Whether due to revealing her identity, the annex where she stayed yesterday was polished to a gleaming shine. Lucas finished bathing in hot water, carelessly tossed off his top, and sat on the sofa.

“The color of the wine is strange.”

The duke’s residence’s servant said he would serve dinner, but having eaten so much all day while touring the Astel duchy, Lucas was too full and had to decline.

So the servant brought out some biscuits, wine, and fruits before withdrawing.

“It’s not wine, Your Highness.”

“Huh?”

“When Your Highness was bathing, I asked the servant who brought it. He said it’s a fruit wine made from Astel berries.”

Even Lucas, who had wandered the entire continent, knew what Astel berries were. But to think there was even an alcohol made from those berries – this domain became more mysterious the more he learned about it.

“Pour some.”

As Cedric poured the fruit wine into a tall, thin glass, a beautiful red, translucent light sparkled. Lucas picked up the glass, savored the aroma of the alcohol for a moment, then took a sip.

“Hmm…”

Making a curious sound, Lucas immediately downed the entire glass.

“It’s sweet and refreshing. But the aftertaste is also very clean. Will you have a glass?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

After drinking the fruit wine, Cedric’s eyes grew round.

“It has a different flavor from wine. The natural sweetness of the fruit itself is preserved, giving it a refreshing taste.”

“Frightening.”

Lucas murmured softly and had another glass of fruit wine.

“Next year, not just Astel berries, but Astel fruit wine will be popular throughout the continent.”

Special products made from Astel berries were already famous, and the name alone guaranteed quality as a safe item. However, it seemed Astel’s development would not stop there.

“It’s been 6 years of wandering since I left for the campaign right after the engagement ceremony.”

The duties of the Tern imperial family were strict. Therefore, Lucas also had to participate in the battlefield as a member of the royal family in place of the ailing emperor.

And in his remaining time, he traveled around various places to observe the actual conditions, making it an extremely proud period of growth for the crown prince.

“Though I repeated wandering and battlefields, my fiancée was quietly doing amazing things here.”

Today, following the mysterious drawings on the map, all sorts of new things greeted the two men.

“Honestly, I was very surprised too.”

In the factory making jams and handmade fermented drinks called Astel berries, women were working, and in the same building, there were facilities for sterilizing bottles in hot water and attaching labels.

“There were no such things even in the capital.”

Not only that, following the dragonfly-like symbol led to a windmill as tall as a tower.

The windmill itself wasn’t that surprising, but it was amazing that inside that windmill building, they were grinding livestock feed using the power of wind.

“They were effortlessly doing work that would be insufficient even for ten farmers.”

Thanks to his wanderings, Lucas knew quite a bit about the lives of the common people. Perhaps in that aspect alone, he could be considered the most outstanding among all the emperors in history.

“Yes. Moreover, the children were receiving education.”

At the pen-shaped symbol drawn on the map, children were gathered learning arithmetic.

“Yes, they weren’t nobles, just children of domain residents.”

Lucas muttered as if still dumbfounded and downed another glass of fruit wine.

“What on earth are those children going to use arithmetic for? Even noble young ladies don’t learn such things.”

“I don’t know either. They seemed to be learning a few other things as well… but the teacher wasn’t a noble.”

“Right. It’s all full of nonsense.”

Lucas nodded. Commoners gathering commoner children to teach them was truly the height of absurdity. Originally, the life of domain residents was to help with work as soon as they could walk.

But to actually see them learning arithmetic with chalk on slate – if he hadn’t seen it himself, he wouldn’t have believed it.

“Above all… didn’t God’s calamity befall Astel?”

“Yes, I saw it clearly recorded as about five and a half years ago.”

Natural disasters were God’s will and calamity. It was something that human power could never stand against and could only be accepted.

“In other words, after the young lady came here.”

“Yes.”

“Then how did all these things become possible despite that calamity?”

Cedric wouldn’t know the inside story either.

“Alright, I’ll have to ask the person herself. Call a servant.”

“Now, you mean?”

“Yes.”

Nodding, Cedric stood up and went out the door. He exchanged a few words with a servant before returning to his seat, but his expression was slightly dazed.

“Why, did she say she won’t meet me tomorrow?”

“No. That’s not it.”

Well, how could the servant know Serena’s intentions when he had just given the order now? Although quite disappointed, this was just an annex where Serena wasn’t staying.

“The Acting Duke… that is, the young lady says she wakes up in the morning.”

“I know, I saw her this morning.”

“No, that’s not it… She says she leaves her bed right after dawn breaks, like men do, and immediately starts her daily routine.”

For a moment, Lucas’s eyes blinked slowly.

“After dawn breaks?”

