Mushoku Tensei Redundancy (LN) - Volume 1 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Norn’s Betrothal (Part 2)

LEAVE IT TO ME. 

With those words, I went straight to laying the groundwork for the marriage. Norn was on board, so now the only question mark was Ruijerd. Considering his age, he ought to leap at the chance to marry my little sister. Plus, marrying into my family would serve the Superd too. Since days of yore, marriage had often served to solidify alliances. A marriage between Norn and Ruijerd ensured the Superd wouldn’t turn against the Dragon God, and on our side, it meant we wouldn’t abandon the Superd. It was a win-win situation.

But still, was that enough? And would this make Norn happy? If Ruijerd married her because he had to, would that be what she wanted? Could she hold back her tears when she realized he didn’t love her?

Currently, Ruijerd was responsible for the negotiations with the Biheiril Kingdom. That meant Norn would live not in the Magic City of Sharia, but in the Superd village. At least after what happened there, all the villagers seemed to know her face and name; they would probably welcome her. But would Norn be able to cope surrounded by people of a different species and an entirely different culture from Sharia? Worst case, Norn might even end up living alone in a nearby town. 

I was worried. Genuinely worried. 

When I asked my wives about it, Roxy said, “It’s Norn. I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Eris said, “It’s Ruijerd. They’ll be fine,” and Sylphie said, “You’re overthinking it.”

They were sure it would be fine, but still, I worried. I couldn’t bear Norn being unhappy. If she ended up ­crying, I’d have to face Paul’s resentful gaze in my dreams while Zenith sat at my bedside and slapped me in my sleep. For their sake as well, I had to give Norn the best chance to be happy—but even then, it would be up to her what she did with it.

I could trust Ruijerd, of course. I knew that even if he didn’t truly love Norn, he would give her everything she was due as his wife. He would ensure she had no reason to cry. Still, I needed to be sure. What if I set up an event to nudge the two of them together? I might be able to steer Ruijerd’s feelings toward Norn and make sure they would be happy.

“Right,” I said to myself. 

That was how I ended up in the Biheiril Kingdom in the Superd village. Just a few months earlier, it had been under heavy construction, but now it was back to looking like a village again. It was surrounded by a tall palisade, within which there were houses and empty vegetable patches. When the Superd warriors saw me, they bowed their heads and warmly welcomed me into the village. I nodded back at them by way of greeting, then hurried off to Ruijerd’s house. It was a new build, of course.

Ruijerd’s house was big, maybe because he was a fairly important person in the village now. Yep, this was plenty of space for two—and kids.

“Ruijerd,” I asked tentatively, “are you home?”

“Rudeus?” he answered. Maybe he’d just finished a meal—he was sitting cross-legged in front of the hearth, his eyes shut as though he’d been meditating.

Without a word, I sat down in front of him. I was kneeling. At that, Ruijerd opened his eyes and looked at me questioningly.

“What is it?” he asked. 

I held up a hand to him. “Give me a moment, please. I’m working out what to say.”

“All right.” 

I lapsed into silence, staring into the flickering flames for what felt like an hour. Strange as it sounds, I hadn’t given any thought to what I should say. I knew what I had to ask: How did he feel about Norn? Did he like her? Hate her? Could he see himself marrying her?

The question was how to say it. Wanna marry Norn? Something like that? No, scratch that. Getting married and how he felt were two different issues. I couldn’t forget that.

I stayed quiet, but Ruijerd didn’t try to make conversation. He patiently waited for me to speak as though we had all the time in the world. I didn’t know what he had to do that day, but he was a busy man. He’d be like this with Norn too, I was sure. Maybe Norn would get annoyed at him for it. Maybe she’d snap at him to say something.

Nah, it was probably that side of Ruijerd that Norn had fallen in love with. A person you can be comfortably silent with is a rare thing. Though, admittedly, I was a bit uncomfortable.

