of them except for Valor were in the nineties.

Rosell, meanwhile, was eight, and still very much a kid. He’d grown quite a bit as well, though, and was probably somewhere around 4’3”. His face was as youthful as ever, but I’d noticed he was developing something of a persistent glare, possibly thanks to how much of his time he’d spent with his brow furrowed in deep thought.

In sharp contrast to his appearance, his personality was as adult-like as could be. Every once in a while, he’d bust out some pearl of wisdom that even made the actual adults nearby nod in admiration! His stats looked like this:

The gains his Intelligence had made were remarkable, but that aside, only his Politics had made any real advances. I wasn’t exactly surprised, though─he’d done precisely no martial training over the past three years, and he hadn’t been out commanding troops on the battlefield, either. I made a mental note to look into having Rosell get some experience with martial arts sometime in the future.

Last, but certainly not least, was Charlotte, who was now fifteen. She’d still looked like a child back when we first met, but she’d gone through a growth spurt since then, and had blossomed into a fully-fledged woman. Her growth in the chest area was particularly impressive─she was, in a word, stacked.

That fact made it really hard to know how to react when she got it into her head to hug me out of nowhere. I had no clue why she did it, and given my meager experience with women, I didn’t know what to make of it in a ton of other ways as well. I’d known Charlotte for three years, yet the inner workings of her mind were still completely opaque to me. The one thing I could say with relative confidence thanks to my siblings was that she liked little kids.

As for her stats…

…she’d made some impressive progress in some respects, and less in others. Her Leadership score had gradually grown as she went through battle after battle, but her Valor, oddly enough, had remained more or less stagnant. It had only gone up by two points over a full three years.

I still didn’t have a clear grasp of what dictated the growth rates for people’s stats. I’d seen cases where people gained three whole points in a single day, but also cases like Charlotte’s where it took three years for two measly points. I did have a theory in Charlotte’s case, though: she hadn’t grown in that respect because she had no desire to improve.

I’d gotten the impression that Charlotte was already totally satisfied with the current level of her magic, so she wasn’t making any efforts in particular to polish her skills. To be fair, her current stats were already outlandishly high, so I couldn’t really blame her for feeling like she’d reached her peak. I just also couldn’t help but wonder how infernally powerful her magic would become if she were to completely max out her Valor, and sort of wished she’d put a bit more effort into raising it. Part of me hoped that a mage as powerful as her would show up someday and spark some friendly competition between the two of them.

“Rietz, did my father give you a letter?” I asked.

“You mean the one from your fiancée? He did, yes,” replied Rietz, pulling a letter from his breast pocket and handing it to me.

“A-Ars, you have a fiancée…? What’s she like?” asked Rosell.

“I’ve never met her, so I don’t know. I only found out about her a moment ago,” I explained. “Actually, I don’t even know her name yet.”

“You don’t? That sort of thing actually happens?” asked Rosell, sounding a little shocked.

“You’ve got a fiancée, Master Ars?” asked Charlotte. “But I thought that was why you bought me! You were gonna marry me, right?”

“Wrong!” I snapped. “Where in the world did you get that idea?!”

“Oh, okay, I see. You bought me to make me your mistress!”

“Absolutely not!”

Charlotte snickered at me. Apparently, she’d just been making fun of me this time around. She had a bad habit of saying completely outlandish stuff in total earnest every once in a while, so I always had a really hard time figuring out when I had to take her seriously.

I took a look at the letter. A name was printed on the front of the envelope: Licia Pleide.

I guess that must be my fiancée’s name. I’ll have to make note of that.

I opened the letter and gave it a read. The first thing I noticed was that her handwriting was clean and elegant. As for the letter’s content, it started with a simple-enough greeting, then moved to talk about her recent affairs─how she’d taken up flower gardening as a hobby, and was pleased with how beautiful her garden was turning out to be. Finally, it concluded with the words, “As we promised, I intend to pay you a personal visit in very short order. I look forward to your hospitality.”

Considering I’d only learned of her existence a matter of minutes ago, it probably went without saying that I’d made no such promise. I had to assume that either my father had done so in my name, or my fiancée had dreamed it up herself. Considering recent events, the former seemed far more likely…but perhaps that was just wishful thinking on my part. I’d have a lot of apprehensions about marrying a girl who could dream up a promise like that and convince herself it had actually happened.

Another worrisome detail was the fact that she’d written that she planned to visit “in very short order,” but hadn’t given any indication as to when exactly that would be. She probably assumed that I’d been fully briefed on the matter, so she didn’t think that level of specificity was necessary.

Incidentally, in my new world, each year consisted of three hundred and sixty days, which were split up across twelve months. Each month was precisely thirty days long, so all things considered, the system was pretty similar to the one we had back on Earth. I’d never learned why things were split up that way, though.

On Earth, of course, one year indicated one revolution around the sun, but I didn’t even know if this world was a proper globe, much less how the solar system may or may not be part of how it functioned. There was a sun-like object in the sky during the day, plus moon-like and star-like ones at night, so it seemed pretty likely that things worked the same way here as they had in my old world.

Anyway, that day in particular was the third day of the sixth month. That was one aspect in which the new system confused me─winter spanned from the fifth month to the seventh month here. Spring went from the eighth month to the tenth, summer was the eleventh to the first, and fall was the second to the fourth. My birthday, by the way, was on the eighth day of the eighth month. But of course, all of that was pretty off-topic.

Steering back to my original point, my best guess was that “in very short order” probably meant she’d be showing up somewhere from the seventh day of the month to the ninth or so. That was just blind guesswork, however, and if I wanted a clear answer, my only choice was to ask my father.

“What did the letter say, Master Ars?” asked Rietz.

“Apparently, the girl I’m engaged to will be paying us a visit soon,” I replied. “Have you heard anything about that?”

“Huh?” Rietz blinked. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t. If that’s true, though, then it’s a matter of grave importance! Hosting a guest like her would require us to make numerous preparations, and we’ve done nothing of the sort! Do you know precisely when she’ll be arriving?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t remember signing off on this visit, either, though I suppose you’ve already guessed that yourself.”

“Well then, I suppose you’ll have to ask Lord Raven for the details,” said Rietz, arriving at the same conclusion that I’d reached.

I went back to the dining hall, but by the time I arrived, my father had already left. The next most likely place for him to be was his room, where he’d been spending a lot of time lately recuperating from his illness. Sure enough, I found him there, and asked him about the surprise visit.

“Oh… Come to think of it, I believe I might have agreed to something along those lines, yes,” admitted my father. “It was quite a long time ago, though… Hammond said that the two of you should meet while you’re still young, and I…think I probably agreed? You have to understand, Ars, that I was fairly far into my cups at the time. I hardly remember the conversation at all.”

“But you did agree to it, then,” I sighed. “When exactly is she supposed to arrive?”

