“So… you’re saying it would be better for me to marry you, Young Duke, rather than His Highness the Crown Prince?”

“Yes. Though there is the issue of breaking the engagement, since Albreon is a country that respects the opinions of the parties involved in marriage, if we, the parties concerned, express our clear intentions, His Majesty would have no choice but to nullify the engagement.”

Who’s a party concerned!

“Ah… That’s not what I mean… about marriage…”

I looked at Eden with an incomprehensible expression while clenching my fist and said.

“Isn’t it something people who love each other do…?”

“……”

Eden’s eyebrow twitched at my words.

“Not for providing and receiving support, but because of love. And I’m not even sure if those probabilities are accurate.”

I added.

Eden’s deep eyes were steadily gazing at me.

“When you’re together, your heart races, you wish time would go slower, you feel like you could live together forever, someone who makes you happy… and preferably gentle…”

While explaining my views on marriage and about to talk about my ideal type, I stopped with a “hmm.”

There’s no need to tell him that much.

Having only met Eden twice, it was just absurd to me that he would make such a business-like merger proposal.

“This is difficult… Then, does His Highness the Crown Prince fit your marriage criteria?”

Eden suddenly asked.

I was momentarily speechless but soon replied.

“I don’t know about that. We’re still young, and maybe His Highness could become such a person, or maybe not. Anyway, I…”

Even if Parmes has marked me as his daughter-in-law.

“When I truly want to marry, I’ll marry someone I love.”

If I don’t develop feelings for Briton, I can’t marry him.

“…I see.”

Eden’s lips moved slightly.

After a brief silence, he continued.

“I knew you were someone with very strong principles and convictions. I had already calculated that the probability of this persuasion being difficult would be over 85 percent.”

Though still slightly robot-like, his tone was softer than before.

“Then it seems the only way for me to marry you is to grow into a man you’ll have no choice but to love 100 percent.”

A man you’ll have no choice but to love 100 percent.

Hearing those words, I unconsciously wiggled my toes as I remembered something from the past.

***

1 year ago, Galnem village.

I was doing laundry for blankets in my yard. The brown patchwork blanket on the left was mine, and the green patchwork blanket on the right was Mas’s.

After soaping the wet blankets, I put them in a tub and was diligently stomping on them.

Mas, sitting in the tree swaying in the wind, was watching me with monotonous eyes.

As if watching a monkey dance.

Well, he did fetch all ten buckets of water for rinsing the blankets, so he wasn’t just lazing around, but still annoyed by Mas’s attitude of watching me, I stopped moving.

And called out to Mas in the tree.

“Mas! Let’s stomp together. It’s boring alone.”

“……”

Though his eyes said he wasn’t bored at all, I gestured and urged him.

“Come down quickly!”

Though I couldn’t see because of his mask, it seemed like Mas was frowning slightly before he suddenly threw himself down.

The impact of Mas’s fall raised dust, which naturally went into the blankets being washed and into my nose and mouth.

“Achoo!”

I glared at Mas and said.

“Couldn’t you be a little more careful?”

Mas crossed his arms irritatingly with a nonchalant expression.

Right, it was my fault for expecting consideration.

It had been a month since I asked to be friends, and we had become close enough to do things together quite amicably, but no matter how you looked at it, Mas didn’t seem to have a gentle or soft personality.

Self-centered, annoying, and willful would be the right way to describe it.

‘Well, still, he does most of what I ask quite diligently.’

It’s true that my work has decreased compared to when I was guarding the village alone.

“Hey, wait!”

I showed my palm to Mas, who was about to enter the tub with his dirt-covered shoes.

I pointed at his shoes with my finger, demanding he take them off immediately.

“Take off your shoes, and rinse your feet in that water first before coming in.”

I could feel Mas’s grumbling about me making him do troublesome things in his gaze.

But even while cursing me with his eyes, Mas washed his feet as I told him and finally entered the tub with clean feet.

The tub wasn’t very big, just right for two early teenagers like us.

“Hehe, good job.”

I smiled brightly and held out both hands as if for a high five.

Though Mas was too bothered to extend his hands, I reached out further and grabbed both his hands.

“……”

I could feel Mas flinch.

‘Does he hate holding my hands that much?’

While stomping on the blankets with my feet, I said.

“It’s for balance.”

Somehow, the eyes behind Mas’s mask seemed to waver.

‘It’s definitely less slippery than before when holding hands and doing it together.’

Mas didn’t wash the blankets with energetic foot movements like me, but I hadn’t expected much anyway.

“Hold on tight. Got it?”

When I looked into Mas’s eyes and spoke brightly, he avoided my gaze slightly before finally nodding stiffly.

While bouncing energetically to scrub the dirt from the blankets, I sighed self-mockingly.

“If I was going to transmigrate anyway, I could have been holding hands and dancing with the male lead in another novel, but here I am scrubbing blankets… Oh, my life.”

“……”

“Want me to tell you about my favorite romance fantasy novel? It’s called ‘The Virtuous Crown Prince’s Scheme’…”

Actually, I was a heavy reader of romance fantasy novels in my previous life.

“The female lead was an imprisoned princess, and the male lead was an amnesiac crown prince, and the female lead found him and they lived together.”

“……”

“Honestly, the story itself wasn’t that interesting, but the male lead was so my type that I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Ah, I really liked him. Temius.”

If I had to be reborn anyway, how nice would it have been to be reborn into such a novel.

Being a rural girl in a medieval apocalypse with an impending great famine is too much.

I pouted and let out a small sigh.

Mas, who was holding my hand, suddenly pulled one hand away and made me stop.

Then he raised his finger and wrote something on my palm.

‘What kind of man is Temius.’

Lost in thought, I suddenly looked up to see Mas’s eyes looking quite serious.

Unlike his usual attitude of not listening to me at all, it was a rare look of genuine curiosity.

I explained about my ideal type, Temius, with a grin.

“A proper romance fantasy male lead should be a gentle, kind sunshine man like my Temius. Always speaking warmly to the female lead, kindly offering his hand, maintaining a virtuous personality while putting up walls against other women…”

I grabbed Mas’s hand again and said while bouncing my feet on the blanket.

“If there was such a man, I’d fall in love 100 percent.”

Mas’s shoulders twitched slightly upon hearing my story.

***

Snapping out of my momentary daze of past memories, I waved my hands dismissively.

“There’s no need for that, um, Young Duke.”

The reason I spoke even a little about my views on marriage was to express that Eden’s marriage proposal was very inappropriate and nonsense to my ears.

‘And we’re barely in the upper grades of elementary school!’

“First, the probability of making you flutter with my natural looks is about 60 percent, and if I acquire knowledge about romance through books, it could rise to 77 percent. With private tutoring, it should approach 90 percent. So what’s important for me would be raising the remaining 10 percent.”

“What’s the basis for that calculation…”

60 percent from the start!

“But I’m confident in raising the probability quickly, so I’ll work on becoming a man who makes your heart race.”

Hmm, the last line was somewhat cool.

But I had no intention of complimenting him.

After a brief silence, I let out a small sigh and said.