One evening, a little over three months after the auction.
I was invited back to Mitra’s room.
Mitra was still the same, though.
Whenever there was a performance of the bard at the theater, she would always show up to hear their sing.
The variety of wooden puppets produced by Mitra now exceeded 50, and their sales were as strong as ever, even though the singers had changed.
I would schedule the performance, keeping track of each doll’s inventory and so on. I asked Mitra to make dolls for me on a daily basis.
That morning.
When I received the dolls as usual, I was asked by Mitra, “I want you to come to my room after dinner.”
“Mitra… whatis it?”
I feel like I’ve said this line before.
Mitra stood by the window and turned her blindfolded face toward me.
“I now have a place to live, and with the proceeds from the doll sales, I no longer have to worry about making a living. Clarice and Mr. Burgess seem to be getting along very well…. I have nothing more to worry about.”
“Ah.”
“But I do have a favor to ask.”
“What is it? If there’s anything I can do…”
Raise your share of the doll profits. I don’t know.
I’d prefer to keep it the way it is, but…
If Mitra is serious about negotiating, I might consider it.
Probably, though, that would never happen with Mitra.
“I… I…”
“Oh…”
“Will you take me as your wife, Albus-sama?”
Mitra said such a thing in a very direct manner while turning her head slightly down.
“We’ve already discussed this before, right?”
“This is different from back then. I am not the same person I was when you were bought this mansion and was prepared to be treated like a ***** in the end.”
Indeed. In the past three months, Mitra has changed in many ways.
She spends less time locked up in her room and often walks around the garden theater with the bard she has as her escort.
Sometimes she even asked us to take her out of the house.
“I, Mitra, whom Master Albus has taught to walk on my own two feet. With that …… heartfelt gratitude, I am now here to ask for your hand in marriage to the one whom I would like to walk with in the future.”
“……”
“I have always been. I have never tried to do anything on my own. Since I was born, I have always been at the mercy of those around me. No matter what my circumstances, I have always lived my life by hiding and enduring.
“Ah…”
I think she never knew any other way to live.
The most important thing to remember is that you should not be afraid to make your own choices or look for your own path.
But she simply followed what she was told by those around her and continued to live her life.
In the end, it was a way of life similar to making oneself a ***** to one’s surroundings.
And perhaps.
Perhaps, it is the result of the extreme self-deprecation caused by the circumstances of having to depend on others to survive.
“Thanks to Albus-sama, my handcraft became a source of livelihood. My doll-making, which I thought was meaningless, now gives me more mana than I can afford on a daily basis.”
“Don’t worry about it. I have made a lot of money from Mitra’s dolls as well.”
The amount of mana that Mitra said she “can afford” is not that much for me.
I was earning more than four times that amount of mana every day from the sale of Mitra’s wooden dolls alone.
So, if anything, I am the one who wants to thank her as a business partner.
“If my power can be useful to Albus-sama in the future…”
“I don’t have to marry you for that. We will be involved as business associates as before, so there should be no problem.”
“I don’t want to,” said Mitra, firmly.
“I want to be Albus-sama’s wife. I want to use everything I have for you. You have found value in my games and have freed me from the intimidating notion that I have no value in myself.”
“….”
“Will you accept…?”
“I am ……”
Of course I’m glad Mitra feels the same way.
As Arkana said, I could make people happy again with my business.
But…
“I’m sorry, Mitra. I’m glad you feel that way, but I’ve already…”
“I know you already have a wife.”
My answer was indeed a dumb one.
I had told her about my wife, Arcana, many times during the meal.
Naturally, Mitra must have known this and said so.
“Not only royalty and aristocrats, but also skilled adventurers and wealthy merchants have multiple wives, and it is quite common, isn’t it?”
Yes, it is.
So there was a time when I originally thought, ‘I’m going to build a harem like the hero.
But I am no longer the cherry boy I was back then, when I did all kinds of things on the spur of the moment.
