Chapter 35
“Hmm.”
After taking the stomach medicine, I feel at ease.
Does the stomach medicine in this world also have the effect of calming the mind?
Of course not.
I just feel that way. There’s such a thing as the placebo effect, isn’t there?
“You’ve given me the conclusion, so now tell me why. Why do you think the factory will go bankrupt?”
“Please look at this first.”
Sir Gold handed me a bundle of papers.
“This is… a document recording the factory’s current soap production, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
Looking through the documents, I saw that about five hundred sets of soap had been produced so far.
‘I had prepared enough materials to make around six hundred sets when I first bought them.’
Considering the amount used for the prototypes, it seemed that we had used the materials quite efficiently.
“Excellent.”
“Yes. Everyone in the territory worked hard.”
Sir Gold agreed with me.
“You’ve hardly wasted any materials, and there are almost no defective products. Isn’t everything fine if we keep going like this?”
“But.”
He opened his eyes wide and spoke in a serious tone.
“Even though we made all this, not a single person has said they want to buy the soap!”
“…Ah.”
“Didn’t you say that if we gave a soap set to the Marchioness Drosselmeyer as a wedding gift, other families would see it and place orders too?”
“Haha.”
Yes, I definitely had said that.
But there was one fact that both of us had overlooked.
‘Who could have guessed that the marchioness would be the heroine of the original…?’
Esdia Raindeer, now married… No, she was a Drosselmeyer now.
She had no friends.
It was only natural. The original novel was titled 『I Became the Villainess of a Count’s Family』, after all.
Her original personality was even described in an author-approved Q&A as 99 percent I; it would have been strange if she had friends.
That meant the plan to promote soap sets by giving the bride soap at her wedding was doomed from the start, since the heroine of the original novel was its protagonist.
So what had happened now?
‘It just went bust.’
I wasn’t invited to any social gatherings like tea parties, and when I invited people, no one replied.
I didn’t have any friends either, just like Esdia.
This had completely derailed my plan to promote soap sets through word of mouth.
“It can’t be helped.”
Now that things had come to this, I had no choice but to use the trump card I had been saving.
“Surely… you have another method?”
Seeing that my reaction was calmer than expected, Sir Gold looked at me with eyes full of hope.
“Yes.”
“As expected of our lady! I knew I could count on you. So what is this method?”
I had wanted to avoid using this method if at all possible, but there was nowhere else left to retreat.
“We’ll put Sir Heter to use here.”
“…Yes?”
When he arrived at the venue after changing clothes for the wedding, I clearly remembered how the young ladies’ eyes had remained fixed on Heter’s face.
“So if we dress Heter up handsomely and send him out to sell soap to noblewomen and young ladies, they’ll all buy soap sets.”
“What on earth are you talking about…?”
“No, I’m telling you, this will really work!”
I argued to Sir Gold, who was looking at me with a sympathetic expression.
And what else could I do if I didn’t try even this?
These were the only ideas I could come up with now.
‘It’s not like I can advertise on TV or YouTube here….’
Just as I was seriously wondering whether I should lower the price and sell the soap to commoners instead,
“Knock, knock, knock.”
“Hmm?”
I heard another knock from outside.
“My lady. A letter has arrived.”
“I’m discussing something with Sir Gold right now, so I’ll take it later.”
“No, my lady. I’m quite all right.”
“Would that be all right?”
Sir Gold nodded.
“It seems finding a solution to this problem will take some time anyway.”
“That’s true.”
Soon after, Ruby brought in a beautifully decorated letter.
It was a pink envelope, sealed with wax in a multicolored gradient.
It even gave off a faint floral scent.
“Wow….”
Whoever sent it had clearly put a lot of thought into it.
“Who sent it?”
“Hmm… It says Lady Cornet.”
“Lady Cornet? Then would it be Lady Clary?”
She had seemed displeased with me when we met at the wedding, so why was she sending me a letter?
I accepted the letter from Ruby and read its contents.
Tap.
“…Sigh.”
After reading the entire letter, I carefully set the stationery down on my desk and let out a deep sigh.
“My lady?”
Sir Gold and Ruby called out to me in worried voices, but I couldn’t respond.
『How are you, Lady Fortune?
I was quite surprised when you suddenly disappeared from the wedding of Marquis Drosselmeyer.
I’m writing to ask whether you might be willing to attend a tea party I’m planning with the people I met at the wedding.
I know you’re busy, my lady, but I would be grateful if you would accept my invitation this time.