“Norn made me tea the other day, and she was actually quite good at it,” I said, fishing for a reaction.

“Well, well. Norn making tea.”

A nibble from Ruijerd. Maybe he was interested in Norn after all. Had I cleared the first hurdle, then…?

Hold on, though. If a guy says something after being silent for a full hour, of course you’d latch on, no matter what he said.

Settle down, Rudeus. Conversation is all in the flow.

“Apparently, she’s always making tea at work, and that’s how she improved.”

“I see… I once drank tea she made when she came to the village. It was very good.”

Ruijerd smiled at the memory. So he’d had Norn’s tea before, had he? Maybe he wanted to drink it again. Maybe he was thinking he’d like her to make it every day just for him…

Dammit, how do I ask the question? I could do with some options. Is this how Orsted feels when he talks to me? How the heck do I do this?!

“Not only can she make tea, her cooking isn’t bad either.”

While I hesitated, the conversation still flowed.

Wait just a minute. What was that? Home cooking?

“You’ve tried her cooking?”

“I have.”

Norn’s home cooking? When even I’ve never tasted it?

“You don’t say…”

I wondered what she’d cooked. Meat and potato stew? Curry? Maybe beef stroganoff? I wanted some too. I wanted to taste Norn’s home cooking!

Never mind, this wasn’t about me.

He said it “wasn’t bad,” which meant it hadn’t been a disaster. Maybe she wouldn’t find her way to his heart through his stomach, but it seemed she wasn’t a total failure in the kitchen. I wouldn’t see Ruijerd waste away after the wedding, then.

“Has something happened with Norn?” Ruijerd asked, cutting through my thoughts. How perceptive of him.

Well, okay. After I’d come in here looking all serious and brought up Norn out of nowhere, I guess it was the obvious question.

“No, um… Nothing in particular. I was just, you know, making small talk.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite have the courage to ask him straight-up yet.

Do you like Norn? Do you love her? Could you take her in your arms right this second and kiss her?

What if I asked, and he said he didn’t like her at all? That he couldn’t marry her, and even if he did, he wouldn’t love her…? I couldn’t help but wonder. It’d be a major shock for me, for sure. I might start a fight right here. You saying my Norn isn’t good enough for you?! 

“Norn’s an adult now and even has a job, but in some ways, she’s still very much a kid… I mean, she doesn’t seem to have any interest in guys at all. I sometimes worry if she’ll be able to find a husband, you know?” I said, then looked at Ruijerd. Maybe I’d been too obvious—Ruijerd looked suspicious.

Eventually, he said, “Is it not human custom for the choice of marriage partner to be left to the head of the family? Are you not the one who will choose Norn’s husband?”

“No, no, no. We aren’t nobility, you see. I kind of feel like it might be good to let Norn choose a husband for herself, kind of, um…” I stole a glance at Ruijerd, but his expression hadn’t changed. Actually, no. There was a hardness on top of the suspicion now. He didn’t think I was shirking my responsibility, did he?

“No, don’t worry! If Norn brought back some good-for-nothing, I’d throw him out on his ear. I’d tell him, ‘If you want Norn, you’ll have to go through me first!’ I’m not about to hand Norn over to just anybody!”

I rushed to make an excuse. It’d be a disaster if Ruijerd thought I was irresponsible just before I offered him Norn. I couldn’t think exactly how it’d go wrong, but it absolutely could.

“You mean to say that anyone who wishes to take Norn for a bride must defeat you first?”

“No…! He doesn’t absolutely need to be strong or anything! But! It’s just, well, how should I put it… Grit! That’s it, I want him to show me he’s got grit.”

Heck, I was a coward, but I didn’t run. Anyone who wanted to marry Norn had to have the guts to stand and fight even when he knew he couldn’t win. That was it.

