RTWE CH 03

“…Your Highness, surely you don’t mean that you’re taking us to the North?”

Unlike the capital, the center of sophisticated culture, the North was an extremely dangerous place.

She was really going to take them to a place that was invaded by monsters almost every day?

“Why ‘surely’? I’m serious.”

“Your Highness, do you really think that’s possible?”

“Then surely His Majesty the Emperor wouldn’t refuse to grant his younger sister one last wish before she leaves the Imperial Palace, would he?”

It was common for a princess leaving for another land because of marriage to take her personal maids with her.

Since it would be troublesome if they started making a fuss about wanting to die again, the Emperor would probably grant such a small request.

The moment the three women realized this, the color drained from their faces. Lumiere casually swept her indifferent gaze over them.

After all, once she left the Imperial Palace, she would never have to see them again.

She didn’t remember their names, nor did she have any desire to know them.

In her mind, she simply classified them as Maid No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3, then pointed at Maid No. 1, the one who had dared to speak to her most insolently.

“Will you come with me?”

“Pardon…?”

“Judging by how bold you were just now, you seem like someone who would adapt quickly even in an unfamiliar place.”

“…Your Highness, wouldn’t it be more beneficial for Your Highness to take someone trustworthy with you, especially when going somewhere unfamiliar?”

“Who knows? I’m going to die sooner or later anyway, so what help could you possibly be? As long as I have a companion to walk with me to the afterlife, I don’t care who it is.”

“Your Highness, what do you mean, you’re going to die? How could you say something so dreadful…!”

“Didn’t you say I was going to die soon anyway?”

“Th-that was…!”

She slowly looked over the three women whose faces had gone pale and asked,

“So, what are you going to do? Will you follow me?”

The first to back down was No. 1.

“Y-Your Highness, please withdraw your order! I’m afraid such an important duty is far too much for me to handle.”

“Then who will come with me?”

Would there really be anyone willing to volunteer to travel to a frontier that was threatened by monsters every single day?

“……”

“……”

“……”

As expected.

All three women fell into an awkward silence, avoiding her gaze.

“To think the loyalty of my maids amounts to nothing more than this…”

Her voice trailed off as though she were deeply disappointed, and the maids immediately fell to their knees.

“Your Highness, we will serve you with even greater sincerity than we have until now and make up for all the ways we have been disloyal to you. Please, Your Highness, calm your anger.”

“Please forgive us…!”

After all the years she had been persecuted, these women had the nerve to think they could get away with everything for free.

“Don’t try to take credit for something that should be expected of you. You need to show me some actual sincerity.”

“What do you mean, Your Highness…?”

“I mean you should return everything you’ve been taking from my palace all this time.”

“What? How could we ever dare to take the Imperial Princess’s belongings for ourselves?”

“That’s right! Please, Your Highness, you must be mistaken!”

They lied without even blinking.

Why else would her palace be so bare?

The budget allocated to Viola Palace was already ridiculously low, but anything of value that could be sold had been stolen by these women.

It would be rather unfair to simply leave without doing anything, so she intended to make them return everything they had gotten their hands on over the years.

“I’ll take two of the three of you with me. Which one of you receives my mercy will depend entirely on your own efforts, so go ahead and try your best.”

She turned around decisively, as if refusing to accept any objections.

Despair spread across the maids’ faces.

A group of men riding sturdy warhorses escorted a crude carriage as they entered the city.

Their appearances varied like those of wandering mercenaries, but their disciplined movements were far more befitting of soldiers.

Clatter.

They slowly traveled along the wide road before stopping in front of a relatively large building.

A large, blond-haired man opened the carriage door.

“Your Highness, they say there are rooms available. Shall we unpack your luggage and then go straight to the tailor’s?”

Brian von Walton.

A man who stood beside Axid on the battlefield and assisted him with his administrative affairs at the castle.

He was the commander of the knights and also served as the Grand Duke’s advisor, making him one of the most capable men in the North.

“…We’re on our way to bring back the Grand Duchess. I suppose I should at least make an effort to look presentable.”

“Indeed. First impressions tend to last a long time, after all.”

