“I am sorry, Greta, but there is nothing I can do.”

That was what Greta Brugg was told by her own father when it came to her own marriage.

Her father, in his own credit, looked clearly apologetic. The Brugg family had five children, two of whom were males, meaning three daughters. Having spent sizable dowries for marriages of their two elder daughters, they no longer had any leeway to spare for their third and final daughter, Greta.

Basically, she was on her own. She had to find her own partner that wouldn’t require any dowry.

This meant only one thing for young women in her situation. They had to make a man fall for them so hard that they’d do anything to marry them. Such cases were uncommon but weren't rare, either.

However, this was not something Greta was willing to do. She just was not a type of woman who’d flirt with men for a purpose, good or bad.

Either way, the bottom line was that she would receive no assistance from the Brugg family regarding her future marriage. She was on her own.

Now, not wanting to bother anyone else, she resigned to a scenario where she might grow old single, missing her marriage period. In fact, she was content with that prospect.

If she was the only child, she might have felt it was her duty to continue her family’s bloodline. But, with four other siblings all of whom were already married with two of them having children already, there was no need to push herself into a marriage.

What she didn’t realize was that a lot of men had hots for her. Practically all male servants at the manor had hots for her. Alas, their social status was too low to even try going for her. While some eligible noble men had thought of her as well, the lack of a dowry was an obstacle.

One day, she was summoned by Lord Fenchel to his study.

“I want you to teach a boy a history lesson,” He told her.

“A boy, milord?” She tilted her head cutely.

“An important boy. The name is Kamil, for now.”

“For now?”

He went on to explain the whole situation to her that he was going to adopt the lad and that he saw him as his sole heir.

“What of Lady Icilia, milord?”

He gave her silence.

“I see.”

She understood what his silence meant. She understood the importance of a male heir also. If the Fenchel was a small house, a female heir may have been fine, but the Fenchel was a duke-class noble house. She understood why her lord wanted a male heir so desperately that he was willing to abandon his own daughter. She, too, was a noble after all.

“Teach the boy and give me your impression of him later.”

She bowed with her palm on her chest. “As you wish, milord.”

Her first impression of Kamil was that he was a nice boy with eagerness to learn. It was very rare that a child showed any form of desire to learn something although it was a little strange that he was focused on the unification war.

“Boys being boys, I guess?” She convinced herself.

She wasn’t about to tell him the sheer madness that was the unification war. More than 15,000 people were massacred with three settlements razed to the ground. It was so insane that the war ended quickly with a conditional surrender.

Historians argued that it was effective tactics that brought the conflict to its conclusion in less than two months. Greta, being a historian herself, agreed to the general consensus. But that did not alter the fact that 15,000 innocents were outright murdered. This resulted in the unification war being mostly ignored. Its existence was only acknowledged briefly in history books with its content being overly simplified as, “It was a quick and decisive war.”

Obviously, she wasn’t going to teach Kamil the true nature of the unification war, at least not at his age. No matter how matured he might have been, he was still a kid, she thought.

Anyway, she brought her report to Edmund Fenchel.

“The boy has potential,” She explained. “He was eager to learn and learned quickly as well.”

Edmund nodded along with a satisfied grin on his face.

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“Good, anything else?”

“I do have something to add, but it is unrelated to his potential as a scholar.”

“Oh? Do go on.”

“The wind spirits and elementals seemed to regard him with some respect.”

Edmund titled his head, confused. “What do you mean? Explain further.”

“I don’t ... really know how to explain, milord.” She bowed in her apology. “It is as if the wind spirits and elementals know him well.”

Greta was a wind mage with an affinity score of 7. That was 7 out of 10. That was a pretty high score. Basically, she was beloved by the wind.

And, when she was with Kamil, she could feel the wind spirits and elementals reacting differently in the air. She didn’t know how exactly, but it was her first time sensing the wind element acting visibly different.

“Hmm,” Edmund let out a groan. “Hunt told me that the lad has a score of five with wind.”

5 out 10 would be the bare minimum in order to become a wind mage. Of course, that did not explain the phenomenon.

“My apologies, milord. Perhaps, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“That is alright, Greta. You’ve done well, dismissed.”

Bowing, she left Edmund’s study. It was only then she realized.

“Eh..., was it because of me?” She said to herself while blushing so hard.

You see, just some time ago before she’d meet Kamil for the first time, she was absurdly proposed by Noah Harder.

