Extra 1. How to live as the daughter of Count Petrika.
In order to talk about Merilyn, the daughter of Count Petrika, one ought to first get to know her father, Adolf Merilyn von Petrika. Even in the North, thanks to the territory being situated relatively close to the capital itself, Count Petrika had a fairly less responsibility for the national defense than the other northern families. On top of that, it played a role as a trade route that connected the North with the capital as well as the other territories. The Duke of DeMancier, the Northern Lord who was always busy in preparation for war all year round, had some difficulties in paying attention to the politics with the other Lords of the other provinces. Moreover, it was quite arduous to receive support from the capital or obtain goods that had been rather grueling in maintaining the North to be self-sufficient from the other territories. In other words, everything used to belong to Count Petrika.
Adolf, who had been born into such a family of Countess Petrika, was a proud boy who learned the glory and honor of the North itself. The former Count Petrika had his brilliant son enrolled in an academy located right in the capital city. Unfortunately, Count Petrika was not a very well-known family in the capital.
A rather unremarkable northern boy. As he continued to grow up to be the heir to the Count all his life, the boy—who thought that all nobles would appreciate the northern nobility—had been utterly humiliated. However, the Duke of DeMancier was completely different. Even in the capital, the Duke of DeMancier was a very famous figure.
The first Duke of DeMancier was a prince and after that, a Grand Duke. Although the bloodline became rather diluted since he did not directly have his blood mixed with the Imperial Family, he was still entwined along the family tree of the Imperial Family itself. Also, the Duke of DeMancier was the most famous as well as a valiant knight and General, plus he even had the right to appoint the next heir to the throne to boot.
It was just that the Duke of DeMancier didn’t really care because he had been fighting a war along the border all year round and while the previous lines of Dukes continued to defend the border silently, they still had accumulated quite a lot of political power. Nevertheless, the Duke of DeMancier was thoroughly busy and never had the time to attend to the politics of the capital.
It was only natural that Adolf finally realized before he coveted that blind power. As the heir to the Lord of the North, he knew very well that there would be no benefit in standing still even after defeating the Duke of DeMancier’s head itself. He had to become the Duke of DeMancier himself, someone who could wield the power without even becoming a party to it.
One way would be to become a trusted vassal of the Duke or an agent who would be sent to the capital by the Duke who eventually recognized the need for the capital’s politics, but there was a much more secure way than all of that. And that was to become in-laws with the Duke through marriage as well as the maternal grandfather of the next Duke in return. With that much, he could do anything within the Duke’s power in the capital’s politics while leaving the Duke solely busy with war.
In order to do that, he desperately needed a daughter. It would be good if she had been pretty, but it mattered not at all even if she was not. What he truly needed was just a very obedient daughter of his own flesh and blood.
Therefore, on the day when his daughter was born, Adolf completely wept over her birth.
“My pretty daughter, Merilyn. I will definitely give you the noblest seat in the North.”
The daughter, Merilyn, was named after his mother, which had also been his own middle name. From the moment she was born, she had been the most obedient daughter of Count Petrika as well as the means to become the Duchess of DeMancier and eventually, to give birth to the next Duke.
So, in order to talk about Merilyn, the daughter of Count Petrika, one first ought to know about her father. It was because in the first place, she had only been born out of her own father’s needs.
And she continued to grow up while meeting her father’s needs.
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Merilyn’s friends were also the ones whom Adolf had picked out after much thought and consideration along with his wife. All of them were solely from such humble families so that Merilyn could be completely respected and they were selected from those moderately pretty children in order to make sure that Merilyn could always stand out. Amanda was a girl who had met both of those conditions. She was the youngest daughter of Viscount Bentta and that kind of Amanda, who had been loved by her family, got along quite well with Merilyn as well.
Amanda was rather quiet in front of Count Petrika and his wife, but she had been lively as well as a witty child in front of the other adults. Some of the people feared that she would have been a bad influence on his daughter as the Count eventually said that she might have her mindset changed like so, but Merilyn was truthfully quite envious of Amanda being like that.
The two of them often slept together in Merilyn’s bedroom and they would chat quietly while whispering away from the eyes and ears of others, such as those of maids and tutors. The freer Amanda’s mouth was, the more Merilyn would burst into laughter and the more amused she became. Thus, at this time, Amanda would say whatever she wanted to without any kind of restrictions and Merilyn did it as well.
“Oh, I heard from my older brother that the Duke of DeMancier is actually very handsome.”
Gellerhard, the Duke of DeMancier, had been rumored to eventually become Merilyn’s husband ever since birth. The fact that the boy, who was only two years older than Merilyn, possessed a large body as well as a handsome face had been well known just as the saying which stated that Merilyn was a beautiful girl to boot.
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