“Arcana is special to me. Even if the laws of the world and the country allow it, I can’t easily ……
“You think my feelings are easy?”
“No, it’s not that…”
Behind the blindfold of Mitra, I felt that Mitra’s eyes, which should not be visible, were staring straight at me
Mitra is ten years older than Clarice, so she is already 26 years old.
In this world, a woman of Mitra’s age, if married at 16, would have had several children by now.
“I am sorry. I know I’m causing you trouble.”
Saying this, Mitra choked up a little.
“Still…I don’t want to give up on this so easily.”
After saying this, as if trying to squeeze it out of her, Mitra bit her lower lip.
The up and down movement around her chest that had been there earlier had stopped.
Mitra seemed to have stopped breathing.
Perhaps…
She’s too nervous.
Like me when I was competing with Sir Warren at the auction. She was concentrating so hard that she forgot to even breathe.
Because Mitra can’t see my expression.
She seemed to be trying not to miss even the faintest sound I made.
While I was watching such an appearance of Mitra…
“I understood.”
I felt that I could not ignore Mitra’s feelings.
I’ve known this for a long time, but…
I seem to be quite vulnerable to pushing.
That can be fatal for a merchant, so as much as possible I want to avoid it.
“Really…?”
Mitra, who had been looking down, lifted her face.
But there are some things I can’t give in to.
“But let me talk to Arcana…and my wife. I can’t have more wives if Arcana doesn’t allow it.”
For me, I couldn’t give in on that part.
Even if the beginning is momentum …
For me, the existence of Arcana is too big.
“I understand.”
With Mitra nodded again.
I left her room.
I don’t care if you think it’s honest or cowardly.
→→→→→
I finally received a reply from Arcana after a full week of being impatient.
During that time, Mitra looked exactly the same as usual. I still can’t read what she is thinking.
I felt as if we had become a little more distant again.
And then there was Arcana’s letter that arrived at my warehouse…
I thought that one day such a day might come, since Albus is a man who will eventually become a real big merchant.
It started out like that.
Is it bad? If she says, ‘Then I’ll divorce you,’ I’m sorry to say to Mitra, but no matter what you think, Arcana is number one. I read the rest of the book with that thought in mind.
Now that I had contacted Arcana. I was very worried that it would be a like, “He who runs after two hares will get none.”
“Is that person saved by the power of Albus-san as a merchant like me? I can’t stop feeling the same as I did at that time. ”
Including all of this, Arcana told me that night, it was her ‘determination to become a merchant’s wife’. In her letter, she said.
‘Please continue to make people happier and happier! Great merchant! Also…. Please let me meet her later for sure.’
It was concluded with such words.
Does that mean, perversely, that I should continue to have more and more wives?
*Arcana…”
Whatever the true heart of the matter is.
It was a form of permission from Arcana.
→→→→→
I visited Mitra’s room and told her about Arcana’s reply.
“I’m sorry for making you wait for a week.”
“….? If it was a letter to and from the village of Yak, it would normally take that long.”
Indeed!
As for the connection between my “warehouse” and the crate in Arcana’s house.
I had never heard of it anywhere else, and since it is a skill that is so mysterious, I tried to keep it to myself.
Loloi, Clarice, and Burgess knew, but Mitra probably did not.
Perhaps.
The timing of Arcana’s reply in one week’s time was probably based on the possibility of that being the case.
“I, too, would very much like to meet Arcana-sama in the near future.”
“Oh. If things settle down, let’s make arrangements.”
After all, Arkana is an amazing woman.
→→→→→
In a room at midnight, I faced Mitra.
We had decided to become husband and wife, and what we were going to do after that was already decided.
Mitra was trembling a little.
I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have a history of marriage.
But actually…
Mitra’s trembling came from a completely different concern.
“Before we get physical. I have to tell you something as my husband, Albus-sama.”
