Chapter 38: The brown haired princess
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My name is Elizabeth Harmonia, but my friends all call me Liz, that is if my parents and all our servants count as friends, then yes they do. I am kind of embarrassed to admit it, but at the age of 15, I don't have any friends, I don't even know anyone outside of our household since I've always been here and I've never gone outside. It's because I'm not allowed to go outside at all. It's not that mom and dad are strict people, in fact, they make me question how we even have this much authority, but rather it's been an ironclad rule of the Harmonia Family for the children of the family to be forbidden to interact with the outside world until we experience this coming of age ritual thingy that's exclusive to our family. I don't know much about it since we aren't allowed to know anything about it until we actually experience it so I'm pretty much still clueless. 

I can't even complain since mom said that she went through the same thing. From what I've heard mom tell me, she said that she experienced hers when she was 20 which is considered pretty late compared to my ancestors. And as much as it sounds lonely for me, I have to say that I'm not lonely at all. First of all, both mom and dad are always here for me except for some rare occasions where there's important stuff for them to do but for the most part, they're always here spending time with me. Second, most of our servants are really nice to me and treat me like family. In fact, they even dote on me a lot. According to my parents, most of our servants were here when I was born and took turns taking care of me when I was still a baby since my parents were very busy during that time period. Some of them even took care of mom when she was a baby just like our head butler Neil-ojiisan. And lastly, I have my own personal maid Maria-nee who's 6 years older than me and treats me like a sister. 

But even though I don't feel lonely, I still want to go outside. I want to see the different places they told me about. I want to see the capital everyone says is one of the most beautiful places in the kingdom. I want to see and meet all kinds of people. But I have to be patient. I have to wait for my ritual thingy. 


It happened! It finally happened! I finally experienced that ritual thingy! I was a bit scared when I started seeing floating numbers and words but mom said that it was our family's unique ability and told me a story about our family. Apparently, my ancestor who fought alongside the founder of the kingdom was not the first person to have ever had this strange power, but she was the first one to have evolved the ability. Before her, all of our ancestors didn't have the ability to see other people's "statuses" but rather they merely had great instincts when it came to determining a person's strength. They couldn't accurately measure someone's strength but they could guess correctly a person's strength and weaknesses. Anyways, that ancestor served as the guide and logistic support for the party. The party wanted to make her the leader and ruler of the country, but she thought that it would be a pain to do so, so they opted to just make her one of the duchesses. Apparently, the members of the party all agreed that her family would have almost as much power as the royal family, well all except for the person in question. This agreement was made without her knowledge, in fact, we only found out about this during mom's grandmother's time. 

Mom also said that no matter how much we try, the Harmonia family can only have one daughter except for that one case a long time ago when twins were born. According to mom, only one of the twins inherited the ability while the other didn't. But the other twin didn't suffer from the "one daughter" curse and ended up bearing 3 children. And all the descendants of that twin became our branch families that all serve us. None of the members of the branch families had ever manifested that ability, except for one of my older cousins that I have yet to meet. She's apparently the first-ever person from one of our branch families that manifested the ability.

There were a lot of other things that mom told me, but I stopped paying attention when the thought of being able to finally go outside came to my mind. My attention was brought back when my mom asked me if I had any questions to which I replied:

"Can I go outside now?" (Liz)

"Yes. Yes, you can."  

"Yaaaaaayyyyy!!!!" (Liz)


Today is my first day outside. We went to the capital and stayed at one of our branch family's private villa. When I attempted to go outside, Maria-nee followed me as well. I told her that I wanted to do this entire thing alone but she kept insisting that she had to accompany me. We kept on arguing until mom told Maria-nee that it was alright for me to go alone. After being convinced, she let me go by myself and I happily rushed outside.


Maria POV

"But Master, what if Liz-sama gets hurt or kidnapped?" (Maria)

"Then just tail her. Watch over her but in secret. I want Liz to make experiences that she can only make by herself, Isn't that one of the joys of being a child?"

"But are you sure I can do that without being caught?" (Maria)

"Maria, we both know you can. I still remember how we found you. You were half-dead when both I and George found you. We know that you're capable of barely surviving against a whole squad of professional assassins." 

"But Master, that was years ago. I might be a bit rusty after years of inactivity." (Maria)

"Please, we know you've been taking care of some rats for us. If not for our special ability, we wouldn't have known." 

"I, I see. Very well, I shall carry out your orders Master." (Maria)

"Good. Please, take care of Liz." 

"I will." (Maria)

 

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