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Intermission 1: The Lioness Seeks Her Prey
— 1st month, 1549th year, Continental Calendar — Randel, Carmine Domain —
“Hey, Sir Bee,” Mio called out.
In the governmental affairs office in Randel, Mio and the Kingdom of Friedonia’s Minister of Finance, Colbert, were staring down piles of paperwork. Though he was called Colbert by Souma and Roroa, who found his surname easier to say, his given name was actually Gatsby, and Bee was a nickname Mio had come up based on that.
“...What is it, Madam Mio?” Colbert replied with a small sigh.
Mio clapped her hands together in front of her face. “Please. Marry me!”
“I don’t want to.”
“An instant reply?! You couldn’t pretend to think about it a little longer?!”
“If you keep asking repeatedly, I’m going to get fed up with it.”
If it came purely from affection, Colbert wouldn’t have dismissed it so callously. She was doing it in large part to escape from the work laid out in front of them, though, so it was hard to blame him for not being more delicate about it.
It all started back when Souma returned from Mercenary State Zem. He ordered a new investigation into Georg Carmine, who was seen as a traitor. The result of the investigation was that there emerged a possibility that Georg’s revolt had been a scheme to have the corrupt nobles swept away along with him, and it was highly likely that was what happened.
No matter what his reasons, the fact of his betrayal remained, and he couldn’t be declared not guilty. But, if his actions emerged from a pure sense of self-sacrificing loyalty, there was some room for leniency. Georg’s honor was restored, and his family, who he had cut ties with to protect them from joint responsibility, were allowed to return to the country. And so, though she couldn’t be given all of the former Carmine lands, the site of his former castle Randel and the lands surrounding it were passed to Georg’s daughter, Mio.
However, now that Mio had inherited the House of Carmine, she immediately got tripped up by something.
“I can’t manage a domain!”
As she sat sprawled across her desk in the governmental affairs office, the new lady was clutching her head. This was typical of those who were more martially inclined. Mio was a muscle head, and when she was pressed on not having learned the skills to manage Georg’s domain...
“I-I’ll take a husband who’s gifted in administrative tasks if I have to!”
She tried to dodge the issue.
Mio was a fairly capable warrior, but she had no skill whatsoever as an administrator, so even Georg had silently accepted the inevitability of it. But now, she was paying the price for neglecting her studies. When she first returned to Randel, Georg’s former subordinate Glaive Magna, along with others from the House of Magna, had helped her carry out her administrative tasks. However, the House of Magna had their own domain, too, and couldn’t keep helping Mio forever, so once the work that had piled up was sorted, they pulled out.
Also, though many members of the knightly class tasked managing their domain to a magistrate, because Souma had added the management of their lands to the criteria considered in promotions and demotions, the knights had begun competing over administrators, leading to a lack of talented ones available. Feeling pressured by the situation, Mio had gone running to the castle for help.
“We’re short of hands, and there’s no one to hire!” Mio asked with such urgency it seemed like she might get down on her knees and perform a kowtow. “Can’t you send someone?!”
She would welcome a husband who was a good administrator—to stay true to what she had told her father that day. Once it came to that, there was a face that flitted through Mio’s mind.
It belonged to Minister of Finance Colbert, whom she had met one day on a bridge on the border with the Principality of Amidonia, and then again in Zem. The Minister of Finance’s administrative prowess was impressive, and, despite being a bureaucrat, he’d had the guts to speak his mind to people like her father Georg and Prince Gaius who even the warriors feared. Her father had even said he was a promising young man.
From what she’d heard, Colbert was still single, too.
When she spoke to him in Zem, she had learned more about his mild disposition, and his sincerity, too. If someone like him would be willing to come marry her, Mio would be happy about it, and the House of Carmine would be secure, too. That’s why, when she made her request to the king, she had inserted a little of her own selfish desires, too.
“If possible, I would like to marry someone who can do mathematics, and have him manage the House of Carmine!”
Souma knew that she and Colbert were old acquaintances, so she figured he would probably know who she meant. And he did. Souma and his people didn’t want the House of Carmine, which they had gone to such trouble to reestablish, to immediately collapse. He and Hakuya talked it over and decided to send Colbert to assist her.
And so, Colbert came to Mio in Randel.
“It’s been a long time, Madam Mio. Since Zem, right?”
“Urgh... Sir Colbert, I’m glad you came.” There were tears in her eyes as she took his hand. Her incredible emotion was a little off-putting for Colbert.
“My... The pile of work never gets any smaller...”
“I-I get that. Let’s start on it immediately.”
