CH 2.1

CHAPTER 2 PART 1 – I HAVE GOTTEN ALONG WITH THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER

“Nice to meet you.”

I was completely frozen from so much shock upon having observed a real princess. I was also a real noble son in this life, but inside was an ordinary virgin young man in the end.

The greeting I had prepared were blown off out of my head, and I was exposing a stupid face not befitting of a young nobleman.

“Welcome, Your Excellency the Duke. It has been a long time since I have been able to visit; consequently, I feel extremely delighted to be able to welcome you here.”

“Likewise, it is good to see that you too are in good health, Sir North General. Precisely because there are outstanding individuals like you that we are also able to live our lives in peace.”

“What a thing to say; I am only able to do what I do precisely because of the strong support of Your Excellency the Duke. It pains me that I am the only one being praised.”

“Hahaha, you’re being too humble, Lord Fahrenheit. …More importantly, am I correct in assuming that this is your eldest son, Eberhard-kun?”

Just as I thought that the dads were exchanging greetings with their nobility talk—they seemed to be getting along too well for it to be called lip service, so they probably truly meant it—suddenly the ball was dropped on me. Aaaaah!

“Yes, he is my eldest son, Eberhard. He is not a perfect son, but I am very happy that you are taking interest in him.”

“I’ve heard, you know? That he is quite the remarkable and outstanding one at such a young age. Whenever I hear gossip coming in through social parties in the imperial capital where the heads of the noble houses gather, I’m always struck in awe; as to be expected of Lord Fahrenheit’s son.”

“That is indeed, a very generous thing to say.”

I supposed it was about time for me to say my greeting. Even I knew that much. I couldn’t stay a fool forever.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you, I am the eldest son of Karlheinz Claus von Fahrenheit, Eberhard Karlheinz von Flensburg Fahrenheit. I am still in my immature age, but I am sincerely pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Mmm, I am Lagarde Albrecht von Bernstein, the head of the family of Duke Bernstein, whose territory is adjacent to the margrave territory governed by your father. It’s a joy to have made acquaintance with such a promising young man such as yourself, you know?”

“Your words are wasted on me.”

The wording should be no problem with this! At any rate, I was dealing with His Excellency the Duke. The aura around him was clearly different. Somehow, like, maybe better to say that he had the dignity, calmness, and intensity that I likely wouldn’t be able to achieve even in a hundred years; anyway his grandeur was amazing. My dad was also still in his early thirties, and I felt that he was pretty amazing, but the duke was even more amazing. Well, he also looked several years older than my dad, and some of those differences might be due to that difference in age, though.

Then, His Excellency the Duke called his daughter who was standing behind him. “Lily, come over here.”

“Yes, Father.”

The girl called Lily walked up all the way to the front of us, bowed gracefully, and spoke in a beautiful, clear and pleasant voice. “My name is Lily Henriette von Alsfeld Bernstein. I am the eldest daughter of the House of Duke Bernstein. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Thank you for the courteous introduction. I hope you treat this father and son well.”

“P-please treat me well.”

I wondered what to say at times like this. It should be fine as long as I was being courteous to His Excellency the Duke. But, I was dealing with a ten year old girl the same age as me. Even if I returned a weirdly formal greeting, it wouldn’t shorten our distance. Not to mention that she might become my fiancée. I supposed going for the informal one would give a favorable impression. And with that in mind, I deliberately tried to give a light reply, but…

“Fufufu.”

What came back was a laugh that gave off an indescribable feeling. I couldn’t tell if this was a success or failure, couldn’t I.

Seeing us like this, “now then, we have something important to discuss after this,” His Excellency the Duke opened his mouth. “You two should go and play together to socialize as well.”

I was suddenly hit with a hard problem. Are you telling me to spend time alone with a girl!?

“Is it all right not to have an attendant?”

Nice assist, pops! If you don’t at least mix in Alisa or some servant, I’m not confident I can hold a conversation, alright?

