Chapter 4.3

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Chapter 4.3
Aiming to End the Engagement

Liz’s brother Alberto von Rizelheim, the prince of this country, came to bring her home, but after negotiating with him he allowed her to stay until the end of this month.

But when that deadline comes, Liz must return home and marry her brother. In order to avoid this, we must be able to show some results within the remaining time we have left. We have to accomplish something.

With this being her current situation, Liz began desperately pleading with Sophia to allow her to join her club.

“Then, from today on, Liz is also a member of Sisters.”

Correction, Sophia easily accepted her into her club.

…didn’t Liz run away from her brother because she didn’t want to get married?

As for Sophia’s club activities, apparently, they involve polis.h.i.+ng each members skills as a sister. However, Liz joining didn’t involve her becoming my sister-in-law.

Will it really be okay if Liz and Sophia become friends?

What’s most important right now is making sure that the rest of her cla.s.smates help Liz. Right now, her close friends should be willing to help, but I feel that the majority of the students still have a negative opinion of her. I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything without their help.

That’s why I stood up from my chair and cleared my throat.

“Everyone, can you listen to me for a moment?”

Liz only has one month left. She hasn’t accomplished anything so far and I doubt she will if things continue as they have.

“Liz has been trying many different electives and because of this, some of you have bad opinions of her, but I want you to know that she’s not just playing around.”

I stopped there and looked at the surrounding students.

Has there opinion changed due to everything that’s happened over the past few days? Anyway, everyone seems to be listening with a positive att.i.tude.

“From today on, we need to help Liz avoid being forced into a marriage she doesn’t want. Of course, I don’t plan on forcing you to do this or getting in the way of your studies to accomplish this goal either. We just want you to cooperate with us. So…please.”

I deeply bowed my head causing Liz to panic then quickly follow my action.

A brief moment of silence followed. Then, the faint sound of clapping.

I raised my head to see Alice, Sophia, Akane, Amy, and finally Trevor all clapping.

The applause gradually spread throughout the rest of the cla.s.sroom.

“Thank you, everyone.”

“Thank you, everyone. And you too, Leon-sama, thank you so much.”

“Now we just need to keep everyone motivated.”

Or Liz will go down the bad route which will also cause Alice and Sophia to have bad memories of their school life. Of course, I would too.

Obviously, I have no plans on abandoning her.

“Hey, hey, nii-sama, of course, we’ll help Liz, but what should we be doing?”

Amy was the first to say something, but…who’s her ‘nii-sama?’ No, of course, it’s me.

“You can just call me Leon. As for what you all should do –”

“Leon nii-sama?”

…why is it that every girl in my life refuses to listen to anything I say? I don’t really have the time to go down that rabbit hole. It would be better if I just kept things moving.

“I thought we could try many different subjects to find what she’s best at, but now we really don’t have the time.”

That’s hardly any time considering what we need to do. We have to find something Liz is great at within three weeks. If it was that easy everyone in the world would be successful.

ldquo;Then, we must find something Liz is suited to soon.”

“It’s just like Amy said, and I have at least one idea.”

“– You do!?”

Liz had begun to look more and more sullen as we talked about her desperate situation, but the moment I spoke she brightened up.

“Please, tell me, Leon onii-sama!”

“You toooooo!?”

“…what’s wrong, Leon onii-sama?”

I can’t even say anything after allowing Amy to call me ‘Leon nii-sama.’ Even if I did, I doubt she’d listen.

Whatever. No matter what she calls me, it’s not like we’re actually siblings.

“It’s you, Liz. Your spirit magic is remarkable. If you use it correctly, there are countless things you can do with it.”

“My spirit magic…. Isn’t it useless though?”

“That’s only in battle. Because of the duration…. Well, first off, how many times a day can you use your magic?”

“Umm…once I’ve used it, I think I’d have to wait about an hour before trying again.”

“I see….”

It’s a bit too long, but…she could probably cut that time down with proper training.

The problem now becomes the duration of the spirit magic she casts. She said it can last around three days.

That is beyond exceptional for any spirit magician. However, it would take around five days to travel from Muhle to Rizelheim. The three days she could keep something frozen won’t be enough.

However — and I turned to Akane.

“Hey, what about that transport method your family had come up with?”

Akane showed a wry smile when I suddenly asked her this.

“Thanks for talking about a company secret in public.”

“If you teach it to me, I’ll recoup any losses you may suffer.”

“Is that a promise as the Earl of Grances?”

“Yes, but…you don’t seem too surprised, Akane.”

“Well…I kind of expected as much.”

“I don’t plan on revealing it to any of your compet.i.tors.”

