Chapter 1
To sum up the situation I was currently in, it was this.
“From a third party’s perspective… you could say it’s extremely entertaining.”
I glared at Noah in disbelief.
“I’m not in the mood for jokes right now.”
“I’m not joking either. Honestly, try thinking of it as someone else’s business. How entertaining is this? The legendary couple who once had the entire social circle betting on whether they would elope are now engaged in a battle of pride ten years later, each with a different lover!”
“…Don’t tell me they’ve started another betting pool.”
When I asked with a sinking feeling, Noah subtly averted his gaze. That alone was answer enough.
This damn high society had reverted to its old habits and transformed itself into one enormous gambling den once again.
“Hey!”
“I bet on you, Young Lady.”
“What’s the bet about? The actual subject!”
“Which of the two will regret it first.”
“……”
So betting on me meant betting that I would be the first to regret letting go of Richard.
Noah met my gaze, gave me a benevolent smile as if to say that was exactly right, and promptly started running away.
“Noah Bellua, stop right there!”
I chased after him, gritting my teeth, remembering the day when all of this had begun.
The story goes back several months.
The sudden death of the Duke of Bellua.
The emotion I felt the moment I heard of my father’s death was emptiness.
Not grief, but the hollow feeling of watching a tower you had painstakingly built collapse.
“Hah. We were so close to seeing it through. What are we going to do?”
Even Noah, who asked that question, showed no sorrow for the head of the family who had died only a few hours ago.
Neither did I.
There had never been any affection between father and daughter, and the only things he had left behind were piles of garbage. There was no reason for me to be sad.
“We need to protect the title first.”
“Still, shouldn’t we investigate? He didn’t have any chronic illness. It’s possible the Crown Prince noticed something and had a hand in it.”
“They said it was acute cardiac arrest.”
“What about his fingertips? They had turned black and withered.”
Why was he acting like he didn’t know any better?
“Noah, even if Father was murdered, he died of cardiac arrest.”
Only then did Noah seem to realize what I meant, nodding his head.
“That’s true. If it were revealed to be murder, the ledgers might get dragged out along with everything else.”
“Exactly. Father died of acute cardiac arrest. His blackened, withered fingertips were a side effect of the medication he had already been taking. And as for Damon…”
I trailed off and picked up today’s issue of Trouble-Troubled Love from the bedside table.
[Trouble-Troubled Love]
Its full name was written in elaborate cursive.
But everyone simply called it Trouble Love, the greatest gossip magazine in the Empire.
True to its name, Trouble Love was filled with all sorts of incidents and scandals related to love.
And the man whose name appeared in it almost every day was Damon Filiard, known as the Empire’s next sun.
I held up the glossy face plastered across today’s front page for Noah to see.
“If he’s going around like this while knowing that Father has been siphoning money from his private treasury, then he shouldn’t be the Crown Prince. He should become an actor.”
[No reader is unaware that a courtesan who falls outside the halo of the Empire’s next sun cannot expect her worth to be recognized. In that sense, Rowan’s Flower is a woman who is expected, this time more than ever, to finally claim her place beside the sun…]
The rest of the article was filled with one long expression of concern and worry over me.
They were basically having a grand time tearing me apart while pretending to worry about what would happen if Damon abandoned me.
As if anyone would think I was begging Damon not to leave me.
Noah nodded in agreement.
“There’s no way all that womanizing is an act. I really don’t understand why he replaces them every time a new courtesan appears. If he’s going to have two women at once, why not just stick with one? He’s acting like a migratory bird.”
“Maybe it’s his hobby.”
“That man with the disgusting hobby happens to be your lover, Young Lady.”
I recoiled at the horrifying relationship description.
“Don’t say something like that even as a joke. He and I have a contractual relationship based on mutual necessity.”
“Everyone else firmly believes the two of you will eventually get married. What difference does it make if you’re the only one insisting otherwise?”
“My feelings. My heart. Everything, for that matter!”
“Yes, yes. Whether it’s a contractual relationship or a romantic one, if you don’t want to be misunderstood any further, please break up with him as soon as possible. If he wants to smear dirt all over someone, he should do it to the Imperial Family. Why does Bellua have to get dragged into it too? My troubles are endless.”
Anyone listening would think Noah was the one dating Damon.
“Anyway, there’s no way Damon knows his private treasury is being drained. He’s not that smart.”
“That’s true. Either way, this has become troublesome. You spent ten years working toward this, and now things have ended up like this.”
Indeed.
Damon wasn’t the important matter right now.
“The damage has already been done, so we need to clean it up. Hurry with the funeral preparations. Let’s secure the title first.”
“…Are you serious? If you do that, all the money the previous head of the family embezzled will become your responsibility.”