“Let me see…I believe it was the sixth…the sixth day of the sixth month? No, the fourth day! That’s it─the fourth day of the sixth month. Yes, I’m certain of it.”

The fourth day? But, wait, that’s…

“Th-That’s tomorrow!”

“Yes, it is,” my father blithely replied.

“H-How can you be so calm about this?! And why did you never think to tell me anything?!” I pressed.

My father glanced away sheepishly, scratched his chin, and then turned back to me with a profoundly serious expression on his face and replied, “Ars. I need you to listen, and listen well.”

“A-All right,” I replied nervously.

“Even the greatest of men make mistakes every once in a while.”

“…”

I instantly regretted interpreting his expression as “serious” in any capacity. I was, frankly, appalled.

“Rietz!” I shouted, turning to my ever-capable retainer, who had accompanied me to my father’s chamber. “Prepare the household to receive guests immediately!”

“Understood, Master Ars.”

○

Getting ready to host an ambiguous number of guests with only a single day to prepare was─not to put too fine a point on it─an absolute goddamn nightmare. Thus, the entire estate was thrown into a state of chaos.

In the worst-case scenario, our preparations would prove woefully insufficient, my fiancée would be scandalized, and my engagement itself would be put into jeopardy. Forgetting about her visit was nothing short of an insult, and there was absolutely no way I could be honest with her about what had happened. I had to make it look like we’d been preparing for days, yet I had almost no time at all to make that happen.

I ended up enlisting several villagers who happened to be free that day to help out with our last-minute preparations. Not only did we have to get the inside of the estate ready, but the exterior had also gone a little too long without a solid touch-up, so it needed a thorough cleaning as well.

We worked at a frantic pace, and all of us were so stressed that we were basically at a loss, with the sole exception of Rietz the quintessential superhuman. He kept his cool the whole time, doling out clear and precise orders to everyone around him even as he accomplished his own tasks at a blinding pace. After working with him for so many years, none of my family’s other employees dared to look down on him for being a Malkan anymore, so they allowed him to take the lead without complaint.

As a final touch of hospitality, I decided to prepare a bouquet to present to my fiancée upon her arrival. Her letter had made it clear to me that she was a big fan of flowers, so I hoped the gesture would go over well. She’d written that she was especially fond of a type of flower called miramis blossoms. It seemed she appreciated the fact that they bloomed in winter, a season normally bereft of greenery.

If I were to compare them to an Earth flower, miramis blossoms looked an awful lot like lycoris flowers, a species of spider lily, except with white petals. We had some blooming in our estate’s garden, conveniently enough. I remembered hearing that lycoris flowers were poisonous and considered symbols of death in some sects of Buddhism, so I was a little biased against them. However, once I forced myself to look past those preconceptions, I had to admit that they were quite pretty. Miramis blossoms weren’t poisonous and had no religious significance, either, so unlike lycoris, there wasn’t any baggage to get in the way of their beauty.

I put together a bouquet of miramis blossoms, and even transplanted many miramis plants from the village into our estate’s garden just to give her an extra-good first impression. I did have some doubts about my plan─after all, would someone who grew her own flowers be happy to receive even more of them?─but upon further reflection, I decided that what really mattered was me showing off the fact that I’d taken note of her interests and was trying to cater to them.

In the end, after a full day of frantic work, we’d managed to get the estate to a borderline presentable appearance. Lord Hammond was also minor nobility, ruling over a territory not much larger than that of my father’s, so I hoped his daughter wouldn’t be offended by the fact that our offerings were somewhat less than extravagant.

Rietz walked over to me as I surveyed our work. After a day like that, I could tell that even he was a little worn out.

“We’ve done all we can,” he said. “Now it’s up to you to make a good first impression, Master Ars… Though of course, I doubt we have anything to worry about on that front.”

Thanks for piling on the pressure, Rietz.

Unfortunately, he was right. Whether or not she got a good impression of House Louvent ultimately rested on my shoulders. No matter how much we polished our estate’s appearance, if she decided that I wasn’t to her liking, then all that effort would be wasted.

Rietz seemed to have total faith in me for some reason, but to be totally honest, I had very little confidence in myself. My fiancée was a year older than me, according to my father, which would make her ten at the moment. I would’ve felt better about dealing with her if she were a little younger─ten was a tricky age for girls, to my understanding. At the age of ten, people were very much still children, but treating a child of ten accordingly was a very good way to get on their bad side.

I was pretty sure that kids usually tended to develop their first crush around the age of ten, as well. I’d never been the popular type, though, and I wasn’t exactly a knockout in the looks department in this life, either. My appearance was perfectly mediocre.

Is this really going to go well?

I didn’t have much time to plan, unfortunately, and before I could come up with a solid strategy, she arrived.

“Master Ars, Lady Licia has been sighted! She’ll be here momentarily!”

The moment I got the news, I hurried outside, ready to welcome her. A golden-haired girl was standing before the gateway to our estate, accompanied by a small retinue of butlers and maids. She smiled as she watched me rush out the front door, then stepped up to introduce herself.

“It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Licia Pleide,” she said, giving me an elegant curtsey as she did so. I could tell in an instant that she’d had a noble upbringing.

As I bowed politely and introduced myself in turn, I took a closer look at Licia. The first thing that struck me was how short she was. Boys and girls weren’t generally that far apart height-wise at the age of ten─if anything, girls tend to be a little on the taller side─but she was definitely shorter than me, in spite of the fact that I was a year younger and far from tall myself.

Height aside, she seemed like a calm, gentle, and beautiful girl. Her upturned eyes made her look kind, while her skin was pristine.

She was, of course, still a child, and had the figure to match. I’d been visualizing her as a kindhearted girl ever since I learned she was fond of flowers, and she certainly looked the part.

Still, I decided to appraise her, just for good measure. She was my fiancée, not a prospective retainer, so I wouldn’t have been devastated if her stats were nothing to write home about, but if she was exceptional, then this arrangement was all the better.

Wh-What the hell sort of stats are those?!

Her Politics score was the first to shock me. Her Intelligence was quite high as well, to be clear, but compared to her Politics, it didn’t even make me bat an eyelash. A maximum of 100! And it was already 77!

Politics was a fiddly stat to pin down. It still wasn’t entirely clear to me what having a high Politics score actually meant for a person’s abilities. Perhaps they were an exceptionally good communicator, an expert barterer, or a master of negotiations. If I had to put it into simple terms, I’d say that your Politics score represented your ability to express yourself. And then there was her Ambition. It was at 80…but why? Was she plotting to become the wife of a big-league lord or something?

I’d thought that she was a calm, gentle girl at first glance, but a single appraisal was all it took to shatter that impression. Sure, she was still smiling away at me, but suddenly, it looked less like the natural smile of a pleasant, kindhearted individual and more like a cold, calculated smile that was expressly engineered to give its recipient the best first impression possible. She was indeed exceptional, no doubt about it, but whether she’d prove to be the boon or bane of the Louvent household was entirely up in the air.

