The Reincarnator and the Goblin Maiden’s Happily Ever After: Using a Past Life to Keep a Joyful Wife Volume 1 (eBook)

Shinten-Shinchi (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
250 Seiten
J-Novel Heart (Verlag)
978-1-7183-1974-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Ginorious Adolni has but one goal after reincarnating into a new world-find and marry someone he can grow old with. After living for close to a century without ever having a single relationship due to his hideous appearance, Ginorious wishes for companionship from the depths of his heart. The opportunity presents itself one day when he receives an offer to marry the daughter of the premier duke. It's a shocking proposal for the son of a simple viscount, until he learns that all their attempts to arrange courtships with higher nobles have already failed, and for one simple reason: the daughter's appearance, which has earned her the epithet of the Goblin Maiden. But Ginorious sees his past self in her, and soon learns that she has a genuinely beautiful soul. Ginorious resolves to use everything at his disposal, including knowledge from his past life, to make her happy.

Textauszug

Chapter 1: A Marriage Talk with Status Disparity Between the Premier Ducal Family and the Destitute Viscount Family

Ginorious

“My goodness. I had no idea the head of the up-and-coming Rurban Trading Company was still a child.”

These were the first words said to me by the manager of a trading company who was meant to be presenting a large trade deal to me—the entire reason I’d decided to attend this merchants’ party.

“It’s true that at sixteen years old, I’m still considered a child. However, I don’t believe that will have any negative effects on this deal,” I said.

“My apologies, but I’ll need to put our trade on hold.” He sighed, then walked away.

As rude as he was being, I didn’t feel at all angry. Why would I when I could read him like a book? He was anticipating that if he shifted the blame onto me for why this huge deal was about to fall through, I’d panic and scramble to compromise.

It was an effective strategy when dealing with younger people, who tended to be more emotionally volatile and easy to bait into seeing red, rendering them incapable of making levelheaded decisions. Unfortunately for him, this tactic had no effect on me—someone who had the memories of all eighty-two years of his previous life. I’d seen my fair share of unreasonable events after living as long as I had. This game of his was nothing to me.

Once I began chatting with the other traders, another merchant, by the name of Tom, came up to me.

“Are you sure about that, Mr. Adolni, sir? That’d be a shame considering the large amount offered in this trade. I think you should go after him and talk things through.”

For the record, Tom was in cahoots with the guy who’d walked away. The risk in upsetting the person you wanted to do business with was losing their business permanently. That’s where the “smooth talker” came into play. Tom’s job was to smooth things over and convince me to chase after the guy who’d left. When I did, he’d apologize for his rudeness and overly praise me for my maturity. This was all part of the setup—to create a situation where I’d want to compromise with the original merchant.

Both of them were in their forties, which in my eyes was still very young. The very act of hiring a “smooth talker”—a cliché—made it easy to discern his true intentions. He wanted this deal to go through. By deliberately upsetting the person he wanted to trade with, though, he ran the risk of having it backfire on him. His willingness to employ such a high-risk strategy stemmed from his vitality, courtesy of his youth.

“Oh, I see. You have reservations about doing business with a kid like me as well?” I asked.

“Of course. You’re still quite young,” Tom replied.

My full name was Ginorious Adolni, and I was the fourth son of a destitute viscount. The customs of this country dictated that the eldest son take over as head of the family; therefore, there’d never been a chance that the sun would shine on me in that regard. Furthermore, our family hadn’t exactly ever been in a position where they could focus their attention on anybody but my eldest brother, the heir. From the start, it had only ever been a matter of time before I lost my status as a noble.

For those in my situation, it was typical to choose the path of knighthood and achieve status that way, loath to fall down the social hierarchy. I, however, had chosen the commoner’s path, even going so far as to become a merchant.

With that decided, it was best to start as soon as possible. There was no age restriction on conducting trade in this country, so I’d been preparing since I was around ten years old to live my life independently by running my own merchant company.

I’d been negotiating with adults and doing business since that young age. These men weren’t the first people to try this trick on me, nor were they even the second. If they’d done their homework, they would’ve immediately found out how I dealt with guys like them. The reason you two lost is because you couldn’t even bother to investigate me at all.

“I’d now like to introduce the Rurban Trading Company’s new product,” I announced to everyone gathered there.

