When I arrived at the drawing room, a noble lady who appeared to be my mother was seated there with perfect posture.

“You seem a bit dazed today, Rose. Did something happen?”

She was said to have been a knight once, and yet she looked as though she’d snap if you bumped into her.

She was a knight in the imperial palace guard before she married, and yet her arms, waist, and neck were all slender.

I’d heard that with Aura, there was no difference in combat ability between men and women, but surely you’d need at least some muscle to wield a sword…?

Maybe she lost muscle mass from getting married and having a child. That would make sense. That’s what happens when you stop training.

“Oh. Ah. No. You’re just so incredibly beautiful, Mother.”

“More and more?”

The woman looking at Annie with an expression that said “what on earth have you been feeding this child” was my mother, or more precisely, the mother of this body’s original owner.

I couldn’t very well tell her that her daughter’s soul had gone off somewhere on an outing. She’d be horrified, and I doubted she’d believe me anyway.

Mother had the kind of face I imagined I’d grow into. The same brown hair, the same eye color.

She was my mother, but she looked so young it was hard to call her that without hesitation.

In the awkward silence and the weight of her gaze, I was wondering what to do when I accidentally let slip a distinctly Korean greeting.

“Have you eaten?”

Mother, and even the lady-in-waiting standing beside her, looked at me with eyes brimming with emotion.

Hmm, that was apparently a failed greeting.

And a short while later, my failed greeting was relayed to Father through the servants.

Had it really been that unusual an occurrence?

I heard the sound of someone running from far away at full speed, and the moment they burst into the drawing room, this question was thrown at me:

“Our Rose asked her mother if she’d eaten?”

“I can’t tell if she’s suddenly grown up, or if she heard it somewhere and is copying it. Really, so many unusual things have happened since this morning.”

People can check on others’ meals. If I’d known “have you eaten?” would cause this much of a stir, I wouldn’t have said it.

“Rose, I’d love it if you said it to me, too. Aren’t you curious about Father?”

“……Have you eaten?”

“Ha ha ha, yes! Let’s all have breakfast together today.”

“Today” implied that normally they each had breakfast separately.

But isn’t sharing a meal how you build closeness? There’s even a word for it.

Anyway, the cheerful man laughing with a completely open face, looking absolutely delighted, that was the master of the estate and my father, Count Winstone.

I had resolved not to be surprised even by a full rainbow gradient of hair colors in a fantasy world with dragons, but.

My resolve was put to shame. The Count’s appearance was something that could exist in nature.

Dark brown hair, nearly black, with green eyes. Clean, well-defined features.

The notable thing: enormously broad shoulders.

His clothes were dignified, but his build was… wow.

Clearly a muscular, macho type. The kind where you’d lose muscle mass if you didn’t eat at least ten chicken br*asts a day.

With only slight exaggeration, this man who looked like a walking mountain began humming a little tune, saying “so our Rose wanted to have breakfast with Father.”

At that, Mother shook her head beside him, holding one of my hands.

Good. I’m not the only one who finds this man embarrassingly over the top.

Setting aside his over-the-topness, this house was so absurdly lavish that I was past being stunned and heading toward numbness.

The ceiling of the corridor leading to the dining room was high enough to be three floors up, with geometric-patterned tiles affixed to it.

And it didn’t stop there. The corridor connecting to my room that I’d walked through earlier had a ceiling painting on it.

Not a church or a palace, just an ordinary corridor ceiling, and someone had painted a picture on it. Why?

“I’ve been curious for a while, Father.”

“Yes?”

“All these paintings on the ceiling……. they’re beautiful, but the path to breakfast is very lavish. Is there a reason?”

Before my question was even finished, Father’s face lit up three times brighter. He looked ready to radiate actual light.

“I suppose it was so obvious I never thought to mention it. I had them painted to celebrate and commemorate your birth.”

Pardon?

Dumbfounded, I looked at Mother, who was shaking her head.

So I wasn’t the only one who found it absurd. What a relief.

“Actually, I wanted to have it painted from the main entrance, but it would take too long and the servants would be exhausted, so. I compromised and had it done in front of the dining room, where we come every day.”

I didn’t need to ask who talked him out of it. It’s a good thing this household has a practical Madam.

“If Rose would like, even now, the main entrance could……”

“Dear. That conversation was settled some time ago.”

