Chapter 2

“Ugh.”

“What is going on?”

“That is… I apologize, Your Majesty. The Princess is simply feeling unwell.”

But as if it didn’t matter to her whether I was dry heaving or not, Laveli stubbornly seated me in place.

All the while busily propping a soft pillow against my back.

I swallowed hard, trying to settle my churning stomach before I ended up dry heaving right then and there.

Perhaps because of that, a heavy silence settled over the room for a long while.

The Emperor, his expression and mannerisms clearly showing his discomfort, stiffly tapped his fingers against the hem of his clothes.

“How strange. Is that really my daughter? None of my children have ever looked like they were on the verge of death. Tetra. Is that truly the princess?”

“……Yes. Well, it’s just that, on the day the Princess was born, something happened to Your Majesty, and…”

“Me…? Though you tossed her here and never paid her any mind, she is indeed the true princess. She is Your Majesty’s daughter.”

“I see.”

Does he not even remember her?

His way of speaking is absolutely revolting.

Wow.

To call me ‘that’.

To call a person ‘that’.

There is no way I could have any positive feelings for him, when he suddenly appears and treats a person like an object.

Not only that, but suddenly making me sit up…

Because she had only made my condition worse by forcing me upright.

And after observing him for a brief moment, I realized the Emperor seemed utterly devoid of emotion.

It seemed he didn’t possess even a shred of remorse for having neglected me.

I hadn’t expected anything, but actually seeing that look with my own eyes made a surge of irritation well up inside me.

In the end, I tore my gaze away from him.

“Laveli. Let me lie back down… It’s too hard to sit up.”

“Absolutely not. You are in the presence of His Majesty the Emperor, how could you……”

It wasn’t a dry heave; it was genuine nausea just from looking at her.

I felt all the color drain from my face. Laveli, who had never listened to a word I said anyway, was even more resolute.

Watching this, the Emperor clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Tsk. She looks utterly hopeless. She’s about to die soon.”

He’s right. I am about to die soon. If it weren’t for his side, I would just die very peacefully, screaming…

A dying character, that is.

Me.

So just leave me be.

Because even the words he speaks reach me faintly, I can’t even hear his voice clearly enough to make out what he’s saying.

Which makes me feel even more drained.

Why bother paying attention now?

My dream is to die quickly and escape this body.

I am simply filled with the desire to shake off this pain as soon as possible.

“Yes. So please just go… Urgh.”

It was then.

Just as I was about to tell him to stop standing there with that damn expression, as if he loathed the very existence of Nara, and to just get lost, I suddenly began to choke violently.

Because of my already fragile mucous membranes, a slight cough was all it took to trigger a reaction, and blood sprayed from my mouth like a fountain.

“Cough. Cough. Cough.”

The coughs that kept erupting relentlessly today scattered into the air, and inevitably ended up staining his clothes as well.

At that very moment, the Emperor’s expression turned ice-cold.

I felt his gaze boring into me as if he intended to kill me.

Murderous intent, perhaps.

Feeling as though my entire body had frozen over, I hastily covered my mouth and met his eyes.

Just because a little blood splattered.

As I roughly wiped my mouth, a “tsk” sound escaped his lips on its own.

So why did you come here and cause all this?

It would have been perfectly fine if you had just never come.

So that I wouldn’t have to harbor pointless hopes like before, that…

Just leave me be.

Don’t even bother offering a sliver of hope.

“P-Princess.”

In the midst of that, the man named Tetra tried to approach me with a grave expression, but the Emperor stopped him.

“Leave.”

“Y-Your Majesty. Are you going to just leave the Princess like this?”

But there was no answer.

Even after hearing the predictable answer, I felt neither anticipation nor any semblance of joy.

The thrill of seeing the Emperor, or perhaps once again…

A sliver of hope that he might come back.

That sort of thing ends today.

The Emperor—the father of this body whom I had seen exactly once in my life—turned his back and walked away, showing me his face one final time before I died.

And I thought to myself that this was the end.

That everything was truly over, and that I would never see him again.

After all, dying without any significant events had become my daily routine.

But a few hours later, the door opened, and people began pouring in endlessly…

Around that time, that daily routine shattered to pieces.

Things did not go according to my will.

* * *

After the Emperor left, I tossed and turned for a long while, and just as I was finally about to drift off to sleep,

I had no choice but to wake up because of the people who suddenly barged in.

The room, which had always been as quiet as if no one lived there, was thrown into a noisy uproar by the uninvited guests.

As I sat awake, staring blankly at them, the woman who appeared to be the highest-ranking among them strode forward.

“By order of His Majesty the Emperor.”

She and the others were looking down at me with chilling expressions.

Laveli’s face—who had been openly mistreating me after the Emperor left earlier—grew even more rigid.

My own face couldn’t help but harden as well.

From the moment the Emperor left until I fell asleep, Laveli had steadily…

She had been grumbling and complaining.

Saying that since His Majesty the Emperor’s expression had been dark and he had left like that, I would soon die.