This was how Colbert, in addition to his role as Minister of Finance (which basically entailed keeping an eye on Roroa’s financial policies) and as a manager of sorts for the loreleis, ended up as an assistant to Mio, traveling back and forth between the capital and Randel. Because he had the misfortune of being a man who took all his work seriously, another job had fallen into his lap.
Though, looking at Souma, who did the work of several people by manipulating multiple consciousnesses; Hakuya, who assisted Souma, and also negotiated with the Empire; and Poncho, who was, for a time, both the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry and the magistrate of Venetinova, everyone else in the Kingdom’s upper echelons of power had it more or less the same, so it was hard for him to complain.
Regardless, Colbert was helping Mio with her duties, but... One day, while they were working, Colbert carelessly mentioned he was single. Mio already knew this, of course, but now he’d given her cause to talk about it.
In that moment, the lioness’s eyes shone.
“Hey, Sir Colbert.”
“...What is it?” Colbert responded without looking away from the paperwork.
“I want you to marry me.”
“...Okay?”
As Colbert looked up, doubting his own ears, there was a look of glee on her face. “Oh! You’re accepting?!”
“No... No, no, no! That was not an ‘affirmative’ okay, it was an, ‘I don’t understand what you just said,’ okay!”
“You don’t? I just proposed to you, right?”
“No, that’s not the issue! How can you ask me that so lightly?!”
Mio cocked her head to the side and looked at him, perplexed. “Did you want it to sound more weighty? Like, marry me, or I’m going to die?”
“That’s too heavy! And no, that’s not what I meant!”
“Are you the eldest son, by the way?”
“Huh? No, I’m the third son...”
“Good! Then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to take my family name!”
“It’s a big problem!” Colbert pressed his hand against his forehead. “For starters, we’ve only met a few times when I was in Amidonia, and then again while we were in Zem. I can count the number of times we’ve met on my fingers. Why would that suddenly lead to us getting married...?”
“In noble and knightly houses, it’s not that uncommon for the bride and groom not to meet until the day they get married, is it?”
“That’s when the families have already sorted things out!”
“You say that, but I can’t stand that sort of roundabout method. Besides, when you have your prey in your sights, you want to take them down then and there, right? You can think about whether to boil or bake them once you’ve already caught them.”
“What an aggressive way of thinking! It’s a weird analogy, too!”
Realizing she was not the kind of woman who could be persuaded with reason, Colbert’s head started to hurt. He sensed that, like Roroa, once Mio had made up her mind, she would go through with things no matter how she was rebuked. If he got involved with a woman like this, she’d run him ragged for the rest of his life. How did it turn out like this?!
And so the difficulties (?) of Colbert began.
Time passed, and we return to the story after Mio’s umpteenth proposal had just been shot down by Colbert. The callous dismissal made her purse her lips.
“What’s wrong with me? I’m a devoted woman, you know? ...I’ll do everything other than administrative work.”
“Please, don’t remove the one thing I want you to work at from the list.” Colbert continued looking at the documents without further reply, causing Mio to puff up her cheeks.
Here she was, confessing her feelings, and this guy didn’t feel a thing. This was an affront to her as a woman. Mio put her hand to her face and struck a model-like pose that came off as awkward, probably due to its unfamiliarity to her. “T-They say I’m a beauty, like my mother, and I think I’ve got a pretty good figure. I stick out in all the right places, you know? My three sizes are...”
“You don’t have to say! ...Hahh,” Colbert sighed and began rubbing his own shoulders. “I am aware that you’re beautiful. If you would become a lorelei, I think you’d be an immediate sensation.”
“Oh, I’m a terrible singer. My voice is loud, but I can’t carry a tune. I was the rare exception that those rule-obsessed totalitarians at the officers’ school allowed to lip-sync when we were singing the school song.”
“...You’d be popular if you’d just keep your mouth shut.”
“That correction just makes me sad. But you’re complimenting my looks, right? I don’t come from a bad lineage either, so why won’t you accept my proposal?”
“Because. We. Are. Still. Working!” Colbert emphasized every word of that.
Mio gave him a blank look. “You’re going to accept my proposal when the work is done?”
“No... Once the work is done, you won’t need me anymore, right?”
“As if. Even once this work is done, more work will come in. I’m back in the army, but I haven’t even shown my face at the training grounds in some time.” Mio let out a deep sigh, resting her head on her palm, and her elbow on the desk. “I’m losing my edge... I really do need a reliable husband—someone I can leave the domain to entirely.”
“Once this backlog is cleared, someone other than me should be able to manage it.”
“You’re the one for me, Sir Bee!” Mio opined, standing up with vigor. Colbert jumped a little, intimidated by her passion. She continued, “I can tell you’re a talented bureaucrat, too, Sir Bee. But if you ask me how talented, I couldn’t say. It’s frustrating, but in my current state, I have no aptitude for bureaucratic work, and I lack the frame of reference to judge it. But, as a warrior, I can sense that you’ve got guts in a way that the other bureaucrats don’t.”
