Leaving the country is all well and good, but without funds, you can’t survive.

Which is why adventurer activities are essential in order to earn money.

It seems that even jobs a seven-year-old can do pay fairly well if you’re registered as an adventurer.

Time passed and two years have gone by since then.

…There has been no talk of another fiancée candidate being found in my place and I live each day in constant fear.

At this rate, just like in the game’s scenario, I’ll be made the fiancée of First Prince Alex, who will later be installed as Crown Prince.

I’ve been studying the spirit of chivalry and its related classroom subjects and I’ve also acquired gentlemanly manners and behavior.

I’ve continued learning swordsmanship and martial arts more seriously as well, striving to become even more manly.

That said, this year I turned seven.

At last, dance lessons and foreign-language studies have begun too.

Naturally, I insisted on taking the male role in dance, but that was immediately rejected.

After throwing another tantrum and discussing it with the dance instructor, we reached a compromise: I would mainly learn the female role and, “as a bonus,” also learn the male role.

Since I’ve always liked moving my body, the dance lessons themselves are enjoyable whether I’m learning the female role or the male role.

As for foreign languages, thanks to that cheat ability, I can read, write and speak all of them, so there’s no problem at all.

As for the rest of my studies, having graduated from a Japanese university in my previous life, the content taught to elementary-school-level children holds nothing I don’t understand, so so far I haven’t had much trouble.

The only thing that was a bit challenging was this world’s history.

That alone is entirely new learning, so I have no choice but to concentrate and memorize it properly.

However, overall I’m doing a little too well and all the instructors in charge of each subject have started making a fuss, saying things like, “Lady Christina is a genius!” As a result, my father and mother now look at me with eyes full of expectation and I’m currently agonizing over how to deceive them.

Oh right—earlier I mentioned the status screen. After trying various things since then, I discovered that I can indeed see it.

Even without speaking aloud, if I mutter ‘Display Status’ in my mind, a pale aqua, semi-transparent status screen—just like the ones you see in familiar games—appears.

What’s more, only I can see the status screen.

I deliberately displayed it in front of my father, but he showed absolutely no reaction.

After checking myself through the status screen, I found that I possess quite a variety of skills.

Right now, I’m making use of those skills as I devote myself to adventurer work.

As an adventurer, my jobs are still helping at the restaurant (lately I’ve also started helping cut vegetables in the kitchen), gathering medicinal herbs and taking subjugation requests for weak monsters up to F-rank.

I’d really like to try full-fledged requests like diving into dungeons, but until age twelve there are restrictions on what jobs you can accept, so I’m not allowed to take requests that require several days to complete.

Today as well, I came to a forest a little distance from the castle town to subjugate five Black Horn Rabbits.

Honestly, using magic would make it easy, but if I use magic, the differences in wounds left on the monsters could expose me as a noble’s child, so I reluctantly attack with the long knife my father bought me.

Well, my swordsmanship has improved quite a bit too, so it’s not all that difficult.

‘Alright, subjugation of five complete.’

The defeated Black Horn Rabbits are automatically collected and stored in my inventory.

In this world, there is a skill called Item Box, but apparently no one has an inventory.

Even the Item Box itself is an extremely rare skill, with very few people possessing it and its capacity doesn’t seem to be very large.

I always come close to the castle town, then in a spot where no one can see, transfer the prey into a hemp sack and carry it to the guild for delivery.

However, this time the Black Horn Rabbits include some large specimens, making them a bit too heavy for a seven-year-old.

Well, I’ve trained my body extensively, so I can lift them easily—but that’s exactly the point. For an ordinary seven-year-old, it would be difficult.

Since I’m aiming to be an inconspicuous mob boy, I need to play up the act of a “seven-year-old who can’t carry something heavy.”

Dragging the sack along as if it were extremely heavy, breathing hard, I haul it to the castle town gate.

“Ohhh—kid, you’re working hard again today!”

Just as expected, one of the gate guards called out to me when he saw me.

“Y-yes… haa… haa…”

I keep up the act of having worked really hard to carry it.

“What’d you bring today?”

