T/N: Chapter 255 has been fixed. Please check it out too.
Despite such a road trip, Giovanna-san was very active after coming to Yurinova territory.
Beginning with the restoration of the waterworks ruins, she invented and improved machines and tools to make mine work more efficient. Blast furnaces and other equipment now performed better in her care.
Furthermore, she was responsible for the design that transformed Yurinova Castle, once a battle fortress, into the elegant political and administrative center that it was today. She also oversaw the construction of the building, using such ingenious ideas as underfloor heating and innovative lighting. She was truly a jack-of-all-trades.
At one point, four scribes followed her around, taking notes and running to craftsmen in charge of prototypes. Genius was terrifying.
There were several requests from Astra to return the inventor, and the emperor of the time ordered to send the inventor to the capital for the development of the entire empire, but Lord Vassily suppressed all of them.
Meanwhile, he came up with a patent system to protect the rights of inventors and first enforced it as a territorial law of the Yurinova territory. “Both Astra and the Crown should first try to do the same thing,” he said. Then we’ll talk.
Lord Vassily was also wonderful at realizing a progressive initiative and expertly using it as a bargaining chip.
Giovanna-san was a total workaholic, lamenting that she has so much more to do but not enough time to do it. Overworked yellow card.
However, when she was working so hard that she forgot to eat and sleep, Lord Vassily grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and threw her into bed to rest. She was so desperate to work that he had to hold her down and put her to bed.
The chief of the Forest Peoples frequently made fun of the two for spending so much time together.
[My Companion.]
These words were written on the back of the Miniature Painting.
Once again, Duke Yurinova’s use of the word [Companion] was very heavy. I believed that Prince Vassily truly and deeply loved Giovanna-san, despite the fact that they were of different social classes and that she lied about her gender. This was evident in every word he used.
In the last years of his life, near the end of the memoir, after he had passed down the dukedom to his legitimate son, Lord Vassily proposed to Giovanna-san several times. Giovanna-san had to marry, otherwise she would not be able to enter the mausoleum of the Yurinova family.
The imperial family’s and the three Great Dukes’ mausoleums were said to be massive mausoleums or labyrinth-like catacombs with many rooms inside, where the heads of the families and their family members slept in the same room in their coffins. He wanted to be with Giovanna-san even after his death.
Giovanna-san did not agree because it was an offer that would have required her to give up the name of inventor Giovanni Di Santi and assume the identity of a noblewoman, which would have been too much to ask for. Above all, she felt bad for his wife, who died at a young age.
But she designed Lord Vassily’s coffin and had a cat carved on it.
Besides the cat, an ancient Astra language was inscribed. [The cat would never leave you in life or in death].
“…It’s a wondrous story.”
Ekaterina looked at the memoir she had just finished reading and smiled.
“Luciola-sama, the chief of the forest people at that time, was a very good friend of Giovanna-sama. It must have been very reassuring to have such an open and honest friend.”
“I’m sure she was surprised at first by our way of living in symbiosis with the giant bees. It would have been unthinkable in her hometown of Astra. Maybe that’s why she felt so free.”
Aurora smiled. Her pride as the current head of the forest people seemed to seep into her words.
“Now I understand how reliable friends the forest people are to us, the Yurinovas. I am reminded once more that, as a daughter of Yurinova, I would like to work with my brother to protect the Great Bee Forest and cherish our friendship with the forest people.”
I was certain that one of the purposes of showing me this memoir was that.
I thought the forest people for the Dukes of Yurinova were like a ninja village or a shadowy army, but they really do have a profound relationship of trust. I hoped we could continue to have a win-win-win relationship.
