‘Karl Drian is nowhere to be seen…… I should have just stayed home and dealt with the backlog of documents.’

At the time I was a ten-year-old child, but by this point I was already pulling my weight as a full adult. Father, who had initially protested about child labor and the like, had lately been entrusting things to me without a second thought.

‘Father must be desperate enough to borrow even a cat’s paws right now……’

A cat, of all things. If animals could do the work, he would certainly want to sit a dog, a horse, and an ox down and put them to work as well.

In any case, the banquet was nothing special. So I set about finding my own reason for having come, so as not to let the time go to waste.

Specifically……

‘Marshmallows covered in heaps of chocolate!’

Eating as many of the sweets that were strictly forbidden at our manor as I could.

The people of our household had lived crushed under work for generations, and perhaps because they overused brains that ran on nothing but sugar, most of them had passed away from diabetic complications.

With that kind of family history, sweets in the Goldworthy household could only be eaten in ant’s-eye-sized amounts under strict supervision.

‘But it is not so easy to keep a close eye on me in a place like this!’

I piled a plate high with marshmallows drizzled in chocolate and claimed a spot in a secluded corner of the garden.

‘Oh, you little beauties.’

The dark chocolate generously drizzled over the soft, pale marshmallows gleamed as though tempting me.

‘If I do not eat my fill, today will have been a loss. So I will eat every last one! I am a Goldworthy, and Goldworthys do not accept losses.’

Steeling myself with grim resolve, I popped a marshmallow into my mouth. The chocolate cracked apart inside, and a rush of sweetness flooded through it.

‘Ahh, bliss.’

A smile rose on its own. My hand moved faster and faster toward the plate. There I was, grinning and picking up marshmallows one after another, when:

A rustling sound, and then a child appeared before me. A pretty child with long black hair hanging loose.

“Who are you?”

The eyes, sparkling like ocean waves, were tremendously striking. The pale skin that looked as though it had never seen sunlight, and the long, slender limbs, also caught the eye.

After swallowing the marshmallow I had been chewing, I asked back in a prim voice:

“And who might you be?”

“I, I am……”

The child had apparently not expected me to turn the question around, and long fingers fidgeted and squirmed this way and that. After a long hesitation, the child’s round head dipped down.

“Sorry if I offended you. You were so pretty I thought you were a flower fairy.”

“Oh my.”

At those words, the corners of my mouth curved upward.

‘Not because of the compliment, but because of the sugar currently filling my mouth, that is why my mood is good enough for my lips to curl up.’

Packaging the fact that a child’s compliment had made me giddy, I crooked a finger at the child. The child hesitated but sat down quietly beside me.

‘Bigger than I expected.’

From a distance I had only thought the child’s frame was long and lanky, but sitting right beside me, the child was considerably taller than I was.

‘Since transmigrating, this is the first time I have seen hair this black.’

Hair as black as ebony draped over the sitting child’s shoulders and back like a cloak. Sensing my gaze, the child slowly turned to look at me.

‘Wow, incredibly pretty!’

I had met all manner of beautiful people since coming to this world, but a child this pretty was a first.

Caught examining the child without realizing it, I snapped back to my senses belatedly.

‘Wasting time!’

This was not the moment to be losing focus. This time had been designated for eating chocolate marshmallows.

I popped a marshmallow into my mouth. As though making up for the moment of distraction, two, three. Munch munch.

The child, watching me steadily, tilted their head.

“Are you really a fairy?”

This child. I giggled and answered:

“What kind of fairy hides in a garden to eat chocolate?”

“Because you are a fairy, you hide to eat it. Fairies are supposed to eat only honey, so since you are eating chocolate, you have to hide.”

“That does make a certain kind of sense.”

For a child who had come out of nowhere talking about fairies, the logic was surprisingly coherent.

I met the child’s eyes and rounded my lips into a circle.

“Go ahead and say ‘ah.'”

“Ah?”

The apricot-colored lips parted into a round shape. I swiftly slipped a marshmallow into that open mouth.

