Chapter 8: Engagement Talks Have Finally Com

A slash comes at me with a sharp “whoosh.” I know that if I get hit directly, I will be knocked back due to the difference in my weight and strength, so I block the slash with my sword and push it away at an angle.

“Fire, pierce my enemies.”

“—-!”

And while Erich was attacking me with a sword, he turned left and let Cristoph shoot a barrage like fiery arrows. In this world, there are no formal spell names like Fireball or Fire Arrow. No, they may have names, but should I say that there is no need to shout that name to cast the spell?

With just two words or three, Christoph fires countless barrages more of those fiery arrows, I intercept them in turn. In my case, if I imagine a spell formula and harness the magical power, my spells would activate without the need to chant, so I can fire off slightly faster than Cristoph. Thanks to that, I was barely able to shoot his projectiles down, but I was too naive to think that would have been it.

“Ice, pierce my enemies.”

“—-!?”

And as I was fighting fire arrows with fire arrows, there was one ice arrow mixed in and I hate it. Of course, fire arrows can’t intercept ice arrows, and they approach through the gap in my interception barrage.

As expected of Christoph. Even though he has a flawed personality, he was still the #1 Court Wizard of the Kingdom of Ploiss. At the same time, it’s rare that he could simultaneously use elemental attributes of opposite poles. After failing to shoot the ice arrows down, I twisted my upper body to dodge them.

“You’re open.”

“Kuh!” I gasped.

Father swung his sword down at me just as I twist to the side, my posture becomes unstable. In this unfavorable position, I can’t take a direct hit from Father’s sword, even sharper and more powerful than Erich’s. I forced my upper body to bend backward and got some distance with three back flips.

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“It’s too early to relax yet,” Erich said.

And at the moment I stopped, Erich went into pursuit again. I can’t fight alone against my Father and Erich’s swords and Christoph’s magic.

Even though I’ve been practicing swordsmanship for three years and have turned eight years old now, it’s not just impossible for me to win against the three of them at once, there’s no way I’m a match for them to start.

“Fufuh,” I went.

Even so, I couldn’t help but laugh. I’m not going to let them get a free hit, either. It’s still better than becoming hopeless and giving up before the start before anything has even happened. It’s been five years since I learned magic, and three years since I started learning swordsmanship, so I have to show some results instead of just complaining.

“Huh?!” Erich cried.

From pursuing me with his sword out, I struck back and aimed for his torso. Erich’s chest was wide open, he didn’t expect a sword slash to come out of my unstable posture.

“Don’t think it’s that easy,” Father said.

“Tsuu!!!” I gasped.

But it wasn’t as easy as he made it seem. Father catches my sword and protects Erich. Compared to me with only one sword, they have two swords for two people. Furthermore, even during battle, Christoph lashes out with barrages of magic attacks, on the premise that this is training to freely cast magic.

Repelled at full force, my sword did not reach Erich, and on the contrary, my hands went numb from the reaction, I couldn’t move them properly for a moment.

“This is it!”

Erich slashes at my wrists while my hands are numbed. If it was a downward swing, I might have been able to dodge it with footwork, but if it was a sideways sweep, there was no way to dodge it except by moving backward.

Without hesitation, I throw my sword to keep my distance from Father and Erich. Christoph is chanting to fire more spells now that they’re out of the line of fire, but I don’t care and use more spells before they reach me.

I placed my hand on the ground and activated the spell, the earth swelled into a spear shape. It’s impossible to toss my sword and fight the three while unarmed. In the past, my father scolded me for letting go of my sword because it was my last line of self-defense, but now I have magic that allows me to create weapons as long as I have dirt nearby. This can also be used as a means of piercing the opponent’s openings, so it would be a real battlefield tactic.

And even though it’s a relatively small and light sword made for me, it’s still heavy for an eight-year-old child to wield. The earthen spear I made will probably be inferior to an iron sword in terms of strength, but it’s light and easy to handle, and above all, it has a difference in reach.

Equipped with the same sword, me, a child with an inferior physique, would have a short reach and a disadvantage, but with my freely customizable earthen spear, that range disadvantage can be overturned.

“Water, pierce my enemies.”

Christoph’s spell activates. I activated another spell, prepared when the earthen spear was crafted.

“OOOH!” Christoph yelled. “Impossible!”

I heard Christoph’s surprised voice from the other side. What I activated just now was a spell that raised the earth and turned it into a wall. It doesn’t have a particular name, but if I were to convey the image in an easy-to-understand way, it would be Soil Wall, Earth Wall, or Sand Wall. The nuances are slightly different, but if you ask me that, it’s something that most people would imagine, and it’s more or less the same.

“Haah!” I cried.

“Uuu…” Erich gasped.

