Levia Gran had a secret. She remembered what people called a previous life.

In that previous life, her name had been Shinnosuke Kihara, a Japanese man who lived in the twenty-first century.

One day, he met with an accident. The instant he thought, Oh, I’m dead, he found himself going “Waaah!” as he was born all over again. Apparently, that made him what people called a reincarnator.

Shinnosuke had been an exceptional man.

Looks, ability, luck… he had been blessed with nearly everything a person could want. He was so handsome that not only men and women of all ages but even animals would stare at him in admiration. He was tremendously athletic, and intelligent on top of that. Heaven had not merely blessed him with two gifts, but something closer to a hundred.

Naturally, his life went almost perfectly. The company he founded grew into an undisputed major corporation, he married a beautiful wife (though naturally not as beautiful as himself), and was blessed with adorable children (though naturally not as adorable as himself). He lived the sort of life anyone would envy.

Then one day, Shinnosuke went out to an izakaya. It was one of those company drinking parties, with a group of employees in tow.

Everyone there had been with the company since its founding, and they were all close enough that nobody felt tense just because the president was present. Things started off pleasantly. Once everyone had gotten comfortably drunk, Shinnosuke began pressuring people to drink just short of anything legally actionable, when he noticed that his subordinate Tanaka (Barcode Head) seemed unusually gloomy.

Shinnosuke asked what was wrong and whether something was bothering him, and Tanaka began muttering complaints.

“My wife is awful. She’s home all day, but she doesn’t clean, doesn’t do the laundry, doesn’t cook… I do all of it, you know? And not only does she never thank me, even my daughter makes fun of me. On top of that, I only get five thousand yen a month for spending money. Five thousand! Meanwhile, my wife and daughter go to beauty salons, get their nails done… At this point, all I can do is cry…”

Yikes…

Everyone was rather appalled by the story, but when Tanaka began crying, they gathered around to console him. Shinnosuke kindly told him things like, “Cheer up. Want me to introduce you to a lawyer?”

Inside, however, he felt very differently. Shinnosuke’s heart was filled with another emotion entirely.

Barcode head or not, Tanaka was still one of his dear subordinates, and Shinnosuke’s concern for him was genuine. Even so, most of his mind was occupied by something else.

Seriously? People like that actually exist? I wanna try that so bad…

His own mother had worked part-time to help support the household. His wife was a full-time homemaker who had made their home a comfortable place to live. Both could reasonably be called good wives.

So the thought had never occurred to him.

Someone like Tanaka’s wife.

—Money came in despite doing nothing. Having a husband employed by a major corporation also looked good to everyone around her. The only effort required was at the very beginning—

Shinnosuke loved unfair advantages. He never did anything bad enough to become genuinely serious, but gray-area behavior that skirted right along the edge was one of his favorite things. Naturally, if someone did the same thing to him he would be furious, while doing it himself was perfectly acceptable. In that sense, he possessed a very human sense of fairness.

From that perspective, what Tanaka’s wife was doing was unforgivable. But if someone asked whether Shinnosuke wanted to do the same thing himself, then yes, absolutely.

He could mistreat his husband and live extravagantly on the man’s money. If he got sued, perhaps he would lose, but that was where skill came in. He would simply have to handle things cleverly, like Tanaka’s wife.

There was just one problem.

As long as Shinnosuke was a man, it was impossible.

Have a woman work while he lived lavishly on her money—given that he was handsome beyond merely handsome, he could probably manage it easily enough if he wanted to. But society would look at him terribly for it.

A stay-at-home husband might be envied by other men, but inwardly they would still look down on him as pathetic. Even his working wife would probably hear things like, “Wow, you really drew the short straw.” In other words, he would be treated as little more than a kept man.

Shinnosuke’s pride would never allow that.

Tanaka’s wife, meanwhile, would simply be envied.

Dual-income households were becoming more common, but society still accepted full-time housewives. In other words, a housewife and a househusband did not carry the same social value. No matter how hard Shinnosuke tried, as a man he could never occupy the same position as Tanaka’s wife.

In terms of status and prestige, Shinnosuke stood far above her as the president of a company. But people only valued him that way because he had produced results. There was nothing unfair about it at all.