For all you know, maybe her Politics score represents the fact that she’s naturally charismatic and just has a way with people! Maybe it’s not calculated at all on her part! In any case, overthinking this probably isn’t going to do me any good.

“Umm… Is something stuck to my face, perchance?” asked Licia. I’d been so stunned by the results of her appraisal that I’d ended up staring a little too obviously.

I spent a second in frenzied thought, trying to come up with a decent excuse, but then one of the maids behind her spoke up first and said, “Oh, I’m sure he’s just bewitched by your beauty, Milady!”

Considering the circumstances, that seemed as good of a stopgap excuse as any.

I owe you one, miss maid!

“Th-That’s right!” I declared, latching onto her explanation. “I was just thinking you have the loveliest smile, that’s all.”

Under normal circumstances, I’d never have acted like that much of a pompous flirt, but desperate times called for desperate measures and I’d never known women to get upset about being complimented…not that I’d known many women, period.

“Oh, my! You flatter me,” Licia said as her cheeks grew faintly flushed. It was such a natural reaction that I had a hard time believing she was just acting.

“Please, allow me to show you into the estate,” I said.

“That would be lovely! Please do,” replied Licia.

We walked side by side through the grounds, her maids and butlers following about five paces or so behind us.

“Lamberg truly is a wonderful place,” said Licia, breaking the silence once more. I couldn’t quite tell if she truly meant it, or if she was just being polite.

“Is it?” I asked.

“It is! The land here is blessed with an abundance of nature, and the village is full of life. I’m quite fond of my own homeland, Torbequista, but to be frank, I believe that this region is even more wonderful.”

Once again, it really didn’t seem like she was lying to me. I’d been worried that she’d be disillusioned by the fact that her fiancé lived in a random, insignificant corner of the countryside, but maybe those concerns were groundless?

“What sort of place is Torbequista?” I asked.

“It’s out in the countryside with nature to spare, just like Lamberg, and its people are kind and caring,” Licia replied. “That being said, they’re somewhat less than bold, on the whole. We have very few achievements to speak of on the field of battle. I must admit that when I heard the tales of Lord Raven and the valiance of the troops he commands, I felt rather envious!”

Our idle chatter continued as we approached the estate’s main building. Normally, it would only have taken a minute or so to walk there from the main gate, but between all that talk and the occasional pause to look around, it was quite a while before we finally arrived.

Licia had an exceptional talent for keeping a conversation flowing. I’d never been much of a talker, myself, so I had to give her the credit for how lively our little chat ended up being. You’d think she’d have been at least a little apprehensive about meeting her fiancé for the first time, but she certainly didn’t let it show.

She asked just the right questions to pull me into the conversation, and did an excellent job of steering it toward topics that I’d have something to contribute to. Her reactions seemed genuine as well─every time she’d laugh or gasp in surprise, it struck me as totally natural. She also made sure to compliment me whenever an opportunity arose, which put me in a pretty good mood. In fact, I was ready to completely open up to her, even though it had only been about five minutes since we’d met!

If I’d been an ordinary child without memories of another lifetime, or if I hadn’t had my Appraisal skill to help me out, I figure she would’ve had me utterly charmed beyond the point of no return over those five minutes. In the back of my mind, however, I hadn’t dismissed the possibility that she was doing it on purpose…and if that was the case, then Licia was a girl I could not afford to underestimate.

Rietz had a high Politics score, too, and he wasn’t nearly this skilled at the art of conversation. He wasn’t a poor conversationalist, to be clear─it just wasn’t one of his most outstanding qualities.

Maybe your Politics score and your ability to communicate aren’t actually as directly linked as I thought. Or maybe some other ability plays a factor, and I just haven’t picked up on it yet.

As slowly as we were walking, we did eventually reach the main building and the field of miramis blossoms I’d had planted around it.

“Oh my, miramis blossoms! And there are so many of them! How lovely!” exclaimed Licia. “Did you plant them just for me, perchance?”

“Actually, yes,” I admitted. “You mentioned that you loved them in the letter you wrote. I hope they’re to your liking.”

“They’re beautiful,” Licia mumbled as she looked out across the garden. “You did this all for me? It must have taken so much time. Thank you, truly,” she said, turning to face me. Her cheeks were flushed once more, and a carefree smile spread across her face. “I am deeply moved by your generosity.”

Her smile reminded me of my previous life. I’d always wanted to have a daughter just like her. I quickly reprimanded myself for the thought, though─getting all paternal on my fiancée was just plain weird on several levels! I’d have to marry her sometime in the future, after all, and we’d be expected to produce offspring. If I let myself start thinking of her in that light, then I could only imagine how guilty I’d feel when the time came to do the deed! Then again, that time definitely wouldn’t come until she was fully grown, so maybe I was just overthinking things.

“Is something the matter?” asked Licia. I’d been staring again, though this time I genuinely was charmed by her smile.

Normally, I would’ve shook my head frantically and tried to explain my way out of it, but I’d grown past that reaction thanks to the maid from before.

“My apologies,” I said. “I was just captivated by your lovely smile, Lady Licia.”

“My… You certainly have a way with words, don’t you, Sir Ars?” she replied, blushing once more. If I were a real flirt, I probably would have said something about how her smile was so striking it put the miramis blossoms around us to shame, but I didn’t have the guts to do that, for better or worse. I would’ve literally died of embarrassment if I’d tried.

Eventually, Licia and I stepped inside the estate’s main building. You needed a solid plan to entertain a guest like her, but fortunately, I had that under control! After escorting her inside, the next item in my itinerary was to formally welcome her to our home. The step after that was a little trickier, though. I’d planned on having lunch served, but since Licia had arrived earlier than anticipated, I was going to have to either improvise or stick to my guns and serve lunch early. That wasn’t entirely unheard of during visits like this one, at least.

After lunch, I planned to escort Licia into the town of Lamberg for a stroll─essentially, to take her out on a date. Of course, the town was far enough from our estate that we’d have to bring an escort, so it wouldn’t exactly be a private affair. We’d return to the estate after that for a moment to rest and…take a nap or something, and by that point, it would hopefully be late enough for dinner.

Speaking of dinner, I’d arranged for a performance to be staged during the meal. The Louvent household was, thankfully, at least somewhat prepared for unexpected last-minute visitors, so we had the means to muster entertainment at very short notice. A rather shocking number of our servants were trained musicians, so thankfully, said performance wouldn’t just involve watching our soldiers spar with each other.

All that said, our performance plans had all been made under the assumption that we’d be entertaining adults. Would a kid like Licia enjoy them at all? I had no clue, so I pretty much forced the task of getting everyone ready off on Rietz. I knew I could trust him to do something about it, after all.

