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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Meeting the parents… meeting the parents is good, right?”
“Is it really good?”
“I’d like to say ‘probably’… but honestly, I’m not so sure.”
Lassiel, having regained her usual composure, shrugged playfully.
She was being annoying enough to deserve a flick on the forehead, but it was better than her earlier apprehension about meeting his mother.
“Let’s put ourselves in their shoes, Rudrick. Do you think you wouldn’t be nervous about meeting my mother?”
“Of course I’d be nervous. It’s meeting your parents! You can’t expect me to be completely calm.”
“Exactly! It’s natural. It’s only natural to be nervous about meeting your future mother-in-law.”
“Is that so…?”
He was still unsure, despite Lassiel’s words.
Of course, anyone would be nervous in that situation.
But that was beside the point. Did they even realize the gravity of their actions?
Their initial fear of meeting his mother suggested they did, at least to some extent. They reacted like children caught red-handed after a prank.
“I’d be nervous, sure… but I wouldn’t be scared to meet your mother.”
“Huh?”
“I haven’t done anything wrong. There’s no reason for me to be scared. If anything, you’re the one who should be scared.”
Until now, he’d been intentionally ignoring the common sense of this world. But honestly, if they were being frank…
Age?
He was younger than Lassiel. Not just by a year or two, but by almost five years.
What had he done wrong?
Even if he were marrying Lassiel alone, public opinion would likely label her the gold digger… or rather, in this world, the “gold diggeress.”
This wasn’t arrogance, it was logical thinking.
It wasn’t like some meme with a person of color thinking differently, his perspective was closer to the common sense of his previous life, the normal reaction.
“Hmm…”
Lassiel hummed thoughtfully after his reasoned explanation.
She looked at him with a strange expression, then shook her head.
“You’re so brazen I want to argue, but you’re right, so I can’t.”
“You agree, right?”
“How should I put this… I can’t argue with that.”
Lassiel shrugged again.
Even she seemed to think that the future daughters-in-law who agreed to marry a man with five brides were stranger than the man himself.
Well, he was innocent.
Or rather, not entirely innocent… but relatively less culpable than the other five.
“If charming five women without realizing it isn’t a crime, then there’s nothing I can be blamed for.”
“How would I remember what happened before the regression?”
“They must have been blinded by something.”
Lassiel, who had been sipping her drink through a straw, smiled and lifted her head.
She had become quite bold in the past few months. It felt like just yesterday she was as flustered as Eileen by holding his hand.
They must have developed a tolerance.
Suddenly, he realized that everyone was staring at them.
The instructors, who had been shouting and drilling the new recruits, and the recruits themselves, rolling around in the dirt…
Everyone’s attention was focused on them.
Lassiel, noticing the stares, smiled slyly.
“Everyone’s watching. What are you going to do?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I want to do this.”
With those words, Lassiel’s face drew close. Before he could react, their lips met.
It was for a fleeting moment, but his heart skipped a beat. The tangy lemon flavor of her drink lingered on his lips.
As Lassiel pulled away, a hush fell over the training grounds.
She licked her lips, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“How was that? A little heart-fluttering?”
“…”
He didn’t answer.
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To cut a long story short, it was a disaster.
Lassiel kissing him in public? Of course, the rumors would spread.
He had hoped they wouldn’t, but that was wishful thinking.
“This is Carl from the Imperial Gazette! Is it true that you’re dating Admiral Repert, Court Mage?”
“…”
He had put the meeting-the-parents plan on hold to buy some reagents and magical materials.
He had barely stepped out of the Imperial Palace when a reporter with a notepad rushed towards him.
Even in this world with a rigid class system, reporters seemed to be the same.
A noble, even a non-hereditary one, was still a nobleman, yet the reporter didn’t hesitate to approach him.
“…No comment.”
“Understood!”
Unlike the reporters of his past life, this one backed off respectfully after his refusal to comment. Perhaps the class system prevented them from being too pushy.
But he knew.
This was going to blow up.
He was already under intense public scrutiny, and this incident was like adding fuel to the fire.
Lassiel’s action was like pouring gasoline on a burning house.
Not that he blamed her. If the marriage announcement had come out of the blue, the entire Empire would have erupted in chaos.
In a way, Lassiel’s public display of affection was a preemptive measure, a sort of inoculation.
Of course, that was just a generous interpretation.
‘Basically, she just didn’t care about the consequences and did what she wanted.’
That was the truth.
The wedding was inevitable. What difference did a little kiss make?
‘It doesn’t.’
It was easier to think of it as being pushed into it. Lassiel had acted cute and insisted on showing affection.
That was a more comfortable narrative.
Now, he had to talk to Eileen about meeting his parents, and Sylphia, and Elena, who was still holed up planning the wedding…
He needed to set a date soon.
As he was thinking this, glancing back at the spot where the reporter had been, something clicked.
‘Carl from the Imperial Gazette?’
The Imperial Gazette.
Unlike his previous life, there weren’t countless newspapers vying for attention. Newspapers were expensive in this world, delivered by carrier pigeons.
He remembered there being only three or four newspapers in the Empire.
Three or four…
“Wait, my mother reads the newspaper.”
Suddenly, he understood the unsettling feeling he’d been having.
A cold sweat trickled down his back.
If his memory served him right, the Imperial Gazette was the largest newspaper in the Empire, with the highest market share.
And the newspaper his mother had been reading that morning, the one with the small article about his sister, was the Imperial Gazette.
Which meant…
“…Wait a second, if the newspaper publishes an article about me and Lassiel dating, my mother will see it?”
The chances of his mother learning about this through the newspaper, not from him, were extremely high.
He immediately turned around.
Reagents and materials could wait.
He had to tell his parents about the meeting, and then bring all five of them home.
His mother finding out about his marriage through the newspaper?
“…I’m screwed.”
Even with her gentle nature, the fallout would be significant.
It was a race against time.
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