The Magic Count’s Bride

—Esria Kingdom Calendar, Year 482, early summer

“Sorry to be abrupt, but I think it was love at first sight. Will you be my bride?”

“—…Uh—what?”

Woken from sleep and suddenly proposed to by a man so beautiful it made her eyes fly open, Noi gaped.

Yet paying no mind to the stunned Noi, the man smiled.

“That’s a great answer! I’ll make you happy, I promise.”

Apparently, he had misheard Noi’s dazed “Uh—what?” as an affirmative “Yes.” Flustered, Noi shook her head minutely from side to side in the crook of his arm.

“No, that’s—not what I meant—”

“It’s alright, it’s alright. Don’t worry. I may not look it, but I can provide.”

“W—wait! I’m saying—?!”

Ignoring Noi’s attempt to stop him, the man flicked his fingers. Her wet hair and clothes dried in an instant, and he strode off in long, decisive steps—still carrying Noi, of course.

(What—what is even happening?!)

With bewildered Noi balanced in one arm, the man cut through the forest. The overgrown grove must have been a garden; he opened the door of a fine mansion standing nearby and announced with a smile,

“—Panselinos! Rejoice! I’m getting married!”

“Bff—!”

An older gentleman inside the room sprayed the tea he had been drinking.

A boy waiting toward the back of the room also stared, dumbstruck. But he quickly rushed to the man addressed as Panselinos, took his saucer and cup, and handed him a napkin.

Dressed in stately attire, the elder called Panselinos tidied his appearance and cleared his throat with a dignified harrumph.

“Since when did you have a child? No—so you’ve secured an heir after all. Excellent. And your partner is?”

“What are you talking about? My bride is this girl right here.”

To Panselinos’s august tone, the black-haired man holding Noi replied airily, as if his words were light as dandelion fluff.

Silence fell over the room.

—If anything, up to now Noi had lived a life where she startled others more often than she herself was startled.

To surprise her grandfather and master, she had once tucked a string of magical toy firecrackers into his bed; to comfort Fengalow when he was crying against a tree trunk, she had jumped down from the branches; when her senior disciples ganged up to bully her, she had sicced a makeshift rock golem on them—the variety of shocked faces she had harvested never ran short.

Which was exactly why she had never realized it:

Noi was utterly unaccustomed to being the one who was startled.

As a result, she was as meek as a borrowed cat. In the black-haired man’s arms, she froze solid, unable to so much as twitch.

“Hah… truly… you love startling me more than three meals a day.”

“I won’t deny it.”

Though Panselinos had just regained his composure and tried to wave it all off as a joke, it did not work.

The man neither stubbornly denied nor argued back. He only smiled with calm serenity. In the body that held her, there was no stiffness, no tension.

That came across like the easy composure of a grandfather looking at a cherished child, and it sent a chill down Noi’s back.

By any reasonable measure, the one closer to a grandfather’s role here was Panselinos.

The long years had etched fine lines in his face; his splendid beard and a high-quality cloak embroidered stitch by careful stitch spoke for themselves. Even from the gentle way he spoke, Noi, meeting him for the first time, could tell he was someone of high birth.

In both age and station, the elder ought to have stood above. Yet in this small room, it did not look that way at all.

“To think I drove you so far—please forgive me. All of it sprang from my single-minded wish for your happiness.”

Behind the standing Panselinos lay a mountain of formal match proposals. At last, Noi began to piece the situation together.

(So this is this man’s home.)

He knew that Panselinos, a guest, would press a mountain of arranged matches on him, so he had been killing time in the garden. There he had met Noi—and, seeing the perfect piece with which to refuse the matchmaking, had snatched her up.

The Esria Kingdom practiced monogamy, and the marital bond was strong. One was not considered fully grown until married, and when Noi worked at the palace her grandfather and superiors had urged it on her endlessly. The moment she consulted Fengalow it all stopped, but well-meant meddling was the most troublesome kind.

“It was entirely my mistake. Therefore, this engagement must be annulled—”

“Hahaha, it won’t be.”

“How can you say that when you’ve dragged in a girl this young!”

