Not long after my luncheon with my future in-laws, I began to receive frequent summons from the palace. While the king and prime minister were taking care of the nitty-gritty details of my marriage into House Hawke, there were still some things that I had to do myself. The most important of these was to sign the engagement contract. You should always read the fine print before signing any kind of contract, so this took some time—especially since this contract had far more pages than I had imagined it would. This was because it had to clearly state who owned the rights to my company and the products that it sold in partnership with my new house.
I had assumed that since I was the one who owned the rights, we wouldn’t need a contract, but that turned out to be a bit naive. Something to do with the laws of the land.
I did manage to read through it, more or less. However, if you can keep a secret, I actually skimmed most of it—I was always utterly exhausted by the time I got to read it. Besides, the king and prime minister had prepared the contract, and they had always treated me well. I wanted to trust them, and I doubted they would sneak any strange clauses in there.
Thus, as I spent my days juggling my work for the Research Institute of Medicinal Flora with whatever needed doing for my engagement, I received an invitation from the palace to a ball. This was the celebratory event for the purification of the miasma that the king had discussed with me. In other words, the Saint’s engagement announcement party.
Naturally, as the central figure in the end of the miasma problem, as well as one of the key people involved in this engagement business, I couldn’t possibly duck out on this one. And, as always, as the Saint, I would arrive at the same time as the king.
I passed through the doors just behind him. After a moment, the hall was awash with murmurs. They weren’t loud, but I could tell from the fact that they were whispering amongst themselves that a number of people were shocked. I had a feeling I knew why they were surprised, and I nearly broke out in a crooked smile—but then I imagined how mad my etiquette instructor would be if I lost my composure, and I managed to suppress it.
“I’m sure that by now you have all realized that, despite the many long years for which the monstrous hordes have plagued us, their numbers have at last diminished.” The king stood on a platform raised over the crowd, and the murmurs went silent as he addressed the guests. “For many terrible years, we were unable to discern the cause of their increase, but not long ago, we identified their source: They were born from what we call the black swamps, which were composed of concentrated masses of miasma.”
I remembered the very first time we discovered a swamp—it was by accident in the Ghoshe Forest, to the west of the capital. We’d watched as all kinds of monsters spawned from it, one after another. I believe it was Grand Magus Yuri Drewes who identified that the swamp was made of miasma.
“While we hoped that we could dispense with our monstrous foes once we identified their source, this was easier said than done. Establishing an effective solution always takes time, and the matter of the black swamps was no different. As this was a new discovery, we had no experience in dealing with them.”
The king was right: Just because you know what the problem is doesn’t mean you’ll figure out how to solve it right away. That was what had happened as we struggled with the riddle of the black swamps.
If we’d been facing a monster made of concentrated miasma, then we could have defeated it like we had every other beast up until that point. However, you couldn’t exactly rely on those conventional methods to defeat a swamp. It took a great deal of study and testing to figure out how to get rid of it.
“It was the Saint herself who destroyed the first, and in one fell swoop. Just as the legends of old have come to tell, the powers of the Saint have eradicated the black swamps and the monsters at astounding speed.”
Your Majesty, aren’t you embellishing a bit there?
From the way he said it, it sounded like I had defeated all the monsters in the kingdom single-handedly. Granted, it was true that once I purged the black swamps, all of the monsters in the vicinity disappeared. However, the knights and mages who had escorted me on these expeditions had also played their part.
I realized that the king was probably obliged to commend me in exaggerated tones in a public speech, but I still felt awful, because it sounded like I was robbing everyone else of their contributions.
My cheeks were beginning to cramp, but I did my best to not let my expression falter as the king continued.
“After healing Ghoshe Forest, the Saint traveled across our lands. I’m sure many here today met with her when she came to your domains.”
Looking around the venue, I saw many people nodding. I recognized them all. These were the lords and ladies who ruled the lands that I had visited on my monster-slaying expeditions.
When I had first met these nobles, many had worn smiles on their faces, but I had seen the desperation in their eyes, and their imploring gazes. They had all carried terrible tension.
Now they looked different. They seemed at ease, and the smiles on their faces were genuine. And I was sure that the peace that they had come to know would continue.