Chapter 002
The war hero, possessing incredibly sharp hearing, returned to the door like a bolt of lightning.
“Hmm? Did you have something to say to me after all?”
In truth, I didn’t have particularly good feelings toward Alpheus. It was just the objective reality of the situation.
Because of his appearance, the title of Marquis had slipped through my fingers right before my eyes. He was the being my mother had been wary of her entire life, fearing exactly this would happen. Therefore, even after impulsively calling out to him, I hesitated for a moment.
“Brisa, are you worried about being here without an adult? Is it a burden to be the representative of the fief while I’m away?”
Alpheus spoke soothingly to my hesitant self.
“But there’s my adjutant, Lancie, whom I mentioned earlier… and I’m leaving all the knights behind except for the elite squad. I’ve already told them to listen to you. I’ve instructed them to protect you well, so there shouldn’t be any issues with your safety while I’m gone.”
I swallowed hard. Then, I thrust an envelope containing a single dried herb through the crack in the door.
“Take this.”
“Huh?”
“Inside is Awakening Grass. At the Academy, we eat it when studying the night before an exam.”
I felt like this was an action even a person who wasn’t crazy could take. Of course, I could have said something like this:
“Listen, I just realized this world is inside a book. If you go now, half your body will be mangled and you won’t be able to return for three months. In the meantime, our fief will be ruined and everyone here, including me, will be slaughtered. After that, your personality will change 180 degrees, and though you’ll marry the female protagonist after overcoming all adversity, you’re going to suffer like hell until then.”
Then the conversation would have gone like this:
“Is—is that true? Really? Can I believe you?”
“No. To be objective, it’s more likely that I’ve finally lost my mind, just like my mother.”
Imagining it made me realize that wasn’t the way to go. Alpheus had made the decision to go to the capital for the sake of the fief. The situation was so urgent that he was leaving without even catching his breath. I didn’t want to make him revoke that decision. I had neither the certainty nor the evidence to justify it.
However, just in case, I could at least prepare for the worst-case scenario. I spoke clearly.
“Use it when you shouldn’t sleep but are too drowsy. Keep it on your person at all times.”
If this delusion truly was the future about to strike…
‘Then it will be of decisive help to Alpheus.’
I didn’t know Alpheus well yet, but I decided to help him for now.
‘I have to think coldly. Alpheus is my only guardian now, and if our relationship sours for no reason, I’m the only one who loses. I’m doing all this for my own sake. In the worst case, Alpheus could make me disappear without a trace.’
The original story said Alpheus was a good person. But realistically, that ‘original story’ was likely just my delusion. Thus, I had to keep my wits about me and approach him as cautiously as possible.
‘Will he take it? Is it too absurd?’
But I thought this much was fine. Wasn’t it something a normal person could give?
A moment of silence passed outside the door.
‘Does it just look like a useless weed? It’s expensive, though. I only have one left.’
Just as I was about to tell him the price of the Awakening Grass…
“Thank you…”
A voice thick with tears suddenly reached me.
“A token of luck and love from a family member… It’s the first time in my life I’ve received such a thing… I will cherish it close to my heart forever.”
His voice was excessively moved.
‘He has an unnecessarily sentimental personality.’
I felt relieved.
‘There’s no way he’ll leave it behind.’
* * *
Three days passed since then.
I stayed holed up in my room, waiting for the delusions to disappear. During that time, a letter of annulment arrived from my fiancé. An anonymous bouquet of flowers also arrived a short while later.
The maids were excited.
“Oh my goodness, it must be a young lord who had a secret crush on My Lady!”
“He must have been quietly waiting for My Lady’s engagement to end! Heavens, this is a very expensive bouquet! He must be quite wealthy too!”
The bouquet didn’t offer much comfort to my bitter heart after receiving the annulment, but it did have the effect of stopping the maids’ wailing. Quietly handling the annulment, I told the maids:
“I have one order. I don’t want things to get noisy, so don’t mention this to the people Alpheus brought with him.”
