Chapter 6

Riat, who had suddenly found herself in the position of having been scammed by a god, calmly ate dinner.

The fact that she was alive and breathing, sitting here and eating, was itself proof that she had received the god’s help. But she found the aide’s gaze, which regarded her as though she were an idiot, rather amusing, so she deliberately refrained from explaining the whole story.

For now, Riat had lost both the means to repay the god and the means to fulfill the bargain the god had offered her. She did not want to waste her time obsessing over something she had no way of knowing.

Besides, once one year and three months passed, she would simply stop breathing and die on her own.

“I just hope I don’t get my head cut off…”

There was no escaping death somehow, but if she had a choice, she would rather not have her head severed. After having her neck cut off so many times, she had reached the point where she was hoping for something as peaceful as a heart attack.

And she hoped it would not hurt before she died, either. It would be unfair to spend the remaining time of her life confined to bed just because she was ill…

As she wondered what the most comfortable way to die would be, Riat quietly moved her utensils.

Afterward, Riat wandered alone through the spacious mansion, slowly looking around its interior. Over the past few months, she had experienced all sorts of things in this mansion—dying, being beaten, being ignored, and so on—but she had never actually taken the time to look around inside it.

This mansion had always been a place of despair to Riat, somewhere she desperately needed to escape.

But now that she was walking through it, the mansion was simply… large. The Count who had ignored her was nowhere to be seen, and the servants who had likewise refused to treat her as the Countess were gone as well.

There were only the new eyes of surveillance sent from the Imperial Palace. Even they were nowhere to be seen at the moment, leaving the mansion merely vast and quiet.

She had struggled so desperately to escape death in this very place, yet now that she had obtained a chance to live and walked through it again, it was unbearably boring.

And so Riat…

had lost both her direction and her motivation.

She did not know what she should do, nor what she wanted to do. Riat leaned her body against the railing on the third floor and looked down.

It was only the third floor, but it was high enough that the ground seemed terribly far away. She stared quietly at the intricate circle drawn on the floor below, and just as she began to feel dizzy, a voice filled with disbelief rang out.

“…What are you doing up there?”

It was the aide. Riat merely turned her head slightly to confirm who it was, then pulled the corners of her lips into a smile.

“I was bored… I was wondering if I’d die if I fell from here.”

“I think you could manage to die without having to make yourself bored first.”

“Really?”

In that case, she decided, she would not mind if the death that awaited her one year and three months from now happened to be a fall from this place.

The aide looked as though she had never imagined that Riat was calmly contemplating such a thing. She shook her head, hiding her exasperation as best she could.

Riat noticed that emotion too, but merely smiled at her with practiced ease.

“I came because I have something to report. The Count’s family has sent word that they would like to visit. When should I tell them to come?”

“Tell them not to come.”

“Pardon?”

“Why? I don’t want to see them, so tell them not to come. I’ll write the reply myself.”

At Riat’s firm response, the aide’s expression grew even stranger. Her face seemed to say that even if they refused, the family might simply show up anyway, leaving them with no way to stop them.

But Riat did not particularly care.

To her, the point was simply to refuse.

“Fortunately, there’s still something I don’t want to do.”

She had been wandering around because she could not find anything she wanted to do.

Riat muttered softly, then smiled and tilted her head.

“Is there anything else to report?”

“Ah, yes. A banquet will be held at the Imperial Palace one week from now to celebrate the youngest Princess’s birthday. His Highness the Crown Prince has asked to attend with Your Excellency as his partner. He says he would like to have your outfits made to match and send you some accessories, but…”

Even as she delivered the report, the aide wore an astonished expression. It was extremely rare for the Crown Prince of the Empire to personally ask someone to be his partner.

Moreover, appearing at a party together in matching outfits carried considerable significance.

Could it be that he had developed feelings after meeting her at the last Imperial Palace banquet?

The aide watched the situation with an intrigued gaze, but Riat merely blinked blankly at the report before saying,

“Refuse.”

“Pardon?”

“I said refuse. If that’s difficult for you to answer, I’ll write it myself.”

The aide’s eyes widened. She swallowed several incredulous little laughs, as though she truly could not believe what she was hearing, before finally managing to speak.

“Attending the party as His Highness the Crown Prince’s partner carries tremendous significance. You would be accompanying the man considered to be the next Emperor of the Irmak Empire. Your presence beside him would certainly increase the influence of House Pshikia, and you would likely receive marriage proposals from even more prestigious families afterward.”

Riat listened quietly, but her expression gradually became more bored.

Even if she attended as the Crown Prince’s partner, she would only be doing him the favor of “going with him.” Why would that be advantageous for her future marriage?

Crown Prince Lutovus was only interested in the mines within the County of Pshikia. His desire to attend the party with her was likewise an attempt to show that he was on close terms with the wealthiest family in the Empire.

And even if he had no such ulterior motive, Riat did not particularly like him.

“Then I want to go even less.”

She had not even found something she wanted to do, yet things she did not want to do were piling up like mountains.

Only then did Riat straighten herself from the railing and sweep her hair back with a somewhat irritated motion. Brilliant golden hair slipped through her fingers and fell in disarray.

Riat’s beauty was so overwhelming in that moment that even the aide let out a brief gasp of admiration.

Then Riat casually voiced what was truly on her mind.

“Why is everyone being so annoying?”

It was a beautiful face paired with anything but a beautiful way of speaking.

When she stayed still, her family bothered her, and now even the Crown Prince seemed to be getting entangled with her.

Come to think of it, the Emperor had said some strange things too.

Like father, like son, Riat thought, frowning.