Erich thought I was disarmed after I threw my sword, but he just got smashed in the stomach with the butt end of my earthen spear and then stopped moving. That’s one down, but I was downed, too.

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“… I surrender,” I said.

“Mm,” Father said. “That will be all for today. Don’t forget to cool down.”

“Yes…” I muttered. “Thank you very much.”

As I stabbed Erich, Father slashed my shoulder. It hurts a lot. Even though the edge was blunted, I was hit with a slab of iron at full force and couldn’t raise my left arm.

My father used Erich as a decoy to invite me to attack Erich, and instead of just Erich being “killed” by me, Father launched a gambit to “kill” me. As you can see, the result is just as my father intended, instead of downing Erich, I was downed by Father. There are still two people left on my opponent’s side, so if this were a battlefield, I would have to do a single trade-off and die in battle soon after.

After saying goodbye to Christoph and Erich, I leave and go to my room and changed clothes while wiping off my sweat. My body in the mirror was full of bruises. That’s no surprise. If the three of us are constantly practicing swords and magic like before, and I’m beaten stupid without mercy, I’ll get at least a few bruises.

And then it suddenly occurred to me while I was changing: Is something wrong? Wasn’t I still the only daughter of a high-ranking aristocrat, a Margrave at that? Is this the life of a noble daughter? Huh? Am I crazy? Is this normal?

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If I were to say what a noble daughter’s life is like, it would be more like this… growing flowers, holding tea parties, elegantly reading books, composing poetry, playing musical instruments, and so on, right? Is this just my life?

Well, there is no way someone like Margrave Albert, who is a great noble, would give his daughter a bizarre education. It must be good that Father gave me such training and Mother wasn’t saying anything. With that conclusion, I finished changing clothes and headed over to Mother.

Father summoned me, and when I greeted him and entered his office, there was no one there but him. There’s usually someone else around, so generally speaking, it’s tough when it’s just me and him. I thought that today’s summons wouldn’t be good, anyway, but I silently waited for what he was going to say.

“Flora, you’re eight years old now. You don’t understand how surprising it is that you haven’t had any engagements despite being the daughter of a margrave, do you?” Father asked.

“… Yes,” I said.

Yes, I don’t understand. I don’t know at all how old it is for the aristocracy of this world to get engaged or get married. It wasn’t taught to me, to begin with. If it’s a normal house, wouldn’t the parents just tell you “you need to get engaged” or something like that after the fact? It’s not a society where you can go against the head of the family, so if the head of the family decides to marry you off or get you engaged to a relative, in essence, the person in question has no right to refuse.

“Naturally, you have received many engagement proposals,” Father continued. “I’ve refused all of them so far, but now we’ve received one I cannot, which is why I’m informing you.”

Ah, apparently an engagement has already been decided. Moreover, it must be quite a complicated story that my Father, one of the most powerful people in the Kingdom of Ploiss, cannot refuse. The fact that a margrave family cannot refuse is likely because the other party has a higher position or is of the same rank, that is, the royal family, a ducal family, or another marquisate family.

Or it could be political. Even if the other party’s family is of lower rank than a margrave, there is a possibility that they are in an important post or have a high official rank instead of a peerage. Alternatively, there is the possibility of marriage between factions to improve relations with the related parties.

In any case, I have no way of refusing Father in this matter, and I have no choice but to think that it’s basically inevitable if my Father can’t refuse, either. I thought that if I could get along with cute girls, I would be able to endure being married to a man eventually, but even though I haven’t been able to have “tee-hee, haha” time with other girls even once, will I be able to handle engagement talks or will I just falter?

“The other party is the third prince, Ludwig von Ploiss,” Father said. “No one in our family can refuse an engagement with royalty.”

“Yes,” I said.

I see. For sure, it would be rude to refuse a royal engagement. Above all, how can you say no to a marriage to the royal family, which should normally be an honor?

He can’t just say, “You can’t have my daughter!” or “My daughter is not good enough for you!”, because… it would mean implying the royal family does not have good judgment. It’s natural that vassals can’t refuse a marriage proposal from the royal family.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the royal family can marry the daughters of their vassals as they please. If you enter into a marriage relationship with a poor family, it can become a source of political conflict. Marriage is meant to connect one family to another, so you can’t marry someone who doesn’t have any benefits to the whole House, so you’ll have to choose your partner carefully.

Considering that, taking a wife from the Margrave makes sense. Of course, there will be factional disputes, so I can’t generalize it, but from the point of national defense, it would be natural to marry a powerful margrave who protects the border and aim to buffer national security. The problem is when factions get involved.

I don’t know much about political disputes and factional disputes in the Kingdom of Ploiss. In a way, it’s only natural that I, who hasn’t even debuted yet, would not be informed of such things. The fact that the Margrave Carruthers are about to become relatives of the royal family has become a threat to those in the opposing factions. If that happens, those hostile factions will become even more aggressive.