“…I understand. I believe you. We had plans to modify a horse-drawn carriage and set up a relay point between Rizelheim and the surrounding cities. We also believe that the highways throughout the country need to be revamped in order for this to be possible. My family really had no idea where to start with this idea.”

“Hmm.”

The carriage shouldn’t be a problem. If we design a carriage without showing any self-restraint, I’m sure we could speed up the travelling speed. As for the relay point…I guess that means switching to a fresh horse in a village between Rizelheim and wherever their merchandise would be going. So that would reduce the number of breaks we’d have to give the horse. Again, if it’s the Grances family doing it, none of this should be a problem.

So how much can we shorten the travel time….

A carriage should be able to travel around 5-10 kilometres an hour on a normal road in this world. So, let’s a.s.sume that the carriage can travel at 10 km/h. That means we can travel around 60 kilometres a day if we travel for six hours a day. Rizelheim is around 300 kilometres away, so five days.

However, if we travel along a paved road, we should be able to travel somewhere between 15 and 18 km/h. If we change horses along the way, we should be able to reduce the time even more. We might be able to bring the travel time down to two days.

Since Liz’s magic can last three days, that gives us more than enough time to transport something like ice cream or fish from a port town to Muhle. If we can create a heat-resistant box, my dream of tasting the horn rabbit meat doesn’t seem so far off.

The trade throughout the kingdom would be revolutionized.

Still, there are several other issues.

Primarily, asking the princess of this country to act as a refrigerator. I have no other choice but to ask her, but maybe Liz will be willing to accept.

Next, even if Liz accepts that role, she wouldn’t be staying in Muhle forever. Once she got married she’d obviously return to Rizelheim, leading to us no longer being able to transport frozen goods.

Finally, this transport method could lead to an enormous profit, however, this method belongs to Akane’s family. When considering how much money they’d be able to make from this method, I begin to doubt they’d consider it worthwhile to lose all of those profits just to end Liz’s marriage.

— Considering all of that, this doesn’t seem like the best solution. If any other options appear I’d happily change plans.

That being said, I don’t see any other options right now.

Crown Prince Alberto already knows about Muhle. If any great technological advancements come out of this city, he’ll almost a.s.suredly attribute it to me rather than Liz.

But this is different.

I doubt there are many other people in this world that can use spirit magic that can last for three days. Because Liz is one of the only people that can do this, Alberto would have to acknowledge her achievement.

So, after discussing these positives and negatives with her, I asked Liz what she wanted to do.

“You want me to use my spirit magic to transport perishables?”

“Yeah, I know asking the Princess to do something like this is ridiculous.”

“That’s something only I can do?”

“It may be possible to do it if you hire a spirit magician to ride on the carriage….”

I turned to Akane to suggest other possible solutions….

“That would be possible, but not a good solution. If we just hired a mage to ride on the carriage, we’d be losing more money than we would make. Besides, I’m not sure there’s a mage that could even do that.”

“Because of this, it seems that you’re the only one able to do it.”

The method of having one or even more mages travelling with the carriage is inherently flawed. You’d spend more on hiring the mage than you’d make off the products you sell.

“If so, I’d like to do it.”

“Are you sure? Isn’t that type of work beneath a princess?”

“Even if you say ‘princess’, I’m only thirteenth in line to the throne. If you know of something that only I can do, then I’d like to do it.”

Liz didn’t even hesitate. She not only wishes to escape her forced engagement, she also wants to accomplish something that only she can do.

Seeing her like this really makes me want to cheer for her.

“I understand. Now that that’s settled, Akane, will your family’s business cooperate with us?”

“If I were to miss out on an opportunity like this, I wouldn’t be able to call myself a merchant.”

“…you understand that if Liz is forced to return home the entire plan will fall apart?”

“Well…you did say you’d cover any of our losses.”

A playful smile appeared on Akane’s face.

Actually, I do have another transportation method that doesn’t require Liz.

We could place mages at each relay point that would refreeze the products along the route.

It’s not something we’re capable of doing now and it would cost more than using Liz, but it should be possible.

It’s much more worthwhile if we can manage to do this with only Liz. For now, I’m keeping this plan a secret.

But Akane…looks like she may be aware of this plan.

In any case, there’s a lot of work to be done.

First off, we need to completely redo the highway system throughout the kingdom. Then, we must remodel and ma.s.s-produce a new type of carriage. We’ll need to develop an insulated container, establish relay points across the country, and create a system to index all cities and villages and each product they produce and all goods they need. Even if all of the students in Muhle help out, there’s just so much to do.

No matter how I think about it — even factoring in the Alice cheat — three weeks is just not enough time to do all of this.

So, I either need to find a way to get Crown Prince Alberto on my side or I can appeal to the King. It will be difficult for us to succeed, but there is no other way.

We just have to keep pus.h.i.+ng forward.

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