CH 135

T/N: Eleonore seems to either have underdeveloped articulation or a speech impediment. If her dialog seems incomprehensible, I can start adding extra notes on what she’s saying, exactly.

Also, if I ever spelled “Elisabeth” as “Elizabeth” before, please know that the former spelling is correct for the Germanesque world. I just did not do enough research as Elisabeth hasn’t made an in-person, extended appearance till this arc, 135 chapters in.

I thought it would just be troublesome to be invited to Ludwig’s tea party, but there was also an unexpected encounter. The first is this little cute creature. What in the hell is this adorable creature that clings to Ludwig’s legs while saying, “Big Bwotha~”?

This girl, who called herself Eleonore, seems to be Ludwig’s little sister. I think she was around 3 or 4 years old. I feel like Ludwig is a lot older than her, but not so much older that they can’t be siblings.

I’m not a lolicon. I’m not a lolicon, but Eleonore is so cute. I don’t mean like an object of romantic love or sexual interest. I’m not a lolicon. The way she looks walking to then clinging onto Ludwig’s leg is very cute. I want to take her home right now.

I would rather marry Eleonore than marry Ludwig. No, that’s that does not make me a lolicon if I don’t see her as a romantic or sexual partner, right? It doesn’t mean that I want to get married and do something naughty to her, it just means I want to take her home and have her live with me, alright?

Then there’s another. Margarete von Greif was one of the people I was thinking about as Ludwig’s marriage partner. She’s a little older than us, but she’s said to be famous as a powerful aristocratic princess of the same generation as ours. I didn’t know about her until recently, but…

There is absolutely no problem with her origins. Rather, she would be more suitable for Ludwig’s fiancée than someone like me. I wonder why her name hasn’t come up until now. Or maybe she is one of the people Ludwig turned down, but I don’t know.

“I apologize for interrupting your time together, Your Highness Ludwig and Lady Carruthers,” Margarete says. Then, she reaches out to Eleonore and says, “Come now, let’s go, Princess Eleonore.”

But Eleonore grabs Ludwig’s leg and doesn’t let go.

“No! I wanna be with Big Bwotha…!”

“So cute~!” I said. “Lady Greif, consider what Princess Eleonore just said, if you don’t need to leave urgently, why don’t you stay with us?” I asked.

Little Eleonore is cute! No, that’s not right. No, it’s not wrong, either, but it’s not… I even managed to catch Margarete. It would be a waste to let them leave at a time like this. I don’t know why Margarete is here, but she needs Ludwig to stay with him so he’d like her more as a fiancee.

“I would be fine with you calling me Margarete, Lady Carruthers,” Margarete said.

“Then in turn, please call me Flora, Lady Margarete,” I said.

All right, all right. Let’s get close first, I’ll play with Eleonore and Margarete will flirt with Ludwig. No one is hurt by this. Win-win, indeed.

“You came by Mother’s invitation, didn’t you, Margarete?” Ludwig said. “Perhaps it would be better if you go to her, instead?”

Hey, Ludwig! Don’t overdo it!

But if you’re invited by the Queen, you might get scolded if you play around here. As expected, it’s hard to keep members of the royal family waiting.

“If Lady Flora says so, I believe we should let her rest for a while,” Margarete said. “Is it alright despite His Highness Ludwig’s earlier objection?”

Oh? Oh? What’s this, what’s this? They’re already pretty comfortable with each other, aren’t they? These two seem to know each other pretty well. Margarete looks at me with a glance. I feel like she’s narrowing her eyes at me, but maybe her eyes are bad. If you’re short-sighted, it’s easy to squint when looking at something far away.

“Come in, then, Lady Margarete,” I said, offering a seat.

Margarete sat down, as I asked. Even though Ludwig is the host, I’m making the decisions myself, but that’s fine. If you leave it to Ludwig, it won’t work. I will mediate between these two and get them married no matter what.

Helene of House Bayen is a bit of a disappointing girl. Well, I don’t hate that kind of thing, but it’s a little too blatant. At the very least, if she were a little cuter and not so black-hearted, she might have been able to catch Ludwig, but Helene as she is now isn’t strong enough to catch Ludwig.

