The Stone-Throwing Lady

“Louise, you were so consumed with jealousy over my love for Analena that you subjected her to endless, cruel harassment!”

Muriel finally reached a spot with a clear view. Just as she thought—it was indeed Prince Joachim. He stood in the center of the room, pointing an accusing finger at his fiancée, Lady Louise. Clinging to the Prince’s arm like a frightened kitten was a girl with a dainty, fragile air: Analena.

“And what exactly do you mean by ‘cruel harassment’?” Louise asked, her voice as cold and still as a frozen lake.

“You publicly humiliated her, screaming that she had no manners!”

“I simply cautioned her,” Louise replied calmly, “that one does not address a person of higher rank so casually without being spoken to first.”

“Status means nothing within these academy walls!” the Prince bellowed.

Louise tilted her head slightly, her gaze unwavering. “Your Highness, we both know that is a mere formality, not a reality.”

What a complete farce. Muriel couldn’t wrap her head around it. Why on earth are they having such a ridiculous argument in front of everyone? she wondered. This is the kind of nonsense you settle behind closed doors between the three of you.

She looked around the room, bewildered. Why wasn’t anyone stepping in to stop this madness?

Muriel narrowed her eyes, observing the group surrounding Prince Joachim with clinical precision.

Ah, I see it now.

That girl, Analena, was radiating a foul, sickly energy. A witch, Muriel concluded. She has to be.

Then she turned her gaze to the Prince’s inner circle—the men who were supposed to be his advisors and protectors. They were all staring at Analena’s face with slack-jawed, vacant expressions.

Of course. It’s a classic case. Prince Joachim had lost his mind, seduced by a witch’s spell, and his loyal retainers had clearly fallen right into the same trap.

Reacting instantly, Muriel began to recite the “Ten Commandments for Surviving the Royal Capital”—the strict rules her father had hammered into her head—mentally ticking them off one by one.

‘Obey the orders of those above you. However, if those orders lack reason, you are no longer bound by them. It is the duty of a loyal subject to guide their superiors back to the righteous path.’

Perfect, Muriel thought. That’s the one. Prince Joachim had clearly lost his senses to the witch’s spell. There was no way she would let this pathetic lovers’ spat continue in front of the entire student body. Her mind made up, Muriel moved with clinical efficiency.

She reached for her bracelet and snapped it, scattering the glass beads into her palm. With a flick of her fingers, she sent one flying. For Muriel, who had spent years hunting in the rugged countryside of her family estate, hitting a target as still as the Prince was child’s play.

The glass bead struck Joachim squarely in the temple. Without a single sound, he crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

Target neutralized, she noted internally.

In a blurred motion, Muriel set the next bead on her palm and took aim at the witch, Analena. A split second later, she too went down.

As the ballroom descended into absolute chaos, Muriel didn’t linger to watch the fallout. With a perfectly blank expression, as if she had just finished a mundane task, she turned on her heel and vanished from the scene.

“Ugh, another day, another failure. Still no husband in sight,” Muriel sighed.

She rubbed her belly, which was now noticeably round and bloated from overindulging at the party. Despite the heavy meal, she kept a brisk pace as she walked. A carriage? That was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Instead, she relied on her own two feet to get her all the way back to the modest home of the elderly couple who had taken her in.

＊＊＊

Muriel Gonzara was the daughter of a Baron from a small, struggling territory. At fifteen, she had been given a single, daunting mission: to hunt down a talented husband and drag him back to her homeland.

Her father had been very specific about the requirements. He wanted a healthy male with expertise in medicine, law, surveying, or civil engineering. And, of course, the more dowry he brought with him, the better.

“Oh, come on, Dad. Be realistic. Open your eyes—really, wide open—and take a good look at me,” Muriel had argued. “I’m plain-faced and as flat as a board. I don’t have a lick of sex appeal. Do you honestly think I can snag a high-spec man like that?”

“No,” her father replied instantly.

“I thought so.”

“But you’ll just have to make it happen anyway.”

“That’s impossible!”

