Refuse Harem
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Prius
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 004 – Dear Tenma, Apparently I was Reincarnated as a Baron’s Daughter III
“Rio!”
As Sophie exclaimed in surprise, the boy raised his hand and said, “Hey, Sophie!”
Rio was the boy who helped Sophie when she was drowning.
Rio, who seemed a little older than Sophie, had hair the color of the sun, a pair of blue eyes, and a well-featured face. When he grew up, he would be undoubtedly handsome.
For Sophie, who’d spent her past life as Tasuku, who had a mediocre face, that was a pretty hateful… no, a very envious thing to have.
However, Sophie had been reborn and currently has a cute face that looked similar to her mother’s, so there was nothing to be envious about anymore.
“You look better now.”
When Rio saw Sophie’s fully-recovered appearance, he laughed cheerfully in relief.
“Yes. Thank you, Rio.”
“Don’t drown in such a shallow river again.”
“Yes …really.”
The private river that ran along the grounds of the Linier family villa was truly a shallow stream. Sophie felt embarrassed that she’d nearly drowned in that.
No matter how scared of water I am since I’d drowned in my past life, it is still very embarrassing. I’ll have to practice swimming next time!
She definitely didn’t want to be a hammer1. I won’t lose to my trauma! thought Sophie, and her determination grew. She didn’t realize that an aristocratic young lady like herself had no need to swim to begin with.
“But I don’t think Rio is in a position to preach to me.”
“What did I do?”
“Please enter properly from the front door. It’s not like your visit would be rejected, after all. Even though this is just the second floor, you could still be seriously injured if you have a bad fall.”
Sophie complained to Rio, who’d climbed to the window of Sophie’s room just because there was a conveniently placed tree.
“But this is faster. Also, I managed to hear something interesting as I climbed up here.”
“Something interesting?”
“The place right below here is the kitchen, right?”
“Yes…”
She was aware of that.
Most of the kitchens in aristocratic mansions were built underground. However, this villa had been hastily built by her father her mother’s recuperation, so it was only a two-story building without any underground floors; thus, the kitchen had been built on the first floor.
Considering their family mansion at the royal capital was three stories high with one underground floor, the villa here was small in comparison. However, the fact her father possessed multiple mansions despite his noble pedigree was proof of him being a wealthy merchant.
“What was so interesting?”
“Edgar Linier, the head of Linier house, sought noble advancement by taking the daughter of a viscount that was on the verge of bankruptcy as his wife. He bought a pedigree with his money, sent the wife he bought with money to a health resort since her body was weak, then enjoys the aristocratic social world to the fullest after that. Or so it’s rumored. The female servants there were talking about that.”
“Things like rumors are often exaggerated, especially by women, who are creatures that love such rumors.”
Although Sophie felt like scolding this young master of a good family for eavesdropping on the conversations of another house’s maids, she chose to sidestep that topic like an aristocratic young lady, in an attempt to change it.
“Even if those female servants are only responsible for miscellaneous tasks, why not hire more decent people instead?”
Don’t you also belong to some good family, despite your actions?
Sophie felt like complaining that a person of such stature shouldn’t be climbing trees. However, she endured the urge, since he was her life’s savior.
Also, she wasn’t sure if he truly came from a house of good pedigree.
Sophie wasn’t aware of what kind of family that Rio, who often visited her, belonged to. Although the clothes he wore seemed common, people who were knowledgeable could tell that it was made with good material. Perhaps he was either a noble son who sneaked out of his house or the son of a wealthy merchant.
Since Sophie’s family agreed to his visit, she doubted he belonged to a weird family, but Rio didn’t tell her what family he came from. Sophie also didn’t ask him. Rio was her life’s savior. That was all that mattered.
“Thank you for your advice. However, both the female servants and my mother’s maids are capable people. Since they have only been here for a few months, those female servants must have wanted to learn the situation. I don’t think what they talked about will reach my mother’s ears anyway… However, since they can still spout such rumors despite that, whatever I tell them would be useless, I guess?”
What Sophie referred to as that was when her father learned of the news that Sophie drowned and was bedridden; he rode on a fast horse and managed to arrive at this place in a day, despite it being a two day journey.
“Aah, that was amazing stuff.”
Rio, who’d visited Sophie when she was still bedridden, witnessed Sophie’s father crying his eyes out first-hand.
“Sophie, I can’t live on if something were to happen to you or Ena! Please don’t leave your father behind!”
Since Sophie was just bedridden because of a fever, she wanted to complain about him talking as if she was dead. Her father’s cries were so noisy that it caused her to partially come back to consciousness as she groaned.