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

Obviously, Ruijerd had nothing to worry about there. I tried to convey that to him with another surreptitious glance, but his face was immobile—the hard look hadn’t wavered…

Maybe he wasn’t interested in Norn after all. It was probably only natural. To him, Norn was a child. Ever since they’d met when she was little, she’d always been a weak child. And Ruijerd wouldn’t lust after a child. He wasn’t that sort of guy.

“Ruijerd, I… I’m just going to ask straight-up.”

“Very well.”

I mean, I still had to ask. Just in case. Even if it ended up being too bad for Norn. I couldn’t jump to conclusions based only on his expression. Time for me to bite the bullet.

“How do you feel about Norn?” I asked.

Ruijerd was silent. He glared at me, not saying a word, his expression hard as stone. The suspicion was totally gone.

Hmm. That was weird. Usually, I’d have expected Ruijerd to answer straight away. Did he consider her a child or an adult?

I steeled myself.

“Do you…have feelings for Norn?” I had to be blunt. Had I made a mistake? Maybe it would have been better coming from Norn. 

“Ah,” Ruijerd murmured. Then, as though making up his mind, he got to his feet. He took his spear from where it stood propped up.

“Rudeus,” he said at last. “Go out the front.”

I looked up at him, not comprehending what he meant. 

In response to my hesitation, Ruijerd said in an even stronger tone, “Go out.”

“All right.” The intensity in his voice left no room for argument. I readily obeyed.

We left the Superd village and walked for fifteen minutes or so into the forest of the Ravine of the Earthwyrm. Deep in among the trees, the forest suddenly opened on a clearing. There, Ruijerd and I faced one another.

Ruijerd’s expression had been grim the whole time. Maybe I’d made him angry somehow. It seemed that asking him if he had feelings for Norn after that talk had been a mistake after all. I guess he thought I was offering Norn up for the sake of politics or something. This was Ruijerd. He’d be a man and say, “As her older brother, Norn is yours to protect. Do not use her to curry favor with some stranger.” He was reliable like that.

“You realized long ago, then.”

This was unexpected. I stared at him blankly. What had I supposedly realized? What was I supposed to have realized? Me, the guy who right now, at this very moment, was totally lost and confused? Me, who you couldn’t call perceptive even to be nice?

“Realized what?”

“There is no need to say more. Prepare yourself!”

When people said, “no time to protest,” this is what they meant. I obviously didn’t have the Eye of Foresight open, and without it, there was no way I could keep up with Ruijerd.

“Yow!” Ruijerd was on me in an instant, sending me sprawling on the ground. Still, compared to a decade or so earlier, I was a better class of loser. My daily training regimen paid off—I was just barely able to react. Ruijerd’s spear had come slashing from the right. I blocked it with the Magic Armor Version Two’s gauntlet. Ruijerd followed up with a low kick that I raised one leg to block, leaving me standing on one foot. He twirled his spear around to take out my pivot leg with its butt.

“Well?” Ruijerd pressed the point of his spear into my neck, looking down impassively at me.

“I give up. You win.”

I had no idea what he was asking. There was nothing else I could say. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t stab me through the throat, but I’d lost.

“Was that good enough?”

What are you talking about? Was what good enough?

“If anything, I think it was me who wasn’t good enough.”

“It…was sufficient, then?”

What was supposed to be sufficient? He’d knocked me down like it was nothing. I’d only embarrass myself if I tried to say any more.

“I think so,” I said. With that, Ruijerd drew his spear back. I pushed myself up to a sitting position. Even I could tell how pathetic I must have seemed as I looked up at Ruijerd.

Then, he said something bizarre.

“Then as promised, I claim your sister.”

Claim? My sister’s hand? What about my sister? Did I promise that? Hold on. What are we talking about again?

The thread of the conversation had slipped away from me a bit.

“It is as you suspected.”

What did I suspect?

“I would be bound in wedlock with Norn.”

“Wed…lock…” I desperately tried to remember what that meant. Right. Matrimony. The state of marriage.

