“C-Calm down, Shihono! Back off a little! I know you’re excited, but you’re scaring her!” Lord Endo shouted, getting up and coming over to our end of the table.
Lieselotte herself seemed stunned rather than afraid. “You don’t mean to say that my diary was published in your world...?”
“That’s right! Sorry for reading it without permission, Liese-tan! But it wasn’t the one you have there. It was a completely different version. Oh, but then again, I guess everything up to the point where our voices reached Sieg would be the same?”
“It was Kuon’s doing, then? Curse that evil god!” Lieselotte said with sheer malice. “Oh, and there is absolutely no reason for you to apologize, Lady Shihono,” she added, softening her expression.
Lady Kobayashi clutched her chest as if an arrow had been shot through it. “Ahh! Thank you for calling me by my first name! Such courteous fanservice! I’d expect no less from the best tsundere villainess ever. And while you’re being so amazing, do you mind if I see that diary?”
“Shihono, don’t take advantage of her distress to sneak in a bold request...”
“I know she’ll say no, but I feel like I’ll regret it a lot if I don’t ask. I wanna see it so much I don’t care if I’m being annoying or shameless.”
“I get how you feel. Honestly, I want to see it too.”
Lieselotte was taken aback by Lady Kobayashi and Lord Endo’s frank conversation. “Wh-What?! E-Even if it is a request from the gods, I did not write this with the intent of showing it to others. Oh, but in a way, I suppose people have already seen it, have they not?”
Lady Kobayashi nodded apologetically. “Yeah, sorry. I don’t know how much has changed, but I’ve read the game’s version of Lieselotte’s Memoir so many times I can recite it from memory. March 26: There will soon be a great flood in the western part of the country, as prophesied by—”
“I’m convinced,” Lieselotte said. “That is my diary, word for word. I see... So it has already been read. It has even been memorized.” Judging from her expression, this was a bitter pill to swallow.
“No, um, it was partly because I wanted to see if there was any way to save you,” Lady Kobayashi said quickly. “I had to read the material thoroughly if I was gonna write fanfics about it.”
“Sorry, you probably have no idea what she’s talking about,” Lord Endo said before she could continue. “Basically, Shihono loves you more than you could ever imagine. Just know that she was really worried about you and prayed for your happiness. Also, sorry, I read Lieselotte’s Memoir too. Now that I think about it, reading someone’s diary without permission is a pretty big invasion of privacy, huh...”
“No, um, it’s Kuon’s fault, so there’s no need to apologize. But... But... That doesn’t stop it from being embarrassing...” Lieselotte replied, looking awkward.
I decided to add my own two cents. “Lady Kobayashi’s deep understanding of your feelings aided me greatly. For her to know you so well, she must’ve truly cared about you and tried to empathize with you. I’m sure the Witch of Yore appeared in your diary as well. Lady Kobayashi learned everything she could about you, and I believe we’re only here today because of her sound advice.”
“Y-Yes, that is very true. In order to fight a battle, one must know their enemy. That is another reason why apologies are unnecessary, and I should not be embarrassed either. It also seems I have caused quite a great deal of concern, and above all, I’m sure a god would have the ability to see into my diary’s contents regardless. Very well, then.” Lieselotte took a deep breath and looked straight at Lady Kobayashi. “I do not mind showing it to Lady Shihono, but only to her,” she declared, cheeks flushed. For some reason, she was not holding the diary towards me.
“Lieselotte, am I not allowed to see it?” I asked, perplexed.
“Of course not, Sieg,” Lord Endo answered in her stead. “Shihono’s fine because she’s an outsider, in a way. It’d be really awkward to have someone read what you wrote about them regardless of whether it was good or bad, right? You were Lieselotte’s fiancé, so there’s no way she didn’t write about you.”
“I see.” I nodded.
Lord Endo leaned towards me and continued in a low whisper, “Even in the original Lieselotte’s Memoir, she wrote about how much she loves you. Now that it’s the super happy version where the two of you are married, it’s probably chock full of her expressions of love. You can’t expect her to ever let you see that, right?”
I see. There’s no need to be jealous of Lady Kobayashi, then.
“Let’s switch seats, then!” Lady Kobayashi said. “We can’t have you guys seeing her diary! Liese-tan and I will sit next to each other, and Aoto and Sieg will sit on the other side!”