(A girl this young?)

Noi tilted her head. She would turn twenty-six this year.

People might object that she had waited too long, but no one would attach “young” to “girl” when introducing a candidate for marriage.

The only one here who could rightly be called “young” was the boy, who was gazing at the man with cool eyes.

“For now—this will be all for today. If you truly desire marriage, then observe custom and hold the betrothal reception at the castle. If you cannot abide the forms, I cannot give my consent.”

Casting a sidelong glance at the puzzled Noi, Panselinos took his leave of the mansion.

Left behind were only the suspicious man whose smile never faded, Noi still in his arms, and the boy watching the two of them with a damp, heavy gaze.

The boy had dusky blond hair and deep indigo eyes. He was slender—a beautiful, androgynous youth. He likely had not yet reached twenty. Though dressed in men’s attire, he possessed a beauty that could be seen as feminine as well.

(This is awkward.)

Could he set her down, at least? Noi stole a glance at the man. He noticed her look at once and beamed.

A man of striking beauty, carrying a curious allure, shaped an innocent smile.

(Beautiful—yet suspicious.)

Judged purely as an expression, it was a charming smile. But worn by a grown man of such composure, there was a bottomless dissonance she could not shake.

There were only four people in the room, yet he was plainly the natural center of it. And surely in a hall packed with a thousand, it would be the same. He seemed to lounge at ease, and yet his presence was commanding. Beneath beauty so intense it made one’s body tremble, a flash of keen wit glinted. His hair, flowing loosely down his back, should have looked improper, yet somehow completed a perfect whole.

There was no opening anywhere. Feeling a chill, Noi opened her mouth without thinking.

“Could you—”

“Sir.”

(—set me down now?)

Noi had been about to address the man—who kept holding an adult woman with ridiculous ease—when the boy’s voice made her close her mouth. Calm as it tried to sound, that voice carried anger.

“Who is she? Don’t tell me she came here alone?”

The anger, it seemed, was aimed at her. Noi fell silent.

“Are you plotting something improper—”

The boy knitted his brows and drew tight a killing intent.

Sadly, Noi was used to being met with hostility on first encounter, thanks to the enormous mana she had been born with. Knowing that opening her mouth would only pour oil on the fire, she resolved to keep still until he calmed down.

But the man holding her hardened his face.

“Enough.”

Quiet, but firm.

The boy immediately answered him, seemingly abashed:

“I apologize. Even so—you should set her down. Even for a child, this cannot be overlooked.”

“You’re stubborn.”

“Naturally. You are the Hyuetos Magic Count. Whoever is in your arms must be someone befitting that place.”

“Isn’t she exactly that, Ornis? She’s my bride.”

“That is why—”

The boy, addressed as Ornis, clutched his head. Apparently the man carrying Noi was a noble. The Hyuetos Magic Count. Noi had never heard the title, but perhaps it had been newly created in the capital at some point.

(What in the world…)

Ever since she woke a short while ago, she had had no idea what was going on.

(A place I don’t know, people I don’t know.)

It felt like she was dreaming. Normally, upon waking she would have started preparing breakfast—no, that was now the duty of her disciple—

(—Kardia!)

Noi started, eyes flying wide. She had no time to indulge this carefree matchmaking.

“S—sorry! Put me down!”

The Demon King that had long slept inside Kardia had hatched.

Noi had stopped it at the risk of her life, and as a result—Noi had died.

(I thought—I was dead.)

She had not died. Or perhaps this was the world after death.

Either way, she was worried about Kardia. Had the Demon King been destroyed, as the Starseer’s prophecy foretold?

(Was that child safe?)

The black-haired man—the Hyuetos Magic Count—gently set the flailing Noi on the floor. The moment her feet touched down, she toppled. She could not find her balance when standing.

(Huh?)

Her body felt different when she tried to stand. But she could not tell why.

Glancing to her side, Noi caught sight of a large standing mirror propped against the wall.

(W—wha—?!)

Her reflection stared back, eyes wide.

(Why—am I younger?!)

In the well-polished glass—stood herself from her girlhood.