IMYL 2

Chapter 2

The war hero, sharp-eared as he was, returned to my door in a flash.

“Hm? Do you have something you want to say to me?”

To be honest, I didn’t have particularly good feelings toward Alphius.

Objectively speaking, the situation itself was the problem.

Because of his appearance, I had lost the marquisate right before my eyes.

He was the very existence my mother had guarded against her entire life, fearing that this exact thing would happen. So even after impulsively calling him back, I hesitated for a moment.

“Brisa, are you worried about being without an adult around? Is it a burden for you to act as the territory’s proxy while I’m gone?”

Alphius spoke gently, as if soothing me while I wavered.

“But I mentioned my adjutant earlier—Langsi will be here, and I’m leaving all the knights except the elite unit behind. I’ve already told them to listen to you well. I told them to protect you properly, so even if I’m not here, there shouldn’t be any problem with you staying safe.”

I swallowed hard, then suddenly thrust a small pouch containing a single dried herb through the crack in the door.

“Take this.”

“Huh?”

“What’s inside is Awakening Grass. At the academy, people take it when they study the night before exams.”

This seemed like something even a sane person might do.

Of course, I could have said this instead:

“Hey, I just realized that this world is inside a book. If you leave now, you’ll get your body torn in half and won’t be able to come back for three months. In the meantime, our territory will collapse, and everyone here—including me—will be slaughtered. After that, your personality will change completely. You’ll overcome every hardship and eventually marry the female lead, but until then you’ll suffer like hell.”

And then the conversation would probably go like this:

“R-really? Is that true? Can I trust you?”

“No. Objectively speaking, it’s far more likely that I’ve finally gone insane, just like my mother.”

After imagining it, I decided that was absolutely not the way to go.

Alphius had chosen to go to the capital for the sake of the territory.

The situation was so urgent that he was leaving without even catching his breath.

I didn’t want to overturn that decision. I had neither the certainty nor the evidence to do so.

Still, just in case, I could at least prepare for the worst.

I spoke carefully and clearly.

“Use it when you’re so sleepy you can’t stay awake. Keep it on you at all times.”

If this delusion really was the future to come…

Then it would be of decisive help to Alphius.

I didn’t know Alphius well yet, but even so, I decided to help him—for now.

I need to think coldly. Alphius is now my only protector. If our relationship goes wrong for no reason, I’m the only one who loses. I’m doing this all for myself. To put it bluntly, Alphius could erase me without anyone ever finding out.

In the original story, Alphius was described as a good person.

But realistically, that “original story” was far more likely to be nothing more than my delusion. So I had to stay sharp and approach this with the utmost caution.

Will he take it? Is this too absurd?

Still, this much should be fine.

It was something even a normal person could give, right?

A brief silence passed outside the door.

Does it just look like a useless weed? But it’s expensive. I only have one left myself.

Just as I was about to explain the price of Awakening Grass—

“Thank you…”

A choked, tearful voice reached my ears.

“A token of luck and affection from family… This is the first time I’ve ever received something like this… I’ll keep it close to my heart. Always.”

The voice was excessively moved.

Unnecessarily sentimental, I thought.

But I felt relieved.

At least he won’t throw it away.

Three days passed after that.

I shut myself in my room, waiting for my delusions to disappear.

During that time, a letter of annulment arrived from my fiancé.

Not long after, an anonymous bouquet of flowers followed.

The maids were beside themselves with excitement.

“Oh my goodness, it must be a young lord who’s secretly been in love with you, miss!”

“He must have been quietly waiting for your engagement to be broken! Oh my, this bouquet is incredibly expensive—he must be very wealthy!”

The flowers did nothing to comfort the bitterness of receiving an annulment letter, but they did have the effect of stopping the maids’ wailing.

After quietly handling the annulment, I spoke to the maids.

“I’ll give you just one order. I don’t want things getting noisy, so don’t go telling the people Alphius brought about this.”

The maids snorted indignantly.

“That order isn’t even necessary, miss. What would those uneducated people know about the affairs of a noble house?”

“…I misspoke.”

I replied calmly.

“It turns out I needed to give two orders. Don’t say things like that from now on either.”

Even so, their eyes clearly showed how they felt.

This internal conflict within the marquisate was exactly the same as in the original story.

All the maids in the estate were people my mother—once a princess—had brought with her from the royal palace.

To them, Alphius and his group, who had appeared out of nowhere, were the lowborn who had finally stolen what belonged to Brisa.

In the original story, “Brisa” felt the same way.

But both I and the maids were all dealt with early on.

…By starvation.

I continued the thought unconsciously, then flinched and shook myself.

No. Get a grip. I’m not crazy. There’s no way my delusions are real.

Anxiety about the half-brother who had suddenly appeared.

A strange sense of guilt toward my mother.

The helplessness of the broken engagement.

Complicated feelings toward my former fiancé.

None of that ranked high on my list of priorities right now.

It’s not like I ever paid much attention to my own feelings anyway.

What mattered most was the question of whether my brain was functioning normally.

But three days later.

After reading the newspaper, I decided to simply accept that I was insane.

[Western Monster Wave – Largest Scale in Recorded History]

This is exactly the same as the future I know.

Everyone in the marquisate treated it as someone else’s problem.

But once an unprecedented monster wave struck the West—the empire’s breadbasket—grain prices would skyrocket.

For now, people were thinking, Things are a bit rough, but they always are.

However…

The western grain merchants we’ve been buying from on credit will demand immediate repayment…

On top of that, Alphius would lose contact due to unforeseen circumstances.

I grabbed my head.

This is about survival.

I couldn’t afford to sit back and do nothing.

If you don’t eat, you die.

I didn’t even have the luxury of setting long-term goals.

With Alphius gone, I was now acting as the proxy ruler of the territory.

At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to feed the people of the territory—let alone take care of myself.

In the original story, I couldn’t endure the hunger and fell for a relative’s deception, boarding a ship with the maids to be sold as slaves overseas!

The knights Alphius had left behind chased after us to rescue us—but in the end, the ship sank, and everyone died.

It all happens because we can’t eat. So I have to prepare for the coming food shortage.

I didn’t remember much about my “past life” itself.

But vaguely, I felt like I’d had extensive knowledge of agriculture and animal husbandry.

I must have studied that sort of thing professionally.

I quietly looked around at the books in my room.

During my two years at the academy, those were the only kinds of books I sought out in the library. I’d gone only late at night, afraid people would mock me for not acting “noble enough.”

Crops, farming methods, livestock, local specialties, agricultural economics…

No wonder I’d found self-studying those topics so fascinating.

The environment was completely different from my past life, but in broad terms, there were many subtle similarities. Perhaps because of that, learning and applying the knowledge came quickly.

To the point that I even published piles of papers under a pseudonym.

Until now, I hadn’t even understood my own secret hobby—but it seemed my interests from my past life had carried over.

Fortunately, Alphius told his people to listen to me. Even though he barely knows me.

That alone was an enormous relief.

“Summon the knights immediately.”

The so-called Sayers Knights were, in reality, all former mercenaries Alphius had left behind.

The marquisate had never had the money to raise a proper army. Truthfully, this wasn’t a place that even needed a knightly order of that size.

But they were now Sayers’ people.

Which meant I had to protect them—just as, in the original story, they had risked their lives to try to save me.

As I carefully considered that scene, I made an objective assessment of them.

They must eat a lot.

And with that, I summoned my workforce—no, my knights.