Everyone Wants to Know,
Where the Heck is Mitsuha von Yamano?
“…For the love of the Goddess, where is Mitsuha?!”
Beatrice was in a mood. She was thrilled when she was entrusted with Beatrice Company, placed in charge of the Hollow Needle Island and the company headquarters on it (although the building itself was just for decoration), and even given a room in the Yamano County residence. She thought she’d be able to spend more time with Mitsuha, but the viscountess was never around.
Which was why she was terribly miffed.
“She’s not in the capital, right?” she asked.
“N-No, my lady…” stuttered Colette, unsure how else to answer. She spoke casually with Mitsuha, but for some reason, she was still intimidated by Beatrice.
Actually, there was nothing unusual about her behavior; a common village girl was in the presence of the daughter of her home county’s lord. Of course she was feeling queasy. If anything, it was her relationship with Mitsuha that was unusual.
But what about her relationship with Princess Sabine? If Colette could speak with a princess on equal terms, why would Beatrice’s social status bother her?
Perhaps it was because she saw Sabine not as the third princess, but as Mitsuha’s friend. That was how Mitsuha first introduced her. They’d even spent months traveling together. On the contrary, she only knew Beatrice as her county lord’s daughter. She didn’t share an adventure or spend enough time to form a bond.
She could hardly be blamed for that.
That didn’t stop Beatrice from wanting to join in when she saw Colette chatting with Mitsuha or Sabine. (How the third princess was able to visit from the capital so often was a mystery.) But whenever she did, the younger girl froze up and left. It made her feel awkward and guilty for seemingly chasing her away.
The reason for Colette’s behavior was simple: Mitsuha didn’t introduce Beatrice as a friend like she did with Sabine. As a result, Colette saw Beatrice strictly as her master’s guest and Count Bozes’s daughter. She could only act as a commoner does toward a noble.
Beatrice, on the other hand, had never met Colette as a village girl from her family’s territory. By the time they’d met, Colette was already the Yamano household’s second-in-command and a vassal trainee─which seemed like a contradiction, but that was neither here nor there. Beatrice was fifth in command of the Bozes household behind her parents and two older brothers. From that standpoint, it almost felt like Colette held a higher social position than her.
Anton the butler, Willem, Miriam, and the county’s other figureheads were only advisors and board members. Their duty was to serve the ruler, and they had no authority themselves. When Mitsuha was absent, Colette took over as the acting ruler and decision-maker of Yamano County. She had the help of the advisors, of course, but she was familiar with the weapons from Earth, Wolf Fang, and the true scope of the Lightning Archpriestess’s abilities. She was able to make the call on how much the viscountess could handle upon her return. On top of that, the girl would’ve rather chosen death than betray her master. No wonder why she was so trusted.
Mitsuha would never allow such a thing to happen, of course.
Regardless, Beatrice saw Colette as the Yamano family’s number two, the only person who could take command during Mitsuha’s absence, and the land steward of this county─not that Colette did any of the administrative labor. She left all that to the staff. A girl no older than ten serving as the ruler’s proxy and land steward was certainly strange, but the ruler herself was thought to be no older than thirteen, so no one questioned it.
Given her lofty status in Yamano County, you’d think that Colette could be a little more assertive as the second-in-command when addressing a noblewoman, but it was going to take time to get over the mindset that she was just a village girl from Bozes County speaking to the daughter of the lord.
There was one other reason why Colette had a difficult time being around Beatrice: the fact that Mitsuha hadn’t disclosed to her the full truth about her Traversal ability. Unless Beatrice was ever let in on the secret that Traversal hardly burdened Mitsuha at all, that she frequently jumped between the capital, her county, Japan, and the New World, and that she could summon Wolf Fang whenever she wished, there wasn’t much they could talk about. Colette, Sabine, and Mitsuha often brought up their long trip on the Good Ship Lollipop and their experiences in Japan and the New World. It was challenging to share a conversation without mentioning any of that.
Thus, Colette struggled to come up with topics to talk about with Beatrice. There weren’t many things in common between the daughter of a noble and a former small-village girl.
Their problems were exacerbated by Beatrice’s complicated feelings toward Colette. She’d already been a little upset because she felt like Mitsuha had stolen her longtime friend Sabine and Sabine had stolen Mitsuha from her. Now, Colette had stolen both of them from her…or so she felt. She was more than a little peeved.
But Beatrice was a proud young noble. Intelligent, kind, and fair. She knew Colette was a good person and knew better than to bully or harass her. However, that didn’t mean that she was able to bring herself to say, “Let’s put aside our status as noble and commoner and just be friends.” As such, she lived her days in woe, wishing she could join Colette, Mitsuha, Princess Sabine, along with the Munchkin Maids plus Leah, but forever unable to do so.
Little did Beatrice know, Colette also wanted to get along with her.
Colette had already befriended a princess. By comparison, a count’s daughter should be a piece of cake, right? As a commoner, however, she could never─ever!─voice that herself. She would only risk being so forward with Beatrice with intermediation from Mitsuha, who had absolute influence over them both, and with mutual consent. Speaking casually to a count’s daughter out of the blue was an insult so great it could get her executed or enslaved.
…Well, it was unlikely the Bozes family would do anything like that, but other noble families might, and Colette couldn’t rule out the possibility entirely. No commoner would ever trust in the magnanimity of a noble family and put themselves and their family in mortal danger. Even a child like Colette knew better. Casually chatting up Beatrice was not an option right now.
This entire situation was Mitsuha’s fault for not understanding commoner-noble dynamics and for not formally introducing them to each other as friends of hers. Mitsuha was able to befriend Beatrice and Sabine right away, and watched Colette quickly warm up to herself and Sabine, so she probably assumed there wouldn’t be a problem. She wasn’t aware of how village girls typically behaved toward the nobles of their territory, or that Colette only became friends with Sabine because Mitsuha was there and they shared a unique experience of adventuring together for months on a diplomatic mission…
“Now that I think about it,” Beatrice pointed out, “you disappear sometimes too, Colette. For days at a time, at that…”
Grk! Colette twitched.
“Also, there are times when Mitsuha’s gone and you’re here, and times when you’re both gone, but never times when she’s here and you’re not…”
Grkgrk! Her stomach did a somersault.
“U-Umm, th-that’s because I have to be around to serve Lady Mitsuha when she is here. I am only able to take leave when she’s away. Sometimes I go on overnight trips to one of the villages for inspection or to visit my parents back home.”
That answer didn’t quite make sense. You’d think at least one of them─the master or the second-in-command─should always be present at the residence. Unless they were traveling together, Mitsuha and Colette should take turns being away from the property.
Beatrice didn’t pick up on that, however. She, like Colette, wanted to spend as much time as possible with Mitsuha, so she didn’t question the girl’s logic.
“Oh, that’s right, I heard your parents’ house is half a day away by foot,” Beatrice said.
She learned that from Mitsuha. Colette wasn’t close enough with her to share such personal information. Either way, Colette’s actual travel time was zero because Mitsuha jumped Colette to her village and back whenever she visited home.