TMDWS 10

Chapter: 10

I was already out in the potato fields at dawn when one of the kitchen maids came running toward me.

“Miss, what are we going to do?!”

She blinked rapidly, making a huge fuss.

“I went to the produce shop on Jezel Street, but the ingredient prices are outrageous! They’re asking five times yesterday’s price for strawberries! Strawberries were expensive to begin with!”

Instability in the warp network meant instability in distribution.

And it wouldn’t be just the warps. Soon, monsters would start appearing along the borders of the territory as well. It was practically guaranteed that food prices would skyrocket even further.

It’s starting…

At least I had managed to buy as many seed potatoes as possible in advance.

In a month and a half, we’ll be able to harvest baby potatoes.

Potatoes were a source of both carbohydrates and vitamin C.

I handed her my remaining emergency funds and said,

“Martha, there’s something you need to go buy immediately.”

I had been waiting for this moment—when distribution would start breaking down. There was something I could still buy right now by driving the price down.

I already secured enough grain from the grain merchant. Even with the increased number of people, we can last at least a month.

It was right after I finished giving Martha her instructions.

“Miss!”

The gatekeeper came running over in a panic.

“Miss, Lady Dalia has arrived! She says she wants to see you—right now!”

At the name Dalia, every maid’s expression stiffened.

The knights who had been planting seed potatoes all wore the same look: Who’s that?

I narrowed my eyes.

“…Dalia? Now?”

Dalia Sayers Harwin.

She was my cousin, someone who once shared the Sayers family name with me.

My father had a younger brother—my uncle.

That uncle earned merit and was granted the Harwin territory, founding the Barony of Harwin as a new noble house.

Yet he couldn’t let go of the name “Sayers,” so he fixed it as his middle name.

Even though middle names were typically reserved for high nobles or royalty—and people mocked him openly behind his back.

And the Harwin barony…

They took most of our marquisate.

On the day of my father’s funeral—

Thanks to a contract my father had foolishly signed, trusting blood ties, the Baron of Harwin took possession of the Beron territory and Jezel Street.

In other words, my father had made an utterly absurd agreement with his own brother.

Brothers who were born and raised together in this land.

That was how they were able to pick and choose the prime lands of the Sayers Marquisate—Jezel Street and the Beron Plains.

Worst of all, losing Jezel Street—the central distribution hub and market of the midlands—was a catastrophic mistake.

The shops there would have had useful seeds and large stores of preserved food, resources that would have been invaluable in an isolation crisis.

The Baron of Harwin hadn’t even tried to console me at my father’s funeral. He had only sought out Alphiers, urging him to honor the contract.

Alphiers probably didn’t even realize the man was my uncle—he must have thought he was nothing more than a creditor.

But now, instead of my uncle, his daughter had come.

Why?

In the original story, Dalia does come to see me—but about a month later than this.

She finds me and my maids worn down by hunger.

“Alphiers kicked out your steward too, didn’t he? Honestly, if you stay there, those knights won’t take care of you. You’ll starve to death first. Come to our house quickly. That steward is staying with us now.”

Because she was my cousin, I followed her along with my maids…

And ended up loaded onto an illegal human trafficking ship.

“Goodbye, Brisa.”

Dalia pushed me onto the ship herself and said,

“I really hated you.”

It was unexpected.

Hated me? We barely interacted at all.

Behind her, the Baron of Harwin was receiving sacks of wheat as payment for our bodies. They, too, were suffering from distribution collapse.

But now, the situation was different. The real famine hadn’t begun yet.

“Let’s go.”

I stood up, bringing the maids with me.

They muttered complaints behind my back.

“I hate that lady.”

“Hmph. She’s obviously jealous of our Lady Brisa’s noble blood.”

“Her Highness the Princess personally educated you, and you even attended the capital academy. Of course she’s jealous.”

Dalia and I had very little overlap.

Before I left for the academy, I stayed in the territory until I was ten—but I spent most of my time with Mother.

She was my teacher in every subject.

“You can catch up in about two years. You’re my daughter, after all. Let’s apply for early admission.”

When I placed first in the entrance exam for the Capital Academy—an exam most people took at twelve—at the age of ten…

I went to Mother’s grave and placed the acceptance letter there.

While I was taking the exam in the capital, Mother had passed away.

“Do not contact Brisa. It could interfere with her exam.”

“You… you’re truly insane.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not insane.”

Those were Mother’s last words. And Father—who had called her insane—ultimately honored her will and never contacted me.

I couldn’t even attend her funeral.

Having lived like that, I never had time to associate with Dalia.

But hearing her say, I always hated you…

Maybe the maids were right after all.

When we arrived at the reception room, Dalia was already seated—brown hair, sky-blue eyes.

“Brisa, it’s been a long time.”

She smiled brightly, even though she hadn’t attended my father’s funeral.

“I heard you’re no longer the heir to the marquisate. How unfortunate. And your engagement was broken off too, wasn’t it?”

I frowned.

“Is that true? Wow. You never know where life will take you.”

The last time we’d met was two years ago.

She had never openly provoked me like this before.

Only then did I realize that I had fallen into a position where she could now look down on me—and that she had been waiting for this moment all along.

“You know Ruman from the Joachim Count’s family, right? Unless something unexpected happens, I’ll probably get engaged to him. Father visited their estate yesterday, and it seems they made an offer.”

“Ah, Ruman Joachim. I always thought he was the most unpleasant of the central nobles.”

I replied flatly.

“But starting today, I might actually feel sorry for him. Wow—life really is unpredictable. Just like you said.”

This level of provocation was easy enough to brush off.

I slowly nodded and continued,

“I suppose the Harwin barony has expanded quite a bit lately. After all, the Joachim family—who never accept even the slightest loss—are only now beginning to consider you as a fiancée candidate.”

“What?”

“At this point, shouldn’t we summon our late father’s ghost to the engagement ceremony? He’s the greatest contributor, after all. If it were me, I’d even ask him to give the congratulatory speech.”

“Don’t be so arrogant.”

Dalia glared at me, seething.

“At best, you’re just clinging to the skirt of a marquis with commoner blood mixed in.”

She ground her teeth and shot back,

“I’m very curious to see where your half-brother ends up selling you.”

“Then you’d better stay on my good side.”

I lifted my teacup gracefully.

“If I tell my brother to sell me to Ruman of the Joachim family, your wonderful engagement would encounter a rather serious ‘unexpected incident.’”

I had never lost a battle of verbal sparring like this.

But growing bored, I took a sip of tea and cut straight to the point.

“So. Why are you here?”

“…The warp network collapsed yesterday.”

If I hadn’t known the original story, I would only have learned about it belatedly from yesterday’s knight.

Dalia continued primly,

“Father hurried around gathering information. The Mage Tower has already announced that it’s due to a monster wave and won’t be easily resolved.”

She seemed to be drawing things out and took a sip of tea as well. Then she smiled slyly.

“You don’t have much food, do you? Hand over the Erenta region to us.”

Of course.

There was a reason the Western Grain Merchants’ Guildmaster had singled out Erenta by name.

The Baron of Harwin must have made the first move—offering a high price to have Erenta’s fishing rights stripped from the Sayers estate.

And the guildmaster, desperate for money, had accepted without hesitation.