Saying this, Mitra moved to the back of the room.
Then, with a faint rustling sound, Mitra pulled off her blindfold.
With a rustle, a thick piece of cloth fell to the ground.
The part of Mitra that had been hidden was revealed.
I had heard that she had lost her sight in an accident when she was a child…
Her two closed eyelids show no scars to suggest that.
She had a beautiful face.
“Then you wouldn’t have to botherto go to the trouble of covering the scars with a cloth…”
“No. This is not to cover the scars.”
“If it’s not to cover the scar, then what is it?
“It’s…”
After saying that, Mitra is standing there.
Her breathing had become raspy and her little tremors were getting worse.
Something was obviously wrong.
She was clearly in a strange state.
“Don’t overdo it if you’re in pain…”
I said, and Mitra desperately controlled her breathing with her hands.
After regaining some composure, Mitra withdrew the hand covering her face and turned to me again.
“That cloth. That cloth… is to hide this.”
And then…
Mitra’s eyes…
They were opened.
“What…?”
There were jade green eyes.
Like the elves Amaranthia and Shinry, they were deep jade green eyes.
“Elf, you’re an elf?”
An half-elf more precisely.
“Yes. Clarice is the only one who knows about this.”
The mother of Mitra and Clarice, a ***** of a noble family, was an elf.
And despite being bought as slave.
She was favored by her master, Kilt Warren, who treated her as his wife and lived in this detached house.
As a half-human, and half-elf, Mitra had the characteristics of an elf in some parts of her body.
“I thought you had lost your eyesight in an accident when you were young …”
“My mother and father told me to keep it that way in front of servants and strangers. If they saw these eyes. Everyone would treat me as an elf-slave…”
With that said.
Mitra closed her eyes and began to tremble again.
Mitra and Clarice’s mother.
It seems that in the absence of her husband, Kilt Warren, they were treated very badly by the servants.
Mitra’s father and mother would not let Mitra be treated that way. So they decided to keep Mitra’s eyes a secret.
The few servants who happened to know about it were “dealt with” in various ways by the power of the great nobility.
“But, Albus-sama doesn’t treat me as a slave, does he?”
A squeezing voice.
I was originally against the system of elven slavery.
“I will not treat Mitra as a slave.”
When I answered firmly, Mitra’s trembling gradually stopped.
Mitra smiled at me, narrowing her tear-stained jade-green eyes.
“Albus-sama treated the elf Sinry as an equal human being. And the other day, he treated me, the owner of this mansion but in an overwhelmingly weak position, as a human being.”
“That’s… natural, isn’t it?”
“That’s why. ”
Mitra was conflicted about showing them to me.
She was so distraught that she was hyperventilating.
Then, Mitra turned to me again.
She stared at me.
“Ah…Albus-sama. You have such a face.”
“Was it different from what you imagined?”
“Yes. Yes, your face is much more dignified than I imagined.”
Mitra smiles again saying so.
And then…
“Albus-sama…”
She was so moved that she came close to me and hugged me.
I responded and hugged her.
Mitra also put strength into her hands.
“I’m sorry, but this’s is all I can do for you”. (Mitra)
“?”
“I’m not really sure what should I do after this.” (Mitra)
“……”
Without thinking, I pushed her straight down onto the bed.
I lay my hands on Mitra’s fingers, which are as delicate as craftsmanship, and touch each one of them.
As I move, Mitra stares at me with her jade green eyes and twirls her fingers back at me.
My heart began to race.
And then…
I kissed Mitra, who had quietly closed her eyes.
“Albus-sama…”
I put my hands on Mitra’s clothes and remove them one by one, feeling my body heat up little by little.
I was struggling to control myself so that I would not become wild.
I was trying hard not to be rough with myself.
“I, Mitra, am not as delicate as Master Albus thinks I am. Please do as you please, Master.”
Under my body, a half-naked Mitra said such a thing…