“Hmph!”

The pale face turned red in an instant. I giggled and said:

“Now you are an accomplice too.”

So let us stop all this pointless talk and share these marshmallows of my love and your love in peace.

‘Wait, but if I share them with this child, the marshmallows will decrease.’

Was this a gain or a loss. Before I could figure it out, the plate was quickly scraped clean.

‘Ugh, I should have brought more.’

The amount of marshmallows already demolished had been considerable, but it was still not enough. Sucking the chocolate off the tips of my fingers, the child murmured with flushed cheeks:

“At first I thought marshmallows with chocolate was a strange combination, but it is delicious.”

I chimed in enthusiastically:

“Chocolate goes well not only with marshmallows but also with bananas and strawberries. You absolutely must try it.”

And bring them to my house when you come. If a guest brings them, I could hardly refuse to allow them.

Nodding to myself, pleased with the grand scheme I had come up with, the child narrowed their eyes.

“But why do you talk in such a strange way?”

“What is strange about the way I talk?”

“Like an adult?”

What is this child saying. I straightened up and answered with a touch of swagger:

“Saying someone talks like an adult or like a child is meaningless. Anyone who does their own share of work is an adult.”

“No matter what you say, I don’t think it changes the fact that you are a child.”

“And you yourself are a child.”

“Someone who gets worked up over being called a child is a child.”

“Someone who calls other people a child is a child.”

“So you and I are both children.”

“I am not.”

The child debate escalated unexpectedly and grew more and more heated. After going back and forth for quite some time, each insisting the other was the child, the child broke into a grin.

“You are fun. Will you be my friend?”

“Friend?”

What is this child saying. I was not having any fun at all. I do not need a friend like you……

“And next time, let’s eat chocolate bananas and strawberries together. Hearing you talk about it made me curious what they taste like.”

……not at all. The more friends, the better. I lifted my chin haughtily and answered:

“Hmph, fine. I shall bestow my generosity upon an impudent little thing like you.”

I absolutely did not give in because of the chocolate. I was not that obsessed with sugar.

“So what is your name?”

“I am from the Drian family……”

“Sister!”

Cutting off the child’s answer, a sobbing voice rang out, calling for me desperately.

“Waaah, Sister! Sister!”

“Ben!”

It was the voice of my younger brother Benjamin, searching for me.

After losing his mother, young Benjamin was often emotionally unsteady. And I was the only one who could calm him.

Running toward Benjamin, I waved broadly at the child.

“I will write to you later! You have to write back!”

Whatever the child said in reply, I forgot. But even after returning home, the taste of the marshmallows we had shared together kept coming back to me.

So in the end, I was the one who picked up the letter paper first.

‘Come to think of it, I never caught the name. The child said Drian family, didn’t they?’

There was one young lady in the Drian family around Benjamin’s age. Her name was Nanari. The first time I heard it, I laughed and thought, what kind of name is that.

That child I had run into had to be Nanari Drian.

‘It would be lovely to have a chocolate party together sometime. That was fun earlier.’

Late at night, I yawned widely and picked up the pen.

To Miss Nanari of the Drian household.

Writing that first line, I let out a sigh. I had originally intended never to get entangled with the Drian family.

‘But meeting them in person, they were so ordinary that I could not quite see the need to avoid them.’

As long as it was not Karl Drian, the one destined to destroy this nation, perhaps it did not matter.

Tracing through my memories of the original story I had read, I let out a low groan, and then a small laugh escaped me.

‘I really am funny. What would it even matter if I met Karl Drian in the first place.’

The reason he would go berserk was that the only person who could soothe his burning agony was Georgiana. I, who could offer him no such relief, would clearly be unable to draw his interest even if I danced right in front of him.

‘But to always be in that burning agony.’

Thinking of Karl Drian’s setting while writing the letter, I could not help but lower my eyes.

I had also died caught in a fire, so I knew how agonizing the feeling of burning was. In that moment, there had been only one thought. For my breath to be cut off as quickly as possible. To be freed from that pain.