02. House Ordo

News that the Camelot heir had finally returned to the country spread across the Empire.

Jade’s movements after five years abroad drew enormous public attention.

Rumors flew: that he had dueled and subdued hundreds of kings and knights while wandering the Sibell Empire, that he had amassed enough treasure to build several fortresses, that he had taken twelve wives in the Empire……

The number of children said to be his spitting image started at seven and ballooned to thirty.

Buried among the wilder, less believable tales was at least one piece of news that carried the ring of truth.

“They say the lady of Camelot is meeting with matchmakers!”

Sir Jade’s marriage meetings had resumed!

Wherever three or more people gathered, he became the topic of conversation.

“Can we trust that the twelve wives were just a rumor?”

“Sir Jade was always an uninterested, rude sort of man when it came to women, wasn’t he.”

“He’s not really the type that goes over well in Hailion. These days, even the most accomplished man needs a pleasant personality to be popular.”

“Oh, that only matters when the man’s qualifications are ordinary!”

“Exactly! The wealth Sir Jade has accumulated, his standing as heir to a great domain, his looks as the original Holy Knight, and that body of his……! If I were twenty years younger, I’d put myself forward as a bride!”

Countless families coveted Jade as a husband or son-in-law. Everyone had their eye on him, seemingly having forgotten every atrocity he had committed against his former prospective brides.

Before long, he began appearing in newspaper articles as well.

Absurd pieces ran without shame, claiming that Jade Camelot had returned from the Sibell Empire, said to be the homeland of fairies and witches, transformed into a perfect male deity capable of summoning angels. A bizarre reader submission column called the ‘Draw Jade Camelot Contest’ even came into existence.

“This is a disaster. At this rate, that wretched Camelot boy is going to get married before our Rose.”

Anne hovered anxiously around the mailbox.

Any day now, surely, a letter from Prince Julius would arrive.

“What are we going to do, my lady! I would be absolutely furious if our Miss Rose lost to that Camelot gorilla!”

Vivi looked equally miserable.

“Why does it matter who gets married first?”

Of all the things to compete over, now it was wedding dates?

Rose let the rumors wash over her with indifference.

But the atmosphere in House Ordo grew uglier by the day.

“If that Camelot wretch gets married before our Rose, I’ll show up at the ceremony and tear the whole thing apart!”

“That would earn you a week-long fasting prayer, Piar.”

“Are you really fine with losing like this? We cannot lose to those oversized savages by even a single hair!”

“Isn’t it stranger to try to beat a savage with hair, Anton?”

Anton and Piar took wooden swords to the garden trees, beating each other with grim resolve. The household servants, who had no more sense than their masters, followed suit.

Rose could only do so much to scold and rein them in. Robert, the head of the family, kept praising the men of the house for their fighting spirit, and if Rose took the opposing hard line against her father’s wishes, she risked being accused of insubordination.

“Everyone, stop. What does it matter if I get married after Camelot’s second-in-command gorilla?”

After a week of enduring it, Rose squeezed out a single tear and let it fall onto her embroidery cloth.

“I am willing to wait until my hair turns white, as long as I can find a man of true character to call my partner. But with my brothers behaving so violently and the household servants running wild alongside them, what well-bred, refined young man from a noble family would ever come to marry me?”

The talk of Ordo’s disgraceful lot dragging Rose down was nothing new, of course.

Anne felt the sting of that and shot pointed looks at the men rampaging in the garden, gesturing for them to settle down.

“W, well, you still have Prince Julius, who fancies you, don’t you? You really should have gone on that date with him at Princess Helen’s birthday celebration when you had the chance.”

“Honestly, I was truly heartbroken about that too, Mother.”

Rose stared into the air with a wistful look and sighed.

“I didn’t want to say anything because I thought everyone would feel bad for me…… but if my brothers hadn’t gone foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs looking for a fight that day, couldn’t I have had a lovely, quiet time with Prince Julius?”

Haah. She dabbed at her eyes, which had already dried up, feigning a regret she didn’t feel.