Margarete is good in that respect. I don’t know anything about her yet, but she looks like an orthodox heroine and seems to be close to Ludwig, so she’s just right to be the main heroine of Ludwig’s story. I can’t find anything that seems to be a flaw in her family, demeanor, or anything else. If she’s a childhood friend or something like that, she’s perfect. And judging from the feelings between the two of them, my reading is probably correct.

“Have Lady Margarete and His Highness Ludwig known each other for a long time?” I asked.

I call out to confirm after Margarete has drunk some tea. I can’t stop smiling. If things go well, I will force the engagement on her, or rather, when I think that there may be a person to who I can hand over the engagement, I can’t help but smile.

“Yes, that’s right,” Margarete said while squinting at me. “I’ve been with His Highness Ludwig since was born… though I suppose it would be fine to say that? Right? Your Highness?”

I feel like her eyesight is getting worse. If you have bad eyesight, I think I’ll make her some eyeglasses next time. Even though she is a beautiful woman, if her eyes are bad, the impression will be bad. I think it’s a loss if you have bad eyesight at times like this.

“Just because you’re a little older…” Ludwig said. “You don’t have any memories of when I was born anyway, yes, Margarete?”

Oh~ohh, it feels good, doesn’t it? This is what it feels like to be a childhood friend. I wonder if it’s a relationship between their families, and I’m sure they’ve met many times since a long time ago. Otherwise, the atmosphere wouldn’t be so comfortable. What is with this guy, Ludwig? Isn’t there someone who seems to be a better fiancée candidate than me?

“The two of you seem to have something to talk about, so Princess Eleonore, would you like to have a chat with me instead?” I asked.

“Noh!” Eleonore snapped.

Gan…! The impact is so hard that I hear the echo. 1 Ludwig and Margarete are arguing, but there is no common ground to reach with Eleonore here. Come to think of it, is this the first time in my life that I’ve been so clearly rejected?

Until now, no one, benevolent or malicious, would ignore me or reject me so thoroughly. In that sense, it feels very fresh. Well, I’m not happy because I don’t have a preference for enjoying being rejected…

“Hmm… alright…” I mutter.

Eleonore is reaching out to take Ludwig’s tea. But it’s a little embarrassing to watch. She’s reaching out from under the table, but if she upturns the cup, she might get burned. Ludwig doesn’t seem to be in the right state of mind to notice, so it’s better I do something about it.

“I beg your pardon, Princess Eleonore,” I said as I picked her up.

“Aah…! NOH….!” Eleonore yelled, rampaging like she was going berserk, but I immediately put her down on a chair.

From here, she could barely see the top of the table, and she could eat the cookies served with the tea without flipping over anything.

“There, here you go,” I said, handing over the plate to her.

“Cookieh! T’ank y’u!” Eleonore said with a big smile.

So cute. I really want to take her home. I don’t need Ludwig, so please replace him with Eleonore instead.

“But cookies will make you thirsty, won’t they?” I asked. “I should have brought some pudding for you, Princess Eleonore.”

“Puddihn’!” Eleonore cheered. “Eleonore wuv puddihn’!”

As soon as I brought up the prospect of pudding, she bit the bait immediately. After all, Wilhelm must have shown her the pudding he brought home to his family. I’m glad to hear that she likes what I’ve made.

“Eat puddihn’! Puddhin’…!” Eleonore shouted.

“Now there, Eleonore,” Ludwig said. “Don’t be selfish. You mustn’t cause Flora trouble!”

“No, it’s no trouble,” I said. “If I can borrow the kitchen for a little while, perhaps I can make her some pudding?”

That’s it. This is good. It would be great if we could leave Ludwig and Margarete alone and I and Eleonore go out to make pudding. Well, it’s probably impossible for the Princess to cook, so I’m the only one who’ll be making it.

“Huh?!” Magarete cried. “How do you know about pudding, Lady Flora?”

Hmm? Margarete presses me at the oddest of moments. I invented it, so of course, I know about it. Rather, I wonder why Margarete knows. And I then realize the answer:

The puddings Wilhelm brought home totaled 8. And the members of the royal family living in the royal castle total 7. 1 King, 2 Queens, and 4 children. What about the remaining 1?

