A Tipsy Marriage Proposal for the Emperor

Chapter 3

“So he’s not married yet?”

“Huh? You didn’t know that?” Lorraine asked.

“The academy doesn’t receive much outside news. It’s really all about nature, history, and academics there...”

“What a truly amazing place.”

“And in this situation, why does someone else’s marriage matter? It’s hard to even take care of myself.”

With a slight nod, Lorraine quietly said, “That’s true.”

Her shoulders, which had previously been raised high, now slumped. In order to forget the gloom of reality, she changed the conversation to another topic. We went through several more changes in topic until a servant came during our chat to tell us the time.

“That much time has already passed?”

It had been an hour since I had arrived early to the party.

In front of Lorraine’s mansion, the sound of horses trotting could be heard, and the well-decorated carriages of various families could be seen. This meant that the time had come for my friend to become busy in earnest.

“Go ahead, hostess.”

“What a shame. Next time, let’s spend time together just the two of us.”

After saying goodbye to Lorraine and watching her get farther away, I sat back down on the seat.

Among the guests who came one after another, I barely knew anyone. I just sat quietly and looked around.

But strangely, there were many people who just stared in my direction. I glanced around to see if I had accidentally missed someone I knew, but all I saw were strangers.

Am I imagining things? It strangely feels like they’re looking at me.

I was pretty confident about my memory, but I had never met any of them before.

“That’s the young lady who’s rumored to be...”

“The one who was said to be a genius in the past...”

When I listened carefully, I gradually started to understand the situation through the whispered words I could make out.

Despite his fishlike outer appearance, Count Feccida unexpectedly had loose lips and quick steps. As his family owned a merchant group, there were a lot of people around him who tried to butter him up. As such, there were many people who judged me based only on what other people said, regardless of the facts.

My standing in high society looked grim at the moment.

Since I had started off on the wrong foot, it would be difficult to change the perceptions about me. While I honestly had no social ambitions, I felt bitter that it had become like this through no fault of my own.

“I guess I’ll go now.”

I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I felt a stinging sensation on the back of my head and felt burdened. Since I had already seen Lorraine host for a bit, I should leave before I had an uncomfortable run-in with my ex-fiancé...

“Ahem, you really didn’t need to welcome me in this way. Hahaha!”

...but a familiar voice stopped me.

The superficial laughter that could be heard in my ears was so peculiar that it was hard to forget even if I wanted to. It had the incredible ability to automatically cause irritation whenever I heard it.

“Oh my, Count! I heard you’ve started trading with the Eastern Continent this time.”

“I’ve only heard rumors, but is it really true that everyone’s hair is black?”

“Speak one at a time! One by one! I will tell you everything. Hahaha!” Count Feccida said.

Originally, the daytime hours of the garden party were a time for the ladies to enjoy tea and music as a form of socializing. It was customary for the male guests to join later and have a drink and chat.

Except for that clueless idiot.

Some dignified ladies smiled in front of the count, but behind his back, they covered their mouths with their fans and had frowning expressions.

I can’t believe that I almost married that bastard.

A chill ran down my spine. I didn’t want to be associated with such a man anymore.

I carefully walked away from the table, backing away quietly so as not to be noticed by Count Feccida.

***

A few days later, I was sitting at home with nothing to do, and all I could think about was the count I had seen at the party. I also remembered the way people were looking at me. I felt angry and frustrated.

While at that time it was a good idea for me to go to the party, I still felt aggrieved by what I had found out and experienced.

Should I go to the library?

I decided to forget everything while reading a book. Due to my love of books since I was young, the mansion’s library had more books than other families’s did.

As I entered the library, I could smell the old wood and the scent of crinkly paper. My agitation calmed down a little.

“As expected, books are the best.”

I laid down on the familiar sofa and flipped through the books around me. Most of them were books I had already read, but just looking at the titles and recalling the content made me feel at ease. In fact, most of the books in the mansion library were books I had already read when I was young.

Among them, I found two books that I had liked since I was young.

“Yussergang’s Characteristics of Changes in Flow Velocity in Climate and Karl Locheman’s Market Logic in Microeconomics.”

It was nice to see these familiar names after a long time.

I laid down with a relaxed heart and started reading. I had always been more interested in practical subjects, such as architecture and economics, rather than in literature and art, which all noble young ladies were taught since childhood.

While they were fields that were shunned and not learned by the nobles, seeing a list of numbers that fit perfectly felt like a thrill to me. The disciplines that had accurate results depending on the process and factors always made my heart pound.

As I read, the unread pages quickly disappeared, and I got to the end of both books that I had chosen. As I was looking around for another book, a newspaper clipping on the reading table caught my eye.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t read the newspaper lately.”

I carefully unfolded a recent newspaper. As I flipped through the pages, an interesting headline of an article from a few days ago caught my eye.

