Chapter 1: Announcing “Operation: Conquer the Dragon Emperor”
JILL’S adjutant had a policy for the battlefield: if you’re ever faced with danger, just start running until you can think of an effective strategy. He was an excellent adjutant. He had saved her both when she’d been pincered by the Rave imperial army and when she’d been cut off from the supply lines and isolated.
And at this moment, he saved Jill once again.
She had no idea what was going on, but she knew that this was certainly a dangerous situation, so she fled.
“Dad! Mom! I’m feeling a little under the weather with all this commotion going on, so I’m going to go get some fresh air!” she announced in a flurry. “Bye!”
“Dear, how about you eat something?” her mother suggested. “They even have your favorite: roast pork. You mustn’t gobble it down, though.”
“I’ll get heartburn!” Jill cried.
“What? You, having heartburn?” her father asked, incredulous. “Are you seriously ill?”
Leaving her parents to worry about their daughter and her inability to eat roast pork, Jill fled to the terrace at full speed. Naturally, she remembered the layout of the castle perfectly. This made her head spin even faster.
Calm down, calm down! she instructed herself. Is this a dream? Or was that life a dream?
Just before Jill stepped out onto the terrace, she stopped for a moment and looked at her reflection in the glass once more. She softly touched it with her fingertips, confirming that this child was definitely her. Still feeling restless, she went out onto the terrace.
Did I de-age? No, that can’t be it, because Mom and Dad are alive. The only thing out of place here are my memories… Does that mean I’ve gone back in time? That can’t be! You’d have to be a god to turn back time! How could this have happened…?
As Jill went to cover her mouth, she looked at her hands. At this age, she was surely already fighting with swords, but her hands were still soft and small.
That’s right… Her parents were still alive and well around this time, and Jill was just a very normal girl who, as the daughter of the House of Cervel, the so-called “people of battle,” had a fondness for swordsmanship and the military arts.
Setting aside whether a normal girl would even have a fondness for the military arts in the first place, the thought that she was back to that time was the first ray of hope Jill had found in ages. If time really had turned back, she would not yet be called the god of war’s daughter, nor would she be running around battlefields for Gerald. She wouldn’t even be Gerald’s fiancée yet.
“…Can I start over?” Jill muttered, although she had no idea how this had happened. She clenched her small hand tightly. On the battlefield, those who couldn’t come to terms with their current situation would die. She took a deep breath.
At any rate, I’ll act under the assumption that I’ve returned to the past. If Gerald asks me to marry him, and I don’t accept… No, I wouldn’t have that option. If the crown prince proposes to you, you can’t say no.
Even though her father was a trusted margrave who defended the kingdom’s border, their land was still a territory belonging to the Kratos Kingdom. If the margrave’s daughter were to decline the prince’s marriage proposal clumsily, it might be regarded as adversarial.
The best course of action would be to let the party pass by without being proposed to at all.
In that case, haven’t I already let the opportunity pass by…?
If she were on the same course as before, Gerald would’ve made a beeline to Jill and proposed to her right after their eyes had met. So she had altered the past the moment she’d gone out on the terrace.
“Has the problem already been resolved because I ran away?!” she gasped.
“Lady Jill.”
“He’s…!” Jill shouted involuntarily.
Gerald, the prince who Jill had seen as a young man just ten minutes earlier but was now a young boy, tilted his head. “He’s…?” he repeated her strange cry.
“N-N-No… It’s not— It’s nothing,” she stammered. Her panicking had made her manner of speaking strange, but forcing herself to speak like a lady had made it sound even stranger.
Regardless, it was undoubtedly not normal that Gerald, the man of the hour, had come out onto the terrace even though the party had just begun. He was also, for some reason, holding a single rose in his hand. Jill recognized that rose.
He had given it to her when he’d proposed the first time. That memory brought on another one. When Jill had once asked him why he’d proposed to her, Gerald had smiled and said, “The moment I saw you, I thought, you’re the one.” Jill had been privately pleased by that comment, imagining their union was fate.
Was it too late the moment our eyes met?! she thought, terrified.
As Gerald’s eyes softened, Jill wondered what he thought of her, cold sweat dripping down her back. It’s like he’s inspecting a product, she couldn’t help but think. Her mind went in that direction because she knew he was already madly in love with his little sister by this point.
“Pardon me,” he said, taking charge of the silence stretching between them. “I’m Gerald. Gerald der Kratos…the crown prince of this kingdom.”
“Th-That’s right.”
“You’re Lady Jill of the House of Cervel, correct?”
Gerald wiped his glasses somewhat nervously before putting them on again. That’s right… The last time she found herself in this situation where a dashing prince had addressed her so formally, even though she wasn’t a princess or anything, her heart had soared—
“…There’s something important I need to tell you.”
The prince stepped out under the twinkling, starry night sky. His proposal in the middle of the dance floor under the glittering chandeliers was wonderful, but this was a lovely setting in its own right.
Or it would be…if the person proposing to her wasn’t a nasty sister-loving scumbag.
What if I just scream it and expose him here?! Oh, no, that won’t end well—I got killed for just learning about it.
A lot of things would come to an end the moment she screamed. By this point in time, Gerald was already renowned as a child prodigy.