Hoping for a positive response, I shall take my leave.』
‘Yes!’
It seemed life wasn’t determined to kill me off after all.
I had thought everything was ruined because the bride at the wedding was the heroine of the original, but who would have thought that attending the wedding itself would prove helpful?
“Whoa…?!”
After barely managing to calm my excitement, I told Sir Gold the contents of the letter, and he reacted much the same way I had.
“My lady!”
“I know, Sir Gold. I know this is truly our last chance.”
I carefully put the letter back into its envelope and placed it in the desk drawer.
“I’ll write a reply now, so Ruby, prepare an outfit for me to wear to the tea party, and Sir Gold, prepare the soap sets.”
“Yes!”
“Understood, my lady.”
After the two answered and left the room, I took a book on tea-party etiquette off the bookshelf for the first time in years.
A week passed while I prepared for the tea party.
“You aren’t supposed to make any noise when drinking tea, and you aren’t supposed to blow on it to cool it, right? If it’s too hot, you pour it into the saucer and drink it?”
I studied the tea-party etiquette I had forgotten over the years.
However, I wasn’t studying entirely on my own.
“Yes. And when making milk tea, you pour the black tea into the milk, not the milk into the black tea.”
I was learning from Heter, who unexpectedly knew quite a lot about tea etiquette.
“Ah, that’s right….”
Heter’s knowledge of tea etiquette was far more extensive than I had expected.
He seemed to know even more than the tutor who had taught me noble etiquette when I was young.
At this point, I was beginning to get curious.
“What kind of person is your older sister, anyway, to have taught you all this?”
What kind of person was Heter’s older sister, anyway?
Not long after I began reviewing tea etiquette on my own,
‘Refusing the teacup the host offers you—that’s old-fashioned etiquette. These days, it’s proper to show your thanks and drink it right away.’
‘How do you know that?’
Heter, who had pointed out the parts I didn’t know, had said that his older sister taught him all this.
Yes, the same woman he had mentioned when giving me advice about old-fashioned soap packaging.
“My older sister is… very sensitive to trends and highly sociable.”
“She sounds like the kind of person who’d be an E.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
In any case, after studying for a week, I seemed capable of avoiding any major faux pas at a tea party.
Of course, I would probably forget it all again if enough time passed.
‘I can just learn it from Heter again then.’
Now all that remained was to attend the tea party and successfully promote the soap.
“By the way, my lady. May I ask you something?”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“What kind of place is Cornet territory?”
“Hmm….”
I thought carefully about how to explain it, then brought over a map first.
“Here. Can you see where Cornet territory is?”
“Hmm… It’s located relatively far south even within the North.”
“That’s right.”
That was why Cornet territory was one of the warmer territories in the North.
“That’s why many merchants pass through there before going to Mugwort to trade.”
Thanks to that, Cornet was also one of the more developed territories in the North.
Heter must have visited it at least once while wandering around the North, right?
“I’m not sure.”
“You’ll remember it once you actually go there.”
Cornet had various shops and plenty of things to enjoy, though not as many as Mugwort.
“I hear that the flowering trees found only in Cornet are famous as a tourist attraction.”
“Hmm… It doesn’t seem to be that large a territory, though. It’s different from Fortune territory.”
“…Yeah, sorry it’s such an unremarkable rural territory.”
It was unfortunate, but what could I do? Fortune territory wasn’t exactly in a prime location, even within the North.
“My lady. If Cornet territory has so many sights to see….”
“?”
“How about we go sightseeing together after the tea party?”
“…Huh?”
Wait a second.
He wanted us to go sightseeing together?
‘Could this be a date?’
If a man asked a woman to go sightseeing with him, what else could it be but a date?!
‘If that’s what he means, I have to refuse.’
I might think differently in the future, but for now, I still thought of myself as a man.
A date between two men… No matter how I thought about it, wasn’t that a little strange?
But.
“We’re just going sightseeing, right?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t have any particularly lewd thoughts or anything like that, right?”
When I gave him a suspicious look, Heter shook his head vigorously.
“It’s not like that. You seemed to know Cornet territory well, so I just wanted to ask you to show me around….”
“Then that’s fine.”
After hearing his answer, I readily nodded.
If Heter had meant a date between a man and a woman, I would have refused, but now he was merely asking me to show him around, wasn’t he?
Having a visiting friend from another place and showing him around was perfectly normal.
Therefore, even if I went sightseeing around Cornet territory with him, there was nothing strange about it.
“Heehee.”
Then what should we see first when we get there?
I was already looking forward to it.