She found him weirdly collapsed in the barracks. He was facing down with his butt sticking up. It was a really weird position, she thought. When she called out his name and, when he managed to regain consciousness, he proposed to her.

“Please, marry me,” He told her with a dreamy expression on his face.

“Oh, gosh,” She blushed hard again while recalling the moment.

Noah Harder was the guard captain of the Fenchel manor. He was the second son of the Harder family. Therefore, he was not expected to inherit the house. She knew him little personally although they had worked together numerous times previously. It had strictly been a work relationship so to speak. She also knew that Noah had been seeking a wife for a while. Since he never asked her, she figured that the lack of a dowry was a factor. Apparently, it was a well-known fact that Greta couldn’t afford a dowry.

“He is handsome though,” She said to herself as she walked in a hallway.

His issue in finding a wife was related to the fact that he was a second son of a landless noble. He wouldn’t inherit the Harder house. He would inherit nothing. It might be fine in the current generation, but his future generation would likely fade into obscurity. This also meant that he was poor. Thus, he required a marriage with a dowry. In short, no marriage candidate was willing to pay him to marry because there was no bright future with him.

When she returned to her room in the Fenchel manor, she found a sealed letter at the bottom of a door. The wax seal bore the emblem of the Harder family.

“From the Harder?” She wondered aloud while skilfully taking out a knife from her belt and she carefully unsealed the wax with the knife.

The letter read: Your ladyship, this is Noah Harder. Please meet me at the fountain in the back garden tomorrow noon.

“Eh? What is this about?”

She had no clue. Well, he did propose to her, but she figured it was nothing but a slip of the tongue. Besides, he didn’t look fine and passed out right after. Therefore, she didn’t take his marriage proposal seriously. Either way, she could not ignore the letter because it bore the emblem of the Harder family. It was an official diplomatic letter. She would be a fool to ignore it.

The next noon, she went to the location requested by Noah. He was dressed in his finest attire apparently. He beamed a smile at her as he spoke very politely with his right palm touching his chest with a slight bow.

“I, Noah Harder, wish to propose a marriage to you, Lady Greta Brugg.”

Eh?

......... ??? What? Eh? EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH??!?!?!?!?

She felt as if her heart skipped a beat or two, err, probably three. She felt like her face was burning off as well. In the spur of the moment, the only thing she could do was ...

“I, I, ehm, excuse me!” She turned around and ran. She wanted to get away from the scene. She wanted to fly away!

Eh?

Her body was flying away. But she didn’t even cast levitation. It was as if the wind elementals read her mind and cast levitation on her behalf.

Green butterflies?

She also saw numerous translucent green butterflies floating around her. She attempted to touch one, but it flew right through her fingers.

“Are you the wind elementals?”

Wind spirits and elementals were supposed to be invisible to human eyes.

“Wind elementals!” She let out an excited cry with her arms spread widely. She was flying without having spent any stamina. Levitation was an advanced spell. Even with an affinity score of 7, it would have drained a considerable amount of energy.

Elias Hunt told her in the past that she was beloved by the wind. She didn’t really take his words seriously though because there didn’t feel any difference between a mage with a score of 5 with a mage with a score of 7.

However, with what was happening to her right now, she came to realize that Elias was right.

“You were right, Sir. Hunt!” She exclaimed joyfully. “Take me to Laufeld!”

She didn’t know why but she wanted to see Kamil. She felt that the kid was her good luck charm because she felt everything began with him.

After the little adventure with Kamil, Greta returned to the Fenchel manor. She cast levitation this time and found that it drained less stamina than before. She felt that she could now travel to other cities by levitation. Stamina was drained only at the beginning of a spell, and it was possible to regain stamina while flying. The spell duration appeared to vary depending on one’s affinity level. For Greta, she could fly for about two hours without having to land and recast it. The two hours was just enough to reach Laufeld from Lux.

Upon returning, she met up with Noah. She accepted the marriage proposal and warned him that her family could not afford a dowry.

“Fear not, milady,” Noah declared aloud. “Our marriage is blessed by the Gods. I would not ask for any monetary arrangements. That would be utterly disrespectful to the God of life.”

She had no idea what he was babbling about. Anyway, as far as she was concerned, she was fine with marrying Noah. She didn’t dislike him and did feel that he was handsome. Noble marriages involved love and affection rarely. Thus, as long as a couple didn’t hate each other, their marriage would work out, somehow. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had a choice. He was the only one who was willing to marry her without a dowry.

In the end, Noah felt that the marriage was blessed by the God of life, and Greta felt that the marriage was blessed by elementals.