I Don’t Care About the Story, I Want a Cat ～Transmigrated into an Otome Game～ - Chapter 14

Ed and Alex

A few days ago__

The week after the tea party with the ‘fiancee candidates’, Edward went to visit Alexander at the Coverdale estate. Alex was currently at home on a holiday.

The two were sitting in Alex’s room after he had sent out all the staff, with only the two boys left in the room, along with Alex’s trusted butler who was standing quietly in front of the door. They sat in their usual places on the sofas facing each other. Edward seemed to be struggling for words. Alex waited patiently until finally, his eyes not straying from his friend’s, Edward spoke up.

“I invited her to go horse riding with me.”

“Ah, I thought that would be the case.”

Alexander put down his cup and leaned back on the sofa with his hands crossed behind his head. 

“Alex.”

“Don’t misunderstand. It’s not like I’m in love or anything.” Alex said with a laugh.

Edward had known him for a long time, and he could sense that while his friend wasn’t lying, it wasn’t exactly the truth either. 

With that said, no matter what Alex’s true feelings were, Edward couldn’t bring himself to change his own feelings. 

“But, you met her way before I did.”

“It’s not like it’s first come first served…… to be honest, I did feel intrigued by her. Though I would prefer if she was a bit skinnier.” 

“I don’t care about her appearance”

“Really? Well, I suppose you would think so. I feel like you two will suit each other.”

“Yeah…… I wanted to talk to her a bit longer at the party. The time we had was too little.”  

“That’s good, isn’t it? But, there is one thing though. I’ve met Amy quite a few times now and I feel like she has no interest in getting engaged.”

Edward had also picked that up from her. Although she had attended the party for the fiancee candidates, yet every time he tried to breach the subject of engagement she immediately put up an invisible wall against it. But, in the end, they had a nice chat about cats and horses so it wasn’t all bad. 

She didn’t seem like she wanted to be a princess. Rather, it was like she wanted to run away from it as far as possible. The knight and maid assigned to her table at the party had more or less confirmed this from what they overheard. 

……………………………………………………………………………………………… 

 A few days after the party, the knight and the maid nervously entered the Third Prince’s private room. This was the first time they had set foot in here. They were both nervous but, thanks to Hannah being there, the meeting proceeded smoothly.

“From what I gathered, she talked the whole time with her mother, the Countess. But they never breached the subject of getting engaged… yes, they discussed the pastries and the fountain, as I recall. They never talked about her becoming a princess, or discussed any rumours about the other ladies present there. In fact, the young lady expressed several times that she wanted to go back home quickly. Ah, um, it seemed like she was worried about the cat she had left behind at home. When Your Highness made your entrance, I thought you had caught her eye since she seemed to perk up, but it turned out she was looking at a bird.”

The maid relaying this report was Arrissa. She was kneeling on the ground as she continued the story.

“She thanked me for the tea. She told me it was delicious.”

Pouring tea was simply one of the duties of a maid. Alissa, who had worked in the Palace for 5 years now, must have made tea thousands of times now. It was a given that it would be made to perfection. There were also many people who would have a cup of tea just for appearance’s sake, and would barely drink any. Not a lot of people had complimented her on it before, since making tea was such an obvious thing for a maid to do. And a young lady, at that, had thanked her for it. 

“A lot of guests have complained to me before, but this was the first time one of them thanked me face-to-face. I was quite happy.”

“I see…… what about you, Darius? You were the one who showed them to their seats, right?” 

Darius nodded at Hannah’s question.

“I escorted the young lady once she got off from her carriage. It seems like this was the first time she saw a knight’s uniform; she stared at me for a long time.”

Amy’s father worked at the Bureau of Magic; none of their family members had joined the knights. Her grandfather who resided over the border territories did have a small battalion with him but their equipment and uniform were completely different from the Capital. So it was her first time seeing the Royal Knights’ uniform. Amy’s mother, Isabel, had explained all this as she apologized for her daughter’s impolite staring. 

“I was worried that she might cry when she saw me but that wasn’t the case. She treated me like normal.”

Darius was a married man and he even had a child. However, his son’s friends and other children were always scared of his appearance. Darius was tall with a sturdy body and a scary looking face. If he didn’t dress up in the Knight’s uniform he could easily pass off as a mercenary. However, contrary to his appearance, his personality was quite mild. 

