Chapter 11
The Emperor used to speak to the tearful Titania with a benevolent air.
‘Titania. My little bird. Who doesn’t know that the second son of that house has such a temperament? You, a noble lady, must be the one to bear it.’
Noble lady, my foot.
He meant, ‘You, Titania, who are “more” easy to push around, should just suck it up.’
Anyway, to summarize, Lisianthus was the one person Titania—everyone else’s little brat—could rarely best, leaving her stomping her feet in frustration.
In truth, if the Duchy intended to deceive everyone into thinking that <Wrath of Flamberge> was a special magic sword presented by the County of Orland anyway…
It would have been much more aesthetically pleasing to have June, the eldest daughter of the Orland family, dance with Lisianthus, the second son.
No matter how nominal it was, Raymon had a fiancée, while Lisianthus did not.
So why did Raymon have to be the one to dance?
Well, that was because…
Lisianthus’s reputation was truly, truly at rock bottom.
‘I heard Lord Lisianthus burned down an entire table!’
‘Goodness, to bring a sword inside the banquet hall.’
‘I suppose even the great Duchy can’t succeed with all their children.’
‘It’s rude of me to say, but given the late Duchess’s background….’
‘Even so, Young Duke Raymon is so exceptional….’
It was a reputation so notorious that even Titania, who was practically the outcast of the Imperial Family and hadn’t even made her debut, could hear such gossip at the Imperial Palace New Year’s banquet!
So bad that if he were made to dance with a lady just making her debut, that lady’s reputation would be ruined!
So bad that it wouldn’t make sense to designate him as a partner while offering such a precious sword!
Titania was just as infamous for her frequent tantrums despite having neither talent nor backing.
But Titania, at the very least, knew how to grovel before those higher than her. Besides, she was never invited to important events in the first place.
This fellow Lisianthus, however, picked fights with the strong and was merciless to the weak. In a sense, one could call him consistent.
“I heard you went crazy after getting hit by this?”
Exactly! He was the kind of person whose first words to someone rumored to have come back from the dead were, ‘I heard you went crazy.’
As if he’d heard what I said to Raymon, he had actually picked up a branch from the yew tree below the second-floor balcony and was now waving it mockingly before my eyes.
I had to use every ounce of strength to keep from dropping the teacup in my hand.
“Oh, this burns quite well.”
Using his ability, Lisianthus set the branch in his hand ablaze and murmured as if surprised.
“Cassian was foaming at the mouth, so I thought the Imperial Family was secretly growing the World Tree or something. It’s just a normal tree! Tsk, boring.”
No, for f—’s sake.
What I wanted was… you know, just a competent guard who could kill anyone coming for my head at night.
A guard who could protect me if I snuck out of the Imperial Palace. That kind of capable escort.
If one requests a maid and an escort knight at this timing, the purpose is obvious, isn’t it? I asked for a 24-hour close-protection bodyguard and an errand runner, so why?
Why did you send me a lunatic who plays with fire inside the Imperial Palace, Duke?
Is this your way of saying that since I’ve been a brat to your precious son all this time, and you’ve fulfilled the terms of the deal, I’m on my own now?
“…….”
I took slow, deep breaths as I watched the flames flickering in front of my nose. In, out, in, out. It’s okay. It’s okay. Let’s consider his mental age. Let’s consider this karma for my past. I can endure….
“What? You don’t like it? If you don’t like playing with fire indoors, should I turn this place into the outdoors for you?”
…I can’t endure this!
I kicked back my chair and stood up, pouring the contents of the teacup—which I had been gripping as part of my patience training—straight onto the burning branch.
Sploosh!
Doused in a shower of fragrant tea, the flames on the branch vanished.
The Mad Dog of the Castline family, who didn’t seem to care whether the tea splashed on his clothes or not, spoke with a bewildered face.
“…Huh? Why did it go out?”
“…It’s only natural for it to go out when you pour water on fire, isn’t it?”
“No, you….”
“It’s very basic common sense! Lord Lisianthus! Oh my, what a joke! If anyone saw this, they’d think the great Castline Duchy doesn’t even know basic common sense!”
Haha, hohoho. Only my hollow laughter, directed at my prospective ‘younger brother-in-law,’ echoed in the air.
Lisianthus looked back and forth between me and the extinguished branch with an expression that suggested something was profoundly wrong.
Then, watching me coolly refill my empty cup with fresh tea, he narrowed his eyes as if realizing something.
