Dale looked at the edited papers and handed them to the priest.
“Take this.”
“Ah, yes, Si, I mean, His Majesty the Emperor!”
"emperor?"
Dale looked at the priest and looked like he was going to be beheaded at any moment.
“Please excuse me.
I didn’t see anything, nor did I hear anything.
I just don’t remember what happened today……, what, who are you?”
As if the priest's answer was what he had hoped for, Dale turned around without hesitation.
He lifted Enya's robe that he had hidden in the temple.
“…….”
He could see statues and paintings of loving couples spread all over the temple.
Dale raised the corner of his mouth with an incomprehensible look on his face.
“I don't regret it...”
He responded to Enya's words with a cold expression that was 180 degrees different from the expression he showed her.
With the robe in his hand, she couldn't escape.
“Princess Enya Lockhart.”
There was an inexplicable satisfaction in his eyes.
Dale left the temple with quick steps without looking around.
“……?”
At that time, a woman who had just entered the temple looked at Dale as he passed by.
“Isn't this the man who lives in the hill house in Grunwald?”
“I think so.”
The women who recognized him trembled with curiosity.
“What brought him to the temple suddenly?
Did he come to pray like us?”
“No.
Look.”
A woman looked closely at the paper in his hand.
Dale was carrying the woman's robe.
“Are those marriage papers?”
"What?!
What about Adeline?"
The village women screamed in excitement.
“I don't think Adeline knows, she's so excited to invite him to her birthday party.”
“We'd better tell her.”
“What kind of woman did he marry?”
They walked behind Dale.
They saw him draping the white robe he was carrying over a woman.
She was beautiful, with silver hair and blue eyes.
“She is so beautiful……!
Where did she come from?”
“I've heard about her.
Someone has moved to Grunwald.
Is this her?”
Their mouths fell open.
“Let's hurry and report to Adeline.”
* * *
“All these things people gave us as wedding gifts.”
“That's a lot.”
As Dale and I ate dinner—Dale was the one who prepared everything, of course—I stared at the piles of fruit, rice, and meat in one corner of the living room.
They were all wedding gifts from the people of Grunwald.
But that's an excuse, they're wondering who married the handsome bachelor.
“Dale is very popular, isn't he?”
Then he covered his face in embarrassment.
"I'm sorry."
“I don't deny that you are very popular.”
“This...”
Dale held his flushed face.
Does this mean he knows he's famous?
'Because he is a good-natured and exemplary young man who does all the housework.'
Dale wasn't just handsome and good looking.
He has been living a quiet life in Grunwald, helping people, since retiring from the mercenary life for secret reasons.
Grunwald was a small fiefdom, where the land was barren and job opportunities were scarce, making it difficult to attract young labor.
Dale was said to have only been living here for six months and was helping adults.
In Grunwald, the gap between neighboring houses was wide, but everyone knew each other's secrets.
It wasn't a good environment for me, as I had a lot to hide, but it was still a good place.
Because here is the Duke of Hexagon's huge herb garden.
The original novel begins when I am 22 years old.
I am 20 now.
Two years to the exact beginning of the original novel.
But why did the Emperor issue the decree much earlier than in the original account?
Is there a custom of early marriage?
Or does he know that I don't love him?
I don't think it's a rumour.
I've never seen it actually.
Few people know the face of the emperor who ascended the throne at a young age.
Only my father, Duke Lockhart, the Emperor's advisors, and the Emperor's knights.
And his friend, Marquis Cassian Schulz.
The Emperor never showed his face and appeared wearing a mask on official occasions.
I asked my eldest brother, who was the Emperor's Knight, to draw a portrait of him, but his drawing skills were worse than those of an earthworm, so I didn't recognize his face.
“Now that he is emperor, the herb garden has become very, very important.”
I muttered.
Duke Hexagon, the villain of the original novel, has planted a large herb garden.
It was here in Grunwald.
“By any chance, Dale, has anyone from the Duke of Hexagon's family been here before?”
“I don't think so.”
“Really?
Not yet.”
Then I'll take it before him.
“Did Duke Hexagon do something to Enya?”
“No, nothing like that.”
He hasn't done that yet.
I wasn't going to let him do that.
“Dale, can you help me find a wasteland that could be useful?”
“Are you going to plant it?”
“Unfortunately, no.
It would be expensive.”
I have a hundred thousand kroner in my pocket, not counting the money I'm going to give Dale.
I'm broke.
“I think cheap, spacious land would do the trick.”
* * *
“This is the place.”
The land Dale had brought me to was a wasteland in front of Gornwald's mansion, about an hour's walk from the house.
It was quite far but it was good.
Of all the lands in Grunwald, it was the cheapest
“It's right behind the palace, so why is it so cheap?”
This land is large enough to build ten palaces.
But it was only 10,000 kroner.
It was such a big deal that I wondered if the Earth was cursed.
“That's because she's cursed.”
“……Haha.”
truly?
Why did Dale bring me to this Earth?
I'm sure there's a reason.
“Damned, but it was the cheapest.”
……I really focused on “cheapest”.
I stared at Dale who seemed so sincere.
He looked at me with a slight smile.
“And the curse didn't work on Enya, so it was a good place in many ways.”
“It didn't work for me?”
“The Lord is currently ill, so the land near the palace is not for sale.”
There was a reason for the gloom of the surroundings.
Grunwald Palace was dilapidated and unmaintained, and looked like an abandoned palace.
"It's been said that Dale sometimes works at the palace.
Do you know what the Lord is up to?"
“It is rumored that he sees ghosts.”
"ghosts?"
That is a strange experience that even I, the incarnate, have not yet had.
Lord sees ghosts?
“But the rumors that the Lord sees ghosts are probably not true.”
Dale placed his robe on the flat stone.
I sat on the robe and listened to his story.
“Lord Grunwald has been raising his granddaughter alone ever since he lost two of his children in a carriage accident years ago.”
"Show……."
“Do you know Kydland, the surrounding area?”
“I know it's a wealthy area, right?”
They were both fiefdoms in the same Gonia Mountains, but as if the blessings only flowed to one side, Kydland was the rich fiefdom and Grunwald the poor fiefdom.
“Come to think of it, they were originally one property, right?”
"Yes, this is correct."
Dale looked at me with a slight smile.
Grünewald and Kydland were originally one estate, but a few generations ago, Count Grünewald gave Kydland the title of Viscount and divided the land between them.
Kydland is technically an arm of Grunwald.
But he's suspicious.
Why would Grunwald give all the good things to a vassal?
Doesn't Grunwald have an heir?