Chapter 280: Two People who Went through a Common Event
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――Apparently Bennyboy didn’t plan on calling his sister over to the capital.
“Pumila was slated to marry the eldest son of a merchant family which had close ties to our parents.”
Okay, this was basically enough to roughly tell me what had happened. And sure enough, Bennyboy started to explain the run-down of things just as you’d expect them to happen according to common tropes.
“The marriage had been decided by our and his parents, but in the first place, that town didn’t have any girls of marriageable age who would have been a good match for him. Soon after, our parents died. Following that, we were raised like siblings as his family treated us kindly as fellow merchant friends, so neither Pumila, he nor I should have had any discontent about this whole arrangement.”
But, suddenly talks about a marriage with the daughter of a big store, which was located in another town, was brought up. And the eldest son apparently fell in love with that girl at first sight.
The daughter of the big merchant was a flashy girl, making her the exact opposite of Damsel Pumila. Because he had never had such a woman around him, she was like a fresh wind for him. In the end, he impregnated that girl, and the eldest son’s parents used that as a chance to form good relations with that big store. So after explaining their reasoning to Pumila and persuading her, they revoked the engagement between Pumila and the eldest son, according to Bennyboy.
“…We were indebted to them since they treated us well after our parents died, and even the engagement was based on nothing more than a verbal promise. But, that ain’t no friggin’ reason to annul the whole thing after all this time. I misjudged that family. They also pulled such a move because they’re looking down on my sister and me. …For this reason, I had them write up a contract. For both shops. And I’d like you two to serve as witnesses. If you become the witnesses for this, Mr. Sword, Lady Indra, the other side won’t dare to disregard the agreement.”
Bennyboy hissed while suppressing his seething rage.
The annulment of an engagement, huh…? Is that a common event or something? I participated in a similar event just recently, didn’t I?
When I shifted my eyes to Damsel Scarlet, she was definitely looking very scary. Okay, let’s assume I didn’t see that.
I turned my attention back to Bennyboy.
“You have my condolences. If you’re fine with Sword and me, we’ll become your witnesses, but…what sort of contract is it going to be?”
Bennyboy answered with a serious look, “It’s a contract forbidding any sort of involvement between both parties, be it in private or for business.”
Hoh, so that’s his game. Basically, he’s saying he’s going to defeat the enemies of his sister, who revoked her engagement due to business-related matters, with business-related matters. Or in other words, he’s going to expand his own business to such a scale that he’ll easily outperform their shops, and since they won’t be able to deal with his shop, it’ll lead to a heavy blow for their business.
“Hmm, I see, I see. It’s quite daring, isn’t it? I like it. I’ll lend you a hand as well. I’ll also restrict any sale of my goods to those stores.”
Well, I’m basically producing for our base and only sell excess goods to Bennyboy anyway!
＊
“I will help you as well!” Damsel Scarlet declared powerfully, pressing a hand against her hip while drumming her chest with the other.
Seeing Bennyboy confused as he perceived that Damsel Scarlet was angry, but couldn’t tell why, I gave him an explanation.
“Damsel Scarlet also went through an engagement annulment event just recently.”
“”Huh?””
Bennyboy, and Damsel Pumila who had been staying behind Bennyboy while looking downwards all the time, stared at Damsel Scarlet, clearly surprised.
“Damsel Scarlet had been engaged to the first prince. That prince got splendidly tricked by an Earl’s daughter, who had inherited the personality and all tricks of her famously womanizing father. Apparently losing his mind over her, he framed Damsel Scarlet with false charges in front of many people during the year-end party, and tried to make her submit with force by ordering the strong son of the Knight Leader to use violence on her. If Damsel Scarlet had spent her time at the academy carefreely without being aware of the impending danger, she’d have doubtlessly suffered terribly at their hands.”
Damsel Scarlet added to my words, “Though that didn’t come to pass because Lady Indra was present.”
Sword became dumbfounded as if hearing about this for the first time.
“…Somethin’ like that happened during my absence?”
I looked at him, and asked doubtfully, “I told you, didn’t I?”
“Haven’t heard ‘nythin’ ’bout this until now. Besides, back then I was hellbent on killin’ Primrose.”
Don’t get hellbent on doing something so irrelevant, man.
＊
Listening to our conversation Damsel Pumila turned pale.
“…No way…so, what happened in the end?”
Damsel Scarlet and I exchanged a look, before I continued with the story.
“I stopped the violence. As for the false charges: Damsel Scarlet had gathered proof of her innocence beforehands. And just when I was about to torture the offenders as punishment for the framing, Sword showed up and stopped me. But then Sword tried to kill the earl’s daughter, who was the reason for all this, and I ended up stopping him instead.”
Damsel Pumila stared at me with blame in her eyes.
“…Why…why did you stop him?”
“Why would you kill the woman if it was the guy’s fault? Sure, she tricked him. But, he was cheated because he was unfaithful to his fiancée in the first place. It’s not like the woman did the framing. And it’s also true that she got harassed. I don’t know what she planned by saying that Damsel Scarlet had been the perpetrator, and it’s not clear whether she said so to begin with. That girl was quite dumb and forgetful, and she also had a desire to have her preferred boys swoon over her, but that doesn’t mean that she had them harass Damsel Scarlet. The ones doing it were the guys. That’s why it follows logic to punish the men, right?”
I argued it out very reasonably, but Sword listlessly waved his hand.
“That’s hair-splittin’. This girl here is quite weak towards women. She immediately forgives them if only they look at her with teary eyes.”
That’s not true!
――And yet I feel like Damsel Pumila and Damsel Scarlet look at me coldly all of a sudden.
Damsel Scarlet cleared her throat.
“…Well, I do not care much about Lady Primrose either way. It’s a matter of the past and there’s some reason to Lady Indra’s words. She hasn’t regarded me as an enemy, and whenever we met, I played the vic…err, she got meaninglessly scared of me, but nowadays I believe that it’s fine how it turned out.”
Hearing those last words, I lifted an eyebrow.
“Really? …Well, the engagement annulment certainly fell flat and you regained your status as his fiancée, but…”
Damsel Scarlet interrupted me at that point and clearly declared, “No, I revoked the engagement from my side at the beginning of the next school year.”
Everyone became speechless because of that.
Damsel Scarlet placed a hand on her chest and calmly explained, “I have awakened. Rather, it’s best that I realized before the actual marriage. …That’s why it was correct for you to have broken up with him before the marriage as well, Lady Pumila! After all, it would have been too late for anything if you had experienced this after the marriage! It is plain silly to offer your own life to guys like that!!!”
……
That’s the complete opposite of what you told me at our base during the vacation, though. But sure, why not.
The younger sister of Sword ex-girlfriend thought so as well, but rather than chasing after a love that won’t be rewarded, laughing carefreely makes women look more charming and fun, I think. Every girl is free to choose whatever man she likes, but I believe it’s best for a girl to look for someone who’s fun to be with, unless she’s a super masochistic woman who loves painful feelings.
“…is what she’s telling you as a woman who was almost tricked by her fiancé and determinedly dumped the guy. It might be fun if you vigorously work at Bennyboy’s store.
Very likely Bennyboy told you that you could stay at home without working as long as you took care of the housework, but I cannot recommend doing that. Instead you should spend your days in a fulfilling way, wondering how to improve and expand your brother’s business and working so hard that you won’t even have any time to think about unnecessary things.”
Bennyboy worriedly looked at his sister. Damsel Pumila lowered her face again, but then nodded slightly.
“…I think I’ll work after thinking it over for a bit.”
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