Chapter 2

It had happened during a grand ball held at the royal palace.

The First Prince had already taken a wife from another country, but the Second Prince was still single and without a fiancé; a fierce battle of marriage proposals was currently underway.

The ball served as a stage where young ladies gathered from all over the land to appeal to the Second Prince.

However, I couldn’t even get close to the circle surrounding him.

I mean, there was no way I could go head-to-head with those ladies—they were armed to the teeth with fashion and their eyes were practically bloodshot. It was terrifying!

Besides, even if I did go over there, there was absolutely no way the Prince would fall for me at first sight. The best I could hope for was being made a laughingstock…

In the venue, there was a duke’s daughter who was considered the most likely candidate for the Second Prince’s hand, a foreign marquis’s daughter who seemed to embody all the beauty in the world, and even a baron’s daughter rumored to be the Prince’s personal favorite. Simply put, there was no room for me.

If a “Potato Lady” dressed entirely in white were to call out to him, even the Prince would be at a loss. He’d probably force a polite smile and make a quick exit. I could imagine it all too easily.

And so, without even being able to speak to the Second Prince, my night at the ball ended in utter defeat. I never want to go to the royal palace ever again. I just want to become a shut-in.

In the future, please just send me to a convent. I’m begging you.

“But Father won’t give up, will he? His pride is the only thing about him that’s high.”

He likely thinks it would be a disgrace for his daughter to enter a convent instead of getting married.

“It shouldn’t matter where I go. My younger brother is the one who’s going to inherit the Marquis house anyway. So please, don’t expect anything from me.”

After a while, the maids came in to help me change.

It took several of them working together just to carry the heavy dress away. To think I had been wearing that super-heavyweight dress all by myself…

“Seriously, I’ve had enough of these engagement scandals. No matter where I go, I just end up feeling miserable.”

With my body finally feeling light again, I lay down on the bed and opened the book I kept by my pillow. I loved reading; it liberated me from my unpleasant reality.

I had already finished reading every single book on the family’s bookshelves.

What I was reading now was a grimoire I had ordered from a bookstore in the city. Every person in this kingdom can use exactly one type of magic that suits them.

I myself can only use a pathetic spell called “Material Reinforcement,” but it was interesting to read about various other magics. Magic to shrink the body, magic to enlarge it, magic to transform into animals—they were all so unique and wonderful.

While I was escaping reality through the grimoire, my mother entered the room. I wished she would at least knock.

“Agnes, you’ll be attending the Princess’s upcoming engagement party as well. You are to secure a good fiancé there, once and for all. Do you understand?”

“…Yes.”

“We can’t afford to be picky anymore. The eldest sons of noble families your age are finalizing their engagements one after another. All because you’re so incompetent!”

If you want me to succeed in an engagement so badly, then give me a little help. Mainly with the dress.

However, if I were to appeal directly to my mother, her complaints would come back at me with thirty times the force.

“So, who am I supposed to target this time?”

“The son of the Bree Viscounty! That family is wealthy, and they are eager for a connection with the House of Eventail.”

“I understand.”

An engagement based purely on status, then. That usually led to the husband having affairs after the wedding.

A convent really would be better.

“As for your dress, wear one of your grandmother’s again. You have plenty of them, don’t you?”

“Um, the old dresses are heavy and difficult to move in, so I’d like something new. It doesn’t have to be expensive…”

“My goodness, how ungrateful! What nonsense are you talking about? Going out in some cheap thing made of flimsy fabric is absolutely out of the question! Your grandmother’s dresses are of such value that they are impossible to find nowadays, you know?”

Technically, my mother was right; dresses like the ones my grandmother owned probably couldn’t be found today.

But I really wished she’d realize the reason those ‘valuable’ dresses had gone extinct. It was because they were too heavy to sell!

“Could I at least modify the skirt to make it lighter?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! How could such a thing ever be allowed?! Those are precious dresses that will be passed down to your own children one day.”

Even if I were to have children in the future, I had no intention of being complicit in child abuse via super-heavyweight dresses. I would definitely buy them new clothes.

“Anyway, don’t fail this time!”

At my mother’s words, my heart sank like a stone.

“I don’t want to go… I really don’t want to go…”

No matter how much I whined, I knew I wouldn’t be excused.

With a heart full of dread, I had no choice but to wait for the day of the grand engagement party.

And then, the day of the Princess’s engagement party finally drew near.

Once again, I was forced into a frumpy, heavy dress, had my face caked with as much makeup as humanly possible, and was stuffed into a carriage.

Under a gloomy sky, the carriage rolled down the highway, and the Marquis’s estate gradually receded into the distance.

From here, it would take several days to reach the royal capital. There was no escape now.

My mother’s lecturing started up again inside the carriage, and since we were moving, I couldn’t exactly step outside. This was torture…

By the time we arrived at the capital, I was gaunt and worn out.

The House of Eventail owned a small townhouse in the royal capital. The plan was to stay there for a few days and head to the palace from that residence.

Since we had come all the way to the city, you’d think we might want to walk around the capital, but the members of the Eventail family held no such thoughts. To a man, they all believed that acting so flighty would be unseemly.

And so, unable to fulfill my wish of going into town, I could do nothing but read books inside the house.

“Even if I did go to the city, I’d just stick out in these clothes. I hear the girls in the capital are very fashionable…”

I didn’t own a single piece of clothing that a girl my age would actually like.

In the House of Eventail—where extreme frugality was practiced and anything old was considered superior—all my clothes were hand-me-downs from my grandmother or mother.

The thought of being made a laughingstock in the streets, on top of the parties and balls, robbed me of the courage to even sneak out of the house.

I felt pathetically miserable for being that way.