Chapter 42 : The Head of The Family Returning 

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“W-What?! Just… What is happening here?!”

“Oh well if it isn’t the young master Lönnrot…. We’re really indebted to you on this occasion…! Thank you very much!”

The Duke Lönnrot carriage arrived at the estate from the royal palace and Maricle-sama went down from the carriage and immediately went to the garden. Then all of the villagers, starting Soncho-san, came rushing to greet all at once and thanked him simultaneously. 

“Young master, thank you so much! To think you’d go through the trouble to prepare all these meals just to make limestone for us!” 

“As I thought, our lord is indeed very benevolent! Ah, I’m so happy!”

“With this, we can somehow save our spring harvest-pe~”

“Lönnrot-sama, the oyster grilled with shoyu and butter, tastes the best!”

“No,no, no, the deep fried oyster tastes even better!!”

“Young master, I see you’ve been feeling a lot better, huh?”

“Ahhh~ I’m so, so happy-pe~”

“Right on, right on~”

“Me and the others are here to help make the limestone-pe~”

“Missy’s cooking is the best!”

Maricle-sama looked a little bit bewildered at how aggressive his people, the treasure of his dukedom, jostled around him. 

“Y-Yes, indeed….”

Actually, when I told them I was going to prepare some meals made from shellfish, the villagers must have misunderstood something…. They came here with barrels of alcohol in tow.

And so… We ended up having a small…. No, we ended up having a great shellfish party.  But still, as I expected, even Maricle-sama would be confused as to what was going on when a barrage of people came talking to him all at once like that. 

I waited until the excitement subsided a little before I approached Maricle-sama. 

“Welcome back, Maricle-sama.”

“Oh, y-yeah. I’m home. Bhadra will be coming home a little bit late…. So, Miltia? These crowds… Just what is…?”

“Yes, actually….”

Soncho-san and the others happily stuffed this large amount of limestone that we had all made into small bags. These limestones were made from burning the leftover shell from the shellfish we had eaten. 

“…. Which brings us here.”

“I see… So that’s why!”

After hearing the details from me, Maricle-sama suddenly hugged me tight. 

“Huh?!”

His hug was tight and yet gentle and warm at the same time. 

「「「「「OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH……..」」」」

W-wait! M-Maricle-sama?! S-Something must’ve happened! The villagers are making a stir all of a sudden!!

“Thank you very much! Miltia, I don’t think I can ever stop loving you! When the people in Lönnrot are in dire need, you didn’t forsake them, instead you went all of your way to help them like this…!”

“I-I-I-But-It’s… Because… It’s because of how great Maricle-sama’s 『fish pond』is!”

In fact, even though there were a lot of villagers gathered here, Miltia was able to gather so many shellfish, enough to completely fill the bellies of all the villagers. And yet, an astonishingly number of shellfish were still popping out of the『fish pond』to no end. 

I only grilled the shellfish on top of a grill net and seasoned them with butter and shoyu. At first I was in charge of deep frying the oyster but the automata soon caught the gist of it after watching me and took the time and labour intensive job from me. 

This was the living proof of Bhadra-sama’s statement. Even without him controlling the automata, the automata were still able to learn simple chores on their own. 

“No, you’re wrong, Miltia.”

Maricle-sama said before he took my hand and dropped a tender kiss on top of my soot-stained hand. The moment his lips touched my skin, the little scald I got from the sparks while deep frying those oysters, immediately vanished without a trace. 

“I can tell just by looking at you… How hard you had worked in order to help the farmers make those ‘limestones’. As my dearest wife, I’m so happy to know you’ve put the people of our land first.”

「「「「「OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!」」」」

In the dim light of twilight, with the voice of surprise and delight from the people accompanying me…. I could do nothing but nod my head with a trace of unshed tears welling up my eyes. 

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T/N: Maricle be like

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