Chapter 47
“Heter, could you pinch me?”
I asked Heter while staring blankly at the hot spring sending steam curling upward.
For a hot spring to suddenly appear with a flourish in a place where I thought there was nothing….
Maybe I was hallucinating.
“Understood.”
Smooch.
“Eek?!”
Startled by the damp sensation on the back of my hand, I hurriedly pulled it away.
“I asked you to pinch me, not kiss the back of my hand?!”
Of course, my hand belonged to Heter, so I didn’t mind him kissing it, but every time he suddenly did something like that, my heart couldn’t take it.
However, Heter merely shrugged as though he had been wronged.
“Last time, you asked me to pinch you, and when I did, you complained that it hurt, didn’t you?”
“….”
Did I?
I couldn’t remember whether I had ever complained about being pinched, since so many surprising things happened whenever I was with Heter.
“Ahem… From now on, if I ask you for something like this, just pinch me gently.”
For now, I decided to remember what had happened today, but in any case, since the hot spring was still right there, it seemed it wasn’t a hallucination after all.
“Anyway, a hot spring.”
Ideas for landscaping and attracting tourists were already bubbling up in my mind.
‘First, we can build the buildings in an Eastern style, like the inn I stayed at in Japan.’
And then, after soaking in warm water on a snowy day, we could eat boiled eggs….
“Heh!”
I could almost hear tourists flocking here already.
“My lady.”
“Hmm?”
“Please get behind me for a moment.”
While I was happily imagining the future, Heter suddenly took my hand and pulled me behind him.
“Why…?”
“Grrr.”
“!”
The cry of a beast coming from between the trees.
As I edged farther behind Heter, a large bear eventually emerged.
“It’s a bear.”
“I know….”
Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be a magical beast, but for some reason, it was more frightening than when we had encountered the snow worm.
Unlike the snow worm, the bear felt strangely real, if that made sense.
“Grrr~.”
It merely glanced at us once, then immediately entered the hot spring with a contented grunt.
“What should we do?”
“What do you mean?”
Heter drew his sword slightly from its sheath.
Apparently, he was waiting for my order on whether to kill it.
Yes, Heter had defeated even a monster like the snow worm, so he could probably cut down a bear in a single stroke.
But it hadn’t attacked us first and seemed to have simply come to enjoy a hot-spring bath, so wouldn’t killing it be a little wrong?
“Let’s just go back.”
“Understood.”
We carefully made our way out of the forest without disturbing the bear.
“Phew.”
Once we were outside the forest, I exhaled the breath I had been holding.
There was no particular reason to be afraid with Heter beside me, but it seemed I had tensed up without realizing it.
“If we’re going to turn the hot spring into a tourist attraction, we’ll have to figure out what to do about not only magical beasts but wild animals as well.”
“Exactly.”
The sight of the bear bathing in the hot spring cooled my excitement.
‘Right, let’s calm down. There’s a mountain of things to do if we’re going to turn this place into a tourist attraction.’
Not only did we have to worry about wild animals and magical beasts, but we also had to build a road all the way here.
It would take at least a few weeks… no, several months at the very least.
This was something to consider over the long term.
“So how long are you planning to keep holding my hand?”
I asked him, pointing to the hand Heter had grasped when he pulled me behind him.
“I was planning to hold it until we returned to the territory.”
“….”
“It’s not as though we don’t usually hold hands, is it?”
That was true.
It was just that, perhaps because I had tensed up a little earlier, my hand felt sweaty….
To be honest, I was embarrassed.
But knowing Heter’s personality, he would ask why if I tried to pull my hand away.
“…All right.”
Since telling him the truth would only embarrass me more, I decided to keep holding his hand without protest.
On another note, once my head had cooled, a question occurred to me.
“By the way.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t Sir Gold tell us about this hot spring?”
I couldn’t be blamed for not knowing, since I had never been able to leave the territory, but the same couldn’t be said of Sir Gold.
If he had told me about the hot spring sooner, Fortune could have become famous for it long ago, and I wouldn’t have had to worry about money now.
“Hmm, wouldn’t it be best to ask him directly rather than discuss it among ourselves?”
Heter was right.
It would be far more efficient to return to the territory and ask him directly than spend time worrying about it here.
“Then let’s go back.”
“Yes.”