Should I just openly put out a notice looking for a new husband?

Riat was bored.

In the end, she had no choice but to admit it.

She had fought desperately to obtain this life, yet now that she could not find anything she wanted to do, she was suffering from nothing but boredom.

She spent a whole week denying that emptiness because she did not want to accept it. As the time remaining to her continued to dwindle, however, Riat felt not urgency, but helplessness.

Perhaps the one month she had spent desperately trying to survive—going so far as to attempt to cut off Count Vortus’s head—had been filled with more motivation.

“If you’re bored, why don’t you work?”

“Even working is boring.”

After watching Riat spend her days lying listlessly in her bedroom, staring blankly around the mansion, or wandering through the garden only to doze alone on a bench, the aide could no longer stand by and dragged her into the study.

She had assumed Riat simply hated working, but when it came down to it, Riat handled the paperwork fairly well.

She was simply bored with that too.

The aide rested her chin in both hands and stared at Riat with undisguised exasperation as she let out a long, weary sigh.

At first, she had at least tried to hide what she was thinking.

Now she no longer bothered.

Rather, Riat found that amusing and giggled softly before tilting her head to the side.

“You don’t really want me to know this territory in detail, do you?”

Whenever Riat said things like that, the aide would flinch and her expression would stiffen.

She’s really cute.

Riat thought this casually as she lowered her gaze.

An aide sent from the Imperial Palace.

The Emperor wanted to learn something related to the “god” through Riat, and he had sent an extra pair of eyes to watch her in order to obtain that information.

Whether the Crown Prince had the same intention, Riat could not say for certain. But at the very least, the Imperial Palace seemed quite disappointed that the mana stone mine had ended up being transferred to her.

So they were probably placing Imperial Palace personnel inside the mansion and gradually attempting to take control of the territory’s administration.

In the end, they think I’m an easy target.

Riat thought indifferently and nodded.

It was not an entirely inaccurate assessment. She was a young woman who had only just inherited the title of Countess. And since she did not even want help from her family, she had even fewer allies, making her appear all the more easy to handle.

“Sis.”

“I have told you several times. My name is Sicarius Irendel.”

“It’s too long. Do you think I have enough free time to waste on saying my aide’s ridiculously long name?”

A look followed that seemed to ask how, exactly, she could possibly lack free time when she had spent all this time doing nothing but lying around.

Riat merely shrugged.

“Sis, what do you do when you’re bored?”

“…I read books.”

“Books are boring.”

“Then perhaps you could try reading plays.”

It was an extremely halfhearted suggestion, but Riat found the answer rather interesting.

She had never read a play before.

The only books Riat had ever read were the painfully dull ones about the education and accomplishments a lady was expected to possess, along with books filled with lessons on becoming a bride.

Her family had been poor, so she had never gone to the theater either.

Her older brothers seemed to have attended performances as part of their education, but she had been excluded from those outings.

Occasionally, nobles with dubious intentions had invited her to watch a play with them, but she had refused because she did not want to be alone with them in a dark room.

“Thank you! I’ll go read one right now.”

“Pardon? Right now…?!”

Ignoring the aide’s bewildered cry, Riat happily headed for the library.

The Count’s library was enormous.

Riat picked up every play she could find, then sat down and began reading in earnest. Among them were also several romance novels that had become popular among commoners.

At first, she casually turned one or two pages in search of something interesting.

But gradually, the movement of her hand grew faster.

Riat’s eyes raced over the words.

One book piled up beside her.

Then another.

Then another.

The stack gradually grew so high that it nearly hid her upper body.

That was when someone called out to her in a voice unable to conceal their disbelief.

“Countess. Are you still reading?”

“…Huh? Ah, Sis. What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? You didn’t come to the study, and I was told you hadn’t even returned to your bedroom last night, so I came looking for you. Have you been reading books here for an entire day?”

Riat slowly raised her head at Sicarius’s expression of genuine amazement.

For some reason, her neck felt stiff.

She looked around with unfamiliar eyes and soon realized that brilliant sunlight was pouring into the library.

But she could have sworn it had been dark outside the last time she looked…

“It’s already…”

Riat murmured in dismay, yet she still could not bring herself to take her hands off the book.

Her heart fluttering with excitement, she slowly stroked the cover before speaking in a soft voice.

“Sis. I found something I want to do.”

At the sudden declaration, Sicarius shook her head as though Riat were truly an impossible person to understand.

But Riat paid no attention.

She smiled shyly.

It was such a fresh, clear smile that no one would have guessed she had spent the entire night awake.

Riat had read a novel about love for the first time.

And because of that, every sentence in the novel had shocked her while simultaneously filling her with an overwhelming sense of excitement.

Lovers who were willing to face even death for the sake of love!

Lovers who swore they would continue loving each other even if death itself separated them!

People who sold their homes, their families, even their countries for love!

To Riat, it was an unimaginable kind of recklessness.

But she had already gone so far as to cut off a Count’s head just to survive, so perhaps such recklessness really could exist.

“What is it you want to do?”

“Love.”

And so Riat dreamed of love.

Perhaps it was born from a sudden sense of injustice.

The injustice of having died so many times because of her family and Count Vortus, only to be left with just one year and three months to live.

The desperate desire to deny the fact that, in the end, she would have to leave this world after living only a short life because of them.

And so Riat wanted to believe.

She wanted to believe that she would not die because of them.

She would die because she had fallen in love.

Riat’s eyes were somewhat unfocused as she murmured in a hazy voice, but the longing in her words was remarkably clear.

“I’m going to fall in love.”