This is my imagination, but hasn’t Margarete been staying at the royal castle for some time? And she also seems to have meals with the royal family. That’s why Wilhelm wanted 8, including Margarete’s serving. If you think about it that way, it would explain his bringing home 8 when his family is only 7, and why Margarete knows about pudding.

And the best thing is that Margarete is already staying in the royal castle and eating with the royal family. Isn’t this already an officially sanctioned relationship between the King and the Queen?

“Because I invented pudding,” I said. “Okay? Your Highness Ludwig, I believe that Princess Eleonore will insist on this, so please excuse me.”

“Ah, sure………” Ludwig muttered. “… Haa, suppose it can’t be helped.”

Thanks to Ludwig’s help, I was able to borrow the kitchen. However, there seems to be a condition that the court cooks watch my cooking, probably to make sure I don’t try to poison anyone. Moreover, it seems that Ludwig’s permission alone was not enough, and then Wilhelm found out about this, so I ended up making a large amount of pudding again.

In exchange for that, I was able to get out of Ludwig’s tea party with nothing but good news, and I also got good information that Margarete and Ludwig could be engaged with each other

I might have complained that I always seem to end up making huge amounts of pudding, but today I was able to cook it in a relaxed mood.

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Pudding has to be heated and cooled, so I feel that it takes a long time even though there are few steps to cook it. Even so, 20 pieces were finished in no time and I’m in the middle of cooling them in my homemade instant refrigerator.

Well, even if I say it’s a refrigerator, it’s not that elaborate. It’s just a simple way of cooling it with the cold air blown from magically-created ice.

I thought about inventing an ice box, just like in the old days, but I gave up because there was no one other than me who can make ice regularly with magic. Even if it is commercially available, ice replenishment will be a bottleneck. Even if I use it at home, it’s useless when I’m away because no other magician can make ice in my stead. So in the end, just thinking about it didn’t lead to a practical use case. Thus, when I had to cool down something, I put ice on top of a shelf-like object, place the object to be cooled beneath it, enclose it, and let the cold air naturally flow under and lower its temperature.

Still, cold foods are very rare as this world has no refrigerators. Even with this cooling method, it is cooled to a surprisingly sufficient temperature.

The first ones I made were already cold enough, so I went back to the parlor with 4 puddings. It took quite a while, so it seems that Eleonore made a lot of fuss going, “puddihn’, puddihn’”, but I wasn’t there, so I don’t know.

“Thank you for your patience,” I said. “Now, please help yourself.”

“Puddihn’—!” Eleonore cried.

And as soon as I brought a pudding shaking on its plate, Eleonore immediately took a bite. And there were suddenly more people here than the original 3. One of them is the bearded old man Wilhelm. The other is a beautiful older sister type.

“Umm… who might this be?” I asked timidly.

As if he had just realized I would need to ask, William said, “Ooh, Flora, is this your first meeting? This is my wife, Elisabeth.”

“I am Elisabeth,” the First Queen says. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Flora, was it?”

“…… Huh?” I asked.

For a moment, my head went blank and I was dumbfounded. Wife? Speaking of wives, is this same Elisabeth, former daughter of the Schwaven Duchy, the First Queen Elisabeth?

“Ah, my name is Flora Charlotte von Carruthers,” I said. “It is my pleasure to be entertaining you this day, Your…”

“Please hold a moment, Lady Flora,” Elisabeth said. “You don’t have to be so stiff like that now. I came here because I heard you’re making pudding. This is not a public place, so I would appreciate it if you treat me more casually.”

And with that, Elisabeth smiled. She’s gorgeous. She doesn’t look old enough to have a son that’s 16. I knew that she was a very young, beautiful, witty, and a good wife. The gap between her and the Second Queen Amelie is too vast.

“Thank you very much,” I said. “… Ah! My apologies. I didn’t bring enough. I will get more immediately.”

I only brought 4. Even if I don’t need mine, I need it for 5 people. Margarete’s portion was also postponed, and the 4 brought first were lined up before the royal family. And Eleonore, who started eating immediately after I brought it, was eating my pudding with a delicious look while smearing caramel all over her mouth. Very cute.