It was etiquette and custom for noble ladies and young ladies to stay in bed until late morning.

“Even so, it would be 10 o’clock.”

Even if they woke up earlier, they waited in bed for the head maid to call them, and even had breakfast in bed.

After eating, when the head maid asked again, only then did they wash and dress, which took until past 10 o’clock, and as a result, lunch was almost always skipped in their daily routine.

“No. The morning bell rings at 7 o’clock, and that’s when all the daily routines of the duke’s residence, including the young lady’s, begin.”

He knew it was unusual, but Serena, who didn’t even keep a single minor etiquette, suddenly seemed remarkable.

“I told the servant to schedule the earliest appointment with the young lady.”

“Astel is like a different world.”

In the past, even when wandering in countries with different customs, he didn’t feel this unfamiliar sensation. But the rules of Astel, led by his fiancée in the same empire, were so new and curious every time.

“And Your Highness, I’m told the fruit wine served today has a high alcohol content.”

As Cedric said, Lucas was feeling slightly tipsy. On top of that, the fatigue from riding horseback for a long time and touring the domain today was hitting him all at once.

“So they produce it with different alcohol levels too.”

Lucas showed no signs of intoxication on his face, but his staggering steps towards the bed demonstrated the power of the Astel fruit wine.

“…Wise.”

Flopping onto the bed, he closed his eyes.

“Frighteningly… wise woman.”

Cedric was also feeling tipsy for the first time in a while. He quickly checked on the crown prince’s bedding, then lay down on the small bed in the adjacent room. His eyes closed involuntarily as sleep came over him.

“Astel… fruit wine… the best…”

It seemed clear that Serena’s next masterpiece would shake the entire continent. Serena’s unstoppable progress, which even a typhoon couldn’t stop, was just beginning.

Just as Lucas and his party were surprised, Serena’s morning began with the sound of bells.

“Young lady, good morning.”

“Mm, Anna.”

Today too, Serena washed her face neatly and wiped off the moisture without anyone’s assistance. Though she wore only a simple dress she usually wore with no accessories, her beauty at twenty-four was truly fresh.

“My lady, good morning.”

As soon as Serena finished her morning preparations in an instant, the head servant Peter greeted her. It was the moment Astel’s daily routine began.

“I’ve been thinking, we should consider the distribution of Astel fruit wine more carefully. If fruit wine is taxed as liquor, we might incur losses.”

It was truly amazing how new ideas always sprang up even though she woke up early every morning and went to sleep late at night.

“I hadn’t thought of that part.”

“I’m planning to discuss it with the Farel Grand Duchy’s merchant group. Unlike the empire, they don’t have liquor tax there, so if it works out, it could be a huge profit.”

While Serena’s eyes sparkled, Anna was doing her hair styling, which she claimed was her own duty. Even so, it was just tying it up high in a single ponytail and inserting a pin as Serena always wanted.

“Didn’t you dislike the Farel Grand Duchy, young lady?”

“No.”

Her fine eyebrows furrowed for a moment.

“What I dislike isn’t the Farel Grand Duchy, but the insanely persistent and loud-voiced Grand Duke.”

Though Serena was not one to back down easily in terms of stubbornness, the Farel Grand Duke was persistent enough to make even her throw up her hands.

“Is it normal to propose twelve times to someone who already has a fiancé?”

“It’s fifteen times, young lady.”

“Anyway!”

The Farel Grand Duchy had long ago signed a non-intervention treaty with the empire and was ruling the grand duchy as an independent monarch. The current Grand Duke was Hyde Farel, 28 years old, four years older than Serena.

“Even if the whole world knows my engagement is over, it’s too rude, isn’t it?”

Serena’s engagement to the crown prince was when she was 18, a full 6 years ago from now.

In this era, the age of twenty-four was well past marriageable age, so not only the nobles in the imperial capital but even local lords thought this engagement had fallen through.

“It’s all rude – proposing to me who has a fiancé, persisting fifteen times despite rejections, but the reason is the rudest of all.”

Rarely, Serena was fired up from the morning.

Because the Astel duchy happened to be adjacent to the grand duchy, she had been terribly harassed all this time.

“Hah… That’s not the problem now.”

An even bigger problem was brazenly holding out right here in this duke’s residence.

“At least we could drive away the Grand Duke, but we can’t do anything about the crown prince’s audience! Should we postpone the time instead? Originally, noble ladies only move in the afternoon anyway.”

“Well… Both the servant who received the crown prince’s order and the domain residents from all over Astel yesterday praised so much that the young lady, unlike others, wakes up early in the morning to attend to official duties, so he probably already knows.”

Everyone says the early bird catches the worm, but this time it was different. Now, the young lady who woke up early was twice as exhausted.