As for Licia’s eventual departure, I’d prepared several gifts for her other than the miramis bouquet. I didn’t actually know how long she was planning to stay, technically, but among the aristocracy, it was supposedly poor etiquette to stick around for longer than a day, so I was fairly confident she’d be off on her way tomorrow. But if I was wrong, and she decided to linger for longer, things were probably going to get pretty hectic.

I could worry about that later, though. First up was her formal greeting! And, as we stepped into my home…

“Welcome, Lady Licia,” said our whole host of retainers in unison. They were gathered up inside, dressed notably more formally than they’d usually bother to be, and bowed politely as we made our entrance. The interior itself was a lot cleaner than usual, too, with miramis blossoms placed here and there as decorations and a whole host of art we usually kept in our storehouse put out on display.

Under normal circumstances, the entire household would have shown up to greet Licia, but my father was notably absent. I assumed that he was reluctant to meet with her at the moment, considering his poor health. He had a point, to be fair─there’d be hell to pay if she caught whatever he’d been afflicted with! Better safe than sorry. Less explicable, however, was Rietz’s absence. Had he been called away for something urgent?

“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you. It seems you’ve already been informed, but my name is Licia Pleide. I thank you for your most gracious hospitality,” said Licia, addressing our retainers with a polite curtsy. A lot of nobles made a point of looking down on those beneath them on the social ladder, but it seemed she wasn’t among that number.

“I may very well find myself permanently under your care in the future, so I would like to get to know you as soon as possible,” Licia continued, proceeding to go around and personally introduce herself to each member of my household’s staff, one by one. The whole household’s worth of servants was there, along with House Louvent’s mages, cavalry, and other highly-skilled troops.

“Your fiancée sure is pretty, Ars,” said Rosell, who was present despite not fitting into any of the aforementioned categories. He was being raised to become our house’s tactician, yes, but as things stood, he was nothing more than the third son of a hunter. Not that having him around was a problem, per se─despite his habit of treating me a little more casually than he probably should have, he was quite well-mannered, and probably wouldn’t cause any trouble.

“Where in the world is Rietz?” I whispered back to Rosell.

“Hm? Mr. Rietz didn’t think he should attend, since there’s a chance that having a Malkan around would displease the lady. Didn’t he tell you?”

“Ohhh…”

He’s still worried about all that, huh?

Rietz’s achievements in battle had won him a fair share of renown. He’d been regularly ridiculed by soldiers from the other noble houses at first, but I’d heard that fewer and fewer people dared to do so as his reputation grew. Personally, I thought that there’d be no problem with him making an appearance at this sort of function. Plus, Licia was bound to find out about him sooner or later, considering our relationship.

Hell, the odds were pretty decent that she already knew about Rietz! If she was going to have a problem with him, then having the two of them meet as soon as possible would be for the best in the long run. Of course, Rietz was smart enough to figure all of that out for himself, but he’d decided to hold back for the moment regardless. I could only assume he’d simply chosen to err on the side of caution.

By this point, Licia was shaking the hands of everyone present and making small talk. Her smile never faltered for a second, and she was clearly smooth-talking them just as effectively as she had me. She’d given an excellent first impression to everyone in the room, that was for sure. I had to agree with everyone, too. She really did seem like a nice girl, plain and simple. However, deep down, I just couldn’t forget what I’d seen on her status screen.

It wasn’t just her Politics score, either─her Ambition was causing me some serious unease as well. It did make sense that someone with a Politics score like hers might be a naturally gifted communicator, yes, but when I factored in her Ambition, the odds that the way she presented herself was deliberate and calculated skyrocketed. And if that really was the case, then I knew it would only take the slightest moment of complacency for her to seize the upper hand. I couldn’t allow myself to let my guard down around her until I knew more.

“Hmm… She’s pretty, and she seems nice enough at a glance, but…I dunno…she’s kinda scary, too,” muttered Rosell as he watched Licia do her thing.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“W-Well, it’s hard to put into words… I guess it’s that her smile seems almost fake. Or that what she’s saying is sort of superficial… It’s like she’s buttering us all up, or something… A-Ars, you should keep your guard up around that girl. If you don’t, I’m afraid she might p-poison you or something… Then she’d put me under her thumb and work me like a slave… P-Please, you have to keep an eye on her, no matter what!” Rosell whispered into my ear.

I was impressed by how sharp his intuition was. His analysis of the situation had veered off in a pretty pessimistic direction as it went along, yes, but still.

I guess my only options are to get to know her as well as I can, and to make sure not to put myself at risk until I’m certain I know what makes her tick. Not even Appraisal can tell me who a person really is deep down, so I’m on my own on this one.

“Oh, look, it’s Charlotte’s turn!” said Rosell.

Oh, crap!

I realized my mistake a moment too late. I’d never really taken the time to teach Charlotte about proper etiquette, and even after all this time, I still had no clue what was going on in the girl’s head. There was absolutely no way of predicting what she might do, but I had a terrible feeling that it might end up being something really, really rude!

We should’ve had her sit this out, not Rietz!

Licia stepped up to Charlotte, but instead of immediately offering her a handshake like the others, she paused for a moment.

“Oh,” said Licia. “Might you be Charlotte? I’ve heard all sorts of tales about House Louvent’s master mage! They say you wield magical power like none other, and burn your enemies to ash by the score!”

I assumed that the mage’s robe Charlotte was wearing had tipped Licia off to her identity. I could also practically see Charlotte’s ego inflate on the spot as she realized that her name was making the rounds among the other noble houses.

“Yes, indeed, I am the one they call Charlotte,” Charlotte replied in a tone positively dripping with confidence. Bordering on straight-up arrogance, really. That was not how a mage was meant to conduct herself in front of a noble’s daughter, but I took some small solace in the fact that she hadn’t bungled it up too horrifically, and their exchange was over…or so I thought.

“I knew it! I just wanted to say that, from one woman to another, I respect you ever so much! Please, do shake my hand!” exclaimed Licia, much to my bemusement. It was like watching a little kid get introduced to their favorite superhero.

Well, I suppose that could’ve gone much worse, I thought, a bead of cold sweat slowly dripping its way down my back. Charlotte’s attitude didn’t improve after the handshake, unfortunately. She wasn’t usually that insolent when she was speaking with adults, but Licia was a child, and in Charlotte’s mind, that apparently exempted her from all standards of politeness.

One of these days, I have to drill some etiquette into that girl’s head.

Licia finished making the rounds and turned to face me once more.

“Umm, excuse me,” she said. “Is Lord Raven not present at the moment?”

“My father’s illness has taken a turn for the worse, I’m afraid,” I explained. “Much as he would love to meet you, he’s chosen not to do so for fear of spreading his sickness.”

