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Dietrich watched Anissa with a fidgety expression on her face.
Her face was red as if she would cry any time soon.
When other people cry, he would become so angry and without even lifting his sword, he would just like to punch them right away. But seeing her crying face because of him didn’t feel so bad.
‘Shall I make her cry?’
He thought if he pushed her a bit more she would soon cry, but he endured it patiently.
“You don’t know?”
“............”
Instead of urging Anissa, who didn’t answer, he tapped his finger on the desk with a thick wood scent.
Dietrich didn’t have the ability to read emotions and thoughts like her, but he didn’t even need that to read Anissa because her thoughts easily show on her face.
‘She looked like she’s sorry.’
She was feeling sorry, and embarrassed, as well as shocked that he ate the food he thought was laced with poison.
He could even hear the sound of the gears inside her head rolling as she contemplated how to answer.
The feeling of satisfaction he felt as that small little head of hers was filled with thoughts of him was the best he had in recent days.
‘Whether it was about Euclid or the rose war, I’m annoyed by all of that.’
He suddenly thought that his personality was bad, but then again, what did it matter since everybody already knew of the Grand Duke’s twisted disposition.
It was an obvious fact that was known to all except for the person in front of him.
Since he was kind to her, so she only knew that he was kind, and she really believed that Dietrich was ‘nice.’
She was thinking, that although he wasn’t a good person who would roll up his sleeves and help others, at the very least, he was a considerate person who takes care of his family meticulously.
‘Wrong.’
He never thought that he cared for them because they were family, so she was wrong from the start.
There was a time when she blatantly talked about marriage and that siblings didn’t live together forever, so he thought it was fortunate that she wasn’t a Lagrange.
Anissa cherished Lagrange and considered them her family.
Recognizing that it was a temporary relationship, he still didn’t deny it because of the trivial reason that it was precious to her.
There were several times that she mentioned it felt like a dream because it was the first time she had a family to love and be loved back. And so, he didn’t think of clearing up that misunderstanding.
Anyway, it was true that Dietrich cherished Anissa, for that reason, it’s not that he hadn’t thought about it himself, whether blood was really thicker than water.
‘But that can’t be true.’
In the first place, Dietrich had no memory of liking people born under the shadow of Lagrange, including his father, Derek.
It wasn’t unusual for siblings who were on the same boat coming from the same family to point knives at each other from time to time.
He hated Derek terribly, and Yuric was a comfortable subordinate but not a cherished brother.
He even disliked Maslow and Riesling, when he usually didn’t care, who used their young age to their advantage so that Anissa would side with them.
‘I’ll look for an opportunity and kick them out.’
In the first place, Anissa was the reason why he had to go to the capital and went through all that hardship – the endurance of not destroying everything – and lifted the curse of all his siblings.
“Answer.”
Dietrich glanced at Anissa’s small lips, opening and closing, repeating its useless movement.
“If you’re not going to answer, leave.”
Talking to her made his anger flare up from time to time, but he couldn’t show his anger at his will so he felt suffocated.
When he loses it in anger, not even a platoon would be able to stop him.
The reason why Yuric believes in his patience and always kept his line without forgetting it was simple.
Because Yuric knew how he expresses his anger on the battlefield.
It was obvious that she firmly believed he was a completely different kind of person than Derek Lagrange, so he could not dare to show her such violence.
Anissa, unaware of such feelings inside him, was looking at him with round eyes.
As if they didn’t know anything, those eyes were pure and clear so the light gathers like the ripples of a river.
“I’m not angry anymore.”
He couldn’t count the number of times she had witnessed him rising in anger with those eyes, however, there was never in history did Anissa truly see him being angry.
“Don’t worry.”
“I
I also don’t know.”
The best answer to give was a lie.
Anissa struggled to cover her reddish cheeks as she washed her face dry with her hands.
“Anyway, you’ve always been angry at me. I wonder if it's an extension of your disappointment? There have been many times I’ve ignored your words as the head of the house.”
Even as she said it, her voice started trembling as if she found her words ridiculous. Dietrich smirked.
“Are you going to explain my anger, which makes me want to select who among from the list of the men who danced with you, should be decapitated with his head displayed by the castle walls, in such a way?”
Ah.