Tanaka’s wife, on the other hand…

Shinnosuke was jealous.

Of Tanaka’s wife.

Of women themselves.

But things were different now.

Now he was Levia Gran.

A woman.

He had forgotten what Tanaka’s wife looked like, but she was Tanaka’s wife, after all. There was no chance she could surpass Levia’s own beauty. On top of that, Levia had the cheat advantage of memories from a previous life.

She was unquestionably superior.

Feminine charm: overflowing. Popularity with men: guaranteed.

She could live it up on her husband’s money!

“Then why can’t I get married…?”

Levia grumbled drunkenly with a beer mug in one hand.

They were in an adventurers’ tavern. It stood near the Adventurers’ Guild, where adventurers accepted work, and served as a place for them to enjoy food and drink after finishing a job.

Around them were warriors in armor, mages in pointed hats, and plenty of other people practically screaming “ADVENTURER!” just by looking at them. As an adventurer herself, Levia often came here as well.

Two women sat at the same table with her, both looking at Levia with exasperation.

“Obviously you can’t. I’d rather know why you think you should be able to.”

The speaker was unusually tall for a woman. Her red hair was tied back in a ponytail, her ample chest covered by a metal breastplate, with a short sword for self-defense at her waist. Her dark complexion was uncommon in this part of the world, and together with her husky voice gave her a gallant air.

Her name was Ney Shariq, leader of Poppy Anemone, the party Levia belonged to. They had only been together for half a year, but were already close enough to speak freely around one another.

“Besides, you already have money,” said the other woman. “Why are you so obsessed with someone else’s? Just marry an ordinary guy.”

The second girl was a blonde with her hair in braids, wearing a red hood. She was dressed in a mage’s robe, but her short stature made her look almost like a child playing dress-up.

Her name was Lieselotte Regial. Those close to her called her Liz.

Together with Levia, the three of them made up the full membership of Poppy Anemone.

All three were beautiful, and all were adventurers of the highest rank. As a result, people often approached them. Today, however, things were slightly different. For some reason, everyone was keeping a little distance.

“That would defeat the entire point! What I want is to be a rich man’s stay-at-home wife! I want to latch onto some wealthy man, have him work himself to the bone, and meanwhile I’ll go to beauty salons, enjoy ten-thousand-rilk lunches, and buy piles of designer clothes! I could never bring myself to waste my own money on things like that!”

Yikes…

The people around them recoiled at the loudly proclaimed ambition.

Liz, the only one among them who had grown up in the countryside, stared in culture shock. “Is that what wives in the city are normally like?!”

“No. Absolutely not,” Ney replied immediately.

Incidentally, Levia also planned to mistreat her husband after marriage and eventually have him die leaving behind the insurance payout, but even she did not say that aloud.

The others would probably get angry.

“Honestly…” Ney sighed. “Do you really think any man is going to approach you when you’re that obviously after his money? Any normal man would run immediately.”

“Hmph. Perhaps if I were an ordinary woman like you. But do look at me.”

Levia raised her head and looked seriously at Ney’s exasperated face.

Then, in the next instant, a radiant smile blossomed across her face.

“I am a beautiful girl, after all. If money is all it costs, surely that is quite cheap? He would be obtaining the ultimate beauty.”

It was an outrageously conceited statement. The frightening part was that it was not actually much of an exaggeration.

Her innocent smile was reminiscent of a white lily, and both women flushed and caught their breath. They had been captivated despite being women themselves. The male adventurers watching from a distance reacted much the same way. One of them immediately received a slap from the woman beside him, probably his girlfriend.

Incidentally, Shinnosuke had been every bit as conceited in his previous life, and had missed the usual marrying age by a very wide margin.

Levia had completely forgotten about that.

Ney and Liz, who knew nothing of that past, looked as though they wanted to deny her but could not. Levia truly was exceptionally beautiful, and men approached her very often. On top of that, neither Ney nor Liz was married, so they could hardly speak from experience.

As the two wondered how they were supposed to make her reconsider—

“GYAHAHAHAHA! Levia got dumped again?!”

A middle-aged man at a distant table burst into laughter. Perhaps he was drunk, because his face was bright red. He slapped the table repeatedly and struggled for breath between laughs.

