Chapter 7

* * *

I walked quickly, almost running. I planned to flee the scene so that the dumbfounded Lennox didn’t have the chance to retort. Feeling smug at the memory of him looking so speechless after being insulted by me, I quickly headed toward the palace’s administrative office. As I moved, Dominic vibrated briefly in my hand.

“What?” I asked him.

Dominic and I had a contractual relationship. It seemed that we could read each other’s thoughts more easily, now that he was in the form of a sword, though this didn’t seem to be the case when he was human.

“Will you really be all right, Mel? He’s still a duke.” Dominic’s voice in my head sounded worried.

“Oh, because I insulted him, you mean?” I replied. I scratched the bridge of my nose. If he were a petty person, he would surely seek revenge. “It’s fine. We’re from families with equal social standing—for now, at least.”

And it seemed like he wouldn’t have left me alone if I had been any less clear.

“Besides, he used to treat me much worse than that.” Thinking about the verbal abuse Lennox used to hurl at Meldenique made me clench my fists with rage.

He always despised and tormented her. After all he had done, the fact that just hearing me tell him to leave me alone was enough to leave him speechless was exasperating.

Hmph. I let out a huff of breath through my nose. Dominic paused for a moment before speaking again.

“Well, I guess it’s all right. I’ll just protect you if that jerk tries anything.”

Nodding, I started whistling a tune and continued on my way to the administrative office. One of the reasons I had come to the imperial palace was to register my business. Luckily, it didn’t take very long. Although, during the registration process, I received many subtle, disapproving glances.

That turned out to be a good thing, though. The name Meldenique Babelloa was infamous within the imperial palace’s administrative office. The officials seemed to assume I was destined to fail again and approved my plan without much thought.

There are some perks to being seen as incompetent. They had granted their approval without properly scrutinizing or even bothering to understand my business plan, after all. With determined steps, fueled by my ambition for success, I began to make my way out of the administrative office.

Once outside, I side-stepped the path to stop and place my documents into a long bag that also held Dominic. At that moment, I heard a low, gentle voice from behind me.

“You dropped this.”

I turned and saw a man’s hand holding out a white piece of paper. I must have accidentally dropped it as I was organizing the large pile of documents I had been given.

“Oh, that’s mine. Thank you.” I reached for the document that had my name written on the top. Our hands brushed lightly.

As I accepted the piece of paper from him, the man asked quietly, “Did you mean it?”

“What?” I asked, blinking.

A low laugh came from above my head. “That it would be better to marry me than Duke Hessman.”

“Oh, anyone would be better than him.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, his clear laughter echoed above me.

“That’s nice to hear.”

It was a low-pitched, languidly sweet voice. I paused, perplexed, in the middle of placing the last of the paperwork in my bag. There was only one person who would ask such a question.

Could it be the man I pointed at earlier? I had only seen his back at the time. I lifted my head to look at the face of the man who had approached me, but he had already begun to walk away.

In his place, only a refreshing fragrance lingered, carried by the breeze. I tilted my head and adjusted the straps of my bag on my shoulders. Now that I had completed my business registration, there was no reason to come to the imperial palace anymore.

That meant I probably wouldn’t be running into this mysterious black-haired man, who seemed to know Lennox, again. I had a strange feeling, but that was it. I wouldn’t be seeing him again, after all.

* * *

I returned to the shabby building that would become my stationery shop.

I’m glad I cleaned up all that dust. Now I can actually relax. The inside of the building was much cleaner and more organized than when we had first arrived. This was because Dominic had clumsily cast a cleaning spell that morning.

I sat on a worn-out chair in the large one-room space on the first floor and looked at Dominic. He had already transformed back into his human form.

“This place will get remodeled tomorrow, so we should go shopping,” I said.

“Sure.”

“Hmm... Fortunately, we have some money, so let’s decorate this place well.”

Duke Babelloa had given me approximately 200 million bekrels. Hiring a sorcerer to remodel the building would cost around 100 million, so we could use the remaining 100 million to purchase items for the stationery shop. For Duke Babelloa, it was just pocket change, but for a small business owner like me, it was more than enough.

“All right,” he replied quietly.

I couldn’t help but feel curious. Why did this sword suddenly look so deep in thought?

“What’s got you thinking so hard?” I asked him.

“Is the man we saw earlier your fiancé, Mel?”

Ah, it must have been because of the incident with Lennox earlier. I answered nonchalantly.

“Yeah. Well, he was. Not anymore.”

He seemed amazed that Lennox hadn’t upset me. I wondered whether the mutual contract between a sword and a human allowed them to somewhat feel each other’s emotions because I began to sense the discomfort he was feeling.

Dominic roughly swept back his black hair and muttered. “Well, it goes without saying, but you deserve better than him.”

“You’re right.”

“Even if you did lure me into a fraudulent contract and are forcing an amazing swordsman like me to perform mediocre tasks.”

That sounded a little strange.

Is he insulting me? I looked at him with suspicion.

“What’s with you? Forget Duke Hessman. You’re trying to insult me, aren’t you?”

“No.” Dominic feigned ignorance.

I laughed and patted him on the shoulder before coming back to my senses. There was no time for jokes. I had something important to do this evening.

I rummaged through the purse I had placed on the table earlier. Then I took out two sheets of high-quality paper and a fountain pen I had brought with me from home. Fortunately, the paper was enchanted, so it unfolded smoothly without any creases.

Cheerfully fiddling with the fountain pen, I said, “Now that I’ve spoken to Lennox, I’m going to write an official letter demanding we break off the engagement.”

Dominic, who had been wandering around the room while I rummaged through the purse, suddenly turned back to me and nodded approvingly. “That’s a very good idea.”

“I should also demand that my family sever ties with me. I thought they would disown me as soon as I left, but they’re strangely slow.”

There was a reason I wanted them to hurry up. Because they had stayed silent and hadn’t yet disowned me, Lennox was still able to justify hovering around me like a persistent fly. I’d much rather we just go our separate ways.

Dominic’s expression grew confused at my sincere desire to sever ties with House Babelloa. “You’re a noble. Are you really considering giving up your status?”

There were many willing to lick the duke’s boots to become part of House Babelloa. Dominic probably knew that well, so he didn’t seem to understand my decision.

However, it was necessary if I wanted to cut ties with my toxic family. My father, the duke, despised me. My stepmother, the duchess, would soon try to kill me, and my younger sister and female protagonist, Sheria, considered herself superior to me.

If I wanted them out of my life, I would have to give up the Babelloa title. And by doing that and becoming a commoner, any dealings I had with House Hessman would naturally come to an end.

I’m not particularly ambitious, either.

I smiled at him and answered, “Yeah. I have confidence in myself.”

“Confidence?”

“I mean, I’m fairly certain that with enough hard work, I could regain the status of a noble.”

There is a way for a commoner to attain noble status, but I have no need for it just yet. I flashed him a confident grin.

“Besides, I have the empire’s strongest knight with me.”

Dominic looked at me with surprise as his cheeks turned red. Despite having lived for such an incredibly long time, he still looked like a charming boy of seventeen, which made him look even more adorable when flustered like that.

He rubbed his face a few times as he muttered quietly, “Well... I am the best swordsman you could ask for.”

I nodded at him.