The Isolated Marchioness Just Wants to Make a Living
Chapter 2
The war hero, with his sharp hearing, returned to the front of the door in a flash.
“Hmm? Did you have something to say to me?”
Truthfully, I didn't harbor any particularly warm feelings toward Alpheus.
It was just the cold reality of our situation.
His appearance had snatched the title of Marquis right from under my nose.
He was the very person Mother had spent her entire life on guard against, fearing something like this would happen. So even after impulsively calling out to him, I hesitated for a moment.
“Brisa, are you worried about being here without an adult? Does acting as the estate's proxy in my absence feel like too much of a burden?”
Alpheus spoke in a soothing tone as I hesitated.
“Still, my adjutant Rancy is here, just as I mentioned earlier… and aside from the elite unit, I'm leaving all the knights behind. I've already instructed them to follow your orders. I told them to protect you well, so there shouldn't be any issues keeping you safe even while I'm away.”
I swallowed dryly. Then, through the crack in the door, I shoved out an envelope containing a single dried herb.
“Take this with you.”
“Huh?”
“Inside is an Awakening Herb. At the Academy, people take it to study the night before exams.”
I figured this was within the realm of what a completely sane person could do.
Of course, I could have said something like this instead:
“Listen, I just realized this world is inside a book. If you go right now, half your body will get torn apart, and you won't be able to return for three months. In the meantime, our estate will fall to ruin, and everyone here—including me—will be slaughtered. After that, your personality will do a complete 180, and though you'll overcome all odds and marry the female protagonist, you're going to suffer like hell until then.”
Then the conversation would have gone something like this:
“R-Really? Is that true? Can I believe you?”
“No. Looking at it objectively, it's far more likely I've just lost my mind in the end, like my mother.”
Picturing it made me realize that definitely wasn't the way to go.
Alpheus had made the decision to head to the capital for the sake of the estate.
The situation was urgent enough that he had to set out without even catching his breath.
I had no desire to make him overturn that decision. I lacked both the conviction and the grounds to do so.
Even so, just in case, I could at least prepare him for the worst-case scenario.
I spoke clearly and distinctly.
“Use it when you're exhausted and can't afford to fall asleep. Keep it on you at all times.”
If, by any chance, this delusion was the real future awaiting us…
‘Then it will be of crucial help to Alpheus.’
I didn't know Alpheus well yet, but for now, I decided to help him.
‘I need to think calmly. Alpheus is my sole guardian now, and getting on his bad side will only hurt me. I'm doing all of this purely for my own sake. Honestly speaking, Alpheus could get rid of me without a trace if he wanted to.’
The original story said Alpheus was a good person.
Common sense, however, dictated that this ‘original story’ was likely a delusion of mine. So I had to keep my wits about me and proceed with the utmost caution.
‘Will he accept it? Is it too absurd?’
Still, something like this seemed fine.
Wasn't this something a normal person might give?
A brief silence fell outside the door.
‘Does it just look like a useless weed to him? But it's expensive. I only had one left, too.’
Just as I was about to tell him how much the Awakening Herb cost—
“Thank you…”
A voice choked with emotion drifted in.
“A token of good fortune and love from family… I've never received something like this in my life… I'll keep it close to my heart always.”
His voice was overwhelmingly moved.
‘What an unnecessarily sentimental personality.’
I breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Well, he certainly won't leave it behind.’
* * *
Three days passed since then.
I holed up in my room, waiting for the delusions to fade.
In the meantime, a notice breaking off the engagement arrived from my fiancé.
A little later, an anonymous bouquet of flowers arrived as well.
The maids grew excited.
“Heavens, it must be a young lord who had a secret crush on you, my lady!”
“Someone must have been quietly waiting for your engagement to end! Goodness, this is an extraordinarily expensive bouquet! He must be terribly wealthy!”
The bouquet offered little comfort to the bitter feelings caused by the broken engagement, but it did have the effect of stopping the maids' wailing.