But, even my dad’s support (?) was in vain, as His Excellency the Duke, with a joyful smile, said, “This is the Lord’s residence, right? Then there won’t be any danger whatsoever. Or do you have some anxiety about children being on their own, maybe?”

“Of course not. …You two, go along with each other, okay?”

“O-okay.”

“I understand, Uncle.”

“Then shall we go?”

“Sure, let’s.”

…This engagement matter, it might be the duke house that is more forward-looking about it, I thought, trying to escape from reality as I had been put in a tough spot.

“Al-alright then, let’s go.”

What do you mean let’s go!?!? Go where!?!?

While doing self-retort in my mind as hard as I could, I turned to face Miss Lily with cold sweat running down my back.

When I saw her again up close, I was almost overwhelmed by her unbelievable beauty, and yet cute. The people in this world were truly something else.

“I’d rather be outdoors. The garden I saw when coming here is just so pretty, making me wanna look around a bit more.”

Huh? The beautiful, clear and pleasant voice is still there, but the way she talks changed.

“Fufu, earlier was a formal way of talking. I was scolded a lot by Father to thoroughly learn it.”

“Looks like everyone’s the same when it comes to being forced to learn etiquette, huh.”

“Speaking of a margrave, I thought you’re gonna be someone looking more strong and scary, so I was surprised. A kid this cute is actually the son after all.”

“C-cute?”

“Can I call you Eberhard-kun?”

“Har is fine. And can I call you Lily?”

“Yup, sure. …Har-kun, you really are kinda cute.”

“Please stop telling a guy he’s cute…”

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was said by some auntie, but it would be a bit depressing if it was by a girl of the same generation—a ten years old to boot!

If given the choice, I’d want to be praised ‘so coooooll!!!’ by a girl. At this point, it seemed the baby face that resembled my mother had taken on an unwanted effect.

All things considered, I was glad that she was a much more frank girl than I’d thought. I would’ve been in a pickle if the ‘formal’ mode from earlier had gone on forever.

“Well, that aside, in the garden there are lots of places I wanna show you. I’m tending to some things myself, you see.”

Mom took me for a lot of strolls in the garden since I was a baby after all. And ever since I became able to do things on my own, I started building a secret base or the likes in the garden!

Guys, no matter how old they were, loved secret bases and things like that. Now that I was a kid, I could play like that openly and freely, which was great. I’d love to show Lily the greatness of my secret base.

“Shall we go?”

I ended up holding out my hand out of habit when I was taking a walk with my siblings. I-is-isn’t this just like a date!?

Despite me instantly in panic, I couldn’t retract back my hand now that I had held it out; it created a rather obscure situation, where I had a difficult look on my face and started to stiffen up again with my hand being held out half-heartedly.

“Let’s go!”

But fortunately, for the still ten years old Lily, joining hands with a guy didn’t seem to be something that big of a deal. She naturally grabbed my hand, wrapping my hand with her soft hand with the high body temperature characteristic of a child. C-cute.

Despite me being over 20 years old on the inside, my heart throbbed just a bit. It awfully stank of crime? Just shut it wouldya, I was the same age as her!

“Fuwaah!”

Lily ran around the flower garden with sparkles in her eyes. Although with some unclear pronunciation in some places1, she had given a solid greeting to the point it was amazing for a ten years old, but she seemed to also have parts that were appropriate to her age. She looked very much like a ten year old girl, as she happily and naturally frolicked in the garden blooming with flowers of various colors.

She was just so cute that I would definitely take a photo of her if I had a camera—I ain’t a lolicon!—though, unfortunately, there were no cameras in this era. On another note, there seemed to be a magic tool called a spirit photography tool that got a camera-like function through the application of magic, but it seemed to be terrifyingly expensive. So much so that even the eldest son of a leading noble couldn’t easily get a hold of it.

Speaking of at what times it would be used, for example, to document the historical buildings in the Empire, or to photograph important meetings and ceremonies, which would be taken by a court photographer. Even those few taken photographs could only be viewed by going to a huge and hard-to-get-into archive like the Imperial Central Library in the Imperial Capital. I heard that there was also letterpress printing technology, but since there seemed to be no technology to do highly detailed printing like a photograph; I supposed that was just how it was.

