Side Story: Lord Lichtenberger’s Solitary Meals ~An Omelet Stuffed with Rice and Happiness~
THE Royal Mythical Beast Preservation Bureau. Under the direction of Marius Lichtenberger, this organization studied mythical beasts and oversaw their safety.
This national institution was sometimes compared to the Magic Research Bureau and Monster Research Bureau. Unlike those, however, they received no government funds whatsoever. The massive organization was funded solely by Marius Lichtenberger’s personal assets.
Just who was this man? Let us go back in time and take a closer look.
Marius Lichtenberger.
He was born to the previous Marquess Lichtenberger—head of one of the five most prominent noble families in the entire kingdom. He had good looks, a sharp mind, and many other gifts bestowed upon him by God. The magical energy he possessed was excellent as well. No sorcerer existed who could surpass his talents in restoration magic.
Marius joined the Royal Knights of Enoch to fulfill his duties as a nobleman. There he found himself assigned to the king’s squadron of elite bodyguards.
With his magic, he saved and healed many people.
His feats earned him the full confidence of the king and the rest of the royal family. At the young age of fifteen, he’d already amassed more medals and compensation than he could count.
Marius was commonly referred to as a once-in-a-generation prodigy. But such a title came with its downsides. Despite his talents, Marius struggled to consider the feelings of others. It wasn’t extreme enough to bring consequences, though he earned a terrible reputation due to his habit of sometimes looking down on people out of arrogance.
But the gossip and nasty rumors didn’t bother Marius. They never directly affected his life, after all. Although, that all changed once he started being openly harassed. The mental toughness everyone believed he possessed crumbled in an instant.
As mature as he seemed, Marius was only fifteen—somewhere in between childhood and adulthood. Boys at that age could be particularly sensitive. The experience made him shut himself away inside his home, closing off his heart from everyone else. He refused to take a single step outside of the Lichtenberger manor.
Marius spent two years with no objective in life once he’d left the Royal Order. He turned seventeen, officially making him a young man, but he refused to ever see anyone—perhaps because of his long absence from high society.
His father, the marquess during that time, turned to a relative for help.
He brought in Marius’s cousin—an outgoing and optimistic young woman who was the same age as Marius. Her grandmother even had a contract with a mountain cat, a type of mythical beast. His cousin and this creature worked together to mend the young man’s emotional scars.
The mountain cat and his kindhearted cousin thawed Marius’s frozen heart. The following year, Marius married the young woman and the two were soon blessed with a daughter.
But after the birth of their firstborn, Marius’s wife set out on a journey to do charity work, telling him how much she desired to help others around the world with whatever problems were ailing them.
To this day, he still feared his marriage had been nothing more than another act of charity work in her eyes. Marius was left with only his child, Liselotte, and the memories of the wife who loved mythical beasts.
That was how he came to pour all of his love into mythical beasts and his daughter.
Marius inherited his father’s title, becoming the next Marquess Lichtenberger. Nearly twenty years after his marriage, his wife had yet to complete her journey of charity work.
Liselotte once spent most of her time at the Royal Mythical Beast Preservation Bureau, but after she joined the Royal Order, Marquess Lichtenberger found himself primarily all alone in his home.
He’d spent the past year secretly cherishing Album, the weasel fairy, but was never successful in winning his affection. He knew Album didn’t care for him, but he still felt a sense of loneliness once the creature left.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have ended his contract with Album. Even the servants of the Lichtenberger home turned out to miss him dearly.
Marquess Lichtenberger had no idea that he wasn’t the only one with such a fondness for the fairy. He thought the fairy would simply return to the forest where he had once lived. That was until Liselotte returned home with shocking news.
Album had formed a new contract with Mell Risurisu. She’d stopped him from going back home to the woods. Album had been frightened by Marquess Lichtenberger, so Marius thought it was best to be satisfied with this outcome.
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