There Is No Need To Be Obsessed

“Did you know? About Princess Carlia. They say she is to be married off.”

“What? Really? But once she gets married, she can’t inherit the family.”

“I know! Do you know what that means? It’s like unofficially announcing that the duke of the next generation is not the princess, but the lord instead.”

Hearing the gossip, I looked at Princess Carlia, who was smiling amidst the surrounding crowd.

Come to think it, the Duke of Velvet was a very conservative man.

The idea that women should be homemakers and men should be breadwinners was deeply ingrained in him.

That’s why I remembered every time I ran into him, he frowned, and pretended he did not know me.

As such a duke, it would not be surprising if the dense lord became the head of the household instead of the clever princess.

It would be really unfair for the princess.

“Well, it none of my business anyway.”

It was already a headache to just think about my future, I didn’t have time to worry about others’ affairs.

What’s more, it was far more advantageous for me to have the stupid young master become the heir than Princess Carlia.

However….

I put a piece of cake in my mouth as I gazed in Princess Carlia’s direction.

Men were already fawning over her when they heard that she was to be wedded.

Even though it looked burdensome enough to make me tired of seeing it, Princess Velvet never dropped her smile and responded in a leisure manner.

No matter how I looked at it, she looked like a born entrepreneur.

I wondered if she really…

Is she willing to accept this reality?

But soon I shrugged it off.

Briefly after, the next person entered.

“His Grace, Duke Heights Henness is entering!”

The next attendant was the Duke of Henness.

As soon as he made his entrance, women shrieked and threw themselves at him.

He hung a troubled smile on his lips at the sight of the women going wild with their talks.

Heights Henness.

The Head of the Henness Duchy, famous for his magic among the three great dukes of the Empire.

Soft sky-blue hair, white skin, doe-eyed and a tiny tear mark.

He was fulfilling all the conditions to stimulate the female’s affection.

“Heights Henness.”

I mumbled his name.

I first saw him back when he was a boy, on the day he followed his father to the Guild.

He was already so pretty from a young age that I thought he would be even more handsome once he matured. But he grew up much better than I thought.

Although the Henness family maintained a friendly relationship with the Cheshire Merchant  after the excavation of the manastone mines,.…

I recently heard from Leone that the behavior of the Henness family was suspicious.

It’s still difficult to pinpoint exactly what was off, so we would have to wait a little longer.

After the disappearance of his older brother Wolfgang Henness 12 years ago, he succeed the household.

T/n: seriously, there are some weird names in this novel.

Wolfgang Henness, three years older than Heights Henness, was a so-called genius wizard.

From a very young age, he was capable of using advanced magic and was expected to become an great wizard.

He was the face and pride of the Henness family. It was obvious that he would become the next head of the household.

However, with the sudden death of the former Duke of Henness and the impending succession to the state, Wolfgang Henness suddenly disappeared.

No trace of Wolfgang could be found anywhere, and the second eldest son, Heights Henness, took over the duchy.

Heights Henness became a duke because he was left with no other choice. One could say that he was forced to.

Perhaps that was why even after becoming a duke, he did not show any remarkable performances. Making the Henness the least prominent of the three ducal families.

That’s why his reputation is not that far-reaching.

After handing the finished plate to a servant passing by, I folded my arms and leaned my back against the wall.

I was observing Heights Henness as he was surrounded by women, when he suddenly made eye contact with me.

“…?”

At first, I thought it was just that our eyes met by chance while shifting our gaze.

However, as time passed, Heights did not move his gaze away from me.

What? Does he know me?

His blue eyes seemed to shake for a moment, then he cut through the crowd and started approaching me.

Huh? What is it?

I was flustered. I could just stare at him as he was getting closer.

“Eureia.”

Suddenly. someone grabbed my wrist as a voice called out to me.

I turned my head.

I thought it was another man who approached because of Eureia’s beauty, but it was someone unexpected.

My eyes widened at him.

“Leone?”

“I’ve been looking for you for a while.”

He smiled softly. He was not wearing the silver-framed glasses he always had on.

I glanced him up and down once.

He was wearing a formal attire.

The short tied tail of his hair still remained. However, the purple pierced earring in his right ear were quite impressive. It was usually not visible as it was covered with his hair.

As I touched the piercing, Leone’s gaze followed my hand.

“This is the gift I gave you.”

This pierced earring was given to him as a gift when Leone first entered the Guild.

“You used to struggle to sleep alone at night back then, so I had to come to your room. I put you to sleep because you were quite scared.”

“Ack, owner… no, Eureia, that…”

Leone’s face turned red as I reminded him of that time.

I burst into laughter briefly as his cold and insensitive impression was replaced by a red flush.

At that time, Leone was stuck in the trauma of having witnessed his parents’ death with his own eyes so he had trouble sleeping at night.

Even after he had dealt with his uncle, he feared that he would come and kill him.

At that, I gave him this piercing as a gift. It was an amulet that I made to get rid of nightmares.

After that, Leone was able to sleep well at night.

“By the way, how did you get in? I didn’t hear you enter.”

“I was the first to arrive. It’s a little annoying to see people crowding around.”

Upon saying that, Leone glanced at the crowd.

Heights Henness, who failed to approach me, was surrounded by people again and was in trouble.

“So I quietly searched for you. I figured it would be better for me to be with you than to be alone…”

Leone clung to me like an escort knight.

We were so far in a corner that no one noticed Leone’s existence.

I and Leone stood side by side and chattered.

Being alone wasn’t bad, but having a friend by my side made me feel at ease.