Welp, couldn’t be helped if there was just none. For now I would make sure to burn this into my eyes. If things continued as it was, she’d likely be my wife in the future anyway.

It was kinda nice, huh. It felt like childhood friends; playing a lot, being happy, being worried, being sad, and laughing together all the while growing up. It was a feeling I couldn’t experience in my previous life, so somehow it was making my heart very warm.

“Heey~ is there any other good place~!”

Lily, who had been repeatedly engaging in a barbaric act unbecoming of a duke’s daughter—rolling around on the lawn next to the flower garden—turned to me and absurdly demanded if there was any other more interesting thing, perhaps already bored with rolling on the lawn. Her white, expensive-looking dress was covered in grass and unbearable to look at. She’s cute, but really still just a kid.

“Alright, then let’s go to my secret base.”

“Secret base?”

“It’s our own little playground, secret from the adults.”

“? I don’t really get it but that sounds fun!”

Lily came running to me in a pitter patter with grass stuck on her hair. I took Lily’s hand and set out to walk to the back garden. It looked like the time for me to awe her with a man’s romance.

“Waaaaahhh, it’s amazing! Did you make this, Har-kun?”

“That’s right. Amazing, right?”

Lily was surprised to see the secret base I had made. In front of us stood something that looked like a pit house straight out of a history textbook. It was a piece of work I had put a lot of effort into about a year ago.

“Try going inside.”

“Okay.”

I entered the secret base ahead of her, and then beckoned Lily. Lily then came into the base looking very excited as well.

“It’s wiiiide.”

“Right?”

The inside of the secret base was probably as large as a relatively large studio apartment. Since it was impervious to rain and wind, the liveability was quite high.

“So fluffy!” Lily said as she plunged into the bedding made of woven straw. The first time I met her, she looked like a princess, giving off a solemn feeling in some way, but now I understood that she was indeed a tomboy. But like that Lily was also cute.

“Let’s have some snacks.”

“Snacks?”

“That’s right, here,” I said, taking out two rango fruits from the jar that I had left by the wall.

This one came from the orchard at the end of the back garden. The servants were growing them as a hobby, and when I occasionally pick them like this, I was appreciated instead rather than scolded for ‘eating it so deliciously.’ Well, I believed it was pretty hard to find a servant who would be able to take out their anger on the eldest son of the master they were serving, though…

All that aside, I had always loved rango fruits, having eaten them since I was a baby whose teeth hadn’t fully come out yet. The servants worked very hard to raise them, so the taste was very sweet, juicy and just so tasty. Rango pie made from it was often served as a snack.

“Rango fruit?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s not cut?” Lily asked with a curious look on her face.

I guess that’s obvious, ain’t it. Usually, a noble’s daughter won’t have a bite of a whole rango. It’s bad manners. But right now I’m the only one who can see.

“It’s fine, just go take a bite like this!” I said, taking a big bite of the rango like giving an example.

“Uwaah, you have big mouth…”

“Ngg… You too, Lily.”

“O-okay. Aaan! …Nom.”

Lily bit into the rango with a look of mischief on her face, like, ‘I ate like this for the first time.’ There was a lot of rango juice getting on her cheeks, so I pulled out a handkerchief to wipe it off.

We ate rango enthusiastically together, and I somehow felt that I had truly and sincerely got along with Lily.

＊

TL notes:

^1. Again, this should be marked with the usage of hiraganas instead of kanjis in the raw, which is not obvious in the translation.

Other changes:

Change in Chapter 1 Part 3; from a certain line said by MC’s dad

“Not really, the plan itself has been decided quite some time ago. It’s just, it’s not fixed yet, so it’s not even certain when it will happen” to “Not really, the plan itself has been arranged quite some time ago. It’s just, it’s not fixed yet, so it’s not even certain when it might get called off“