Her father, however, didn’t budge an inch.

“I’m planning to use your husband’s dowry to buy plow horses,” my father said, his voice heavy with expectation. “With them, next year’s harvest will be bountiful. Fewer of our people will have to endure the gnawing pain of hunger.”

“Ugh...” I groaned.

“This year’s tax revenue vanished into that flood control project,” he continued. “If your husband’s dowry can pay to repair the town walls, we can keep the monsters out. You’d be saving lives, Muriel.”

“Urgh...”

“And if he’s trained in medicine? Imagine how many of our people would be spared from suffering and disease.”

“I mean... I guess so...”

“Your sister, Marina, managed to snag a brilliant tax accountant,” he reminded me. “Thanks to him, my mountain of paperwork has shrunk to almost nothing.”

“That’s because Mary is a total babe! She’s gorgeous, she’s got a massive chest, and... well, she’s Mary! Expecting the same from me is just impossible!”

That was when my father decided to play his ultimate trump card.

“Listen, Muriel. The village elders—the old hags—have agreed to grant you their secret techniques. They’re even giving you a ‘Love Potion’ whose recipe has never left our borders. I don’t care how you do it. Use every dirty trick in the book if you have to, but find us a healthy man with skills and money!”

“Is that something a father should be saying to his daughter?!” Muriel yelled back. She argued until she was blue in the face, but her father wouldn’t budge. And so, carrying the heavy expectations of the entire village on her shoulders, she arrived in the Royal Capital with nothing but a small bag of essentials.

“Princess! Bring us back a rich one!”

“A doctor! We want a doctooor!”

“Don’t forget to use that push-up bra we gave you! Lift and tuck!”

“Bring back a few of them if you can! I want one for myself too!”

The villagers had absolutely no shame. Showered with their selfish, loud, and overly enthusiastic demands, Muriel had been sent off like a hero departing for a war she never asked to fight.

Unfortunately, those “love potions” from the old hags have yet to see the light of day. I mean, I can’t exactly slip them into a classmate’s drink during a lecture, right? I can’t even get close enough to try.

Of course, I do want to snag a promising man for the sake of our territory. I haven’t been slacking on my intelligence gathering. I’ve already done a full background check on every male student studying medicine at the academy. I’ve even started tailing the single ones, one by one, according to my list.

“I really think the best way to do this is to wait for them to be in a life-threatening situation, and then swoop in like a hero to save them,” I muttered to myself.

Having grown up in a territory where everyone—man or woman—was expected to hunt from a young age, my brain was wired more like a predator than a romantic lead.

“Franz Mackensen, son of a Baron. Fourth son. His dowry probably won’t be much, but he’s reasonably healthy. He might just do.”

I began tailing today’s prey, Franz, as he left the library with a stack of medical tomes. He was wearing thick glasses—probably ruined his eyesight from reading too much. Wait, he dropped a book. He’s leaning down to pick it up. Oh no, that carriage—!

In one fluid motion, I lunged forward, tackled Franz, and rolled us both to the safety of the roadside.

“Are you alright? Any injuries? Here, let’s get you up.”

Muriel straightened Franz’s crooked glasses and flashed him a radiant smile—the kind of charming expression she had been taught would win anyone over.

“Th-thank you so much,” he stammered. “Your clothes are ruined because of me. Please, let me pay for the cleaning.”

“Oh, that’s...”

It was a tempting offer, but Muriel knew better than to be greedy at the first meeting. Self-restraint was key.

“It’s no trouble at all; it will come out in the wash. Please don’t worry about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Muriel began to walk away, intentionally slowing her pace.

“Ah! Excuse me!”

There it was.

“You forgot your hat!”

“Oh. Thank you.”

They parted ways just like that, and Muriel felt a wave of disappointment. He hadn’t even asked for her name. Was he just that timid?

“Or maybe I’m just not charming enough for someone to want to know my name after I’ve saved them,” she muttered, feeling even more dejected.

Upon returning to her room, she took out her list of potential marriage candidates and crossed off the name “Franz.”