Marielle’s secret is out to her fiancée Simeon: she’s secretly the best-selling romance author Agnès Vivier and she draws upon everything she observes from the background of noble balls and fêtes for her stories.
And yet Simeon, a high-ranking noble with a close relationship his highness the prince, doesn’t seem to mind?! In fact, Simeon knew all about this even before they got engaged, causing Marielle to wonder more than ever just what her father had to do to secure her a match with such a sought-after man, still refusing to believe that there was no deal and she herself was the draw.
But this isn’t the time to overthink that detail, there’s a mystery at hand! Marielle and Simon have gotten wrapped up in the unsavory incidents surrounding a newly elevated noble and the fortune he’s set to inherit. Everyone in his family is acting suspiciously and has some motivation to want to inherit the estate and fortune instead but with Marielle’s over-active imagination and Simeon’s taciturn nature, forget getting to the bottom of this mystery, can their new, fragile relationship survive the stress of working on this case?
I’m not precisely sure what part of the original light novels this manga volume matches up with (since I still have not read them) but I am impressed with how both the first and now the second manga volumes seem to wrap up at exactly the perfect place each time. It’s not easy to convey an entire story arc in just one volume! Again, both times now, it happens without feeling as if the story is rushing or omitting details and I’m curious how much adapting Alaskapan had to do to make the story flow so naturally. A quick pace does suit this story well, since when the central romantic conflict hinges on “what happens first, Marielle realizes she’s misunderstood or Simon that he’s miscommunicated?” it’s better to keep a snappy pace than a slower one. The “mystery” in this volume is just the setting and it’s their relationship that’s truly at the heart of the story.
Following the events of the end of the first volume, Simeon and Marielle have been dragged into quite a different situation than before as they agree to help out a noble’s illegitimate heir and are also keeping an eye out for the dashing phantom thief Lutin who has become the talk of the papers (well, at least the papers Marielle reads, Simeon prefers to keep a stiff upper lip about all that). Cedric Pautrier, recently plucked from a commoner’s life and facing some unknown forms of opposition to his elevation, makes quite a few moves on Marielle which shows that she’s oblivious to practically everything romantic that happens to her, not just when Simeon does it, although that hardly makes Simeon any happier about it. I was worried for a little bit that the story would drag this aspect out too long, especially given the fact that I thought Marielle and Simeon had already resolved their feelings for each other in the first volume, but now it appears they are well and truly over the hump and just in time to resolve the events surrounding both Cedric and Lutin!
Alaskapan’s art continues to be quite a bit of fun and I just adore the many silly faces in each volume, mostly by Marielle but even the stonier Simeon has some visually comedic moments as well. While the series is currently digital-only, I’d love to buy the volumes in physical format someday and join the rest of my books that I reach for when I need a quick, charming, and comedic pick-me-up. I do worry a bit about the story getting repetitive over time, something I worry a lot about relationship-focused stories, but until I actually get bored with it I intend to keep reading and enjoying!