Quietly handling the matters of the broken engagement, I told the maids,
“I have a single command for you. I don't want any unnecessary noise, so don't mention this matter to the people Alpheus brought with him.”
The maids huffed indignantly.
“There's no need for such a command, my lady. What would those uneducated wretches know about the affairs of a noble house?”
“Oh dear… I misspoke.”
I replied calmly,
“It turns out I have two commands. Don't say things like that from now on, either.”
Even so, they would undoubtedly make their feelings glaringly obvious with their glares.
This internal friction within the Marquisate was also identical to the original story.
The maids of the estate were all people my mother had brought from the royal palace when she was a princess.
To them, Alpheus and his retinue, appearing out of nowhere, were ‘lowborn wretches who had finally stolen what belonged to Brisa.’
In truth, the ‘Brisa’ of the original story had felt the same way. But all of the maids, including me, were wiped out early on.
‘…From starvation.’
As the thought trailed on, I caught myself in surprise and resolved firmly,
‘No. Get a grip. I haven't lost my mind. My delusions can't possibly be the real future.’
The anxiety over a half-brother who appeared out of nowhere.
The strange guilt toward Mother.
The helplessness over the broken engagement.
The complicated feelings toward my ex-fiancé.
None of that was even a priority right now.
‘Since when did I care so much about my own feelings?’
Right now, whether my brain was functioning normally was the most serious problem.
Three days later, however.
Upon reading the newspaper, I decided to simply accept that I had gone mad.
[Western Monster Wave – The Largest Scale in History]
‘This is identical to the future I learned about, too.’
Everyone in the estate regarded it as someone else's problem.
Yet after an unprecedented Monster Wave struck the West, the empire's granary, grain prices would skyrocket.
For now, everyone was thinking, ‘Things are a bit rough, but that's always been the case,’ but…
‘The western grain merchants we bought from on credit will demand immediate repayment of our debts…’
On top of that, circumstances would arise that cut off all contact with Alpheus.
I held my head in my hands.
‘Our survival is on the line.’
I couldn't just sit idly by.
‘If we don't eat, we die.’
I couldn't even dare to dream of setting goals for the distant future.
Now that Alpheus was away, I was the proxy of this estate.
At this rate, far from feeding the people of the territory, I wouldn't even be able to look after myself.
‘Originally, unable to endure the starvation, I fell for a relative's trick and boarded a ship heading abroad with all the maids to be sold into slavery!’
In the middle of that, the knights Alpheus left behind chased after us to rescue us, but the ship ended up sinking and everyone died.
‘In the end, it all happens because there's nothing to eat. So I have to prepare for the coming food crisis.’
Truthfully, I didn't remember my ‘past life’ very well.
Yet faintly, I seemed to have an extensive knowledge of agriculture and animal husbandry.
I had likely studied those subjects professionally.
I quietly looked at the books in my room.
During my two years at the Academy, I had only sought out books like that in the library—secretly in the dead of night, fearing others would criticize me for acting unbefitting a noble.
Crops, farming methods, livestock, specialty goods, agricultural economics… No wonder teaching myself those things had been so much fun.
Though the entire environment was different from my past life, in the broader picture, there were many subtle similarities. Perhaps that was why I had been able to learn and apply the knowledge so quickly.
‘To the point where I even published a whole bunch of papers under a pseudonym.’
Until now, even I hadn't understood that secret hobby of mine, but it seemed my interests from my past life had simply carried over.
‘Fortunately, Alpheus told his people to listen to me before he left, even though he hardly knows me.’
Regardless, it was a massive relief.
“Summon the knight order immediately.”
Though called the Seers Knights, they were nothing more than former mercenaries Alpheus had left behind.
From the beginning, the Marquisate lacked the funds to raise an army. In truth, it wasn't a place that needed a knight order of this scale anyway.
Still, they were already people of Sears. If so, I had to protect them—just as the knights in the original story had risked their lives to save me.
Pondering that scene, I made an objective assessment of them.
‘They must eat a lot.’
And with that, I summoned the laborers—no, the knights.
