Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The sharp-eared war hero was back at the door in a flash.
"Huh? Did you have something to say to me?"
Truthfully, I didn't have particularly warm feelings toward Alpheus.
It was simply the objective situation.
Because of his appearance, I had lost the marquess title right before my eyes.
He was the existence my mother had spent her whole life guarding against, precisely because she feared something like this would happen. So even after impulsively calling him over, I hesitated for a moment.
"Brisa, are you worried about being without an adult? Does it feel burdensome being the territory's acting representative while I'm gone?"
Alpheus spoke to me soothingly as I wavered.
"But there's my adjutant I mentioned earlier, Rangsi, and...... I'm leaving all the knights except the elite unit, and I've already told them to follow your orders. I've instructed them to guard you well, so there shouldn't be any particular problem with you staying safe even without me."
I swallowed dryly. Then I abruptly thrust an envelope containing a single dried herb through the gap in the door.
"Take this."
"Huh?"
"What's inside is Awakening Herb. At the academy, it's something you take when studying the night before an exam."
This seemed like something even a sane person could do.
Of course, I could also have said this.
"Hey, I've realized this world is inside a book. If you go now, half your body will be torn apart and you won't be able to return for three months. In the meantime, our territory will be ruined and everyone here, including me, will be slaughtered. After that, your personality will flip 180 degrees, and after overcoming every hardship you'll marry the female lead, but until then you'll go through hell."
Then the conversation would continue like this.
"R-really? Is that true? Can I believe you?"
"No. Judging objectively, it's more likely that I've simply lost my mind, just like my mother."
After imagining it, that didn't seem right.
Alpheus had made the decision to go to the capital for the territory's sake.
The situation was so urgent that he was departing without even catching his breath.
I didn't want to overturn that decision. I had neither the certainty nor the grounds to do so.
But just in case, I could at least prepare for the worst-case scenario.
I spoke clearly and distinctly.
"Use it when you're too sleepy but can't afford to fall asleep. Keep it on you at all times."
If by any chance this delusion was a future that would truly come to pass.......
'Then it would be a crucial aid to Alpheus.'
I still didn't know Alpheus well, but for now I decided to help him.
'I have to think coldly. Alpheus is now my only protector, and if our relationship goes wrong for nothing, I'm the only one who loses. This is all just something I'm doing for myself. Frankly, Alpheus could make me disappear without a trace if he wanted to.'
In the original novel, Alpheus was said to be a good person.
But by common sense, that "original novel" was most likely my delusion. So I had to stay sharp and approach him as cautiously as possible.
'Will he accept it? Is it too absurd?'
But this much seemed fine.
Wasn't it something a normal person could also give?
A brief silence followed beyond the door.
'Does it just look like useless grass to him? But it's expensive. I only have one left myself.'
I was just about to tell him the price of the Awakening Herb.
"Thank you......."
In that instant, a voice tinged with tears reached me.
"A token of luck and love from family...... I've never received one in my entire life....... I'll always keep it close to my heart."
It was an excessively moved voice.
'What a needlessly sentimental personality.'
I felt relieved.
'He won't leave it lying around.'
* * *
Three days passed after that day.
I shut myself in my room and waited for the delusion to disappear.
In the meantime, a letter ending my engagement arrived from my fiancé.
A little later, an anonymous bouquet arrived as well.
The maids were excited.
"Oh my, it must be a young nobleman who had a secret crush on my lady!"
"He must have been quietly waiting for my lady's engagement to end! Oh my, this is an incredibly expensive bouquet! He must be wealthy too!"
The bouquet did not ease the bitterness of receiving the letter ending my engagement, but it did stop the maids from wailing.
While quietly dealing with the broken engagement, I said to the maids,
"I'll give you just one order. I don't want this getting noisy, so don't mention this matter to the people Alpheus brought with him for no reason."
The maids huffed excitedly.
"There's no need for such an order, my lady. What would those uneducated brutes know about the affairs of a noble house like this?"
"Ah...... I misspoke."
I replied calmly.
"It turns out there were two orders I needed to give. Don't say things like that from now on, either."
Even so, they would make it plenty obvious with their eyes.
This internal conflict within the marquess's residence was also exactly the same as the original novel.
All the maids of the marquess's residence were people my mother, who had been a princess, had brought from the royal palace.
To them, Alpheus and his group, who had suddenly appeared, were "lowborn wretches who had finally come to steal what was Brisa's."
In fact, in the original novel, "Brisa" had been like that too. But the maids, including me, were all dealt with early on.
'......By starvation.'
I absentmindedly continued the thought, then startled and steeled myself.
'No. Get a grip. I haven't gone mad. There's no way my delusion is the real future.'
Anxiety about the half-brother who had suddenly appeared.
A strange sense of guilt toward my mother.
Helplessness over the broken engagement.
Complicated feelings toward my former fiancé.
None of these even made it onto my list of priorities right now.
'Since when did I pay attention to my own feelings?'
Right now, the most serious problem was whether my brain was functioning normally.
But three days later.
After reading the newspaper, I simply decided to accept that I had gone mad.
[Western Monster Wave - Largest Scale in History]
'This is exactly the same as the future I came to know.'
Everyone at the marquess's residence considered this someone else's problem.
But after an unprecedented Monster Wave struck the western granary region, grain prices would skyrocket.
Right now, everyone was thinking something like, "The situation is a bit bad. But it's always been like this." But.......
'The western grain merchants we have credit with will demand immediate repayment of our debts.......'
On top of that, Alpheus would end up losing contact due to circumstances.
I clutched my head.
'Survival is at stake.'
I couldn't just sit back and do nothing.
'If we don't eat, we die.'
I couldn't even bring myself to set goals looking at the distant future.
With Alpheus gone, I was now the acting representative of this territory.
At this rate, far from feeding the territory's people, I couldn't even take care of myself.
'Originally, I couldn't endure the starvation, fell for a relative's trick, and ended up boarding a ship with all the maids to be sold abroad as slaves!'
In the midst of that, the knight order Alpheus had left behind would chase after us to save us, but in the end the ship would sink and everyone would die.
'Ultimately, it all happens because we can't eat. So I have to prepare for the coming food shortage.'
Truthfully, I didn't remember "my life in a previous life" itself very well.
But vaguely, it seemed I had a great deal of knowledge in agriculture and livestock farming.
I was probably someone who had studied such things professionally.
I quietly gazed at the books in my room.
During my two years at the academy, I had only looked for such books in the library. Secretly, only in the middle of the night, for fear that people would curse me for being unbecoming of a noble.
Crops, farming methods, livestock, specialty products, agricultural economics...... Somehow, self-studying these things had been so enjoyable.
Every aspect of the environment was different from my previous life, but seen in broad strokes, there were many subtly similar points. Perhaps because of that, I learned and applied things quickly.
'Quickly enough that I even published a pile of papers under a pseudonym.'
Until now, even I hadn't been able to understand that secret hobby, but it seemed my interests from my previous life had carried over.
'Fortunately, Alpheus said he told his people to listen to me before he left. Even though he barely knows me.'
Either way, it was extremely fortunate.
"Summon the knight order right now."
The Sears Knight Order, such as it was, consisted entirely of former mercenaries Alpheus had left behind.
The marquisate had never had the money to raise soldiers. In fact, it wasn't even a place that needed a knight order of this size.
But they already served House Sears. That meant I had to protect them. Just as the knights had risked their lives to save me in the original novel.
I contemplated that scene and made an objective assessment of them.
'They'll eat a lot.'
And so I called in the laborers—no, the knights.