T/N:

So Saki’s  is one of my favourite shoujo web novels - it’s a comedy about a girl who tries to be a n.o.ble girl villainess, but fails miserably and only ends up becoming closer friends with the protagonist, much to her ire. It’s as funny as it sounds.

I noticed that Saki had written a number of other stories, so I decided to check them out. I’m planning to translate the first few chapters of the stories with summaries that interest me and I might pick one up permanently if I still like it at the end of the chapters.

This will not affect my Destruction Flag Otome release schedule.

Chapter 1: Armoured Girl 

“As if I’d marry an ugly woman like you!”

Those were the first words he uttered the first time Monette

Idira met him face-to-face.

Those were also the last words she heard from him.

What ugly words. To make things worse, those words were

uttered by her fiancé, Alexis Radoll. Monette, still young, was very hurt by

his words – and before the wound could heal, the very next day, she despaired

when she learned that her younger sister had become his fiancée instead. She

began to fear the gaze of others since she didn’t know what part of her was

ugly. And fearing their mockery of her ugliness, she stopped appearing in

front of others…

And eventually, she

decided to wear iron armour from the top of her head to the tip of her toes.

Monette looks up at the sound of the birds chirping.  A blue sky peeks out from behind tree leaves

criss-crossing above her. Every so often sunlight brightly s.h.i.+nes through the canopy,

but Monette just keeps looking upwards without closing or squinting her eyes.

It’s bright enough that it would normally hurt people’s eyes…

normally.

“I planned to get back before the sun rose…”

After muttering that she stayed too long, Monette starts

walking again.

Enough food supplies to last her a week are in the paper bag

she holds with both hands. She bought food that would last for a while, but

it’s probably still not sanitary to walk for many hours in sunlight holding the

bag. Most importantly, if sunlight hit it for too long, it would begin to hold

in heat… and by ‘it’, she meant the armour.

Wanting to get back quickly, Monette speeds up a little. In

this quiet forest where the chirping of birds echoes, her iron armour clatters

loudly…

She’s covered from

head to toe – so naturally, her fingertips are too. She covers her entire body

with armour. A long while back she started to be known as the ‘Heavily Armoured

n.o.ble Girl’, or just the ‘Armoured Girl’ for short. What an ironic name. But it’s

true that given how she hid not only her face, but every inch of her skin,

there was no way to describe her but ‘heavily armoured’. It’s also true that

she was a n.o.ble girl. Though naturally, given that Monette was living alone deep

in the forest in the old castle, she didn’t really benefit from her n.o.bility. It’s

been a long time since she was a n.o.ble’s daughter.

And so that nickname of hers was terribly ironic, but Monette

had no interest in correcting the name or in tracking down the person who

thought it up and berating them. Her reasoning is probably something

like this: They can say what they want, I only talk with people once a week to

buy food anyways.

“I’ve got bread, jam, and meat jerky. Maybe next week I’ll

bring them some wine to make some more money.”

Reaching the old castle in the forest, Monette spreads out

her purchases on a table. As she confirms that she hasn’t forgotten to buy

anything, she takes off her helmet. She lets out a rather deep sigh of relief

as her navy blue hair is freed.

It’s incredibly tiring for Monette to go shopping in the

nearest city district once a week. It takes several hours to reach the district

from the old castle – it’s a long journey as it is, but given that she wears a

full set of armour, it’s naturally impossible for her not to get tired. To make

things worse, once she reaches the district obviously there are people around,

and she always breaks out in a cold sweat at the idea that they look down at her

even though she’s covered in iron.

She thinks that she hears a young boy saying ‘How ugly,’ but

even when she accepts that those words are just an auditory hallucination, she

hears people actually saying ‘Armoured Girl’ behind her back. She’s too afraid

to verify whether those mocking voices she hears is real or not.

The only thing Monette can do is to take shallow breaths in her

helmet and quickly finish up her shopping. Then she runs away to the forest,

clanking all the way.

In direct contrast to the city, the only person in this old

castle is Monette. Naturally, no one sees her and no one speaks. She even has

animal repellant set up.

How relaxing – even if she takes off her helmet and the rest

of her armour, no one sees her. It would be so nice if she could live in this

old castle for the rest of her life. But in order to live, she needs food. She

could make do if all she needed was vegetables, but she can’t make goods like

bread and other processed food by herself. In order to buy food like that she

needs to go to the city…

“Should I pay them to deliver it here…? But I don’t want

people to come here too… Hm?”

Monette goes quiet at the sudden sound of other people’s

voices. She sneaks up to the old castle’s entranceway. People are talking on

the other side of the door. From their voices, it’s two men… as she was listening closely to verify that, they knock on the door. In a panic, she first puts on

the helmet before putting on the rest of the armour that had been left outside.

She twirls around in front of a mirror to make sure that no skin is visible.

Either they had followed her in some kind of fascination

with the Armoured Girl, or they got lost in the forest and want help.

They’re probably not salespeople – she doubts that anyone

would come this far just for that. Maybe she forgot her change when she bought

her bread, and a nice clerk came to return – nah, no way. If something like that

happened, they’d probably want a tip that was greater than the change she

forgot.

As she muses, she cautiously reaches a hand out to the

doork.n.o.b before slowly unlocking the door…

Her eyes widen at the person standing on the other side.

A young man with dark brown eyes and hair and sharp

features. He’s wearing a ratty robe and is putting up his hood in an attempt to

hide, but he can’t hide the elegance that seeps through what little that can be

seen. The moment Monette sees the young man, a young boy’s words echo clearly

in her mind, the memories returning.

As if I’d marry an

ugly woman like you!

… and so, she slams the door back closed.

She slams it so hard that the door might’ve warped. So hard

that it may have hit the noses of him and his companion…

… she hears a strangled cry, so it’s possible that she actually

hit one of them.

Humans are pretty good at bouncing back from things, so Monette

returns to normal soon after slamming the door shut. She’s mastered repressing her

unconscious mind. But the two on the other side of the door don’t seem to want

to go home just because of what she did. They begin to bang on the door, louder

than before.

“Monette, it’s you right!? Please open up!”

“I think I’ll have some bread.”

“Lady Monette, please, just lend us a small amount of your

time!”

“Perhaps I’ll brew some tea. Oh, I had some new tea leaves –

I should try them out.”

“I know that you resent me, but Monette – wolves! Oh no,

Percival, wolves!”

“Maybe I should have some pastries first… wolves?”

“Lady Monette! Forget about talking, please just give us

shelter!”

They begin screaming in between calling out her name as they

bang on the door.

“I suppose my animal repellent wore off,” says Monette,

tilting her head to the side.

…Though, since she’s wearing an iron helmet, all that can be

observed from the outside is a grinding noise and a slight tremble.

Even as she tilts her head, she reluctantly puts her hand on

the doork.n.o.b. She really doesn’t want to let them in, but at the same time, she

doesn’t want them to be killed and eaten right on her doorstep. She wouldn’t be

able to sleep if they were eaten as they screamed and panicked.

And so, with no other choice, she opens the door. The two

men run inside in a panic. She slams the door closed so the wolves can’t get

in.

It looks like they were really panicked – though, that’s a

pretty normal reaction to wolves closing in – so the two of them were breathing

shallowly and making sure that they were both alright. They then look up.

That elegant and intelligent face reminds Monette of his

young self… though she barely remembers him from back then anymore. Monette

lowers her head. Though she’s covered head to toe in armour and living in a

forest, she has to lower her head to him.

“It’s been a while, Prince Alexis,” says Monette.

Her iron armour makes a grim grinding sound as her head lowers.