Anne, who had been casting sharp glances at her nephews, transformed into the goddess of war.

“So you were hurting inside after all? Truly…… the more I think about it, the more furious I get! What did I tell you? You should have known the time and place, you little rat droppings!”

Anne crumpled the letter she had been reading and hurled it into the garden. Anton and Piar, seeing the paper ball flying toward them, panicked and fled outside the castle walls.

“I have the worst luck with children! One nephew-turned-son causes a scandal to get married and then gets divorced in under a year, my daughter won’t budge even when I beg her to cause a scandal with some fine man and get married already, what kind of divine being would I have to offer up for our Rose to fall head over heels and agree to marry? And Prince Julius, honestly, what use is a man who’s too well-mannered for his own good? He spends all year pinned down by that Volcano border lord, hunting monsters, no time for a proper romance, and instead of pushing forward with youthful boldness and doing something reckless, he just drags his feet, ugh, I’m going to burst!”

Anne grumbled without pausing for breath, all while her eyes and hands moved swiftly, sorting through the pile of marriage proposals.

Those that failed her strict review were crumpled one after another and sailed out into the garden.

In any case, with the noisy brothers gone and the garden finally quiet, Rose felt satisfied and turned her full attention back to her embroidery.

“……Miss Rose, why don’t you tell your trustworthy maid just a little something.”

Vivi scooted close and whispered, eyebrows rippling like waves.

“Tell you what?”

Rose asked absently without lifting her eyes from the handkerchief. The golden rosemary blossoms of Melos were nearly finished.

How many proposal handkerchiefs was this now, over a dozen? This one was noticeably more refined than the last. Others said her embroidery was perfect, but to Rose, perfection seemed like a fantasy that existed only at the far end of eternity.

“It’s honestly strange that our goddess doesn’t have a sweetheart. You’re not secretly meeting a fiancé, are you? Tell me and I’ll cheer you on with everything I’ve got.”

Rose had started embroidering rosemary on her proposal handkerchiefs for the simple reason that it resembled her own name. She hadn’t taken Vivi’s advice entirely seriously, the advice that men were reliably moved by simple, straightforward gestures.

“When would I ever have the chance to meet a man without you knowing?”

At any rate, with no experience in romance and no particular sensitivity to matters of the heart, Rose figured it was best to take the people around her into account.

If she had already settled on someone to give the handkerchief to, she would have asked him directly what she should embroider. But since she had no idea who the thing would end up going to, she had no choice but to play it safe.

“You go out secretly quite often with just Dame Terra, don’t you? You went to ‘that place’ last week too, didn’t you? I know everything. Heh heh.”

“That place?”

Rose flicked her gaze up briefly and looked at Vivi.

“Hilude hot springs.”

Vivi’s eyes were full of meaning. She leaned in closer and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“A. secret. rendezvous. spot. Isn’t it?”

“Secret rendezvous, my foot……”

Rose frowned at Vivi, who was looking insufferably pleased with herself over this grand deduction.

“These days, not even wandering knights come to Hilude. Ever since Betiver hot springs opened, Hilude has become practically mine alone.”

The large ape she had run into last week didn’t count as a man, so he was irrelevant.

“Really? That can’t be right. I had such a strong feeling you were meeting someone!”

Vivi stuck out her lower lip.

Never right even once. Rose snorted and threaded a new length of embroidery floss through her needle.

“If I had a sweetheart, why would I still be unmarried. If there were a man I liked enough to want to date, knowing my own nature, I would have pushed straight through to marriage in one go.”

Her resolve to marry once the right person appeared was firm.

As befitted the heir of a noble house, and as suited a realist with no romantic illusions, Rose pursued a match that would be straightforwardly beneficial to her family.

It was simply that, even while receiving proposals from reasonably decent prospects, she had never felt that decisive click of this is the one.

So if a man were good enough to make her want to pursue a relationship, he would naturally have to be someone with outstanding qualifications and extraordinary appeal. In that case, there would be no point in a tiresome secret courtship. She would push straight to marriage in one move.