Since Lieselotte had been giving Lady Kobayashi her diary and Lord Endo had been whispering in my ear, we were already standing in those pairs. We went to our seats as told.
“Sorry, man. It’s your wedding day but you have to sit next to me instead of your bride,” Lord Endo said.
I smiled. “No, I don’t mind. Lieselotte will be living in this castle from now on. I’ll have plenty of opportunities to have her to myself in the future.” That was why something as private as Lieselotte’s diary had been in the castle in the first place.
“Oh, look who’s confident.” Lord Endo grinned and poked my shoulder. “I’m glad things are going well for you guys.”
I gave him a wholehearted smile. Aside from Al, there weren’t many people who would be this friendly to me. A friend like Lord Endo was hard to come by, so I wasn’t the least bit disappointed to be sitting next to him.
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” I said. “Really, everything is thanks to you and Kobayashi. Thank you, Aoto.”
“Wow, that’s blinding. A real prince’s smile is a force to be reckoned with,” he murmured.
My smile became a bit strained at that. It was sort of embarrassing to receive such strange praise from a friend. Then again, I certainly am a prince. If that’s how I come across, then my younger self is being rewarded for his efforts. I won’t let those words bother me.
Lord Endo cleared his throat, seeming to have regained his composure at the same time as me. “Sorry, that was a weird thing to say. Well, you do tend to be too honest and serious. You used to take words at face value, which didn’t help when Lieselotte was being hard to understand. And then there was the Witch of Yore’s interference, right? It’s like the whole world was getting in the way of your romance.”
“He’s right,” Lady Kobayashi added, nodding. “You’re better now, but early on, as in last spring, I was pretty nervous. I kept asking myself, ‘Is this gonna work out?! Are they gonna be okay?!’”
I lowered my head again. If I were allowed to give an excuse, it would be that at the time, I had believed that my marriage to Lieselotte was a foregone conclusion. Even if we hadn’t been on the same page, I was sure that over the course of getting married, living together, and spending years at each other’s side, she would eventually come to accept me. To put it bluntly, I had let down my guard.
So the version of me that Lady Kobayashi and Lord Endo knew from the “game” must’ve been...
“The Witch of Yore’s interference...began in early spring?” Lieselotte murmured in amazement, interrupting my descent into regret for my cowardice and gratitude towards the gods.
Lord Endo and Lady Kobayashi exchanged looks.
Lady Kobayashi nodded, seeming to have made up her mind, and began speaking in an extremely nonchalant tone, likely on purpose. “Oh, yeah. Liese-tan, after starting school at the academy, have you ever said or done anything so unbelievable you couldn’t understand why you’d done it? It was all part of the witch’s interference. I just want you to know it wasn’t your fault at all.”
“Y-Yes, I have. Thank you...? However, even before enrolling, I was already experiencing that to an extent. I feel it happened more often afterwards, though, because I had more opportunities to see Sieg. I wish I could do something about my nature, but alas...”
“Yeah, that’s part of it too. You’re shy to begin with,” Lady Kobayashi said. “You have high standards and a strong sense of responsibility, so you tend to blame yourself. But the witch would’ve added fuel to the fire and made other people’s actions—especially Sieg’s—seem even worse. Didn’t you think Sieg hated you? And don’t you remember your magic being twisted in ways you didn’t intend?”
Lieselotte let out a shocked gasp. So did I, in fact.
“Are you referring to the water spell she used in the courtyard back in May?” I asked softly.
Lord Endo nodded firmly. “That’s the one. Well, I do think part of it was ’cause she was panicking, like she said. But it was probably the witch’s fault it ended up being that big. Magic was originally power that belonged to gods, right? The Witch of Yore was the ruined form of Lirenna, one of the original gods of this world, so she would’ve easily been able to manipulate people’s magic.”
“Based on what we read in the memoir, it was definitely the witch’s fault,” Lady Kobayashi said. “But Lirenna fell into darkness out of jealousy and despair, and her nature was twisted from all the negative emotions she was exposed to over the years. It’s hard to say for sure who’s to blame. Oh, but it’s clear who saved the day: Liese-tan who purified her. It was all thanks to her and Sieg’s love.”
“Absolutely.”
The two nodded to each other.