Betrothed to My Sister's Ex

After spending about an hour on singing lessons, Marie moved to the castle’s library.

Finally, some time to enjoy reading... or so I thought.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Wolfgang. These are the books I finished working on,” she said, placing the books she’d brought down onto the table.

Wolfgang, the Granado Family’s butler who seemed to have been waiting, took the books and bowed his head to Marie.

“Thank you for your hard work, my lady. They must have been heavy; if you had called, this Wolfgang would have carried them for you.”

“No, most of them were carried by Lord Cyrus. Well then, Wolfgang, I’m heading to the field now. I’ll come back around after lunch!”

After that brief exchange, she left the room immediately.

...I wondered, what kind of work was that?

Rather than asking the quickly departing Marie, I inquired of the remaining Wolfgang. The elderly butler gave a mischievous smile as if surprised I didn’t know.

“It was indexing, sir.”

“Indexing... like classifying books?”

“Yes. The volume of books in this castle rivals even the Royal Kingdom Library, but they’re a rather miscellaneous collection. The order on the shelves was quite haphazard.”

“I thought the servants tidied them up when they had free time.”

“That’s true. But until now, the rules for classification were vague. They were shelved by title, author name, size, or cover color, all at their own discretion. When Lady Ryuu-Ryuu was struggling with this, Lady Marie suggested classifying the books by their content and assigning numbers before shelving them.”

Numbers... I picked up one of the books Marie had brought earlier.

In Flarian language, it read “New Chapter: The Golden Tower”... a novel? A book on architecture? From the title alone, the genre was unclear. After flipping through, I realized it was an art collection featuring paintings with gold leaf from various eras and countries. The spine’s index card, apparently attached by Marie, read: “F-120-41 Art.”

“The letters indicate the genre, the numbers the shelf, and below roughly the content, according to this list,” Wolfgang explained, handing me a stack of papers. Looking over them, Marie’s handwriting explained the meaning of each symbol and the shelf locations.

Not all servants are bibliophiles. Marie was reading books in foreign languages that were hard to understand at first glance, comprehending the contents, and then attaching index tags by classification... it seemed she was the one undertaking this task.

A certain baron who disliked studying would probably faint just from hearing about it.

“...I see. Once completed, this will be very convenient. More than that, an indispensable task.”

“This is not an official library, so it had been done rather arbitrarily until now. Oh dear,” Wolfgang chuckled.

...As the lord of the castle, that was hardly something to laugh about. Though these are peaceful times now, this is my personal residence, but it is still a fortress. If one day the kingdom’s library were destroyed by war or disaster, these books would become precious kingdom records. Not knowing where anything is in an emergency could cause great problems.

Understanding the importance, I still tilted my head in puzzlement.

...Certainly important... but if Ryuu-Ryuu and Marie had thought this through so thoroughly, they would have consulted me, the lord of the castle. Since they hadn’t, it was probably something started just for their own reading range and interests.

But the books Marie carried — art collections, ancient kingdom spear techniques, specialized books on herbal medicine, picture books for children, architectural drawings — didn’t really seem like things she’d enjoy reading.

When I asked Wolfgang, the old butler laughed cheerfully.

“At first, Lady Ryuu-Ryuu requested it, and it seemed Marie only intended to index the genres she liked. But once she started, she couldn’t stop. She really looks like she’s enjoying the work.”

Hmm? Is it because she loves reading or just Marie’s personality?