She had thrown every kind of petty tantrum imaginable, demanding that I make sure no harm came to her.

Watching the women who had barged in claiming it was by order of His Majesty the Emperor, and who had been listening to that entire story, a part of my mind felt relieved, yet I was still uneasy.

Ah. So what was bound to happen has finally happened.

I had been worried about getting blood on the hem of the Emperor’s clothes earlier, and it seems the punishment for that has now been handed down.

Since Laveli had said the Emperor was a tyrant, it was entirely possible he intended to kill me.

If it’s death, that might actually be preferable.

I don’t want some half-hearted punishment.

I even found myself desperately wishing that they would just snuff out this miserable life of mine—one that hangs between life and death—all at once.

So, I humbly steadied my breathing and waited for their words.

As wild speculations ran rampant, the room fell as silent as if it were floating in a vacuum.

Aside from the sound of Laveli beside me loudly gulping down her saliva, not a single sound…

To the point where nothing else could be heard.

“Princess Titania Medville de Rostepet…….”

“I have done nothing wrong.”

It was then.

Laveli, who had been anxiously biting her nails while staring at the grave-looking people beside her, threw herself flat on the floor before them.

“And who are you?”

As if the mere act of finishing her sentence annoyed her, the woman standing at the very front furrowed her brow of her own accord.

However, as if she had been waiting for this moment, Laveli opened her pitiful mouth.

“I have absolutely nothing to do with this princess. I am merely someone who was punished and sent down here. So please, do not associate me with that princess. It is not my fault that the princess vomited blood and ruined His Majesty’s clothes. So…… so.”

You wicked…… X.

She spoke so quickly that for a moment, I thought she was spitting a rapid-fire rap.

The sheer speed with which she declared her utter lack of connection to me was astonishing.

Yeah, Laveli. I knew you would be like this from the very beginning.

But I don’t even get angry at situations like this anymore.

Because I had expected this to some extent from the moment the women in front entered the room.

Given Laveli’s personality, I had already anticipated that she would beg for forgiveness to save her own skin before any punishment was even handed down, so it wasn’t surprising.

And it was around then that the faces of the women who had been looking at Laveli with uncomfortable expressions brightened.

“What is your name?”

“I am Laveli. You must be Lady Rosanne, the head maid of the Empire, correct?”

“Yes. I’m glad you recognize me. Laveli. So, are you saying right now that you have absolutely nothing to do with Princess Titania? Is that what you meant?”

“Yes! I have absolutely nothing to do with her.”

There wasn’t a trace of hesitation.

Laveli answered immediately, as if she had been waiting for that very question.

A sigh escaped my lips on its own, but I held back my emotions as best I could and looked at them.

That’s right.

At least you should live.

Until you smear shit all over the walls.

Smear it until it gets stuck to your head and you die of shit poisoning.

This is all the curse I can manage.

Struggling not to reveal my emotions any further, I closed my eyes and waited for them to continue.

Will Laveli live now, while I die?

Just as that thought crossed my mind, the voice of the woman named Rosanne grew much more…

Her voice brightened.

“Well, that works out perfectly.”

Huh? What works out perfectly?

Because she had said something incomprehensible, I momentarily opened my eyes and looked at her.

It felt as though my eyes had darted quickly for the first time.

“Pardon?”

“Because there aren’t many girls who would want to become the Princess’s exclusive maid.”

“An exclusive maid?”

Laveli’s face turned even more ashen than before.

* * *

My own face naturally hardened as I watched Rosanne speak words I could not comprehend.

The heavy, oppressive air lightened in an instant.

The atmosphere shifted abruptly.

Even though Laveli wore an expression that clearly showed she had no idea what was going on, Rosanne ignored her, brushed right past, and approached me.

With hair that bordered on blonde…

The moment our eyes met, the woman put on a gentle expression and bowed her head toward me.

“His Majesty the Emperor has bestowed an imperial palace upon Princess Titania.”

“An imperial palace…?”

“Not only that, but he has also granted you the name ‘Odebloom’—a name that can only be held by the single royal chosen by the sun, the most special of all.”

“Odebloom!”

Laveli, who had been diligently answering the woman’s words in my stead, suddenly…

Her face turned deathly pale in an instant.

Laveli was so shocked that she seemed ready to collapse on the spot, struck utterly speechless.

Meanwhile, the women smiled at me.

I had been silently watching them like a mere spectator.

Now, I pulled my gaze away from them and stared up at the ceiling.

My head began to throb on its own.

A special person. The sun’s chosen one. The one and only royal.

And what on earth is “Odebloom”?

Ha.

Just hearing those words gives me the distinct feeling that I will never live a comfortable life.

It does.

I quietly closed my eyes.

Since I’m a body destined to die anyway, what need do I have for such titles?

Had I not been in pain, I might have actually liked it.

After all, I would have caught the Emperor’s eye and been able to live a noble life.

By anyone’s standards, a palace being bestowed upon me and suddenly receiving a strange title was no different from the Emperor declaring he would no longer abandon me.