The court officials wanted to use the party to see the reaction of the candidates for the position of future Princess – and later, Duchess – and so they had intentionally selected knights with unique appearances to escort them to their tables. 

“She also thanked me once we reached the courtyard inside the gardens. And also, um… she mumbled out ‘let’s get this over with’.”

“She said that?”

“……”  

Those words could be taken as her not wanting to be there. Edward gave a strained smile after listening to the reports of his knight and maid. 

It looked like both Count Northland and the lady in question did not want the position of a Princess.

After asking around from other sources, they found out that Amy had started gaining weight immediately after the announcement of the fiancee candidates. Hannah, who used to be Isabel’s governess long ago, guessed that it was probably her idea to do so. 

“……What will you do, Your Highness?”  

………………………………………………………………………………………………… 

“So, what do you plan to do?”

Alexander asked the same question that Edward’s head maid had asked him. 

Edward looked at him with resolve as he replied, “I’ll start by being friends. Although it’s up to her whether or not she’ll think of me as more than a friend.”

“So you’re not going to use your Princely authority.”

“There’s no point in it if I force her to like me. I want her to treat me how she does now.”

Amy was the type of person who showed all of her thoughts on her face.

It would be easy to force her to become his fiancee but if that were to happen, it would take a second for that honest face of hers to freeze up into an icy facade. It wouldn’t be easy to get her to open up after that. After all, she had gone as far as to change her body type to remove herself from the fiancee candidates without any problems… he would have to think harder about how to win her over.  

Normally, girls would clamour to become a Princess, so he didn’t understand why she disliked it so much. But he at least knew that if he didn’t get her to open her heart to him he would never get to hear the reason for this. 

“I thought so. I don’t like the idea either.”

It would have been a simple thing for Edward to give a Royal Order and have whichever fiancee he wanted, but he had loudly declared he wouldn’t do it. Alexander let out a laugh at his childhood friend’s declaration. 

After that, they talked about a few other things before Alex saw his friend off like usual.

He returned back to his room and gulped down the leftover cold tea in his teacup. 

“I can warm up the tea for you.” His old butler piped in.

“It’s fine like this.”

“……Are you really fine with this?”  

Alex felt like he wasn’t just talking about the tea.

“You know, I’m really curious. About those two.”

“Indeed.”

“I think it best if our friendship stays intact.”

“So you want to keep being friends?”

“Yeah. With that I can watch the two by their side, right?”

Alexander placed the empty cup on the tray that the old man was holding, his mind wandering to the Count’s daughter in question.

He was the youngest son, directly descended from a line of Dukes, but she never looked at him with greed or with deceit. Everyone, no matter who they were, always approached him with some ulterior motive. He could sense it even in people who were good at hiding it.

He had always received the same gaze for as long as he could remember; it was a hard thing to go through for a child. Even at school, although he was treated just like any other student, there were some people who tried to flatter him and curry his favour. He had already given up on hoping for something else.

On the contrary, Amy Northland had looked at him with the exact opposite gaze; that of wanting to avoid him. He had treated her a bit poorly on their first meeting, and even though she seemed to have guessed he was the son of the Duke she hadn’t treated him with flattery, nor with contempt. 

Her clumsy attempts to try and keep a distance from him contrasted with her earnestness in not ignoring him by bravong the conversation he struck with her. She tried to put up a front at first but as they talked more it melted away to show her real self…… her shyness contributed to it, but there was some other quality that she already possessed that made her so different.  

He had found her interesting.

She was younger than him but at times he felt like her thinking was way more advanced. It was fun to talk to her, so much so that he could easily lose track of time…… he knew that his childhood friend who had even more of an inconvenience with his title, would be taken by her as well. 

“Well, it would have been a different story if Ed decided to forcefully pursue her……”  

He suddenly nodded as if he had thought of something and turned to his butler.

“Old man, is it true that when you’re a fiancee candidate and you receive a tentative offer, but then the offer is withdrawn, it’s harder to find another offer of marriage?”

“Yes, it doesn’t matter what the reason was, but the lady ends up being labeled as ‘faulty’. It can also be seen as questioning the Royal Family so people are even more reluctant to offer for her.”

“Right. Then, wouldn’t you say it’ll all work out if she were to get an offer from a Duke’s house?”

“……… I see. So you’re saying you won’t get married unless you are certain that those two end up together.”

“Well, I just find her that interesting.”

Saying that, the youngest son of the Duke got to his feet with a satisfied expression, wondering what would become of them in the future.