“Five Black Horn Rabbits… they’re kind of… heavy…”

“Five?! No kidding, that’s heavy. I’ll carry it for you. Hey, cover me a second—I’m going to help the kid.”

He called out to his partner and tried to lift the sack I’d been dragging, then jolted in surprise.

“H-Heavy?!”

“Y-yes… there were some… pretty big ones…”

“I see. Heave-ho.”

As the soldier strained to lift the sack, I bowed my head.

“I’m sorry. Thank you very much.”

“No problem! When I see a kid working this hard, it makes me want to cheer him on.”

He’d mentioned before that he has a child around my age, so maybe he was imagining this being his own kid.

Sorry for taking advantage of a kind old guy, but the seven-year-old act is essential, so please forgive me.

* * *

Managing to lift the sack, the soldier escorted me all the way to the Adventurer Guild.

He thumped the sack down onto the material buyback counter.

“Well then! Good luck out there!”

I bowed once more in thanks and saw him off as he waved and left.

“Oh? That’s a pretty big sack today.”

I’ve become a familiar face to the old man at the buyback counter too.

“Yes, there were some pretty big ones today.”

When I take the monsters out of the sack, it’s clear that two of the five are about one and a half times larger than the others.

“Ohhh! That’s a fine catch. The monsters you bring in are always clean and lightly damaged. I can buy these at a pretty good price! Hang on a moment.”

The old man put the prey back into the sack and carried it to the back. After a while, he returned with a cloth pouch full of coins.

“Here you go. This is today’s buyback amount. I added a nice bonus for the two big ones.”

“Thank you!”

I smile and accept the pouch of money.

Next, since I need to report the subjugation’s completion, I head to the reception counter and wait in line.

When my turn comes, I present the request form and guild card. Over these two years, I’ve grown just enough to barely reach the counter, so with trembling arms I place the papers on top and speak.

“P-please confirm the subjugation. Five Black Horn Rabbits, subjugation complete.”

From the other side of the counter, I hear the receptionists stifling giggles and whispers of “Oh my gosh, so cute.”

“Huh? You’re already done? You only accepted the request this morning, didn’t you? It’s not even lunchtime yet…”

“There were a lot of them.”

“I-I see. They came out all at once, then. Are you okay? You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

“I’m okay. I’m not hurt.”

“That’s good. I’m relieved. You were lucky they appeared together, but when monsters come out in groups, it’s very dangerous, so be careful, okay?”

“Yes, I’ll be careful.”

“What a good, obedient boy! Alright, wait just a moment while I prepare things.”

Saying that, the receptionist came around to this side of the counter holding a different crystal from the one used for guild card registration.

“Here, place your hand on the crystal.”

“Yes.”

As usual, I slap my hand onto it.

Apparently, this checks whether the subjugation is truthful or not.

I don’t know how it distinguishes truth from lies, but touching this crystal reveals whether the person really performed the subjugation.

“Oh my, you really did subjugate all five by yourself! Fer-kun, amazing!”

She pats my head.

You can praise me more if you like, miss!

When I puff my chest out a little in pride, I hear more voices from the guild staff saying, “Aww, so cute!”

“Alright, I’ll process the completion right away.”

She returns behind the counter, stamps the request form with a loud thunk and places it on the completed shelf behind her.

She takes out another crystal, different from the one used for confirmation and holds my guild card beneath it. The card glows brightly.

“You did it! Fer-kun, your rank went up again!”

In the two years since becoming an adventurer, I started at the lowest I-rank and with this, I’ve been promoted to F-rank.

“F-rank at only seven years old—that’s incredible!”

She hands me my card and the subjugation reward, smiling brightly.

“Hehe, thanks.”

When I smile shyly, I again hear voices saying, “So cute! I want to hug him and give him a kiss!”

You can if you want, ladies.

For adventurers, ranking up from the lowest I-rank to two ranks above, G-rank, is fairly easy for almost anyone. But from F-rank onward, the promotion requirements suddenly become strict and ranking up becomes difficult.

Because of that, there are quite a few adult adventurers who remain stuck at G-rank forever.

I don’t want to stand out too much, but to become independent as an adventurer in the future, a certain amount of achievement is necessary.