“Please don’t, Father. I like it the way it is now.”

I could see Mother’s eyes beginning to sharpen, so I quickly stepped in.

Fortunately, my support softened Mother’s expression somewhat.

“You’re already changing the flowers in every vase every day, saying you want everywhere Rose passes to be fragrant. Do you have any idea how many servants have to be mobilized for that alone?”

So those flower vases placed every five meters were lined up for that reason.

The water and flowers both need to be changed every day. That’s no small waste of labor.

“But Rose likes flowers……”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but if this decision isn’t causing anyone to lose their job, I think going forward, the flowers can be done away with.”

When Father’s and Mother’s startled gazes turned to me, I felt slightly pressured.

Still, if that absurd amount of labor was all stemming from me, shouldn’t I put a stop to it?

If I had been a servant myself, however many people were being drafted for this, it was far too unnecessary a task.

“If I want to see flowers, I can put a few in my room, or I can just go out to the garden. I’ve been wanting to say something for a while because it seemed like too many people were going to too much trouble on my account.”

“Good heavens. I really don’t know what happened last night.”

“S-still, Rose. A girl and flowers should always be kept close……”

Mother’s and Father’s reactions were so opposite. It was clear who had been behind all of this until now.

“Let’s do it that way from today. Alright?”

Since I said it was what I wanted, Father consented with a look of resignation, and Mother seemed to have a weight lifted from her shoulders.

Fortunately, stopping the filling of flower vases wouldn’t cost any servants their jobs. Good enough then.

Whatever else, if there was something needlessly wearing the servants down and shortening their lives, it had to be stopped.

After quite a bit more walking, we finally arrived at the dining room.

I had braced myself for an enormous table seating thirty, as befitting a Count’s dining room.

But what appeared was, surprisingly, a modest space with a plain six-person table in the center.

Six-person was my assessment based on the number of chairs, and by size alone it could seat twelve, but I suspected it was “six-person” by Father’s standards, given his mountain-like build.

I took my seat following Mother and Father. There were three place settings in total, so no one else was coming.

I had heard there were brothers, so why weren’t they coming down?

“What about my brothers?”

“It seems Rose misses her brothers. Those boys won’t be back until April at the earliest.”

“……Why?”

My question was apparently quite an odd one to ask.

Father and Mother briefly exchanged glances in a silent conversation. Was I being too suspicious?

“It’s the intensified monster subjugation period, isn’t it? Your father is here as head of the household, but your brothers are all deployed to the north.”

“……I’m sorry. I must have been dreaming. I got confused and thought my brothers had come home yesterday.”

“I should send a letter by crow. They’ll be so pleased to hear you were missing them this much.”

“We must not, my lady. Those idiots would be so overjoyed they might abandon their posts and come running straight home.”

“……I hadn’t thought of that. The letter had better not happen.”

Just how brother-obsessed are these people who are apparently my brothers?

I sat at the table and waited a moment, and then maids came over and brought the food.

Dishes lined up along the empty spaces of the table. A large fish split open, stuffed with vegetables, seasoned with herbs and spices and roasted; a bowl filled with enough soup for ten people.

I had worried the ingredients might be very different in another world, but there were ordinary egg dishes too, which was a relief.

I wondered if I’d have to go serve myself buffet-style, but the maids portioned out appropriate amounts onto plates and brought them over.

Everything passed through human hands, and even the inconvenient parts were handled by people. A truly labor-intensive meal.

“Thank you for the food.”

The words came out of habit the moment the soup bowl was placed in front of me, and the maid was startled. And then Father and Mother were startled along with her.

“Rose, did you have some kind of dream? Annie didn’t say anything.”

“Our daughter has suddenly grown up. I’m happy but bewildered.”

Just how wildly had this girl been living?

I couldn’t even express the injustice of it, so I smiled awkwardly and decided to just eat my soup.

Oh, it’s delicious. They must have put in a great deal of milk. Rich and savory.

“She’s become a completely different child overnight.”

I just wanted to eat my soup in peace.

I looked at Mother with a guilty start. Fortunately, it wasn’t a suspicious look. She was smiling with what seemed like pride.

On the other side, Father was dripping concentrated honey from his eyes and then abruptly asked me:

“Could it be this? Rose, were you worried about going to the imperial palace?”

Where? The imperial palace?