Since It's My First Time Being a Lady, I'll Cause Some Trouble - Chapter 4

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Lady for the First Time, So There Will Be Incidents — Episode 4
Bewildered by the sudden turn of events, the man’s face crumpled as though he’d bitten into something foul.
“Lady Ulfina, what on earth is this disrespect?”
“What do you mean, what? A duel challenge. Surely you don’t mean to say you’re unfamiliar with such Protocol?”
Well, then let me spell it out for you.
I peeled off my other Glove and hurled it squarely at the Marquis’s cheek.
Smack!
“Do you understand now?”
The air around us froze in an instant.
Someone beyond the immediate circle seemed to gasp, but that hardly mattered at the moment.
My eyes were fixed solely on the man standing before me—whether his name was Penri or Penti, I had yet to determine.
“You’re not going to pick it up?”
When I gestured toward the Glove lying at his feet, his face flushed the precise shade of a perfectly grilled red lobster.
Then Rose May, standing beside Marquis Penri, let out a sharp cry.
“Ulfina! Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
“Of course. I challenged him to a duel.”
“A… a duel…?”
At my casual remark, her face reddened further—twin shrimp, both perfectly cooked.
“Is that what you call speech? A mere daughter of a Marquis showing disrespect to a Marquis? And a woman challenging a man to a duel at that?”
Though her words were nothing but mindless barking, she recovered quickly enough, which suggested she possessed stronger mental fortitude than her fiancé.
Penri, or whatever his name was, had taken the Glove to his cheek and still seemed to have lost his voice.
“And?”
“W-what…?”
“Regardless of Rank, the one who showed disrespect first was the Marquis, wasn’t he?”
I was not a person who typically backed down from a fool.
But this situation was different. If I were to brush past this as mere jest, then I would be the fool myself.
Rose May’s Gordon Family and Marquis Penri would grow arrogant, readily belittling the Nether Family without restraint, and in High Society—where gossip was currency—the Marquis’s household reputation would plummet.
This was regardless of the fact that the Marquis and Marchioness actually possessed tremendous honor and power.
‘If things go that way, it will reflect badly on me as well, living as Ulfina Nether until the young lady returns.’
That simply could not happen.
“Is that what you call speech? As if the Marquis would ever show—”
“Surely you didn’t miss hearing our Family insulted?”
You were part of it, after all.
At that, Rose May flinched, her shoulders stiffening.
A mixture of curiosity and mockery swept through the gathering, directed toward her and the Marquis.
Penri, who had been trembling with clenched fists, seemed to regain his composure and slowly bent to retrieve the Glove.
“The weapon…?”
“The weapon shall be whatever each of us is most skilled with. If I were to use the same weapon as a Marquis versed in Swordsmanship, wouldn’t I be at a disadvantage?”
Even if our Family was the one insulted, I ought to offer such consideration.
“Fine. Four days from now.”
With those words, he swept from the Banquet Hall, making his irritation plainly evident.
‘Wait, if he was the one at fault, why is he the one throwing a tantrum?’
And I was the one who challenged him to the duel, yet he went ahead and set the date on his own terms. The man had absolutely no manners whatsoever—
“Ulfina!”
The Marquis’s furious roar seized me by the back of my head.
…Ah, right. I was told not to cause trouble.
* * *
“Was not causing trouble so difficult to understand?”
“Did becoming Nobility mean you could treat another Nobleman however you pleased?”
“I told you to study and outshine Mirinda, not to beat her down with brute force!”
The Marquis and Marchioness, who had fled the Banquet Hall and returned to the Nether Estate, assailed me with their fury.
It was only natural. If they raged at their own daughter for causing a scandal, how much more at someone without a drop of their blood—a mere servant-girl.
Yet I had my own grievances to air.
“But, but—sometimes a woman’s circumstances call for speaking through her fists—”
“No! They do not!”
The Marquis shrieked in a voice that cracked with emotion.
But I felt wronged in my own right.
“Look, but if you’d just listen to me. That… that person insulted your Title, didn’t they?”
The Marquis and Marchioness fell silent.
“Insulted? Speak plainly—what did they say?”
“So that’s…….”
I explained the whole situation from start to finish. A heavy silence settled over the room.