“That’s a problem for later. Right now, the title comes first.”
Noah’s face twisted at my words.
It was almost as if I could hear him asking whether I intended to destroy myself.
Maybe I did.
I had started this with my own hands, so I should be the one to finish it, too.
I had no regrets.
There was only one thing I regretted.
Like everyone else, I too had something I wanted to do once everything was over.
There was someone I wanted to find.
No matter how far away he was, even if he absolutely refused to see me, I wanted to go to him and tell him I was sorry.
That none of it had been sincere.
I had—
I, too…
…had.
I had wanted to say it.
But at this rate, it was a dream that could never come true.
Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. Richard will never know.
I forcibly shook off my lingering feelings.
Come to think of it, I doubted that man even remembered me anymore.
Perhaps it would be better to simply disappear like this rather than seek out someone who had probably forgotten someone like me long ago and stir up his life again.
It’s already been ten years.
Waaaah! Wooow!
Just as I was trying to shake off the last remnants of my feelings, a commotion erupted outside the window.
“What’s that noise?”
I asked in surprise at the roar, which sounded like hundreds of people cheering.
Noah visibly began to panic.
“Is this really the time to worry about that? It’s not as if the capital being noisy is anything new.”
“…Something feels suspicious. Tell me honestly. Are you hiding something from me?”
“Me? From you, Young Lady? Why would I?”
He was definitely acting suspiciously.
I strode across the study.
Noah shouted something behind me and hurried after me, but I didn’t even look back as I threw open the window.
And then—
“Extra! Extra! The Hero of the North returns with the dead princess! The Hero of the North is returning with the princess!!”
The Hero of the North?
“The Sword of the North! The Shield of the North! Richard! Richard!”
Amid the crowd’s shouting, I heard a familiar name.
The instant I heard the name I had only repeated inside my heart, I was dragged back into the distant past.
A clear, innocent face that used to smile so simply.
A gaze filled with affection, and a body that always leaned toward me.
And the eighteen-year-old boy who would quietly listen to everything I said for an hour, two hours, however long it took, smiling at me.
I clenched my teeth and turned my head away.
Ah.
As expected.
Noah was avoiding my gaze with an expression full of dismay.
Which meant he had known about all of this.
“…Noah Bellua. When did you find out about this?”
“…I received an urgent report early this morning.”
“So, it really is Richard?”
“According to what I confirmed, yes. Apparently, he’s made quite a name for himself in the North over the past several years.”
I knew.
“They say he protected the border from monsters and became known as the Shield of the North.”
I knew that, too.
“And then a year ago, he killed the Monster King and became known as the Sword of the North, or something like that. How can one person be both a sword and a shield? There’s such a thing as being contradictory. It’s ridiculous.”
“Then I suppose his skills must be that extraordinary.”
For some reason, Noah raised the corners of his eyes.
“…Don’t tell me you haven’t gotten over him?”
“Me? Who? Richard? Ha! You seem to have forgotten, but I was the one who dumped him.”
I deliberately raised my voice to hide my embarrassment.
I was the one who had dumped him, not the other way around.
Who could possibly be hung up on whom?
Noah folded his arms and slowly looked me up and down.
It was an incredibly insolent gaze.
What? Why are you looking at me like that? What exactly do you think you can accomplish by staring at me? Do you think that will change the fact that I dumped Richard?
As far as the outside world was concerned, I had never once been the weaker party in this relationship.
As if he had read my thoughts, Noah shrugged.
“Yes. You certainly did.”
Then he snickered.
“Though I have no idea which noble lady it was who locked herself in her room and cried for three days and three nights after telling him they should break up.”
“……”
This was why you should never have a cousin as your friend.
When the man shared your blood and knew every detail of your past, there was no way to win an argument with him.
“Anyway, I’ll distribute the death notices before that man takes all the attention.”
“Are you competing with him or something?”
Noah sighed deeply with an expression that suggested I was missing something and shook his head.
“Just trust me.”
…What exactly was I supposed to trust him about?
Noah kept his word.
In other words, he distributed the death notices at lightning speed.
And the result went in a completely different direction from what I had expected.
My father had been a truly despicable man.
He had long since abandoned his territory to fend for itself while obsessively clinging to the idea of marrying into the Imperial Family.
Not only had he tormented my mother for failing to give him a son until she ultimately took her own life—
He had even siphoned off Imperial funds behind the family’s back, putting the entire household in jeopardy, and then died.
So it wasn’t particularly surprising that no one mourned his death.
“Does everyone really have nothing better to do?”
Then why?
I looked outside from the window, my face pale with disbelief.
“Or did they mistake today for a banquet…?”
Why on earth were people from families I hadn’t even sent death notices to coming here?