“H-how many times is that this month? I know she’s been dumped at least five times already…”

Levia’s cheek twitched.

His name was… well, she could not remember his name, but she was fairly sure he was a B-rank adventurer.

She remembered that he thought very highly of himself, was proud of being B-rank, and tended to act important. He also seemed to have taken a particular dislike to Levia and her companions after three A-rank adventurers suddenly showed up in the royal capital. Something along the lines of, Who do these upstarts think they are?

“H-hey, knock it off.”

“What’s the harm? I’ve never seen a woman get dumped the same day someone confessed to her. Hey, wanna bet on how many more times she gets dumped this month?”

“I said knock it off. That’s in bad taste.”

“The one with bad taste is any guy who confesses to her. I’m talking about you, Sam.”

The drunken man kept laughing and drinking while the man seated with him tried to stop him. Whether because of the alcohol or not, he showed no sign of stopping.

Levia rose silently. Seeing this, Ney and Liz both made an oh, crap face and grabbed the hem of her clothes.

“Don’t, Levia. Control yourself.”

“She’s right. I don’t want us getting banned from another place.”

Both of them remembered the sight of an enraged Levia rampaging with a beer bottle in hand. In the previous town, it had even forced them to move elsewhere.

“My, you two. I’m not going to punch him or anything. I merely have something I’d like to ask that piece of sh—… that gentleman.”

She answered with a smile. Somewhat disarmed by her reaction, the two let go, and Levia went over to the man with a cheerful spring in her step.

“Oh, what do you want, Miss Gets-Dumped? Got a problem?”

“I told you to stop. Sorry, Miss Levia. He’s drunk.”

“Not at all.”

Levia sat down beside the drunk man. Then—

“Oh, sir… I got rejected. Won’t you comfort me?”

She leaned against him, her voice dripping with sweetness. Ney and Liz had followed her over, but the completely unexpected behavior stopped them in their tracks.

The man, meanwhile, was dazed by the beauty shining before him at such close range.

“I’d love some advice from an experienced gentleman like you. I simply don’t know what I ought to do to make men like me…”

Levia poked him lightly in the side while putting on an exaggeratedly coy act.

The man’s face immediately relaxed into a lecherous grin. He pulled Levia closer by the waist and began speaking with an air of authority.

“Well, you know, your personality is—”

“SEXUAL HARASSMENT, ASSHOLE!!”

WHAM!!

At the impact, the adventurers around them turned toward the sound and found Levia slamming a head into the table. Not her own head, of course, but the drunk man’s.

“You put your filthy hands all over my golden-ratio body! Pay up, asshole! No money?! Then go sell your organs!”

The sugary smile was already gone, replaced by pure fury. She fully intended to work off all the anger she had accumulated from being mocked earlier.

On top of that, the person inside was still a man, and having another man direct lust at her was deeply unpleasant. That anger was mixed in as well, despite the fact that she had started the whole thing herself.

She slammed his head down again and again, blood pouring from his forehead. His eyes had already rolled back and he appeared to be unconscious. Sam, the man sitting across from him, recoiled with a frightened yelp.

“S-stop! Levia, stop!”

“That’s enough! Come here!”

Once they recovered from their shock, Ney and Liz restrained Levia. Each grabbed one of her arms and dragged her away while she spat at the man.

“I’ll let you off with this. Ptooey.”

It was behavior one would never imagine from her beautiful appearance, but this was Levia’s true nature. Normally she behaved like a refined young lady to suit her looks, but the moment she became even slightly angry, the Shinnosuke underneath came right back out.

Levia was forcibly returned to their table. The whole incident had left her feeling refreshed, however, and she cheerfully raised a hand.

“Whew, what a waste of calories. Excuse me! Another plate of assorted skewers, please.”

“Don’t act like nothing happened. I’m very sorry about our companion…”

“I did nothing wrong. I merely dealt with a sexual harasser.”

Liz bowed repeatedly to the people around them while Levia shamelessly insisted on her innocence. Technically, it could be interpreted as a female adventurer dealing with unwanted sexual harassment herself, leaving the tavern master with a difficult expression on his face.

For the moment, he seemed to have decided to charge the broken table to the one at fault (?) and did not come after Levia. Or perhaps he simply did not want to get involved with her.