“Huh?” So Ruijerd loved Norn?

Hold up. Don’t get ahead of yourself! You’ve got a bad habit of getting things mixed up.

“You mean, you…about Norn…”

After a long pause, Ruijerd said, “I love her.”

Was it possible he was joking? Was he planning that I’d be so delighted, I’d tell him I agreed to him marrying Norn on the spot, and then when I actually brought Norn in dressed in her bridal kimono, Ruijerd would pop up, saying “You got punked!”? It’d be a crushing emotional blow for me. Norn might even take to her bed. This was the Man-God’s plot, for sure.

Damn it all, Ruijerd was a disciple of the Man-God!

“Are you joking? Or is this some sort of prank?”

“This is no joke,” Ruijerd said, looking a little offended. He never joked, and this was no exception.

“Since when?” I asked.

“Since the battle in the Biheiril Kingdom several months ago. She selflessly tended to me at that time.”

It was true—they’d been inseparable back then. Very domestic. But had that really been more than a one-sided attachment on Norn’s part? I thought maybe she’d hung around mooning over him while he was oblivious.

“I did not act on my feelings, of course.”

Would he have acted if she hadn’t been my little sister? I guess so. That was what happened in the usual loops, according to Orsted—and then Norn would become a woman, a bride, and a mother.

“But you realized, I see. I assume that is why you came here so abruptly and asked.”

I was silent.

He’s gotta be kidding. All I knew was that Norn loved him—I had no idea it was mutual. I have the perceptive powers of a brick. 

“I reiterate: it is my wish to take Norn as my wife.” Ruijerd raised the spear he’d held to my neck. “To that end, I have demonstrated my grit.”

Oh, so that’s what this was? A duel, to show me his grit?

But it was like…how do I put this? It was too easy. Everything was going too smoothly. Is it a trap? Who’s trying to trap whom? I have no idea. What’s going on here?

I spoke sitting right there on the ground while looking up at Ruijerd. “…Is it all right with your last wife and your son?” Because I didn’t understand, I decided to keep asking questions.

“I am not clinging to the past.”

It did ring a bell that he’d told me he just hadn’t met the right person.

When I didn’t stand up, Ruijerd stabbed his spear into the ground, then sat down cross-legged beside me. I shifted to kneeling. Now our eyes were on the same level.

“In other words…” Ruijerd said just that, then he frowned and looked down, pressing his lips together.

After I’d shown up out of nowhere and exposed his true feelings, he’d made up his mind to go on the ­offensive and brought me all the way out here to show me his mettle. However, he’d never been good with words. He was probably still working out what he wanted to say, what he ought to say. 

Maybe I’d rushed this. I hadn’t needed to set the two of them up straight away just because of what Orsted had told me. Maybe I should have thought up a more indirect strategy to bring them together. Like, if Norn were kidnapped, and I asked Ruijerd to save her… No, scratch that. That would only capture Norn’s heart, so maybe I’d lure Ruijerd into a trap. Norn would hate me for it, though.

As I was stewing, Ruijerd spoke. “I had expected to one day marry a human.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because of you, the Superd are recovering. The people of the Biheiril Kingdom and the ogre tribe have welcomed us warmly. As it was with the ogres, one day, one of the Superd will form a bond of blood with one of the royal family or the nobility. It has been proposed that in that case, the first should be me.”

“Huh.” They’d talked that over…? Well, that made sense. Ruijerd’s position in the village was as a sort of advisor to the village head. He was an old, respected war hero. Like the village idol… Well, not quite like that, but he was sort of like a guardian angel. He would marry some Biheiril princess or noblewoman. For the Biheiril Kingdom, that’d mean peace of mind, as the Superd would then protect the kingdom.

“But if I were allowed to choose… Rudeus, I would join your family.”

I felt something warm blossom in my heart. The friendship of the Biheiril Kingdom would help the Superd. No doubt it would help them far more than blood ties with my family. But Ruijerd chose my family. He chose me!