He sighed silently.
He was just so dumbfounded earlier that the couldn’t hold back and exposed his cruelty. Her eyes widened in surprise and she closed her mouth tightly.
“All right.”
“Huh?”
“If that’s how you say it is, then that’s how it is.”
Since she thought he was a kind person, then he would be. And since she believed that he was rational, then he wouldn’t lose his control.
It was still bearable.
────── 〔✿〕──────
Dietrich didn’t force me to open my mouth which was as tight as a clam.
I had prepared about thirty excuses to misrepresent his feelings if he insisted, but when he calmly admitted it, I had nothing to say.
In the end, I returned to my room without saying a single word I had prepared.
‘Will this really be all right?’
If it was just an illusion that could be easily covered up like this, then wouldn’t they just be half-baked feelings?
I was the one who wanted it to be such a trivial emotion and a light illusion, but what was this disappointment that felt chilly?
‘Let’s stop thinking.’
I had a lot of other things to worry about.
There was nothing more important than safety and survival.
I slept in order to forget reality, but when I opened my eyes in the morning, a different kind of reality unfolded immediately.
I counted the number of letters in colorful stationeries with rich scented perfumed applied to it that different young lords had sent. When put together, it looked like a bouquet made of paper.
“I don’t think only letters came.”
I read the letters with my eyes, which all wrote similar things as if they all gathered together to write it – that they couldn’t sleep at night because they kept drawing up my smile – and then stuffed them all into the furnace.
There was no substance in the earnest letters that the young lords sent me, and I wasn’t free enough to be excited about these things.
Lancel sadly looked at the burning pile of letters and answered.
“Yes. There were several families who wanted to formally discuss marriage.”
“Which ones?”
“Devonshire, Rossiere, Morgan, Vincent, and Mondov.”
“Mondov?”
I didn’t remember talking to anyone from the Countdom of Mondov. No, in the first place, wasn’t the Count’s estate managed by his wife because the Count died of illness at an early age?
‘They do have a son but he must still be young.’
“....It’s a marriage proposal for young master Yuric. The madam is looking for remarriage.”
I burst into laughter, finding Lancel’s words ridiculous. When I told them I’d select the families that had ownership of the Sentz river in their territory, it seemed that Countess Mondov was even seduced.
“All right, well. Age doesn’t matter.”
“All the envoys added that they would present the Sentz river to Lagrange as a token of their sincerity.”
Would they lift and move the river attached to the ground? However, the right to use it would be enough.
If you're not reading this at blogspot, you're probably reading from an aggregator site. Read this translation at https://notmysisteryoufool.blogspot.com/.
“Jewelry and luxuries were also brought in as gifts.”
“Keep it well and we’ll use them to trade with Luzen.”
‘It’s done.’
Even if the power of the demons supporting the Lagrange was gone, it was no longer a dream to lay a foundation on which we could stand.
I stood up from my seat with a satisfied smile.
“Ah, and also.”
“Hm?”
Lancel hesitated and caught me as I was just leaving the room. He wavered as he mumbled that the letter might have been wrong, and put his hand into his arms.
“There was one more similar proposal that came. It wasn’t officially delivered, but was addressed directly to you, my lady.”
“Huh? Directly?”
“....By the way, the origin is from the imperial family. I thought it was delivered mistakenly, so I was going to throw it away, but I thought I’d show it to you first.”
The letter that Lancel gave me certainly looked different from others. A sealed letter came along with a postcard resembling an invitation.
“The content is about the crown prince and Euclid’s princess, wishing they could arrange a meeting before proceeding with their engagement.”
“What?”
Shocked by his words, I ripped off the wax with the imperial seal. Snap. Rip. The sound of paper being torn to pieces resounded loudly in the quiet study.
“I don’t know why the letter addressed to Euclid came to Lagrange without an envoy. And the recipient is definitely you, Princess.”
"........"
“But is there anyone whom you could call the Princess of Euclid? The Duke is single, and he is definitely an only child. And I wouldn’t dare call a child from a subsidiary family a Princess.”
“That’s right. A Princess doesn’t exist in their family.”
There wasn’t any. There wasn’t in the past, and it would be the same in the future.
It was a place that didn’t have one. How dare they.