CH 63

“Aah, no good. I have to explain it to Christina onee-sama. I have to make her understand that I never did anything that would betray Christina onee-sama!”

“I see…”

After her long, passionate speech, Sophie finally decided to explain herself to Christina later, and Ferio finally came up with the method to end this stupid exchange.

“Sophie, Christina is the daughter of a duke family and was raised to be a queen, you know? Of course, she is well aware of how the royal palace works, where it is common for a king to take mistresses or concubines.”

“…Hah?”

Sophie tilted her head, unable to understand why the topic went in that direction.

“My mother was forced into a bitter end because she ended up bearing a son before the queen, but in general, there’s no problem at all for a king to have concubines and mistresses. On the contrary, it’s considered shameful for a queen to complain about such matters. Even if they are queens, that matter is beyond their authority.”

Although Ferio was well aware it was probably the topic that Sophie, who was raised as a young lady of a baron family, didn’t want to understand at all, he continued his explanation nonetheless.

“Even if you tried to justify it, Christina can only say a few words about it. That’s the fate of the women in the royal family. Just the act of justifying would put Christina into a situation where she wouldn’t even have the right to say anything. And the more you try to justify it, the more it would make Christina appear to be a woman who doubts me, making her unfit to be a queen. Do you get what I mean?”

Sophie understood even though she didn’t want to. In other words, Christina had no right to be involved with Ferio’s sex life. It was beyond what she was allowed to do. Even a groundless claim could be considered a blasphemy to Christina.

Unable to retort, Sophie stiffened in astonishment. Ferio began to feel sorry for her and decided to be gentle with his follow-up.

“You don’t have to worry. Christina isn’t suspicious about you. If she was, there’s no way she would exchange the bond of sisterhood with you. Why would she perform such a bond with the person she doubted?”

Ferio’s words caused Sophie to brighten up.

As long as I use Christina’s name, she sure is easy to handle.

Unaware of Ferio’s thoughts, Sophie clenched her fist.

“You’re right. And regardless of the reason why she did so in the beginning, I’m still Christina onee-sama’s ‘little sister’ right now. I will show a ‘little sister’s’ respect toward her ‘elder sister’ through my actions instead of words!”

Ferio responded perfunctorily to the girl who raised her feelings through positive thinking.

However, his earlier statement of Christina not being suspicious of Sophie was a lie.

Ferio had an inkling as to why Christina approached Sophie and made her her “little sister.” However, if it was truly as he thought, it would eventually develop into something scary. To be honest, it was something he wanted to avoid at all cost, for the sake of his own being.

“Sophie, I beg you, please proceed to the main topic already.”

“You’re right. My heart is decided. I’ll just believe in Christina onee-sama. I will continue to stick to my feelings as her ‘little sister!’”

I don’t want to hear that kind of resolve, just do that inside your own mind, thought Ferio, but since it would derail them longer if he retorted, Ferio chose to ignore her words.

As he pointed at the plan that unfolded on the table, Ferio asked.

“So when did you first think about this kind of stuff? There’s no way you only thought of this plan recently, right?”

“I’ve been working on the plan itself for a long time. The sewage treatment is sloppy regardless of which nation I visited. They are all to the point that it wouldn’t be weird for diseases to spread, so I felt the danger of it.”

“You’ve gone to other nations?”

An aristocratic young lady would almost never go to other nations. Although they could do so under the excuse of a trip, they had to pay a fair amount of money as a deposit to leave the nation. Considering Orlando Kingdom was a prosperous nation with a lot to offer, there was practically no aristocratic young lady willing to pay the deposit just to go on a trip to other nations.

However, the girl in front of him just nodded without feeling anything in particular.

“Yes, I have gone to some⁠—Aah, that’s right! That ‘amane’ you sent me really helped a lot, thank you. Thanks to you and Al, one of my wishes came true. Please convey my gratitude to Al as well. Or perhaps I have the opportunity to say my gratitude to him in person? Is he not here with you today?”

“He’s no longer my escort. I don’t know about him.”

“What’s with that attitude? Did Al get tired of you?”

“I’m the one who is tired of him!”

Seeing Ferio get angry for some reason, Sophie concluded she would thank Al directly someday and continued with her words.

“Whether it was the Daksha Kingdom, Rusha Kingdom, or other nations, their aristocratic cities were beautiful. But their commoner cities, especially the slum areas, were just terrible. To be honest, I found it strange that no plague has occurred because of that yet.”

“You went to the slum regions?!”

“Bart and a few others accompanied me along with some escorts, so it’s not like I went there alone.”

As she expected him to be relieved by those words, Ferio’s eyes opened wide.

“Bart…? Are you still interacting with them?”

“Oh, Bart and the others are now well-established employees of the Linier Merchant Group. They have grown so capable that my father wanted to make them our family helpers! Of course, I no longer make them work without paying them. They are now working as managers and are being paid with an appropriate amount of money!”

“I see… Haha…”

Looking at Sophie proudly boasting, Ferio suddenly burst into laughter.

“What’s your deal?”

“You are… really an interesting woman. You won’t let a dream end as a mere dream.”

Ferio never heard of other people willingly educating orphans to make them assist them in their personal work. Perhaps somebody out there did pick up an orphan or two, but she picked up many.

The thing that made Ferio feel at a loss softened inside him slightly.

That’s right. She is a woman who is stronger and wiser than anyone.

It wasn’t like Ferio had forgotten about that. But as people grew up, so did their fears and weaknesses.

They had separated for a few years, and Ferio thought that within that period, Sophie might have grown up as a proper lady.

When Ferio heard that Sophie was the one who made the sewerage treatment plan and the fact she enrolled in “The Queen’s Rose” on top of that, he thought that Sophie would notice her own abnormality compared to other aristocratic young ladies there and tone down her behavior to be the same as them.

Yet, what happened in reality? Her weirdness multiplied; she wasn’t trying to learn to be a young lady. Instead, she ended up like a knight that tried to protect them.

In the first place, if such a woman ended up toning down her behavior, there would be no way she could submit a thing like this.

Her “flower” in his hand was a foreign concept that nobody had even heard before and was imbued with her free and powerful thoughts.