Wait, not me! Thank goodness. I was about to turn into Girldeus.

At that moment, something occurred to me.

“You’re happy with Norn, then?”

“What do you mean?” Ruijerd looked dubious.

“Norn is… How can I put this? She’s, well, pretty selfish. She sometimes says insensitive things without really thinking about the consequences. If, hypothetically, you had a fight as husband and wife, she might tactlessly blurt something out about your past.”

Ruijerd was silent. I hadn’t expected that to come out of my mouth, and I regretted it. I was here to support Norn. I needed to talk up her good points, but she did have some shortcomings.

“I think she has the hang of all the housework, but I can’t say if she’ll be any good at it if it’s her main occupation. She can learn, but she’s not very good at applying what she learns or working things out, and she usually messes things up the first time. It’s easy in Sharia, but in the Superd village, I’m sure there’ll be a lot to figure out. She might be a real burden.”

Look, there are other women of marriageable age in my family. Like, say, Aisha. To be honest, Aisha is more talented than Norn. She can do housework, and she can look after kids. There’s nothing Norn can do that Aisha can’t. I can’t help but wonder if you’d really be happy with Norn. 

I wanted to support Norn, but I also liked Ruijerd. I wanted them both to be happy, so I needed to be sure neither would be dissatisfied.

“But that is the result of her doing her very best, is it not?” Ruijerd countered. “I know Norn. I know her strengths and flaws.” I was at a loss for words. Ruijerd continued insistently. “You do too, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

Norn had lots of good points. I didn’t know that much about what Norn was like these days, but she had learned to care about other people. People had stopped comparing her to Aisha, so she’d stopped being unnecessarily ­servile. She didn’t get hysterical as much, and she didn’t fight with Aisha anymore. She was caring too. She didn’t take the respect home with her, but her classmates and the younger students admired her. She’d had lots of friends at her fifteenth birthday party. Even now, younger students sometimes came to our house to ask Norn’s advice about their studies or the student council.

Norn tried her hardest at everything. She’d never be the best, but she was competent. Plenty of things didn’t come naturally for her, so maybe she didn’t seem like much of a catch. And when compared to Aisha, it was night and day.

But why compare them? Norn worked hard and made steady progress. She’d keep that up for the rest of her life because that was who she was. She was a good kid—a little sister I could be proud of.

Ruijerd knew how hard she tried. He didn’t need me to tell him about her strengths or weaknesses or how hard she worked. He loved it all.

“Do you promise to always protect Norn?” I asked him at last.

“Yes,” Ruijerd said firmly. Of course he would. He’d protect her till death parted them.

“I expect Norn will struggle after getting married, surrounded by people from a different race and separated from her family. Will you support her?”

“Yes,” Ruijerd vowed. He would for the rest of his life.

“Do you promise to keep loving her even when she gets sulky over nothing and says unkind things?”

“Yes.” 

I bet he’d hold her through it.

“Norn follows the Millis faith… Do you promise to stay faithful?”

“Yes.”

That one was obvious. Ruijerd wouldn’t be swayed by any woman’s charms.

“Norn’s an even bigger crybaby than me. You don’t mind that?”

“I do not. I will not give either of you reason to cry.”

Too late. Fat tears were streaming down my cheeks. Ruijerd spoke little, but his eyes were clear. “I do not mind. I understand all of that.”

The memory of our journey across the Central Continent after the displacement incident came back to me. So long as I was with Ruijerd, I felt safe. No matter what monsters came after us, Ruijerd kept us safe. 

Admittedly, he had some weaknesses when he wasn’t fighting monsters, but so does everyone. It’d be fine if Norn helped him in those areas. Given who she was now, I was sure she could do it. If not, Ruijerd would have never said he wanted to marry her.

The tension left my shoulders as relief washed over me.

“Take good care of my sister,” I said. Then finally, I bowed my head.