“Is that so…? I’m terribly concerned for him, but if he simply cannot meet with me, I will not protest. Oh, and one more question─is Rietz, the Malkan I’ve heard so much about, not around? I’ve heard all sorts of tales about his brilliance upon the battlefield, so I would love to meet with him in person.”

Sounds like Rietz didn’t have to worry about Licia being prejudiced. Too bad he didn’t make an appearance, I guess. I’ll have to let him know later.

I ended up going with the early lunch plan, after which the time finally arrived for the most nerve-wracking item on our itinerary: the date. Licia and I left the estate together on foot. I couldn’t pick them out at a glance, but I knew for a fact that an escort was following us just out of sight. The idea was that having a full host of armed guards accompanying us would take the fun out of the experience, so they’d hang back and stay out of the picture unless they were needed.

To be totally honest, though, I thought it would’ve been better for them to just walk with us and not bother with the pretext. After all, who knew whether they’d be able to make it to us in time if something did go wrong? Not that I was expecting any disasters─I’d certainly never been attacked in town so far.

The real problem, in my mind, was the question of what we would do once we got to town. Lamberg wasn’t exactly a tourist destination. The village had zero places to go for entertainment, and I wasn’t convinced it would be even suitable for a date.

I’d seriously considered just staying at the estate and taking a leisurely walk through the flower gardens instead, but Rietz advised me against it. According to him, “Showing her that you’re adored by your subjects will prove to her that you’ll be an exemplary lord in the future.” Whether or not that was the right angle to take with a kid like Licia seemed a little questionable, in my mind. Then again, she was the child of a lord herself, and had probably received a specialized education, so I decided to heed his advice. Licia had already proved to be remarkably bright, so it seemed that decision had been the right one, in retrospect.

Now the big question was whether or not I could keep her entertained. Just talking with her the whole time would’ve been ideal, but I wasn’t the best conversationalist. Thankfully, her skill in the field seemed to make up for my lack thereof, and our conversations had proven enjoyable thus far.

Anyway, it only took us a few minutes to arrive at the village. I decided to lead her to the town square. It wasn’t much of a plaza or anything, but it did have a small local marketplace set up in it. You couldn’t find much of anything worthwhile there, but every once in a while, something rare or unusual would crop up, and it was the liveliest part of town by a long shot. For lack of better options, it seemed like the right place to visit first.

“Shall we head for the town square?” I suggested.

“Lead the way!” Licia replied.

I showed her to the square, as planned, but when we arrived, I quickly realized that something seemed a little off. The square was usually fairly bustling, but on that particular day, there was a bigger crowd than ever. I could hear angry shouts and bellows coming from within.

“Give us our damn money back!”

“Like hell I will! This was a done deal! You can’t just back out of it, you rat bastards!”

Between the shouting and the swearing, it was clear that whatever we were witnessing was on the verge of devolving into a brawl.

Oh, for the… Of all the times for trouble to crop up in town! What should I do? Can I just ignore it? No, that’s not an option─I’m the son of the lord here, so ignoring the people’s problems could give Licia a terrible impression of me!

“What do you suppose happened?” Licia muttered. She sounded worried, so as I’d feared, I was going to have to do something to resolve the situation.

Seriously, there couldn’t possibly have been a worse time for things to go wrong.

I’d informed the townsfolk that Licia would be coming for a visit, but I hadn’t given them detailed information on my plans for the day. In retrospect, I doubted that most of them even realized that I’d be bringing her into town.

“Let’s go ask,” I said, then walked over to one of the townsfolk who was keeping an eye on the situation from the edge of the crowd.

“What’s going on? Why the commotion?” I asked.

“Oh, if it isn’t the young master!” the villager said, then furrowed his brow. “Wait…wasn’t your fiancée s’pposed to be coming ’round today…? Oh! Is that her? The lovely li’l lady over there, I mean?”

Licia took that as her cue to introduce herself to the man, and she was just as polite with him as she had been with the staff at my family’s estate. After they finished exchanging pleasantries, the man gestured toward the crowd.

“Right, yeah, ’s a real big fuss. Pretty messy stuff, if you ask me.”

“Messy how?” I probed.

The man spent a moment breaking down the situation for me. Apparently, the conflict centered around the village’s local trader. His operation was fairly small-scale, but pretty much all of the village’s craftsmen had no choice but to deal with him.

It all started when several craftsmen who specialized in furniture and the like came up with a new variety of home heater that they planned to sell. The heaters were to be powered by flame-aspected magistones, which the craftsmen asked the trader to acquire for them. Magistones were useful for more than just the synthesis of aqua magia─they could also be used in their raw form for a variety of purposes. Flame-aspected magistones, for instance, emitted a slight amount of heat.

The details were beyond me, but apparently, it had been discovered that stimulating flame-aspected magistones with some sort of material or another would increase the heat they released. The craftsmen had taken advantage of that quality to power their newly-invented heater. My family’s estate wasn’t equipped with anything of the sort, but I was certain we’d have one soon enough if they ever managed to put their design out onto the market.

However, the magistones were what caused everything to break down. The trader had ended up stocking sound-aspected magistones, not fire. The line of communications between the craftsmen and the traders had failed catastrophically somewhere along the way, and the trader was convinced that they’d asked for sound-aspected magistones to make what sounded to me like some sort of magical megaphone to sell to House Louvent.

The craftsmen, of course, intended nothing of the sort. They laid into the trader for his mistake, telling him that they couldn’t make something that complicated even if they wanted to, that they didn’t want or need his sound magistones, and that he should take a long walk off a short cliff. The trader, however, stubbornly stuck to his guns and insisted that he’d been asked for sound-aspected magistones and had held up his end of the bargain. That was when the craftsmen demanded their money back, but the trader demanded that they uphold the deal and take the magistones off his hands.

All in all, I couldn’t tell who was in the wrong. Someone had clearly screwed the pooch, but there was no way of telling who. A member of House Louvent was supposed to be present when deals of this sort were made, just in case any trouble cropped up, but there’d been so few issues as of late that everyone involved had decided it wasn’t worth bothering.

If one side had been harmed by the communications breakdown, it would’ve been easy enough to pin the blame on the shoulders of whoever had profited, but as things stood, both sides were liable to suffer losses. If I stormed in and announced that everyone was at fault for not bringing in an intermediary like they were supposed to, it probably would’ve calmed the situation down for the moment, at least─but neither side would leave satisfied, and the whole thing would inevitably explode the moment I left.

Maybe I can figure out who’s at fault if I interview the people who actually made the deal… No, that would only work if the one who made the mistake was honest about it. Isn’t there something I can do to put this trouble to bed without causing more issues down the road?

I lapsed into thought for a moment, but before I could come up with a decent plan, Licia leaned in and spoke to me in a hushed tone, saying, “Umm, Sir Ars? If I may offer a suggestion, I believe I have an idea that could resolve this matter with no ill will on either side.”