The royal family can’t intensify factional disputes between the aristocrats too much, nor should they lean too heavily toward one side. For that reason, they probably made someone in such a delicate position as the third prince marry the daughter of Margrave Carruthers. If it’s the third prince, the chances of succeeding to the throne and becoming king may be low.

I know almost nothing about the royal family, hostile factions, and the third prince, so everything is just in my imagination, but I knew that this engagement was something I couldn’t turn down.

“However… if the other party refuses, it’s a different story,” Father said. “Third Prince Ludwig has refused countless other engagement offers. It means that you aren’t the only one he’s turned down, even if the royal family were the ones who came to us. Do you understand what that means?”

Mm? What does it mean? The third prince has refused many engagement talks before. Father speaks of this as a well-known fact. And it is implicitly said that no one will be blamed even if the engagement talks with me fail. I see, is that how it is? Even if the prince who repeatedly refuses engagement talks does the same to me, the surrounding people will just think “Not again,” and they won’t think that there was a problem with me.

Ah! I see! In other words, Father is telling me to get him to refuse my engagement with the third prince and ensure these talks don’t go well. That means even if the engagement is unsuccessful, it can be argued that there is no flaw on the part of Margrave Carruthers.

“Understood, Father. Please leave it to me,” I said.

I bow my head to emphasize that I understand. If I get engaged to Third Prince Ludwig, I’ll probably be in trouble. That’s why he must have ordered me to break off the engagement talks. It’s hard to understand because it’s a nobility-specific conversation, which has complications in and of itself, but that’s what he means.

Father seemed satisfied with my words and then urged me to leave the room, so I’m leaving. I don’t know what kind of guy the third prince is, so I can’t even imagine it, but I was already planning a strategy to break the deal.

And after Flora’s training with Christoph, Erich, and Albert, Erich spoke to Christoph.

“Lady Flora continues to amaze me,” Erich said. “Even with the three of us together, we can barely stay on even footing with her…”

Christoph turns to Erich and stares blankly at him. “Do you seriously think that?” Christoph said. “She’s taking it easy. This is all just a game to her. Did you not get that?”

“Huh?!” Erich said, going wide-eyed. “You’re serious?!”

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“Flora has hardly used any spells other than for intercepting mine,” Christoph said. “If she cast something at all of us from the start, we would be wiped off the face of the earth in an instant.”

“I see……” Erich muttered.

That being said, there were some memorable moments already. Not only with magic, but also with swords, Flora moderates herself so as not to inflict serious injuries on Erich and Albert. Even though Erich was a swordsman whose name is famous throughout the Kingdom of Ploiss and Margrave Albert was known as hailed as the Hero of the Frontier, defending it countless times against enemy attack, the two of them were giving it their all while Flora was pulling back.

And although he’s an eccentric fellow, if you add Christoph, the powerful magician called the #1 mage in the Kingdom of Plois, their strength is probably comparable to a normal army. He can’t even imagine how strong Flora would be taking things seriously if this was her taking it easy against the three of them.

To begin with, Erich stopped being a match for Flora long ago which is why the three of them started ganging up on her, to give Flora a usable experience for an actual battle in a real war. Erich’s body started trembling as he imagined having to deal with Flora in full force by himself.

Meanwhile, now that Albert has told Flora about her prospective engagement and she had left with full confidence, he let out a sigh of relief, “Phew.” Albert was terrified of his daughter but he also had high hopes.

She probably thinks he’s a terrible father. Considering what he’s done to her, it wouldn’t be strange for Flora to hold a grudge.

Since she was only three years old, Albert has never once taken care of her, and by contrast, he’s had her thoroughly educated by tutors in academics, practical lessons, and other subjects. Since she was five years old, he had forced her to practice swordsmanship and live a life of endless injuries.

Even though she was still a young girl, the content of her education was unusual, and if other nobles knew about this, they would probably frown on it.

Still, Albert doesn’t think Flora’s education was incorrect. Flora is not a normal child. He doesn’t think that she is a genius. Everything that Flora has acquired is due to her efforts. Saying that she was able to do it because she was a genius is nothing but a denial of all her hard work.

Such an understanding and clever Flora would find it difficult to be engaged to the Third Prince, Ludwig, yet she accepted it with full confidence. If an engagement with him, the most promising successor to the throne, succeeds, then the Margrave Carruthers and the rest of their faction’s futures were secured.

(Flora is an intelligent child. I’m sure she must have some secret plan to guarantee an engagement with the third prince.)

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He doesn’t know where Flora’s self-confidence comes from, as she has shown that extraordinary intelligence since childhood and he doesn’t know where that came from, either. But even though he didn’t know, Albert couldn’t help but have high hopes for Flora’s capabilities.

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