Chapter 3: The Debut – Part 2 (3)

Seeing the chaos, the boys’ attendants and knights hastily entered the fray and pounced on me. The knights in particular seemed bigger and stronger than me. I, of course, became overly excited. I threw, kicked, and punched away the knights who grabbed at me. Hearing the ruckus, the knights guarding the banquet hall also hastily joined in and tried to apprehend me. Dear me, this is entirely unfair. For so many to team up against me, just a single girl. I jumped up on a nearby table, threw the plates that were on the table, swung on the chandeliers, and threw cake in the knights’ faces.

This was the first time I enjoyed myself in a while, but it all came to an end when Father and Mother realized that the barbaric girl who was flying around in the banquet hall was their daughter and came running over. What a shame. Father and Mother were of course surprised by my antics, but when everyone in the hall realized that the monkey-like girl who was causing all this violence was the daughter of a marquis, they were shocked beyond belief. Apparently. I was dragged away by Cermiane since my ripped and messy clothes were unpresentable, so I wasn’t there. Once Father, who was the highest-ranking aristocrat in the room, apologized, the incident was resolved.

Even though my clothes were in tatters, I was in a good mood because I was able to let loose at last. Rather than Cermiane escorting me, he was dragging me by the wrist, but since I was in such a good mood, I was swinging my arms and humming on the way back to the carriage. Everyone I passed on the way would turn their head and stare. Seeing a lady in such a tattered condition was very strange. But, I couldn’t quite understand why Cermiane would look at me with such a flushed, excited face.

Once we reached the area where the carriage was parked, I was escorted, or rather pulled into the carriage by Cermiane, who wouldn’t release my hand. Hm? Is Cermiane planning on coming with me? I plop onto my seat. Then, Cermiane knelt in front of me. Hm??? What’s going on?

With a strangely flushed face, Cermiane gazed into my eyes, then gently kissed the palm of my right hand, which he was still holding. I blinked my eyes in surprise. Since I don’t know what kissing the palm of one’s hands means.

“Mia?”

“Listen to me carefully, Ral. The only one whom I allow to call me by that name is you. Please remember this.”

…What’s up with him? After smiling sorrowfully at me, he left the carriage.

To put it bluntly, what I did in the banquet hall was a big scandal. But luckily, the guardian of the biggest perpetrator aka me, was Father, the highest-ranking noble in the room. So firstly, the lower standing victims couldn’t strongly press charges against me. Secondly, there were no adults when the incident first started, so no one knew the details of what happened. Thirdly, no one was badly injured. Clearly the result of me going easy on them. Fourthly, everyone wanted nothing to do with me and deemed me as impossible to understand since I was too violent a person and too detached from the common sense of the nobility. Everything after that got hazy for me to recall.

Still, if I were to attend events in the future, it would have been inevitable for there to be some repercussions towards the Caliente family’s standing and social influence, but I would be going back to the territory and never come face-to-face with the victims ever again, so Mother and Father never scolded me as they deemed it wouldn’t be a problem and overlooked the matter. However, I was severely reprimanded by my sister since I ruined her dress which held a lot of her important memories.

It was decided that I would head back to the territory by carriage the day after the debut since they didn’t know what I would do if I stayed any longer. Darn, I was planning to explore the Capital’s forest tomorrow. No matter how I try, there would be no time for me to sneak out today or tomorrow.

After hugging Father and Mother farewell, I entered the carriage designed for long distances by myself, and started my journey back to the territory. Gazing at the Capital growing smaller and smaller, I thought to myself, “Well, it was kind of fun.” I learned a lot of new things, and if I considered pretending to be a noble as a game, I felt that it wasn’t a waste for me to do it at least once. My only regret was that I wasn’t able to hunt in the Capital’s forest, and since I probably won’t ever be coming back to the Capital, there would probably be no more opportunities for me to face off against the great gray bear.

As I was reflecting back on my time at the Capital, I suddenly remembered Cermiane. The boy with glistening chestnut brown hair. Out of all the people I met in the Capital, he was the person who left the best impression on me, and I felt that we were able to get along well. Although, we probably wouldn’t ever meet again. But still, I wonder what he meant when he guided me back to the carriage that night. I looked at the palm of my right hand and tilted my head in confusion.

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