The maids exhaled sharply in excitement.
“There’s no need for such an order, My Lady. What would those uneducated people know about the affairs of a noble house?”
“Ah… I misspoke.”
I replied calmly.
“It turns out there are two orders I need to give. Don’t say things like that anymore, either.”
Even if I said that, they would surely show their feelings through their eyes. Such conflicts within the Marquis’s estate were exactly the same as in the original story.
The maids of the estate were all people my mother, the princess, had brought from the royal palace. To them, the suddenly appearing Alpheus and his group were ‘low-borns who had finally snatched away what belonged to Brisa.’
In fact, in the original story, ‘Brisa’ felt the same way. But the maids, including myself, are all cleared out early on.
‘…By starving.’
I inadvertently followed that train of thought before snapping out of it and vowing to myself.
‘No. Get it together. I’m not crazy. There’s no way my delusion is the real future.’
The anxiety about the half-brother who appeared out of nowhere. The strange guilt toward my mother. The helplessness regarding the annulment. The complex feelings toward my former fiancé. None of these were priorities right now.
‘Since when did I care so much about my own feelings?’
The most serious problem right now was whether my brain was functioning normally.
However, three days later.
Upon seeing the newspaper, I decided to simply accept that I was crazy.
[Western Monster Wave – Largest Scale in History]
‘This is also exactly the same as the future I came to know.’
Everyone in the Marquis’s estate regarded this as someone else’s business. But after an unprecedented monster wave hits the West—the breadbasket of the region—grain prices will skyrocket.
Right now, everyone thought, ‘Things are a bit bad, but they always have been.’ However…
‘The western grain merchants we have credit with will demand immediate repayment of our debts…’
Furthermore, something will happen to Alpheus, and he will lose contact. I clutched my head.
‘Survival is at stake.’
I couldn’t just sit back and watch.
‘If we don’t eat, we die.’
I didn’t even have the heart to set goals looking far into the future. With Alpheus gone, I was the representative of this fief. At this rate, let alone feeding the people, I wouldn’t even be able to take care of myself.
‘The story says that unable to endure the hunger, I fall for a relative’s trickery and end up on a ship being sold into slavery abroad along with the maids!’
In the midst of that, the knights Alpheus left behind to protect us give chase, but in the end, the ship sinks and everyone dies.
‘Ultimately, it’s all because of a lack of food. So, I must prepare for the coming food shortage.’
In truth, I didn’t remember ‘life in my previous existence’ very well. But I had a faint sense that I had a lot of knowledge regarding agriculture and livestock. I must have been someone who studied those things professionally.
I looked quietly at the books in my room. During my two years at the Academy, those were the only books I sought out in the library. Secretly, in the middle of the night, lest others insult me for being unbecoming of a noble.
Crops, farming methods, livestock, specialty products, agricultural economics… No wonder I found self-studying such things so fascinating.
The environment was different from my previous life, but in the grand scheme of things, there were many subtle similarities. Perhaps that was why I was so quick to learn and apply the knowledge.
‘To the extent that I even published numerous papers under a pseudonym.’
Until now, I couldn’t even understand that secret hobby of mine, but it seemed my interests from my previous life had carried over.
‘Fortunately, Alpheus said he told his people to listen to me. Even though he doesn’t even know me well.’
In any case, it was a stroke of great luck.
“Summon the knights immediately.”
Even though they were called the ‘Sayers Knights,’ they were all mercenaries Alpheus had left behind. The Marquisate never had the money to raise an army. In truth, it wasn’t a place that required a knight order of this scale.
However, they had already become the people of Sayers. If so, I had to protect them. Just as the knights had risked their lives to save me in the original story.
I reflected on that scene and made an objective assessment of them.
‘They probably eat a lot.’
And so, I summoned the laborers—no, the knights.