“Guts... you say?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Mio nodded. “If you think something is wrong, even if the person you’re dealing with is overwhelmingly stronger than you, you have the courage to speak up. You’ve got spine. Even though you don’t look all that strong. Though, I can feel that from His Majesty, and the Prime Minister, too. Granted, your personality is likely to put you at loggerheads with stubborn militarists.”
Mio’s words reminded Colbert of his experience of trying to warn Gaius off of invading the Kingdom without considering the needs of his people, and being kicked for his efforts, so he couldn’t say anything in response.
Mio exhaled as she sat back down. “Now that Mother is gone, too, I want someone reliable, like you, Sir Bee, to stay with me. That’s my honest wish.”
“Your Mother? ...Huh? I heard that Sir Georg’s wife returned to the Kingdom along with you, but... come to think of it, I haven’t met her yet, have I?”
In the time since he had come to Randel, Colbert hadn’t seen the late Georg’s wife once. Normally, she should have been the first person he greeted. Because he’d instantly been brought in to help with the mountain of paperwork, it had slipped his mind.
“Where is she now?”
“Hm? Parnam Castle, why?”
“Huh? The castle? Does that mean...”
She’s a hostage, thought Colbert. Though Georg’s honor had been restored, the Carmine domain had been considerably reduced in size. He thought perhaps Souma was keeping Mio’s mother hostage so that she couldn’t oppose him if she resented him for that. That might have been the right decision for a ruler to make. However, when he saw Mio’s unguarded personality, he couldn’t help but feel like that was overthinking things.
“...You’re misunderstanding, aren’t you?” Having picked up on it from the look in his eyes, Mio said, “It’s nothing like what you’re thinking. Actually, Mother was the one who asked to go to the castle. His Majesty only granted Mother’s wish.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, if I remember, she’s looking after the children of the castle’s workers at something she called ‘daycare’ now. She said in her letters that it’s a lot of fun.”
“Well, that’s good... But why?”
“Probably because it’s easier to meet at the castle...” Mio said awkwardly.
Colbert cock his head to the side. “Easier to meet? With who?”
“Oh, forget that. I’m just talking to myself.” Mio shook her head, then let out a sigh. “Obviously, I asked Mother to help with the bureaucratic work, but, you know...”
She sighed again as she thought back to it. When she asked, her mother had said... “This is your time now, do something about it on your own. The domain is smaller and easier to manage now, so handle it however you like. Struggle, fail, and each time you do, grow as a person, and as a ruler.”
“...It’s a mother’s job to be both cruel and kind, huh?”
Mio smiled wryly. “It really is. I never realized it when Father was around, but Mother was no less stubborn than he was.”
“They were a couple that resembled each other? Since you’ve inherited their blood, I think you must have an aptitude for being a lady, too, Madam Mio,” he said, encouraging her.
Mio leaned in. “Are you ready to marry into my family now?!”
“We’re back to that?!”
Mio grinned as she watched Colbert panic. “I’d recommend it. If you treat me right, you can have as many concubines as you like, and I won’t get upset.”
“I don’t need that... Looking at Sir Poncho, it seems like a lot of trouble.”
That was what Colbert sincerely thought after he saw how much weight Poncho lost for a while after marrying his two beautiful wives. Poncho’s weight was on the rebound now that the two of them were pregnant, but that was an even greater demonstration of why he’d ended up so thin to begin with.
Mio cocked her head to the side and gave him a blank look. “You look after the loreleis, too, right? Aren’t you close with any of them?”
“No way would I lay a hand on any of the loreleis. I don’t want to make enemies of the whole country.”
“...I wonder if His Majesty sneezed just now.”
“Ohh, no. Obviously, I’m not criticizing His Majesty! Madam Juna was with him since before the concept of what a lorelei is even took form.”
“Ah ha ha, I know that.” Mio laughed at him, as Colbert turned red with embarrassment.
He’s fun to tease, thought Mio.
“But maybe one of those loreleis is genuinely head over heels for you, Sir Bee? You’re a kind, older man, and reliable, too. They aren’t used to having men around, so I’d expect you to catch their attention, you know?”
“Th-That can’t be right... I-I mean, these are loreleis, you know?”
“You could take one of them after they retire, couldn’t you?”
“I can’t imagine anyone would want that...”
“I don’t mind. So just relax, and marry into my family.”
“Augh! Enough of this! Please, do your work!” Colbert cried out in embarrassment.
It seemed their lively times working together would continue for a while.