“You do? What is it?” I asked, somewhat shocked. Could a ten-year-old like her have really figured out how to solve a situation as messy as this one? Mediating a fight did fall into the realm of politics, in a certain sense, and her Politics score was far and away above that of an average person’s, so perhaps she really did have the perfect answer in mind.

“Nobody took any measures to prevent this sort of problem from occurring,” she explained. “And both sides are equally to blame for that negligence. That means that you could bring the issue to a close by assigning the blame to one side or the other…but that would leave lingering animosity, and they would likely soon start fighting all over again. Even worse, they might end up distrusting House Louvent as a result!”

I nodded. Everything she’d said lined up with my own analysis of the situation.

“Unfortunately, I doubt it’s possible to resolve the situation without either side suffering losses. That’s why the dispute escalated. I believe that to minimize the lingering animosity between the two sides, you should step in, assign an equal degree of blame to both of them, and propose a solution that costs both sides equally!”

Minimizing the damage done and distributing it equally, huh?

It was a reasonable suggestion, to be sure. I had a feeling that both sides knew they were at least somewhat to blame for the problem, and were only disavowing their fault so vehemently because they had so much to lose.

If the trader was left with only the advance the craftsmen had paid him, he’d come out of the deal deeply in the red, and even if the traders were able to recover that advance, they still stood to miss a major business opportunity. They’d surely already bought plenty of other materials for the heaters aside from the magistones, and developing the device couldn’t have been cheap, either. In that sense, not being able to produce them would mean a heavy loss for the craftsmen that recovering their advance wouldn’t cover.

“I have a solution in mind,” said Licia. “I believe that the trader should be made to barter off the sound magistones he mistakenly obtained, then acquire flame magistones to replace them.”

“Bartering them off, huh…? Now that you mention it, it’s not like sound-aspected magistones are worthless. Couldn’t the trader just return the advance he was paid and sell the magistones to someone else? Why isn’t he considering that option?”

“Hmm… I can’t say for certain, but I presume that something about his circumstances is preventing him from doing so,” replied Licia.

His circumstances? What could that be…?

I thought about it for a moment…and then an explanation finally hit me.

Thanks to the rapidly escalating conflicts cropping up all across Summerforth, the price of magistones had shot through the roof as of late. The one caveat, however, was that aqua magia made by refining low-quality magistones couldn’t actually be used to cast magic. That meant that the sort of low-quality magistones the trader was likely dealing in sold at a much lower price.

Despite that fact, however, it was very likely that the trader had bought his sound magistones for significantly higher than their usual market value. The craftsmen were after flame magistones, and had likely offered a high price in exchange for it. Flame magistones, I assumed, had to have been more expensive than sound magistones. I didn’t know precisely what sound magistones were used for, to be fair, but regardless, they couldn’t possibly have been more valuable than a variety that could be used to power a heater at this time of year.

In spite of the high price they’d offered, though, the trader ended up under the impression they wanted sound magistones. In other words, he believed that they were offering to buy sound magistones from him for an excessive sum of money. I didn’t know the exact price of sound magistones, and it could’ve been higher or lower depending on how much of it was in circulation. Regardless, if the trader thought he’d be getting that high of a payout for it, he probably hadn’t bothered seeking out the best possible prices and had wound up paying slightly above the market rate for it himself. In short, he’d bought a whole pile of sound magistones that he had to sell for more than its market value, or else he’d face devastating losses.

“If the trader has to barter the sound magistones for flame magistones, he’ll likely end up with quite a bit less of it than the craftsmen initially ordered,” said Licia. “So, if the craftsmen are forced to pay the price they once agreed on, they would suffer heavy losses. With all that in mind, I think you should have them work out how much they would have paid for each pound of flame magistones initially, then have the craftsmen pay only slightly more than that for however much the trader manages to actually obtain. That should minimize the trader’s losses.”

“That makes sense,” I replied. It felt to me like the craftsmen would be getting a sort of raw deal, in the end, but on the other hand, they could make up for it by raising the price of the heaters once they were finished. I could even promise to purchase one myself for an even higher price to sweeten the bargain. We had a fireplace in the estate, yes, but a proper heater could have made life a lot more comfortable during winter.

“Hmm…” Licia thought for a moment longer, then nodded. “That’s all I can think of, I’m afraid. The rest will depend on how well you arbitrate the deal, Sir Ars.”

I was convinced. Her plan was as good as I was going to get, and with that settled, I intervened in the argument, explained that both sides were in the wrong for not coming to my family in the first place, and offered Licia’s proposal as a means to minimize the damages all around. Neither side was wildly enthusiastic about the plan, to be sure, but I somehow managed to convince them to accept the terms.

I didn’t think anyone was really happy with how the situation turned out, in the end, but at the absolute least, nobody looked like they were about to start throwing punches anymore. It seemed likely that the conflict was well and truly settled. The negotiations, however, had taken quite a long time, and the sun was already starting to set when we finished. Licia and I had no choice but to make our way back to my family’s estate.

All things considered, the date was a disastrous failure. My one solace was that Licia didn’t seem particularly bothered. She’d really managed to impress me, when all was said and done─it was hard to believe that a girl of her age could come up with a way to resolve a conflict that messy, though.

I was even more convinced than ever that the friendly, appealing way she conducted herself was calculated. If she was that smart, then reading people and playing to their desires was a piece of cake, right? Hell, part of me was starting to suspect that she’d been reincarnated into this world, just like me!

“You’re frowning, Sir Ars,” said Licia, peeking over at my face. “Is something the matter?”

“Oh, no, not exactly!” I replied. “I was just thinking that this ended up being a pretty lousy date. I’m sorry about all the trouble.”

“Lousy? No, not at all! I was very impressed by how you conducted yourself, Sir Ars!”

“Impressed? By what? All I did to help was offer your idea as a solution. I barely contributed anything at all, really.”

Licia shook her head and replied, “The idea was mine, yes, but you’re the one who convinced them to accept it. They would never have considered your proposal so readily if they didn’t already have faith in you as their lord. It’s clear to me now that your people adore you.”

She certainly does know how to flatter a guy.

I was chagrined to realize that I’d inadvertently put myself in Licia’s debt. She hadn’t demanded a favor in return yet, but if I let myself get too indebted to someone with Ambition as high as hers, she was sure to use it as leverage sooner or later.

Paying her back right away was probably out of the picture, unfortunately, but even more than that, I wished that I could learn a little about what really made Licia tick deep down. I wouldn’t have felt safe marrying her unless I had a decent grasp of her personality. I kept brooding over the question as we walked back to my estate. Finally, our conversation took a turn that gave me the chance I needed to start learning more about her.