“Do you have any weapon you can handle?”
The Marquis, who had been silent for a long time, asked in a hollow voice.
“Please don’t worry about that. Despite my appearance, I was known back home as the Lightning Hand of the Swift Wind.”
“…….”
“…….”
The Marquis and Marchioness slowly buried their faces in their hands.
“Oh, merciful heavens…….”
Hmm, didn’t they like the nickname? I should have mentioned the Bloody Hurricane instead.
* * *
‘She challenges ME to a duel? Just a marquis’s daughter!’
Penri the Marquis was in a foul mood. No—it wasn’t merely foul. He was absolutely seething.
“Impudent wretches!”
He was the son of an emperor and a courtesan.
Born out of wedlock, yet since childhood he had been lavished with the Emperor’s affection and his mother’s aspirations in equal measure.
Many sought to curry favor with him, and he had never heard a cross word in all his life.
To anyone steeped in High Society, the fact that he was the Emperor’s son was common knowledge.
Yet that girl had known it and still conducted herself with arrogant presumption.
“In that case, I won’t show mercy either.”
The duel was to be held at the Lakeside to the west.
It was remote and secluded, with open vistas on all sides—no obstacles to hinder sight or movement.
Or so it was supposed to be.
“What—what is this? Who are all these people?”
Penri the Marquis was taken aback upon arriving at the duel ground.
Though the hour was early, the Lakeside was crowded with onlookers passing the time.
“Are these all just people who came out for leisure?”
“I…… it appears word has spread that this is where the Nether Family’s daughter and you, my lord, will duel.”
His attendant, who had accompanied him, whispered nervously at his side.
“Damn it all!”
On the surface they seemed to be idling about, but he could feel every eye trained upon him.
His teeth clenched. He could not bear the thought that he—noble son of the Emperor himself, a Marquis—had become a mere spectacle.
As he walked deeper in, he spotted Ulfina in a silk robe and Count Rosetti standing as the appointed referee.
Beyond them, the Marquis and Marchioness Nether watched him approach with anxious faces.
“Punctual, I see. Shall we begin, then?”
When the Count sought their approval, both nodded assent.
Taking their respective positions, they regarded each other.
Marquis Penri drew his blade from an ornate scabbard. The edge gleamed blue-sharp; even the lightest touch would draw deep blood.
Ulfina, meanwhile, stood motionless. One hand rested at her waist as she gazed at him with vacant eyes.
No matter how he looked, she appeared to have no weapon in hand. Had she gripped a sword, its outline would have showed through the thin robe.
‘Surely she doesn’t mean to fight bare-handed?’
What a simpleminded, foolish woman—treating a duel like a child’s squabble.
‘Which is why she dares challenge me, no doubt.’
Perhaps she harbored some hollow hope that he might go easy on her for being a woman.
But he had no such intention. She had humiliated him, and he meant to repay that affront tenfold.
His blade was coated with Special Toxin—a horrifying poison that, upon contact with skin, would rot flesh to the bone within days. He had purchased it at great expense from the black market.
Once her beauty was ruined, she would never dare show her face in public again; she would be cast out and abandoned even by her own family.
The thought of her gentle, pampered existence crumbling to ruin thrilled him.
Marquis Penri smirked, already composing in his mind how to embellish this victory into an epic tale for all to hear.
His triumph was already assured—a skilled swordsman such as himself could not possibly lose.
“The duel continues until one side falls.”
The moment Count Rosetti gave the signal, blade in hand, Penri burst forward with a lunge.
“Die!”
Bang!
A sharp, crisp crack split the air.
In the same instant, Marquis Penri’s body recoiled as though struck by an invisible force, staggering. Then he collapsed entirely.
Only when cold earth touched his cheek did Marquis Penri feel the searing, spreading pain in his thigh.
A shadow fell over him as he clutched his bleeding leg and screamed.
It was Ulfina.
She stood above him, twirling a Revolver from which thin wisps of smoke curled like thread, her gaze cold and steady.
“Good heavens! Ulfina, are you all right?”
The Marquis and Marchioness Nether rushed toward her, their faces drained of all color, but she spoke to them with perfect composure.
“What did I tell you? I said I’d win.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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