Chapter 1 - Breaking Off an Engagement in a New Home
"I'm sorry, Dahlia. I want to break off our engagement."
My fiancé said this to me on the first hour of the first day of our arrival at our new home.
Wasn't a sudden broken engagement the kind of thing a prince would do to a villainess at their graduation in an Otome game? Yet here we are, just the two of us in this living room, with no noblewoman standing behind my fiancé—such thoughts crossed Dahlia's mind as a form of escapism, but she still asked him.
"Would you tell me the reason?"
With his familiar almond becoming misty, Tobias, her fiancé, replied.
"I... I've found true love."
Someone please praise Dahlia for somehow managing to hold herself together without snapping.
In this world, magic, monsters, knights, and mages exist.
Dahlia, who can view this as something out of a fantasy, is a reincarnator.
In her previous life, Dalia was born into an ordinary family in Japan. She went through high school and university, eventually getting a job at a certain electronics company. Although she had hoped to work in the manufacturing department, she was assigned to handle customer complaints in her second year, leading to stressful and exhausting days. Her last memory was of intense chest pain during overtime that stretched past midnight, so it was probably a heart attack.
When she next woke up, she was a child in this world, aware of her surroundings.
Her name in this world was Dahlia Rossetti.
Despite her name being that of a flower, Dahlia had an appearance that could be described as subdued, or in a less favorable term, plain.
She wasn't born into a noble family like the characters in the stories she'd read in her past life, but rather into a family of craftsmen. However, what they made were magical tools, something that was a characteristic of a fantasy world.
Her father, a skilled magical toolmaker, had earned recognition for his work and was granted a one-generation title of baron by the country.
From a young age, Dahlia was exposed to magical tools and aspired to become a magical toolmaker just like her father.
Her father had a close friend who was a merchant.
The fiancé, chosen when she became a magical toolmaker at 19, was Tobias Orlando. He was the second son of her father's close friend, and he was the one who was in front of her.
He was also a magical toolmaker, and he had studied under Dahlia's father.
Tobias was the second son of Orlando & Co. and held a position of responsibility for magical tool development and sales. He was fairly handsome, well-educated, and could be considered a catch by common folk.
The plan was for them to marry when Dahlia was 20 years old and Tobias was 22, but Tobia’s father suddenly passed. After they had mourned him and were about to marry, this time, it was Dahlia’s own father who passed away.
Incidentally, Dahlia somewhat believes that the early deaths of both their fathers in this world were due to the excessive drinking they had indulged in despite her countless warnings.
Two years had passed since their engagement.
After a long period of work and handling paperwork, they were finally ready to move into their new home, and were set to submit their marriage registration the following day. But then, the engagement was called off earlier.
Sitting across from each other at the living room table, both were silent.
Dahlia looked down and sighed just once.
It all felt surreal. She should have been crying or angry because he called off their engagement, but all she felt was an overwhelming exhaustion.
But she couldn’t stay like this forever. For now, she had to confirm the next steps.
"Who is the person?"
"…Emilia. Emilia Tallini."
Tobias didn't try to hide her name.
Dahlia searched her memory for the name.
Emilia Tallini was a girl who had recently joined Orlando & Co. a few months ago as a receptionist.
She had honey-colored hair and brown eyes, and was small and cute with a fluffy demeanor.
She seemed to be the complete opposite of Dahlia, who was tall but plain. Dahlia was honestly surprised to learn that Tobias's type was that kind of small animal-like girl.
"I intend to marry her."
"I see…"
Tobias volunteered the information she hadn't even asked for, and Dahlia felt a headache coming on.
"We need to go through the procedure to annul the engagement."
"Isn’t that something we can just settle between us?"
Dahlia swallowed her retort that it wouldn’t be that simple.
Since they had been engaged, they had jointly registered with the Merchant Guild and worked together. They had also split the cost of building their new home in preparation for marriage. Now, all of those contracts had to be dissolved and changed.
"When we submitted our engagement certificate to the Merchant Guild, it was done jointly by both our fathers. There’s an agreement on that document for when we break off the engagement. We also need to separate our names on the joint registration with the guild. If you’re marrying her, we need to ensure it’s an amicable dissolution to our engagement."
"The engagement certificate…Oh, right."
"We should go to the Merchant Guild this afternoon to confirm. Is 2 p.m. alright with you?"
"Yeah."
Though Tobias could have left at any time, he stayed seated, scratching the right side of his forehead with his finger.
It was a habit he had when he found it hard to say something.
"Is there anything else?"
"Well… she wants to live in this house."
This new house had mostly been chosen by Tobias.
The only thing Dahlia had contributed her opinion on was the workshop they had planned to share. Therefore, she didn’t have much attachment to it.
However, hearing that his new fiancée wanted to live here on the day their engagement was broken off made her heart heavy.
"…After the settlement, I’ll change the ownership to your name. And I’ll move my things out as soon as possible."
"I’m sorry."
After saying that, Tobias left without offering any further follow-up.
Dahlia remained seated, her gaze downcast for a while.
She had always had poor posture in both her past and current life.
In her past life, she had neither been married nor experienced love. In this life, she hadn't had any relationships until she was 19, and just when she thought she was about to experience spring, this happened.
Her father had always told her, "If anything happens, have Tobias protect you." He had probably never imagined that things would turn out like this.
She had been planning to submit her marriage registration to the government office tomorrow, so they hadn't yet officially been married.
But they had been engaged for two years, and almost everyone knew about it.
She couldn’t help but think of the impending rumors, whether out of sympathy or curiosity, and the thought of it made her feel depressed.
Additionally, she had always sourced materials through Tobias's family, the Orlando & Co. Now that they had broken up, there was a chance that her future orders would be declined. Even if they continued to do business, it was certain that it would be horribly awkward.
The more she thought about it, the worse her headache became.
Suddenly, she remembered the day her engagement had been decided, and the words Tobias had said to her after the greetings.
"You’re quite tall for a woman."
With her height being above average for a woman and Tobias being a bit shorter for a man, there was only about a 3-centimeter difference between them. If she wore heels, she would obviously be taller.
After their engagement, she had stopped wearing heels and only wore flat shoes.
She dyed her naturally red hair, which he said was too conspicuous, and had started tying it up at the back of her head.
To match Tobias’s preference for less flashy attire, she replaced her silver-framed glasses with black ones, and further toned down her already plain clothes, opting for mostly navy or dark gray.
For the past two years, she had tried her best to be the kind of wife Tobias desired, handling work chores and being considerate.
But for him, it seemed Dahlia's existence didn’t hold much weight.
She remembered even more.
In her previous life, she looked down after apologizing to customers for their complaints, looked down after being scolded by her boss for slow responses, looked down after feeling down when she grew distant from friends without having a chance to reach out.
At the end of her life in that world, she had looked down, slumped, with only the pattern of the desk remaining in her memory.
"…I’ll stop."
Dahlia lifted her face toward the window, where sunlight streamed in.
In her past life, she had tried to please others and ended up breaking herself.
In this life, she had tried to live up to someone else’s ideal, and now here she was.
Even though it was her second life, what had she been doing?
She would no longer look down.
From now on, she would say what she didn’t like and what she did like.
Luckily, she had a job as a magical toolmaker, which she loved, and she could live on her own.
There was no need to force herself to be with someone else.
She would work hard, go where she wanted, eat what she wanted, and drink what she wanted.
She would live the way she wanted, as best as she could.
With renewed resolve, Dahlia stood up.
The spring sky visible from the window was so blue it almost stung her eyes.
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