Life as an Adventurer with the Banished Marquis' Daughter - Chapter 10: Continued – Carriage Journey with the Exiled Marquis’s Daughter, Part 3

Chapter 10: Continued – Carriage Journey with the Exiled Marquis’s Daughter, Part 3

I waited for her response, feeling like a criminal awaiting judgment.

“A year…”

Erika Solnzari murmured thoughtfully.

“That’s quite a long time, isn’t it?”

I tried my best not to show my internal disappointment on my face.

“It seems my father has taken advantage of the situation.”

Huh? What does this have to do with the chancellor?

She muttered to herself, her monologue a bit too loud.

“Certainly, given the current situation, it would be easy for our family to decide whom to introduce ‘her’ to over the course of a year, but still… a year…”

So the important person they were trying to introduce was a woman? Who could it be?

Feeling a strange sense of guilt for interrupting her monologue, I decided to speak up.

“No, it’s not because the Chancellor said anything.”

Erika Solnzari looked puzzled. 

“Is that so?”

I nodded in response to her question.

“So, the one-year proposal came from you?”

I just said that, didn’t I? 

I nodded again, thinking that.

“While I’m not entirely shocked, I don’t dislike the determination to do whatever it takes to achieve your goal…”

‘If you’ve shown that level of determination, my father will surely keep his promise with all his might,’ Her murmurs were hard to distinguish from her monologue.

“You didn’t have to diligently follow me around. You could have just taken on the role of my nominal husband and disappeared within the kingdom.”

I thought it would be pointless if I couldn’t be by her side, but her words reminded me of something.

“Now that you mention it, the Chancellor suggested the same thing. Of course, I refused.”

Our conversation was more like a series of monologues, but Erika Solnzari seemed slightly surprised. 

She looked at me intently and straightened her posture.

Not that she wasn’t already sitting perfectly straight; her posture had been beautiful all along.

“So… that’s how it is. That option was presented to you, and yet you chose to stay with me.”

Her eyes were beautiful as she looked at me.

Her entire being was enveloped in a magical aura, responding to her every movement with a beautiful glow. 

The words from her lips were so powerful and filled with emotion that they moved me deeply.

“You’re willing to waste a year just to be by my side, even if only a little.”

Was that feeling sincerity?

“I seem to have underestimated your resolve. I apologize. And, I don’t dislike that resolve.”

She smiled.

“Shin Longdagger, I have taken a liking to you.”

She said she likes me. She likes me…

I was so thrilled by this fact that I almost fainted.

In the corner of my fading consciousness, I thought I heard her murmur, 

‘I wish someone would think of me this way too.’

But I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying.

I was just too happy.