At that moment, a red-haired man cut in with a sharp, slightly sullen voice.

“Your Highness, whether you dress up or not, we’re savages in the eyes of those Imperial bastards anyway. Do you really think the princess will be any different?”

“Kaiden, what kind of way is that to speak to His Highness?”

“I’m not exactly wrong, am I?”

Lumiere von Wiezer.

The young Emperor’s half-sister and the shame of the Wiezer Imperial Family.

She was infamous for being unbelievably foolish and so ugly that she was difficult to look at.

As if that weren’t enough, she had caused quite a stir in high society with her extravagant unrequited love.

Eventually, she had even become a laughingstock after attempting to take her own life over a man.

A marriage proposal involving such a princess was nothing short of an insult to the Grand Duchy, which had spent generations defending the North from monster invasions.

“Anyway, I can’t accept this. Of all people, they expect us to take the princess as the Grand Duchess? How could that possibly make sense?”

Axid, who had been listening silently, asked,

“Why doesn’t it make sense?”

“That’s because…!”

“Even the women of the Grand Duchy don’t want to become the Grand Duchess. A princess of the Empire is more than I could ask for.”

“……!”

Since ancient times, daughters of noble families who received marriage proposals from the Grand Ducal family had either fled in the middle of the night or rejected the proposal by hastily marrying someone else.

Whenever they gave birth to a child, they all died within a year, as if they had made some sort of pact.

What woman would willingly want to become the Grand Duchess?

Thus, throughout the generations, marriages involving the Grand Duke could only be arranged when families hungry for power or buried in debt offered up their daughters.

Axid’s mother had married under the same circumstances, and, just as expected, she died after giving birth to him.

There were rumors that the heir would be murdered, or that any woman who carried the bloodline of the Grand Ducal family would be cursed.

No one wanted to become the subject of such ominous rumors that were at least partly based on fact.

“Your Highness, any woman who believes in nothing more than a superstition like that doesn’t deserve to become the Grand Duchess in the first place. If we look hard enough, there must surely be women who don’t believe in such nonsense…”

“Enough. I don’t want to hear any more.”

Axid silenced him in a cold voice.

The rumors and ghost stories circulating among the people were by no means baseless nonsense.

His subordinates dismissed the deaths of the previous Grand Duchesses—each of whom had died for different reasons, whether illness or accidents—as nothing more than unfortunate coincidences.

But the deaths suffered by the Grand Duchesses who had produced heirs…

That was an inevitable consequence of giving birth to children carrying the cursed bloodline.

That filthy instinct that returned every year, an uncontrollable, bestial urge, was proof that the curse truly existed.

“Then just tell the princess to make her own way there.”

“Going to receive the Grand Duchess is a tradition of the Grand Ducal family and the duty of our lord. It’s not your place to interfere.”

“She isn’t even from the Grand Duchy. Why do we have to go this far?”

As the two began arguing again, Axid released a chilling aura.

“You’re being noisy.”

Silence fell all around them.

A coldness so eerie that it made the backs of their necks prickle.

Even the knights, who were accustomed to fighting close to death, instinctively shrank back from the oppressive presence.

Faced with the heavy warning, Kaiden finally shut his mouth with a disgruntled expression, and Axid withdrew his gaze.

The Imperial Family’s attitude, along with his subordinates’ opposition…

Just as he had expected, this was going to be an irritating marriage with far too many things to worry about.

And yet, perhaps because it was the first time in his life that he was about to get married, his heart felt strangely restless.

But by now, the princess was probably trembling in fear and despair.

“……”

He smiled bitterly and tried to calm his unsettled feelings.

The position of Grand Duchess had remained vacant for a long time.

The longer the position remained empty, the more ominous rumors spread throughout the North, while the nobles became increasingly persistent in pressuring him.

To silence them, a marriage was necessary, even if it was merely for appearances.

But there was no reason for the princess to worry.

He had no intention of producing an heir.

And the princess was in a miserable position herself, forced to use the institution of marriage as a means of escaping the Imperial Palace.

If they simply negotiated the details of their married life, this marriage could become a ‘transaction’ that satisfied both parties.