Chapter 88 Mei’s Challenge
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
My name is Meisy Novac, the eldest daughter of the Duke Novak, and I am, if I may say so myself, an eccentric.
I am aware that I am far different from the common definition of a daughter of nobility.
However, I am not saying that I disregard my role as an aristocrat.
Although I find social gatherings troublesome, I understand that they are a necessary part of life in aristocratic society, and I will attend them if I am asked to do so.
Even if I say that, I must be deviating from the aristocracy as it is generally described.
Despite such a situation, I thought that one day I would marry someone for the sake of my family.
However, even though marriage proposals were made, they were never arranged, and before I knew it, I had reached the age of 20 without having married yet.
Apparently, I have a worse reputation in the society than I thought.
I am sorry to my father, but I was fine with the fact that I could not get married.
It is not that I have a desire to get married, or that I have to depend on someone else to survive, since I have a big brother who is a true aristocrat in my family, so there is no problem.
As I am now 20 years old, I am completely out of my prime as a nobleman’s daughter, so there will be no more marriage proposals.
If the time comes for me to get married, it will be when I find a partner in love that all the noble daughters are interested in, but that is the most distant thing from my mind, as I cannot keep my interest in others, or so I thought.
It was the night before Pius left for the capital that I became aware of this feeling. I had been in the laboratory for a long time and I suddenly felt hungry.
I saw Neil and Lewya embracing each other, one with his face buried in his chest and the other holding his head.
I could not see their expressions from a distance, but my mind was filled with a possibility.
It was a possibility that Neil and Lewya were lovers.
Neil tends to take care of his own affairs by himself, and he does not hire a servant of his own volition.
If Neil would hire a servant on his own, even though he already has a servant named Diana, it was obvious that there was something behind it.
It makes sense to think that it was to cover up the forbidden love due to the difference in status.
On the other hand, since I witnessed the scene, I had felt some vague feelings swirling in my heart.
No, I am not ignorant enough to know what it was.
I like Neil.
It was a surprise to realize it, but the biggest surprise was that I could fall in love with someone when I thought I had nothing to do with such things as love or infatuation.
As soon as I realized this, it became hard for me to watch them embracing each other, and I quickly left the place.
Not in the mood to put anything in my mouth anymore, much less continue the experiment, I ran to my assigned room in the mansion and buried my face in the bed.
Oh, how miserable I feel, to be heartbroken as soon as I realize it, at least give me a chance to start.
It’s a terrible thing to lose before I’ve even started competing.
”Terrible, really terrible story… and I look terrible.”
I smile to myself in the big mirror in the corner of the room, looking at my face lying on the bed.
My tear-stained face, my shaggy and messy hair, the dark circles under my eyes that I can’t remember how long they’ve been there, and my pale skin, are a world apart from Lewya’s, who had everything in place.
”The only thing I have over her is the size of the breasts.”
If Neil likes small breasts more than big ones, I would lose to Lewya there, too.
No, what am I thinking now?
What’s the use of comparing the two, now that the winner is decided?
Yes, I know that this is meaningless and will only make me feel even more miserable rather than comforting my broken heart, but I still can’t stop thinking about it.
”…I see, so this is it.”
Among the stories that the daughters in the society were interested in, there was a story about a person who never gave up even though she was heartbroken.
When I heard that, I thought, “Just give up and find someone else, it’s just not worth it,” but it’s true that this feeling is not so easily dismissed.
Yes, I had not given up on Neil yet.
I understand that it is out of character for me to be in love with him.
But I fell in love in the first place, so it was too late for that.
At least, I could not just back out without doing anything, and that’s when my challenge began.
The first thing I did was to make a potion to improve my appearance.
Once, when I had known Neil for a while, I asked him why he was not working on the alchemist’s greatest wish, such as experiments to turn base metals into precious metals, or medicines that would make one’s eyes beautiful, young, or immortal if taken. And he said.
”Okay, first of all, I can’t imagine how to make such a thing at all, and secondly, I know that it would be absolutely troublesome if I were to complete such a thing. In my opinion, if you’re going to spend your life on something like that, why don’t you just make something easier?”
”What do you mean?”
”For example, a medicine to make you young again, it can’t truly make you young again, but I think it’s possible to help make your look young again. Even though I can come up with many other medicines to make people beautiful, or to improve the quality of their hair or skin, everyone is aiming for a quick turnaround, and daring to ignore the solid methods before that, aren’t they? I think it’s better to start from the most reasonable and build on it, rather than doing zero to one hundred research.”
Remembering Neil’s words, I started to develop a drug to improve hair quality, trying to solve one problem at a time, instead of solving all of them.
The idea for the medicine had been hinted at in the many conversations I had had with Neil, and I was able to begin work on it right away.
I soaked a strand of hair in the first solution and watched its progress, and it was true that my shaggy hair became straighter and shinier, but the hair that had grown longer became like a sharp needle, and it looked more like a metallic luster than a shine.
Despite these failures, I was able to complete the medicine with a satisfactory result in the fourth trial, and the quality of my hair improved to the extent that I was surprised at myself.
The next step was to improve my skin.
Since I already had a plan for this project, I was able to proceed easily and completed the first project, but since I could not cut off a part of my skin and soak it in the solution as I did with my hair, I decided to apply the solution to my arms and other parts that are usually hidden by my clothes and check it.
And because it is difficult to obtain a normal result unless it is applied to human skin with blood, I was reluctant to do so, unlike the case of hair, and it took more than twice as long to complete the skin-improving medicine as the hair-improving medicine, but I was able to complete it successfully in the end.
The next was blood color, but since this was caused by poor blood circulation due to lack of sleep, there was no need to make a new drug since it could be improved with existing medicines and lifestyle adjustments.
After repairing my hair, skin, and blood color, I was at a loss.
I know that I look more beautiful in the mirror than I did before.
I could clearly read this from the reactions of the people around me, and it was obvious that I was not mistaken.
However, I, who do not have a good sense of aesthetics, have no idea how to improve it further, and a third party’s viewpoint will be necessary to make further improvements.
But then, I would have to reveal to the third party that I am currently working on the project to make it more beautiful.
I feel a strange sense of shame in my mind to avoid such a situation if possible.
It is something that every human being wants to be beautiful, and I think it is not something to be ashamed of, but the thought of having to talk about it in this way makes me hesitant.
At such a deadlock, Neil came to the laboratory and told me to adjust my clothes.
I wondered why he was suggesting such a thing now, when he had often pointed it out to me in the early days of our acquaintance, but recently he seemed to have given up on it and never mentioned it at all. I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from lifting.
It seems that Neil is aware of me as a woman now.
This is good, because I have been focusing on my body and not on my clothes, but I still have something to improve: my clothes.
However, I had no intention to dress well as Neil had said, but rather the opposite, I dared to dress down around my chest and below my legs, and I came up with the idea of attracting Neil’s attention.
I was so desperate to attract Neil’s attention that I even tried to use aphrodisiacs, although I thought it was a very tricky thing to do.
The sweet smell of the potion rising from the simmering potion in the kiln, I felt a tingle in my lower abdomen after smelling it for a while.
As I had heard, just smelling it seems to be effective enough.
Neil will be here today to check the maturity of the 11th sauce, and if I can give him a push in a room filled with this smell, isolated between a young man and a young woman, I can break him of his rationality.
The scent of the aphrodisiac rising in the air melts half of my reason, and as I am thinking these thoughts in my slightly foggy mind, there is a knock at the door of the laboratory.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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