These words were the signal to have a mirror brought in. It was a single pane of glass with a plate of silver on one side—the exact same as mirrors in the world I’d come from. I knew how to make them thanks to what I’d learned in high school in Japan. I was fortunate that it was such a standard lesson; we’d learned about it from a chemistry class experiment.

Up until now, these merchants had only known about metal-based mirrors that needed to be polished enough to be reflective. The vivid reflectiveness of the glass mirror elicited sounds of surprise from everyone.

New products typically sold very well wholesale before they were distributed for commercial sales. And at a party filled with merchants, every single person there knew they couldn’t let this opportunity escape them, so they madly flocked to me. What had once been a social gathering became a room to conduct business with me.

This was precisely the reason I’d chosen to become a merchant instead of a knight. The knowledge from my past life was best put to use in this way.

I’d borrowed money from my father in order to start my company. It wasn’t much, though—maybe enough to afford a single horse-drawn carriage. But that was the kind of paltry amount expected of a poor noble. Six years later, my business had grown large enough to have locations in essentially every major city in the nation, becoming a second-tier company. It was all thanks to the unfair advantage I had from my previous life’s experience.

“I’m sorry about our earlier interaction. Let’s start our talks again.”

The merchant and his “smooth-talking” collaborator who’d underestimated me because of my young age had approached me once again. Well, allow me to give you a taste of your own medicine. It behooves me as your senior in life to teach you that, for high-risk methods, you need to do your homework first.

“I’m terribly sorry, but I’ll have to ask that you return at another time,” I said.

“Wh-Why?!”

The surprise was palpable in Tom’s voice. He must not have thought that even he’d be denied the opportunity to buy from me.

“Didn’t the two of you say you had reservations about trading with a child like me?” I asked. “I understand your unease, and to be honest, I have doubts of my own. After all, who knows when you’ll pull out this reason again to suddenly cancel our business? I prefer to go for trades that come with a guarantee of stability.”

I left them with those words and then moved on to talk with the other merchants. As I did, the two of them backed away with bitter expressions.

After everyone had placed their orders, the duo approached me once more, apologized, and proposed a new contract that included large concessions. That’s when I decided to use their trick against them. I praised them for their magnanimity that allowed them to apologize to a child, and proposed further compromises on their end. Though both of their expressions soured, they most likely realized that since I’d given them a taste of their own medicine, I’d been reading their every move.

It’s okay. People learn from their mistakes. You two are still young. I’m sure this experience will nourish your growth. We wrapped up our negotiations, and now we were chatting after coming to an amicable-enough agreement.

“Of course, I plan on getting married. It’s absolutely necessary if one wants to obtain happiness,” I said.

“I think you might be wrong there. You don’t need to get married to be happy.”

“Tom’s right. There are a bunch of people who are unhappy after getting married.”

These two are still young, so they don’t know about the crushing loneliness that comes from living by yourself at an old age. As someone who used to be infamous in their area for being repulsive, I’d ended up being unable to marry and had lived as a lonely old man.

It was the same painful pattern of solitude everyday—eating by myself and then eventually sleeping without talking to anyone even once. I had no desire to experience that ever again.

My biggest failure in my past life was how I’d given up on marriage due to women being repulsed by me as if I’d been a bug. This time, though, I wouldn’t give up no matter what. I’d keep holding out for a miracle no matter how much women hated me. I will get married.

“For some reason, it seems that your stance on marriage is the one thing you won’t budge on.”

“It’s surprising how fixed you are in your thinking despite being so young.”

The two men didn’t share the same opinion as me. I guess my desire to get married really might be greater than most people’s.

“At any rate, I plan to immediately register with a matchmaker as soon as I’m of age. With the advice of a professional, even I might be able to get married.”

“A matchmaker? So let me get this straight. On the one hand, you say you don’t want to give up on marriage, but on the other hand, you’ve given up on finding love on your own?”

Unfortunately, I had to...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.10.2024
• Reihe/Serie: The Reincarnator and the Goblin Maiden’s Happily Ever After: Using a Past Life to Keep a Joyful Wife
• Illustrationen: Tokima
• Übersetzer: Geirrlon Dunn
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: First Love • first person • Heartwarming • Magic • marriage • multiple PoV • Nobility
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-1974-6 / 1718319746
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-1974-5 / 9781718319745