When we returned to the territory and asked Sir Gold about the hot spring, he didn’t understand what we were talking about.
“A hot lake in the forest… I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Um… ah, it’s the place that smells like boiled eggs.”
“Ah! Do you mean the North’s Backside?”
“The N-North’s Backside?”
Mentioning sulfur’s characteristic stink seemed to jog his memory, but what on earth was he talking about all of a sudden?
“Hahaha, this must be your first time hearing that name, my lady.”
As I stood there flustered by the unexpected name, Sir Gold began explaining with a hearty laugh.
“You mean the forest you can see after going straight toward the outskirts of the territory?”
“Yes.”
“The North’s Backside is a nickname the knights of old used for that area.”
“But why on earth call it the North’s backsi—Ahem. Why do you call it that?”
“Hahaha, everyone was young back then, and didn’t it smell strange whenever you approached that area?”
‘Come to think of it, it does smell a lot like a fart.’
Listening to Sir Gold’s sheepish explanation, I understood how it had acquired such a name.
“By the way, there really was a hot spring there? The kind people in the East soak in?”
“Yes.”
“Huh….”
When Heter and I nodded, he let out a sigh.
“Because it smelled so foul, I told everyone not to go near it in case something happened. If I’d known this would happen, I should have gone to take a look.”
“Was it really that foul?”
“Well… it certainly wasn’t a pleasant fragrance.”
So that was why he hadn’t known about the hot spring.
After all, if he had never visited a hot spring, sulfur would have seemed like nothing more than a foul smell.
Being wary of strange smells was a natural human instinct, so I could understand it well enough.
‘But this creates another problem.’
Sir Gold surely wasn’t the only one who hadn’t known about the hot spring.
What if tourists heard about the hot spring and came to visit, only to complain about its distinctive smell?
Then the whole tourism plan would fall through.
‘I really don’t think there’s any way to solve this without magic.’
Even with the knowledge from my previous life, there was no way to eliminate the sulfur smell coming from the hot spring.
In the end, that meant a mage’s help was essential, whether I created a new product or developed the hot spring.
‘Phew, I hope the academy sends good news.’
Since Heter would worry if I sighed aloud, I swallowed my sigh, and we returned to the mansion.
As I spent several days drawing up blueprints for developing the hot spring….
“My lady! A letter has arrived!”
“At last, it’s here.”
At long last, a letter arrived from the academy.
‘Please let there be someone willing to come.’
I prayed fervently as I carefully broke the letter’s seal, and...
『Greetings, Baroness Fortune.
Thank you very much for contacting our academy.
(Omitted)
Unfortunately, all of our academy’s graduates have already signed contracts with their respective employers, so it would be difficult for us to enter into a contract with you.
We hope you will continue to take an interest in our academy, and we wish you success in finding a suitable match.』
“Haah, just as I expected….”
The letter contained exactly the reply I had expected.
“How am I supposed to find a mage now?”
Until now, even the worst situations had left me with a bad option, but now I was completely at a loss.
“…Huh?”
As I sprawled face down on my desk, grumbling and flailing, another letter that had arrived along with the one from the academy caught my eye.
‘Is there somewhere else that would send me a letter?’
I wondered if one of the duke’s daughters I had met at the tea party had sent an invitation, so I examined the letter.
“Huh?”
I had seen the emblem on this sealing wax recently.
‘Why would this person send me a letter?’
Startled, I opened the envelope to check its contents.
『I understand that your knight helped deal with the mage supremacists at my wedding.
I have something to discuss regarding the disposition of the mage supremacists, so I would appreciate it if you could come at your earliest convenience.
P.S. My wife is looking forward to meeting you.
Alzard Drosselmeyer』
“I’m screwed….”
I dropped the letter I was holding.
Was this happening because the original male lead had taken an interest in Heter?
That was part of it, but there was another main reason.
‘How many more days am I going to have to spend riding in a carriage?’
The last time I went to the Drosselmeyer territory for the wedding, it took three days even though I rode in a carriage all day.
It hadn’t been long since I had gone through that ordeal, and now I had to ride in a carriage for several more days….
“Aaaah….”
Even so, I couldn’t refuse to go.
I was merely a baroness, while the male lead was a marquess.
“Ruby-chan….”
“Yes!”
“I think we’ll have to visit the Drosselmeyer territory again….”
“Yes?”
Ah, what a hassle….