[After seven years on the throne, the wedding is finally announced. Who is the ill-fated bride who will walk into Hades’ mouth?]

It seemed like an article about the Emperor’s wedding that Lorraine had mentioned over tea. The article took up the entire front page of the paper, as if to provide proof that the entire capital was in a chaos over the news. It wasn’t the size of the article that concerned me, but how the text was describing the bride.

“Hades is the god of death.”

Normally, you wouldn’t attach the god of death to a bride who was about to get married. I had seen expressions like “blessed bride” and “happy bride” a lot, but never “ill-fated bride.”

I spread the paper out fully on the table and started to read the article from the first line.

“Cold-blooded. Doesn’t second-guess... Cruel...”

The first part of the newspaper wrote about the Emperor so bluntly that it made me worried about the newspaper company’s safety.

“The current emperor seems to have a very rigid personality.”

While he seemed to be reigning wisely based on the numerous compliments about the economy, he seemed to treat human lives like his own chess pieces. I could understand to a certain extent why “ill-fated” was used to describe the bride who would become the empress.

“I don’t know who she is, but it seems like she’ll go through a hard time.”

Well, those in the higher ranks would figure it out. As it was a state marriage, the bride’s father was probably at least a marquis or a duke. Although my father was a count, my family was far removed from power, so this was a position that I had never even imagined.

Since a state marriage was a matter of considering each other’s gains and losses rather than love, the Emperor’s personality, whether he was aggressive or gentle, wouldn’t matter to the bride.

As I thought this situation had nothing to do with me and was about to fold the paper again, a sentence at the end of the article caught my eye.

[Since the Emperor’s announcement, the identity of this unfortunate bride has not yet been revealed. Our newspaper has done its best to investigate, but has been unable to obtain any definitive information.

However, there was a report that His Majesty had recently gone into hiding and was seen with a young lady with long pink hair that had light blue dyed ends. Since no other young lady has been in contact with the Emperor since then, it’s highly likely that she is the bride in his announcement. However, as there is no unmarried young lady in the empire with such a hair color...]

My eyes stopped reading when I reached that point. As the sentences I had read slowly entered my mind, I suddenly had an ominous feeling.

I felt the hand holding the newspaper tremble slightly. My heart was beating fast.

“No way.”

There was no way that had happened. Why would the Emperor have been in a place like that?

I felt the hand holding the newspaper tremble slightly.

My mind was in a daze as I left the library.

Even as I ran towards my room, the sentence from the newspaper article kept flashing through my mind.

[...was seen with a young lady with long pink hair that had light blue dyed ends.]

The time it took to walk to the room just one floor above felt like a year.

I hurriedly fumbled to lift my bed covers. I took out the box I had secretly hidden in a small space between the mattress and the floor.

After that day I had come home drunk, I had put a lock on the box and hid it to tightly seal away the evidence of my transgression. I had never expected to open it again so quickly.

Click.

With the sound of unlocking, I opened the lid of the box. Inside, I saw the wig that I had haphazardly shoved in there.

It was so tangled and twisted that it was hard to tell what its original form was, but that wasn’t what was important. The ends of the pink wig, curled like threads, were immediately visible in one glance.

It was the trace of Jeri only dyeing the ends of the wig a light blue as she said she wanted it to be a unique wig. There couldn’t be two people with hair colors that were the same like this... right?

I was dizzy from the reality that was hitting me.

Actually, this had been a suspicion that had constantly been on my mind. I didn’t have a receipt from that day when I came home from drinking, and the gold coins were still in the wallet I had brought with me. I was worried that it might have been paid on credit, so I sent an errand boy to the pub. They only said that the bill had been processed normally...

That meant that someone had paid my bill for me.

But as I hadn’t been back in the capital long, I didn’t have anyone close to me who would pay for my bill like that.

And even if I did, they wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was me because of the wig.

I had also thought that it might have been a kind gesture from a passing stranger, but nothing in the world was free.

Back in the library, I looked through the newspaper clippings that the butler had painstakingly gathered and straightened. Newspapers were mostly printed in black and white, but on important dates like national anniversaries or new year’s parties, they would print the front page in color.

So the most recent holiday was three months ago.

“Here it is.”

The front page of the newspaper published three months ago to commemorate the national holiday celebrations featured a large color photograph. The photograph was taken in the magnificent ballroom of the Imperial Palace and showed the Emperor reading a declaration. And in that photo was a face that was absolutely familiar.

Pale skin, a high nose, and deep, unforgettable amber eyes.

The man I believed I had seen in my dreams was standing on the podium, proclaiming the declaration, and wearing a gold-embroidered cloak that only an emperor could wear.

“It wasn’t... a dream.”

What on earth had I done that day?

My legs gave out and I leaned against the wall.

It was me, the ill-fated bride whose story had filled the front page of the newspaper, and who had walked into Hades’ mouth while drinking alcohol.