Right now I’m still laying the groundwork, but by the time I graduate from the academy, I want to be at least D-rank.

The Adventurer Guild’s ranks span twelve levels, from the lowest I-rank to the highest SSS-rank, so D-rank sits roughly in the middle.

I-rank is beginner, H-rank is novice, G-rank is half-baked, F-rank is competent and E-rank is considered fully fledged.

My target, D-rank, is the level recognized as professional.

If I have professional standing as an adventurer upon graduating from the academy, I shouldn’t have trouble finding work and life after becoming independent should be stable.

All the money I earn from my current adventurer work is saved bit by bit in my inventory without using any of it.

Since these are jobs children can take, it’s not like I’m earning an enormous sum—but when I can subjugate monsters larger than usual like today, the buyback price increases and I receive quite a decent amount.

Previously, the reward for five days of helping at the restaurant was 40 gold per day (this country’s currency; one gold is about 100 yen).

40 gold × 5 days = 200 gold (about 20,000 yen).

That’s an extremely high reward for a child.

This time, for the Black Horn Rabbits, he said he added a bonus, but the normal-sized ones were bought at 120 gold each and the large ones at 150 gold each.

120 gold × 3 = 360 gold (about 36,000 yen)

150 gold × 2 = 300 gold (about 30,000 yen)

Total: 660 gold (about 66,000 yen).

Of course, the price varies depending on the condition of the monsters, so it’s not always this amount.

If they’re badly damaged, the price naturally drops.

The amounts above are only for the monster buyback; the subjugation reward is paid separately.

This time, the subjugation reward was 500 gold (about 50,000 yen), so today I earned a total of 1,160 gold (about 116,000 yen).

No matter how you look at it, that’s not an amount a seven-year-old should earn in less than half a day.

I never imagined adventuring could be this profitable, so this is a very pleasant surprise.

I can’t accept guild requests every day, but about three-fifths of the year I’ve been going to the guild and completing requests.

And even when I do adventurer work, no matter how hard I try, half a day is my limit.

Even so, I’ve been earning an average of about 80 gold per day. In this world, a year has 360 days and three-fifths of that is 216 days.

216 days × 80 gold = 17,280 gold.

Since a full two years have passed, that’s 17,280 gold × 2 years = 34,560 gold (about 3,456,000 yen).

In reality, there are many days where my earnings reach 600 to 1,000 gold like this time, so my actual savings have already exceeded 50,000 gold (about 5,000,000 yen).

It’s not an amount a seven-year-old should have, but since I plan to buy a house and live abroad in the future, it’s still nowhere near enough as a house purchase fund.

Honestly, as a ducal daughter, if I asked my parents, they’d hand me 50,000 gold as pocket money without batting an eye.

But saving allowance given by my parents to buy a house to live alone feels wrong somehow… so I’ve decided that the house purchase fund will be entirely from my own earnings.

I plan to buy a detached house with a garden.

I don’t know the real estate situation in other countries, so this is only for reference, but based on property prices in this country (and since I live in the royal capital, prices are surely much higher than in rural areas), even a small house would require about 500,000 gold (about 50,000,000 yen).

A larger house would cost around 1,300,000 gold (about 130,000,000 yen).

That’s for a detached house with a garden suitable for living alone.

Considering I’ve saved 50,000 gold in two years, even the cheaper option would take nearly ten years.

I’m currently seven years old, so ten years from now I’ll be seventeen. Since I’ll attend the academy until eighteen, I should be able to save enough for the cheaper house by the time I graduate.

Well, it’s all just counting my chickens before they hatch.

Still, considering the possibility that real estate in other countries could be more expensive than in Dianadyl’s royal capital, I need to earn much more.

To be honest, there’s a strong possibility my income will increase further.

Once I turn twelve, the restrictions on jobs I can accept will be lifted.

At that point, although the danger will increase, I’ll be able to take higher-paying requests and earn even more than now.

I’ll do my best!!

* * *

Christina is making very good money and is absolutely delighted.

Her target amount is much higher, so she’s full of motivation to keep going.

Now if only she could somehow avoid her engagement to Prince Alex…