Make someone you wanted to hit do something wrong first, then use that to establish justification for hitting them—this was a strategy Levia had devised after her companions scolded her over an earlier incident. The strategy had been a complete success.

“Honestly, what a sly trick. Do you actually want to get married? After that, every man in this tavern will have ruled you out.”

“That is no problem. I had no interest in bottom-tier adventurers to begin with.”

“Bottom-tier…? You’re an adventurer too.”

“Exactly. That way, I’m guaranteed to marry up.”

Ney put a hand to her head as though she had run out of options. Liz, meanwhile, wondered aloud what “marrying up” meant. Levia tried to explain, only for Ney to stop her with, “Don’t teach her unnecessary things.”

“To begin with, the whole idea of marrying for money is wrong. Listen, Levia. Marriage is sacred. It isn’t something you do with motives like that.”

“Huh? What exactly is sacred about handing one scrap of paper to a government office?”

“That’s just the procedure. Marriage is proof that two people fell in love, were drawn to each other, and saw those feelings fulfilled. It is for people who want to stay together no matter what hardships they face, who want to share everything, both happiness and sorrow. It is to people like that that the blessing of marriage is given.”

Ney went on at length about her views while Liz gave a perfunctory, “Huh, is that so.” Perhaps she really was as childish as she looked, or perhaps she simply wasn’t very interested.

Levia leaned over and whispered to her.

“Liz, don’t let her fool you. A man without money is the caveman equivalent of a herbivore man who can’t hunt mammoths. You wouldn’t even be able to one-up the other wives with, ‘My husband made me an ivory ring the other day,’ you know?”

“I really don’t care about that.”

“Exactly,” Ney said. “If a ring is too much, he can make her a crown of flowers. If he isn’t good at hunting, they can till a field together. Sharing hardship is what marriage is about.”

“Well, sure. Farm work is more efficient when husband and wife do it together.”

“Liiiiiz! Don’t let her fool you! Of course both partners worked in prehistoric times. Everyone had to ooga-booga together or they wouldn’t survive. But now that rich and poor exist, things are different. Rich people can get by just fine without ooga-boogaing, while poor people have to ooga-booga until the day they die. Surely it’s obviously better not to ooga-booga!”

“What is this ‘ooga-booga’ thing supposed to mean…?”

Levia and Ney continued arguing their respective positions through Liz, but Levia’s argument was not gaining much ground. Liz seemed to gather that “ooga-booga” probably meant something like “work,” but even that did not appear to have gotten across properly.

It could hardly be helped. Liz came from the countryside, where nearly all work was in primary industries, and she was earnest by nature. The very idea that someone could live without working—without ooga-boogaing—simply did not exist for her.

“Hmph. Now you understand, don’t you, Levia? You’re wrong. Nobody is going to understand a marriage without any feelings behind it. Give it up already.”

“Ngh… Liz is simply too much of a child to understand.”

“Hey! Who are you calling a child?!”

Ney looked smug, Levia ground her teeth in frustration, and Liz became angry at being treated like a child.

Money was, in fact, fairly important. Especially in this world, where life was harsher than in modern Japan. But because Levia had mixed so many of her other desires into the argument, her point was difficult for anyone to sympathize with.

Levia hated losing, so she began to think.

The caveman comparison had been a mistake. Why? Because it was difficult to imagine. She could understand it as a civilized person, but perhaps the intellectual level of these medieval-fantasy natives was simply too low. In other words, she needed an example that even a child could picture easily. Something real and familiar. Something that would prove her point…

“…!”

Levia seemed to hit on something and clapped her hands once.

“…Liz. Look over there.”

“Hm? At what?”

Levia pulled her chair closer, wrapped an arm around Liz’s shoulders, and pointed. Liz followed her finger in confusion and found Ney looking back at her with a puzzled expression.

“What? Is there something on my face?”

Ney frowned, plainly unable to understand what Levia was getting at.

“Twenty-five years old and unmarried.”

Ney froze stiff. Liz’s mouth twitched.

“Twenty-five years old and unmarried. A virgin on top of that. That’s what having your head in the clouds gets you.”

“U-um…”

“Do you really think she’s worth listening to? Unless you want to stay single for the rest of your life, of course.”