She couldn’t make a comparison, since she didn’t know her father in her past life, but she thought he was quite annoyi… no, overprotective.
It seemed Rio was quite surprised to see that behavior from her father.
It made her wonder what part of that could be seen as, “boughta noble pedigree with money, sent his wife to a health resort, and enjoys his days in noble society,” and gave birth to such a rumor?
“However, if you keep ignoring the servants, it will affect your house’s dignity.”
Although he said it as a joke, what he said was something a commoner wouldn’t normally say. It made Sophie sure that Rio was either aristocrat or something of a similar rank.
“Well, isn’t it fine? Rumors are like sweet honey to a woman. Having such sweet honey and secrets are the secret to a woman’s beauty. And it is considered gentlemanly to tolerate such a thing.”
When she tried to use her words to let it slide, she remembered that in her past life, Suzuka spoke of something similar, so she made use of her words.
Huh, didn’t I look cool? Didn’t that sentence just now sound cool?
Thank you, Suzuka-neesan! Because of your teachings, I can pass myself off as a proper young lady!
If her past life best friend were here, he would say, “Fool, you’ve mistaken it for a venomous woman,” and would try to correct her thought, but since he wasn’t here right now, Sophie proceeded with the mistaken belief of what she thought a proper young lady was.
However,
“…Are you really six years old?”
When Rio continued to say, “That’s supposedly something an adult lady would say,” Sophie thought she made a mistake.
It seemed it was still too early for her to use Suzuka’s words.
Not good. What kind of six year-old girl would spout sentences like what I did earlier? Was it too adult-like for a conversation? What should I do, I don’t know what’s normal!
Ever since Sophie got her past life’s memories back, she was drawn into feeding off of Tasuku’s memories and became unable to wear the façade of Sophie, the six year-old girl.
However, it was fine. Because at times like this, there were the magical words she learned from Suzuka.
“A woman is still a woman, even if she is six years old! Don’t treat me like a child! This is why boys just can’t understand!”
[“This is why men just can’t understand!”]2
Once Suzuka unleashed these words, the men around her usually dropped their gazes to the ground like elementary school students who just got scolded. They couldn’t remember why they ended up getting angry. However, they did know someone was angry at them right now. Due to that understanding, they tried to not make eye contact with the person who was angry with them.
It was the magical phrase that would silence any man.
It was especially powerful if a beautiful woman said it.
“So-sorry…”
Sure enough, Rio apologized while wondering what he did wrong.
Once men were forced into a bad spot, they would either turn silent or apologize, despite not understanding why others were angry at them. It seemed that what Suzuka had taught him was real.
Hahaha, I guess I also fell victim to it back then…
She realized at that moment that he was also the same as her in her previous life. For some reason, she felt a little sad.
“I’m sorry, so please cheer up. Ah right, since it’s sunny today, how about we play outside?”
It was a blatant attempt to fix her mood, but Sophie agreed.
“I want to go to the market!”
Perhaps due to this region being famous for being an aristocrat’s health resort, the market was always quite busy. Sophie had visited it several times with some maids. Although she didn’t look for anything in particular, they bought some fruits and vegetables back then. But this time, she wanted to buy some material from the market. She wanted to make something out of it.
“Market? …Well that’s fine, but there’s a terrace café, you know?
“I’m not interested in that. I want to go buy something at the market instead! Ah, but I was told that children can’t go on their own, so I need to request someone to accompany us.”
Although Rio would accompany her, there was no way people would agree to let children go out alone.
Although Sophie honestly felt it was troublesome, this place wasn’t Japan, so it couldn’t be helped.
At times like this, she would have preferred to be reincarnated in the near or far future instead.
I thought reincarnation meant the dead would be sent to a future era, though.
However, what actually happened was that, not only was she not sent to the future, but also the world she arrived in wasn’t even the past era of the same world. This world was completely different from the Earth she’d known. That was the conclusion she arrived at when she read the world’s map and history of this world. This world wasn’t Earth, but it was a similar world. It was a very strange feeling.
It was quite ironic that the place she was at this moment was actually similar to the place that became the final destination of Tasuku’s life, albeit several centuries behind.
Well, it only seems similar; it’s not the same nation itself… Continuing this train of thought will take up a lot time, so I’ll just stop now.
Even as she tried to delve more, she always came to the same conclusion, which was that it was useless to think about it…
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I’m really hoping that Rio is Tenma’s reincarnation and that he’ll remember his past life if he hasn’t already.
too bad, there’s another character later with greater chance being tenma’s reincarnation than rio is, so nope.
Cute chapter, thanks for the treat~
thx for comment too