Chapter 18
Chapter 18
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Something Better Than a Fiancée
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I boarded the carriage to meet my fiancée.
It felt too rude to show up empty-handed,
so I prepared a few small gifts.
"Ah, this is a bouquet. It should win her favor."
"Yes. Indeed."
"Do I look okay right now?"
"Yes."
"Am I... trembling?"
"You seem a bit tense."
My hands were shaking slightly from the nerves.
She wasn't my real fiancée, but...
Still, meeting a fiancée made my heart race.
Before possessing this novel, I'd been a lifelong singleton.
I wasn't the type who could charm women with words, lacking any natural charm,
so I decided to go with an extravagant bouquet and gifts to win her over materially.
In novels, protagonists who were hikikomori suddenly turned into alpha-male social butterflies once they possessed a game character...!
Unfortunately, I couldn't expect that kind of protagonist buff.
My life's genre wasn't light novel fantasy—it was survival humanist management.
"Will she like the bouquet?"
"No woman dislikes flowers. Especially not from her fiancé."
"She might have a pollen allergy."
"What's an allergy?"
"......"
"Ah. We're here."
Before I knew it, Torsso and I had arrived at the Goldenwood estate, chattering nervously the whole way.
It was called an estate, but it was just a slightly larger house.
Even among nobles, vast compounds with expansive gardens and multiple buildings like the Riddle estate were rare.
Torsso knocked on the door,
and soon a servant guided us inside.
It had looked small from outside,
but walking the corridor felt surprisingly long.
Maybe due to the tension.
"......Lady. Count Riddle, your fiancé, has arrived. May he enter?"
"Y-yes......"
The servant knocked on a door.
A frail response drifted out from within,
delicate as if it might scatter away at any moment.
This was my fiancée in this world.
The servant opened the door,
and I stepped inside cautiously.
It was a cozy parlor prepared for receiving guests.
A tea table covered in pristine white cloth.
A faint aroma of tea leaves permeating the space.
That clean, peaceful atmosphere
subtly divided guest from host.
By the window of the parlor stood a woman in a soft dress.
The woman opened her mouth with a gentle smile.
"I didn't expect Your Excellency to visit so suddenly. I'm embarrassed that I'm not fully prepared to receive you."
"......Please forgive my rudeness in coming unannounced."
"Hehe. What can be done? You're my fiancé, after all. What's that in your hand—a bouquet?"
"Ah. Yes."
"Thank you. What a lovely gift."
"......"
The moment our eyes met,
a chill washed over me like ice water.
"Staring like that makes me a little shy."
"......"
"......What's wrong?"
In the eyes of the woman standing by the window amid that precarious aura,
I sensed something familiar.
It was what I'd been forced to see to the point of nausea over the past winter.
After possessing this world,
living the life of the villain Karl,
it was what made me want to run away countless times.
Colder than winter's chill,
the signature empty gaze of someone who had lost their autonomous soul.
She had that look.
"......"
A political marriage.
The term "political" implies bargaining for political gain.
Thus, a political marriage is bargaining one's marriage.
Marriage means devoting one's life,
so a political marriage is haggling one's life away for the highest price.
The commodity: a child.
The payment: power.
She was a well-packaged product.
"......Lady Goldenwood."
"Yes."
"May I... hold your hand?"
"Hehe. Isn't asking permission a bit unromantic? I'm your fiancée, so feel free to take it."
I carefully removed the glove from my right hand.
She must know about the blessing in my right hand.
As my fiancée,
and since the engagement was formed for the sake of combining blessings, she would know the details.
Even so,
she extended her right hand to me without hesitation.
Peering into one's own past
must be burdensome,
yet she offered it subserviently, like a slave.
"My hand is so small... it's embarrassing."
"......"
Through her hand, memories lingering in her body flowed to me.
There were no special ones.
From childhood, she had received diligent education,
learned proper deportment,
and undergone what this era considered "slightly harsh" discipline.
The only unusual thing was her frail health.
That was it.
Truly, her memories revealed nothing more.
"Ah."
"......Your Excellency?"
It was truly horrifying.
Her youth held no childhood wanderings, no stormy rebellions.
She never strayed to others,
never acted unbecomingly.
Her world was this small estate, filled with utterly mundane experiences.
Because her "fiancé" possessed the ability to read the past.
"......"
The Riddle estate housed two kinds of slaves.
Those born into slavery,
and those who were once free but became slaves for some reason.
The memories of those born slaves were monotonous.
Their days were all the same,
their yesterday no different from today.
However,
those born free who became slaves had different memories.
Theirs had ups and downs.
Love, heartbreak, wandering, despair.
For example,
Lemon, the beggar-born slave, still had a hint of unended adolescence.
Mophin, who sold himself to a merchant for his family,
was a money-grubbing opportunist willing to do anything for talants.
Their lives had curves.
Even after enslavement,
deep in personal matters, those curves remained.
"......D-did I do something wrong?"
"......"
"Why the tears...?"
And the lady's memories were like those of a born slave.
Her life was packaged.
Her existence meticulously crafted to appeal to buyers.
To fetch the highest price,
to gain advantage in the haggling,
she had lived without even the slightest freedom, flawless as a product.
"......"
I didn't know.
Objectively,
claiming her plight equaled the slaves' would be the deceit of the privileged.
Between her, supping warm soup and white bread,
sleeping in soft beds,
and slaves eating thick gruel and black bread,
lying on cold floors,
there might be an unbridgeable gulf no one could call "the same."
Even if she wasn't "free,"
her life might be plenty rich and satisfying.
Wasn't it the dream of countless slaves?
"There was a reason the marriage contract was delayed..."
"Due to my frail health since childhood, I fell ill with a fever and made a small mistake. It's embarrassing..."
But,
I couldn't confidently say her life was better than a slave's.
The day before her coming-of-age ceremony,
in her memory, gripped by dizziness from a vicious fever, she fell from the window,
the estate not tall enough,
not savoring the weightless freedom of gravity for long—
a smile played on her lips.
When she opened her eyes again,
realizing she lay in bed,
tears welled in her eyes.
Indeed.
Guessing it wasn't a mere "mistake" or "accident"
wasn't hard.
"It must have been... very hard for you."
"I'm fine now. The broken bones healed... and no scars remain. We spent so much on holy healers that we couldn't prepare betrothal gifts, but we'll have them soon. I'm sorry for the delay."
Her life was what most slaves dreamed of.
Most slaves' dreams weren't freedom.
It was becoming a slave who ate hearty meat stew
and slept in soft beds.
But not all slaves were like that.
Some chose scripture over bread.
Some shared meat stew instead of straw bedding.
Some erected a friend's gravestone over warm gloves.
Living as a human is truly precious.
Worth cherishing more than life itself.
"......Lady."
"Yes."
So,
I had no choice but to make another choice.
"Wouldn't you like to live at the Riddle estate?"
"Pardon? Well, once the marriage contract is finalized..."
"No. Starting today."
"......Pardon?"
"I want to buy your blessing at a high price. I urgently need the blessing you possess. The marriage can come later."
"Pardon?"
"I'll hire you—that's what I'm saying."
The lady would now be
not my fiancée bound by political marriage,
but an employee bound by coin.
As a free woman.