“…I thought this crazy b*tch was up to some new scheme to mess with my brother.”
Before Lisianthus could spit out any more insults, I cut him off.
“Lord Lis-ian-thus. Titania hasn’t recovered her health yet, so it’s ve-ry, ve-ry hard for her to host guests for long~!”
Phew. I made a show of wiping a non-existent sweat from my forehead and let out an exaggerated sigh.
Blinking my eyelids, I leaned back into the chair, adding commentary like, ‘Oh, I’m so dizzy, so dizzy~.’
At that, a look of bewilderment crossed Lisianthus’s confident face.
Of course. Until now, Titania would have honestly gnashed her teeth and stomped her feet in a fit of temper before him.
She had never acted with such loathsome feigned ignorance. Even without looking at his wavering red eyes, I could read his mind.
‘What? What’s wrong with this crazy b*tch this time?’
I wanted to reflect that right back at him. You’re the crazy one, you lunatic.
“Besides, playing with fire in the drawing room. Oh my, how scary~. If a spark were to fly outside and burn down the entire garden, I would be so terrified. A fire in the historic Imperial Palace!”
My words were a prophecy.
Titania might have been a brat, but she was a pathetic one because she lacked ability.
But this guy? He actually sets fire to the Imperial Palace later when he fights with the Imperial Family.
Fundamentally, Lisianthus hid the fact that his mastery over fire came from awakening his ‘Divine Power.’
He used to feign innocence, claiming, ‘This is all the power of a highly capable magic sword.’
Then, at the very end, when those lunatics touched his precious younger sister, and his brother and father proclaimed that he ‘no longer needed to hold back,’ he truly went wild in the Imperial Palace.
What was it again? They said the color of the flames he could use changed as he awakened? The names were different too?
The weakest was the red flame, the middle stage was the white flame, and the final stage was the blue flame.
In particular, once it reached the level of blue flames fueled by his concentrated power, they said it could never be extinguished by natural means.
Someone with a similar level of ‘power’ had to come and manually neutralize it. Thanks to that, half of the Imperial Palace burned to a crisp without anyone being able to lift a finger.
Adrian had to hold his coronation ceremony on top of the ashes of the incinerated palace.
Well, that’s a future matter.
“Did Duke Castline send Lord Lisianthus here to ‘find out whether Princess Titania has truly lost her mind or not’?”
While waiting for an answer, I figured there was no point in being polite when Raymon wasn’t around, so I relaxed my posture and leaned way back against the chair.
Then, I simply reached out, picked up a scone with my bare hands, and began nibbling on it.
Lisianthus looked at me with an absurd expression as I nibbled the hard scone with my front teeth like a squirrel before even hearing his answer.
“…What? What are you actually doing? Using honorifics you never used before, and acting like some kind of ruffian….”
Tell me about it….
Forget something like <The Baby Lady is the Little Treasure of the Villainous Duchy>. How great would it have been if I were in a novel like <I Woke Up as the World’s Greatest SSS-Class Ruffian with a Golden Umbilical Cord?!>.
You can’t even pull off being a ruffian without a proper background. If you’re a measly supporting character like Titania, well….
I muttered as I spat out a raisin from the scone.
“Or did you come to conduct a smooth ignition experiment within the Imperial Palace? As a future arsonist?”
“Why would I set fire to the palace?”
Despite having just talked about turning the Rose Palace’s interior into the outdoors, Lisianthus shouted back as if he were being wronged.
However, the way his face twitched subtly suggested he might have at least entertained the thought of burning the palace down.
Lisianthus scowled as he watched me chew the scone with the leisurely attitude of a sloth. Then, he tossed aside the extinguished branch and pulled something from his coat, thrusting it toward me.
It was a thin paper envelope.
“…Father sent this.”
I was about to reach for it with my hand still covered in scone crumbs, but then I wiped my hand on the tablecloth and took the envelope.
The look in Lisianthus’s eyes grew even stranger as he watched me.
Regardless of what he thought, I poured the contents of the envelope out onto the tablecloth. And then, I froze.
“…….”
A black card exquisitely engraved with gold foil depicting three snakes and a laurel wreath.
A small bronze badge featuring two crossed swords over a shield.
And a thick silver ring, devoid of patterns but covered in tiny scratches from years of use.
To an outsider, these items would seem to have no connection whatsoever. But….
I stared down at them for a long time, unable to say a word.
