11-4 Events One After Another

Unexpectedly enough, Fal was stuffing herself with sweets.

So even if she did not eat meals, she did eat snacks.

Up until now, she had not particularly reacted even to the snacks at the Beast-Ear Garden.

And yet she was devouring them eagerly and wholeheartedly.

Perhaps until now she had been focusing on collecting magic power, with the nutrients inside the egg sustaining her.

That was one more mystery of the Rainbow Fals.

She had gotten cream all around her mouth and even stuffed cream into her nostrils, then blew it out with a snort.

She did not look like such some grand or exalted life-form.

When I lightly fluffed her up, her feel was, well, unbelievably good.

She paid no attention at all to being petted and kept burying her face in the sweets with single-minded focus.

And there was something I had specially ordered from Eri.

It was something very familiar on Earth.

Though she had been nervous considering its scale and intended use, Eri had shivered with excitement, her eyes brimming with fighting spirit.

Yeah, with this, things would probably be fine.

I stopped by Eri’s place every so often and handed over detailed materials I had researched online.

And then a report came from His Majesty the King.

He said that the groundwork regarding Antonio’s wedding had been mostly completed.

As for that incident, which had even been called the kingdom’s shame, many of the high-ranking nobles who had not sided with Duke Bighton also felt a great deal of guilt, and since this would neatly settle the matter, it would be good for the country as well, so apparently quite a lot of them were being cooperative.

As for the lower-ranking nobles who had been involved in wrongdoing, since I was the one hosting the wedding, apparently all they were doing was trembling in fear.

Just how much evil had they been up to?

Should I clean house one more time?

Hm?

Maybe it was about time.

Should I settle it before that person’s stomach got bigger?

And so I hurried back to the royal palace and came to an understanding with His Majesty that the ceremony would be one month from now.

That being the case, I charged into the Orston House once more.

Antonio said something like, “You really are sudden again,” and was about to have tea prepared, when I declared it to him.

“The date of your wedding has been set for one month from now.”

“Al, what are you talking about? What do you mean, wedding?!”

“I just received notice from His Majesty the King. That the matter of your wedding has finished being announced to the nobles.”

“What did you say?!”

“Everyone wants to bring the kingdom’s shame to a proper close. This is your duty now as the man who has newly established a count’s house. Right now, this country is also tangled up with an empire whose military strength surpasses its own. Unlike me, you are an official retainer of the king, so expectations are riding on you. On the strength of the Orston House, ‘the Kingdom’s Sword,’ the pride of the martial nobility, and especially on you, who are both a solo dragon slayer and an S-rank adventurer. You are like a kind of symbol. That is why all the nobles are thinking they want to settle this all the more properly. As the head of a noble house of the Albatross Kingdom, you are not going to make a whole group of high-ranking nobles lose face, are you?”

“T-that is true, but… she…”

“I know. That is why I asked the king himself to do the groundwork. Apparently there is no particular problem. And if there are still complaints after that, then this noble-killer will personally deal with them.”

I gave him a grin and said this.

“Besides, I have already spread all sorts of information about the lovely goods originating from the Orston Count House to Her Majesty the Queen, the princesses, and even lady’s maids I know. They also know Margarita-san is with child, so I do not think they will make too much fuss, but they are probably expecting return gifts for the wedding. We will support all of that on our end, so do not worry. If you need manpower, we can also ask the Adventurers’ Guild and the Commercial Guild in the Royal Capital and Adros for backup. Antonio, show them a man’s generosity. People from the world of the Rare Visitors are supporting this too through the internet.”

“I-I see. Then I suppose I ought to simply say I am grateful…”

“As expected of Antonio, you are still quick to understand. Well then, it has been set for one month from now, so I am counting on you.”

Then I returned to the Royal Capital by teleportation magic and gathered up the city’s sewing team of seamstresses and sent them into Orston.

They all looked utterly bewildered, but I could not be bothered with that.

If this were a Japanese company, the man-hours would be calculated at something like “44 yen per minute.”

Just because they were the suppliers for the wedding dress did not mean they would be forgiven.

This time it was a royal-palace wedding with the kingdom’s leading figures gathered, so failure absolutely could not be allowed.

The wedding dress was one that had actually been used by royalty on Earth in recent years.

I also brought in clothing fabric and sewing machines.

Using software to analyze camera footage of Margarita-san from various angles, I had measured her size in advance and prepared the base portions already.

Since this was a happy occasion, even more alterations were necessary.

And so I also sent in the little ones from our clothing team as part of a social-studies field trip.

Mari and Aoi-chan were in charge of supervising that side.

Under no circumstances was Touya to be taken along.

Well, I doubted even he would dismantle a wedding dress.

I left Remi and Fal in his care.

Since Aoi-chan would not be there, if Remi needed a horse, she could use the Ars-go.

I also had Aoi-chan give wrapping lessons to the servants of the Orston House.

At the same time, the little ones were to learn together as well.

Unexpectedly, our kids were actually the better ones at it.

They were made to do all sorts of things at the Beast-Ear Garden, and they were used to the bizarre things I did.

As possible gift options, I prepared crystal glasses, satin fabric, dragon-material leather goods, high-end whiskey, and also luxury chocolates among other things.

Even chocolate, which was weak against heat, should be fine in this season.

If it came down to it, maybe I would even try making magical cooling tools for carrying them home.

If they charged those with magic power themselves, they could be reused as well.

Then there were also pieces of jewelry with Earth-style designs that I had made.

I left it to Antonio whether or not to use those.

Food and drink in particular could be bad if handed out to the attendees.

If something happened afterward, I could not afford to have people say poison had been mixed in.

After all, it was the exquisite combination of the kingdom’s shame and the empire’s shame, so complaints were easy to attach to it from the start.

I also brought out and processed the necessary items, returned to the garden and gave Fal magic power in place of milk, and while I was at it I fluffed the little ones’ heads too and recharged myself as well.

Since the wedding preparations and the sports day preparations were to proceed in parallel, Aoi-chan, the leading instructor for both, was terribly busy.

The pathetic truth was that Aoi-chan was the only person who was actually well versed in both.

This old man had turned into a transport service and machine tool through teleportation magic.

For a while from here on, the garden’s events would continue quite a lot.

After sports day came the “school play festival.”

That one also took a great deal of preparation.

Unlike sports day, which used the body, this one required preparation of major and minor stage props, rehearsals, and various other practice.

And after that came the Christmas party, and then at the beginning of the new year came the huge event of the “Establishment of the Beast-Ear Elementary School”!

There had been school-related establishments before now too, but they had been things like a cooking school and a vocational training school.

For those, it had been enough to prepare an empty shell of a building, hand over money, and leave the rest entirely to the Commercial Guild.

Since our children would advance into the elementary school in escalator fashion, the class curriculum would have to be made into something full-fledged.

From elementary school onward, we would also have to assign homeroom teachers.

Well, at first the number of students would still be small, so we would manage somehow.

When the school started next year, there would still only be one class in the first grade.