“What sort of people do you find appealing, Sir Ars? Just for the sake of reference,” asked Licia.

“Hmm,” I said, sensing an opportunity. “I suppose I like people who don’t keep secrets from me. I always appreciate spending time with people who don’t hold their true opinions back and don’t sugarcoat things. Life’s much more enjoyable that way, in my opinion.”

I wasn’t expecting her to actually spill the beans just like that, of course, but I was hoping her reaction might give me some clues. I wasn’t exactly lying, either─even in my previous life, I’d thought that marrying a woman who didn’t mince words would have been nice.

“I see! I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Licia. I might have been imagining it, but it felt like she’d paused for just a split second beforehand. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long enough for me to know if my response had rattled her.

Looks like dragging out Licia’s true feelings isn’t going to be quite that easy, I thought to myself as we made our way back to my estate.

○

We arrived home just in time for dinner, and after that, it was time for the entertainment I’d arranged. The performers had been preparing themselves while Licia and I were in town, it seemed, and their act went off without a hitch. The music was only the beginning─they also put on a magically-enhanced dance performance, which I personally thought was quite remarkable. Licia seemed to enjoy the whole event, so I figured I could call it a success overall.

After the performance, all that was left was for us to say goodnight and retire to our chambers. I’d learned over the course of the day that she was, in fact, planning to return home the following morning. It seemed my assumption on that front had been safe after all. I just had to have breakfast with her, present her with her gifts, and see her off! Whether or not she’d like said gifts was still up in the air, of course.

Our date was a failure, but Licia hadn’t seemed particularly bothered by it. One way or another, the day had ended without any major problems. The only remaining issue was that I still didn’t have a handle on Licia’s personality or way of thinking at all. She couldn’t have been just a plain old nice girl, considering her Politics and Ambition scores.

Meh, it’s not like today will be my only chance to figure her out. I can just put the pieces together bit by bit every time I meet her, I thought as I snapped my sheets to make my bed…and just about jumped out of my skin in shock.

Somebody was under my covers. At first, I thought that one of my siblings was playing a prank on me, but no, it wasn’t either of them. My bed’s occupant had blonde hair and happened to be somewhere around ten years old. In short…

“Is something wrong, Sir Ars?”

…it was Licia!

I was so shocked, so utterly incapable of comprehending why she would be there of all places, that I didn’t even understand what she was asking.

“Did I startle you?” Licia asked.

“Y-Yes, you certainly did,” I somehow managed to reply.

“I could tell! Your eyes opened as wide as dinner plates, and you made the most adorable face,” she said with a grin. And not the friendly, sociable grin I’d seen her put on throughout the day, either─this was the grin of a mischievous little troublemaker.

Honestly, I had no idea what she was doing in my room, and the wheels in my mind were spinning on overdrive to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do about it. I’d thought that all I had left to do that day was go to bed, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Umm,” I began. “You do know this isn’t your room, right, Lady Licia? Did one of our servants lead you to the wrong chamber, perhaps?”

“No, not at all! They did a splendid job and led me exactly where I was supposed to go. I simply slipped out afterward!”

I didn’t lock my door, so I guess getting inside wouldn’t have been much of a challenge. Who told her which room was mine, though? I guess they wouldn’t have any reason to withhold the info if she claimed she just wanted to chat, but…

“And why, exactly, did you do that?” I asked.

“You’re a very composed person, Sir Ars, and not particularly expressive. I just wanted to see what sort of face you make when you’re shocked, that’s all!” Licia explained. Wasn’t much of an explanation, in my book, but maybe that was just me.

Part of me really wanted to ask where this side of her personality had been hiding all day, and Licia seemed to guess what I was thinking from the look on my face. She pushed herself into a sitting position on my bed.

“You told me this afternoon that you prefer being around people who speak their mind and don’t keep secrets, didn’t you? Well, I thought that, if that were the case, it would be nice to have a chance to talk, just the two of us. Scaring you was simply a bonus.”

Hearing that explanation finally helped me calm down a little. She hadn’t reacted much when I mentioned that I preferred honesty, but it seemed the statement had more of an impact on her than I’d initially thought.

“Well…I’m pleased to hear it, and I would love to chat,” I replied. “I want to get to know you better, as a matter of fact.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to draw out her true nature. That said, I was still very confused as to why she’d put herself in this position. The one thing I now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was that the persona she’d projected throughout the afternoon really was just an act.

“Oh my! Now I’m all flustered,” said Licia. “But as it so happens, I was hoping to get to know you better as well. For instance, I would love to know─what do you think of me?”

“…What do you mean?” I cautiously asked.

“I have a certain talent. When I speak with someone, I can more or less tell how they feel about me by carefully observing the look on their face. The first time we met, Sir Ars, you looked at me with immediate suspicion.”

A “certain talent”? She can “more or less tell” what people think of her? Could it be that she has a skill similar to my Appraisal?

I was shocked to realize that she had that sort of power─almost as shocked as I was to realize that she’d been fully aware of my doubts throughout the day.

“Distrusting someone you’ve only just met isn’t all that rare, to be fair,” continued Licia. “Plenty of people are wary by nature. Normally, though, I can dispel that distrust simply by speaking with them for a minute or two. You, however, spoke with me for hours on end, and even worked your way out of a difficult situation thanks to my advice, yet not only did your misgivings not vanish─they deepened, of all things! And then, at the very end, you tried to draw out my true intentions with a leading question! What is it about me that you find so suspicious, Sir Ars?”

As Licia spoke, I did my best to read her expression. She seemed somewhat agitated, and perhaps even a little frustrated. As best as I could tell, she was irritated that she hadn’t managed to sway my opinion of her in the way she’d hoped.

She’d earned the trust and affection of who knows how many people with her conversational skills, which probably made my immovability all the more frustrating. That was why she’d taken the risk of overplaying her hand and revealing her true nature.

Come to think of it, maybe she went out of her way to hide in my bed and scare me to vent her frustration…

“I have a talent as well, Lady Licia. I can perceive people’s abilities, aptitudes, and ambition to move up in the world,” I explained.

I’d resolved to tell her all about my power. She opened up to me, so keeping quiet about myself wouldn’t exactly have been fair, right? Not to mention that I was going to marry her at some point. If I was going to have to tell her eventually, I figured I might as well get it over with. I couldn’t tell if she believed me, but she did look a little shocked, at least.

“That’s how I know that you’re overwhelmingly more ambitious than almost anyone else I’ve ever met, and that you have the political talent to back it up,” I continued. “And it’s also why I suspected that the way you were acting was just a front.”

For a moment, Licia just sat there silently, but finally, she spoke up once more and said, “I suppose there’s no room for doubt─that talent of yours is certainly real. After all, I’m rather aware of my own ambitions.”

“What are they? What is it you wish to do?” I asked.