“Oof. I’d rather not…”

They were whispering to each other, but Ney could hear every word. In fact, they were speaking loudly enough for her to hear.

Twenty-five and unmarried. In modern Japan, that would still be quite young. But in this world, where people generally married around twenty, she was unquestionably an old maid.

“What a joke. I’m sure she thinks she understands marriage just because she’s read about it in stories. Go ahead, Liz. You may laugh. You may laugh as hard as you like. Ohohohoho!”

“C-come on, don’t do that to her…”

Levia sprang to her feet and laughed down at Ney, holding her right hand beside her left cheek in the stereotypical highborn-lady laugh. Her sheer nastiness was showing through in full force. The word villainess suited her perfectly.

Incidentally, Shinnosuke himself had married considerably later than twenty-five, but that was beside the point.

“W-what’s wrong with that?! My timing was just a little bad! If I wanted to get married, I could do it right away!”

“Oh? Is that so? I had no idea you had a boyfriend, Ney. Please, do introduce us.”

“Urk. Well, I don’t have one right now…”

“You don’t?! You don’t even have a boyfriend, yet you’re talking about marriage?! Liiiiiz, I’m afraid I’m far too stupid to understand. Does it make sense to you?”

“I said stop picking on her…” Liz murmured weakly.

Levia ignored her and happily pressed the attack, shouting things like, “All talk!” “Ace of the bullpen!” and “Unsold Christmas cake!” None of it made any sense to Ney, but the malice apparently came through well enough that her eyes began to water.

“Besides, your standards are far too high. A ‘prince on a white horse’ is even rarer than a man with the three highs—highly educated, highly paid, and tall. It’s about time you faced reality.”

“S-sh-shut up! Your standards are ridiculously high too! Rich men aren’t exactly lying around everywhere!”

“I only require money. And men like that do approach me from time to time, you know? Your ideal may not even exist. At best, you’ll find some middle-aged man on a white horse.”

A prince on a white horse.

The sort of fantasy where one thinks, Someday a handsome prince will come for me, often found among girls who have immersed themselves too deeply in fiction. Ney had enjoyed romance novels since childhood and had ended up thinking that sort of thing was normal.

After growing older and learning more about reality, she had lowered her standards somewhat, but they had started so high that she still could not find anyone who felt quite right. At the same time, she did not want to give up. The result of being unable to give up was the Ney of today: twenty-five years old and unmarried.

Ney trembled, unable to argue back. Perhaps taking pity on her, Liz spoke gently.

“C-come on, Ney. Levia isn’t married either, so don’t worry about it too much. Okay?”

“Shut up! Flat-chest, stay out of this!”

—Crack.

Liz froze. Ney immediately looked as though she had realized she had screwed up, while Levia snorted with laughter.

“F-f-f-flat-chested…?”

“Ah. S-sorry. It just slipped out…”

It had been simple lashing out, and unfortunately Ney had struck a very sore point. Liz’s face steadily filled with anger.

“Old maid! Old maid, old maid!”

“W-what did you say?! Flat-chest! Flat-chest, flat-chest!”

The fighting broke out again. Calling Liz flat-chested was strictly forbidden.

By way of comparison, Ney was very well endowed, Levia moderately so, and Liz had almost nothing. Even taking her age of fourteen into account, her proportions were remarkably modest… and she was extremely self-conscious about it.

“Old maid, old maid! Aren’t you too old to still be dreaming like a little girl?!”

“Flat-chest, flat-chest! You’ll still be flat-chested when you’re older too!”

“What did you say?!”

Liz pinched Ney’s cheek. Ney retaliated by pinching Liz’s.

“Ohd maihd! Ohd maihd, ohd maihd! Ohd maihd, ohd maihd, ohd maihd! Ohd maihd with no future!”

“Flaf chesh! Flaf chesh, flaf chesh! Flaf chesh, flaf chesh, flaf chesh! Flaf chesh with no future!”

It was an ugly fight. And an extremely childish one. Levia thought elementary school children could probably manage a better argument.

She shrugged and sighed, then walked over to the counter and sat down, crossing her legs with little concern for manners.

“I can’t be bothered with them. Master, one Blue Mountain coffee, please. Extra sugar and milk.”

“We don’t have that. And go stop them.”