Her nineteenth birthday. The morning she reached the age when people could begin to ask her, “Are you still not married?” Miyako, the youngest daughter of a family of regional nobles, was called to see her fiancé Klaus, the eldest son of the Reinhardt family of high nobility. He had only one thing to tell her.
“I’ve decided to call off our engagement.”
From the beginning, it was an engagement across social classes. Miyako had no right to refuse him.
“Understood. I accept your order to cancel the engagement. I wish you a good day, Klaus-sama.”
In response to the one-sided declaration, Miyako deeply bowed her head, her auburn hair beautifully tied up. She then left the Reinhardt household.
Miyako felt the pitying stares of the servants all around her. Somebody’s voice whispered, “And he even turned down the count’s daughter to get engaged to her.” Without so much as raising a single eyebrow at that voice, Miyako climbed into the carriage waiting outside the mansion.
The carriage drove away, and drove and drove. When the Reinhardt house had left her sight, Miyako’s shoulders began to shake, and she screamed out.
“Yesssss!!! I’m free now!!!”
I’ve done it. I’ve done it!!
I got the engagement called off!!
I’m free now!!!
She pumped her fists with all her might.
As it happens, Miyako was someone who’d just wound up reincarnated in this world. This was Drop Fantasia, the otome game she once played religiously. Miyako’s student days when she got absorbed playing it were long over. In those days, Miyako played through every route in Drop Fantasia, wasting no time on sleep.
Years passed, and Miyako became a wage slave with no time to sleep once again. One night, after wearing herself down day after day, she fell asleep with the thought “I can’t do this anymore.” Miyako felt a pain in her chest, and the next morning she let out a scream. A scream of joy.
She had woken up as the seventeen-year-old main heroine in the world of Drop Fantasia.
Yahoo, three cheers for deus ex machina!
“Heh heh, now I can make the wild dream I’ve held for so many years come true.”
Miyako’s trademark hazel eyes lit up.
There was a character whose route Miyako was never able to clear, despite being so engrossed in Drop Fantasia. That character was also the first love to steal Miyako’s heart. Up to her current point in the game’s world, Miyako had striven to win over that character, that woman.
That’s right.
Miyako had worked to have the main hero, Klaus Reinhardt, break off their engagement.
“Driver!”
“Yes, what’s the matter, my lady?”
Miyako leaned out of the carriage window and called out to the man steering the horses. The cool morning breeze felt pleasant as it struck her cheeks, as though foretelling the heart-racing days around the corner.
“Change of course. Hurry to Fuuka Hamilton, the count’s daughter!”
Fuuka Hamilton was the count’s beautiful daughter in Drop Fantasia, who’d firmly captured Miyako’s heart—
“Fuuka-sama. I’ll make you happy no matter what!”
—and the main scenario’s villainess.
✦ ✦ ✦
Fuuka Hamilton drank her morning tea.
Black tea.
The color filling the cup reminded her of the woman with the same color of reddish-brown hair, the woman who’d stolen everything from her.
All was going well until three years ago. Fuuka had a privileged family. She had a fiancé who was both close to her in age and handsome, though their marriage’s only purpose was to further the family interests.
My life was all smooth sailing, if I do say so myself. I put in so much effort to live up to that.
What changed everything was her arrival. Miyako Florence. She possessed a healthy beauty that made her seem to shine from the inside out. She was outspoken and intelligent too. Fuuka could tell better than anyone that Miyako Florence was a catch.
“Fuuka, I want to make Miyako Florence my bride. Let’s break off our engagement.”
When her former fiancé Klaus Reinhardt said those words to her, Fuuka thought only one thing.
Ah, I knew it.
Fuuka hadn’t been idle before that. Her family under Count Hamilton absolutely did not want to lose marital ties to the higher-class marquis’s family. There were no sentimental feelings of love between her and Klaus. All that had lain before her was a sense of duty, a sense of how things ought to be. Fuuka had deployed every trick she could think of to keep Klaus Reinhardt by her side, even as Miyako slowly crept into his heart. Fuuka’d had to use some underhanded methods in order to live up to the expectations of the Hamilton family, who so badly wanted a connection to the Reinhardts.
But even so, or perhaps because of that, when Klaus told her of his selfish decision to end the engagement, she didn’t feel frustrated or dejected. Instead, Fuuka accepted it. Somehow she had always known that it would turn out this way.
Yes, it’s like my fate has already been decided.
“I need to stop thinking,” she said with a sigh.
Fuuka delicately placed her cup onto its saucer.
“Now then, there’s a lot that must be done! I need to make Father take notice of me again.”
Now that her engagement into the marquis’s family was canceled, Fuuka’s father, the head of the Hamilton family, was incredibly disappointed in her. Not making any effort to hide his displeasure, he had thrown a wine bottle at her when she received notice of the break-off of her engagement. Fuuka’s father began busying himself with looking for partners for her younger sisters. He had completely given up on her, and there was no place in the Hamilton house for those who failed.
Even so, Fuuka continued to work hard. She not only memorized the methods of etiquette and balance of power in high society, but she also studied economics, commercial sciences, foreign languages, and white magic. Fuuka continued voraciously learning the so-called bridal training she needed to move forward in life, as well as the education necessary for a member of the nobility.
Father won’t take notice of me for a little while. Still, disgraced as I am by the canceled engagement, he lets me live the same lifestyle I always have. I can live in the same privileged environment.
Trying to cheer up, Fuuka told herself this.
“Now then, I suppose today I’ll try reading a classic from a neighboring country in its own language.”
Faltering was not permitted. She had to suppress the feelings threatening to rise up in her heart. Fuuka had to swallow back the almost delusional cries trying to pass through her lips.
And so, thinking things like this...
“I want to run away...”
Yes, I want to.
“To somewhere else.”
Wanting to run away to somewhere else. Hoping that a prince will turn up to take me to some faraway land. I mustn’t think things like that.
Fuuka scolded herself for letting her tightly clenched fists tremble and her head hang down.
At that moment, the door burst open. The person who came running in was impossible.
“Fuuka-sama!”
“Uh, ah, wh-what?! What’s going on?!”
The opening door caused the still air in the room to move. Wind blew in through the window, shaking Fuuka’s lustrous hair and dress.
“Y-You’re—”
Fuuka gasped. The one who’d run into her room was none other than Miyako Florence.
“Please, come with me!”
The one Klaus Reinhardt had taken a liking to, the woman who’d stolen everything from her, was standing right there. Fuuka was dumbfounded.
Come with you? What in the world are you talking about?
Fuuka was at a complete loss for words. She heard the servants’ voices in the distance, flustered at the unexpected (and extremely discourteous) arrival of this guest. At this point, Fuuka knew she should act like a lady of the proud Hamilton family and issue a swift warning about such an entrance and this complete lack of etiquette.
The woman with gleaming eyes in front of her was supposed to be her hated rival in love.
So there’s no way I can take this hand, this outstretched hand...
This woman, with her brown hair swaying in the morning breeze, knelt down and took Fuuka’s hand, just like a prince on a white horse. The once-upon-a-time rival kneeling in front of her gazed up at Fuuka, paying no mind to her fine dress pooling on the floor.
“Fuuka-sama, I have always longed for you.”
Ah, there’s no way that I, Fuuka Hamilton of the proud Hamilton family, could take this hand. And yet...