“There’s only one ambition that a Summerforthian woman could possibly have: to find a man of power and status to fall for,” she replied. Saying it was the only ambition possible seemed like a bit of an overstatement to me, but considering the world we lived in, she was probably more right than I knew.

“Wouldn’t you be opposed to marrying a man like me, then?”

“Yes, quite. As a matter of fact, I was seriously considering breaking off our engagement prior to my departure,” Licia admitted. “After what you just told me, though, I’ve reconsidered the matter.”

“You have? Why?”

“As things stand, you are indeed nothing more than the successor to a petty lord’s insignificant domain. Your power, however, changes matters. With it at your disposal, I’m confident that you will rise far beyond your current station. Thus, I’ve changed my mind. I want to marry you now, Sir Ars.”

I could hardly think of a more mercenary reason to marry someone. I was the one who said that I wanted to know how she truly felt, so I’d literally asked for this, but now that I actually did know where she was coming from, I was finding it rather hard to muster a response.

“Well, I’m certainly happy to hear it. I’m in favor of our marriage as well,” I finally replied. I wasn’t being entirely honest─frankly, I had my fair share of worries about the whole idea. I had a feeling that Licia would be the staunchest of allies I could hope for, so long as I took care to only show her my good side. But the moment I let her catch a glimpse of my weakness, the odds were distressingly high I’d receive a dagger in the back for my trouble.

I didn’t have much of a choice, though. The son of an upstart lord being engaged to marry another lord’s daughter was something of a rarity, so if I didn’t marry her, I might never get an opportunity like that again. Plus, on a more personal note, I actually found her scheming side a little charming.

Romance didn’t seem to be in the cards for the two of us, which was a shame, but I knew there was no point in setting my expectations too high. Our parents had arranged our marriage out of a sense of friendship, and I would’ve been happy if the two of us just happened to fall for each other, but Licia was clearly a hardcore utilitarian type. After everything I’d seen from her, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn she had no interest in love on the whole.

“I’m relieved to hear you say so! And with that, I bid you goodnight,” said Licia as she got off my bed. I’d thought she would want to chat for a little while longer, but no, she was already on her way out the door before I could even react.

I guess she’s satisfied now that she knows why I suspected her.

I breathed a sigh of relief as she shut the door behind her. It had been a surprising, and somewhat harrowing, conversation, but I had managed to learn what sort of person she really was, so it was fruitful overall. I would’ve been an anxious wreck if she’d gone on her way before I pinned her personality down. I climbed into bed and pulled the covers over me, my mood considerably cheerier than it had been a few minutes prior.

As I drifted off to sleep, I smelled something unfamiliar. It took me a little while to realize that Licia had been hiding in that very bed just moments earlier…and that I was smelling her. The aroma was so pleasant that it lulled me to sleep in no time flat.

○

Licia let out a quick sigh of relief as she closed the door to Ars’s room. A moment later, she smiled─not the fake smile that she wore for show in public, and not the mischievous smile she’d worn in front of Ars moments earlier. No, this was a true, natural smile.

What in the world am I so happy about? Licia asked herself. But in truth, she already knew the answer: she was happy because Ars had said that he wanted to marry her.

Between Licia’s ability to perceive what others thought of her, her talent for conversation, and her natural charms, the majority of the people she’d met had quickly taken a liking to her. She was beloved by all, young and old, man and woman alike, so at some point along the way, she started taking the affection that people afforded her for granted.

That had made it more than a little difficult to cope with Ars’s unrelenting suspicion. She was frustrated and irritated with him─after all, what had she done to deserve his distrust?─but at the same time, she’d somehow found herself irresistibly drawn to him. Licia had yet to figure out where those feelings of hers stemmed from, but the one thing she did know for sure was that she needed Ars to fall for her, one way or another. That, clearly, was why she’d been so incredibly happy when he said he was in favor of their marriage.

He does want to marry me now, yes…but it doesn’t seem like he’s fallen in love with me just yet. He will, though, one of these days! I’ll see to it that he does!

Licia had resolved Ars’s suspicions by revealing her true nature to him, but she knew it would take more than that to fully ensnare him with her charms. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that something so simple could steal a man’s heart.

In fact, on some level, she’d expected him to turn on her once her secret was out. She’d made her move anyway because, in her mind, being outright hated by him would have still been better than putting up with his unstated suspicion. In that sense, the fact that she’d exited the situation without earning his animosity meant that she’d come out ahead. Licia could be quite the optimist when the circumstances called for it.

The beginning was an absolute disaster, though. At least I managed to fool him, I suppose…

“The beginning,” of course, meant the part where she’d been caught in Ars’s bed. She’d told him that she’d wanted to see him in a state of surprise, but that was an outright lie. The simple truth of the matter was that the moment she’d fully registered the fact that it was his bed, she’d been afflicted with an irresistible urge to crawl right into it. She’d known it was an awful idea, too, but she just couldn’t stop herself.

When Ars had walked into the room while she was still under the covers, Licia had nearly drowned in her own cold sweat. She’d barely had the time to come up with an excuse before he tried to climb into bed himself. The part where she said that the look of shock on his face was adorable, incidentally, had been entirely true.

Licia thought back to the smell of Ars’s bed, as well as the look on his face when he’d realized she was in it, and found herself grinning all over again. In the end, on the way back to her room for the night, she smiled the entire time.

○

The next morning, Licia ate breakfast with us, I presented her with her gifts, and then she went off on her way back to Torbequista. She gave me the brightest smile I’d ever seen when I handed her gifts to her─natural and cheerful enough that I just couldn’t imagine it was an act. Knowing her, though, even if she was genuinely pleased, the choice to show that fact off had almost certainly been deliberate.

A few days later, I received a letter from her. It was a simple enough report, thanking me for my hospitality and informing me that she was taking good care of the flowers I’d given her. Etiquette dictated that I send a reply, so I wrote up a response and sent it off to her at the first opportunity.

It wasn’t long before I started receiving letter after letter from her at a remarkably fast pace. They were never about anything important, either. Just childish reports on her daily affairs and idle grumbling, for the most part. I couldn’t simply ignore them, however─again, etiquette and all─so I sent a reply each and every time. However, it wasn’t long at all before I ran out of things to write about. Forcing myself to fill up a letter every time quickly became a major source of stress in my life.

Why is she sending all these letters, anyway? Is she testing the extent of my vocabulary? Or maybe the answer’s surprisingly simple, and she just honestly enjoys hearing from me…? No, that’s absurd. It’s definitely not that.

Aside from my ongoing correspondence with Licia, nothing in particular had changed in my life. I hadn’t found any exceptional people to recruit as of late, but regardless, I was already running up against the limitations of a small noble house’s resources. House Louvent simply didn’t have the funding to employ many more retainers.

Thus, a year and a half passed without any major incident…until one day, my father collapsed.