Chapter 2
In the novel, Bibi was a regressor. Though her body was that of a child, her mental age was not. So naturally, she would understand exactly what I meant by those words.
In that problematic original story, even when faced with someone who had tried to kill her, she had said they should spare such a small fry since the real mastermind was someone else anyway.
Well… although there was no specific mention of what happened to her after Princess Titania was locked in the North Tower in the original, it was unlikely that those around Bibi who loved her so dearly would have let a princess, essentially abandoned by the Imperial Family, live in peace.
She probably died without a sound, one way or another. I spoke with a heart full of various emotions.
“Thank you.”
“…….”
“But it’s alright.”
I understood the despair the original Titania must have felt while facing Bibi.
A young lady loved by everyone.
A young lady who could have anything.
A little girl who could obtain everything she ever wanted without even lifting a finger.
A girl cherished and loved like a treasure by everyone in the Duchy of Castline, a family famous for being terrifying and cold-blooded.
Just looking at her must have triggered a sense of inferiority. Especially since Young Duke Raymon, who looked at Titania as if she were a bug, doted on Bibi as if she were a sugar cookie that might melt in the rain.
But still.
“You should worry about Young Duke Raymon’s well-being more than mine, Bibi.”
“……Big brother?”
Bibi, who had been quietly accepting my hand stroking her hair, had a subtle change in her eyes.
“Yes, Bibi. He’s a Castline, so you don’t need to worry too much… but if we break off the engagement now, he’ll be able to meet someone better before it’s too late. We’ve dragged this out for too long.”
Both Raymon and I were already nearly twenty. The original plot had already deviated to some extent.
Far from killing Bibi, I had actually saved her life once, so I wouldn’t fall into ruin and be imprisoned as miserably as in the original. Still, I felt bad about blocking the marriage prospects of another family’s son who had such a bright future ahead of him.
“…….”
I tried to soothe Bibi, who was looking at me with puffed cheeks and eyes full of discontent.
“I’m really okay, Bibi. I am the only Imperial Princess of the Empire, after all.”
And if the Emperor really intended to sell me off as a second wife to some pot-bellied foreign royalty, I had already devised a way to make a proper escape….
In fact, breaking the engagement was a prerequisite for that.
I didn’t want to get involved with the Castline family any further and cause trouble for Bibi. So, as much as I felt sorry for the worried Bibi, the midnight flight operation was a secret even from her.
Actually, rather than a midnight flight, it was more of a ‘faking my own death’ operation….
Well. Wouldn’t it be clean and nice if I just disappeared under the guise of death? Bibi might be a little sad, though.
—…Do not apologize to me.
Suddenly, I remembered a man looking at me with eyes like melting stars. He looked hurt, and perhaps afraid. Maybe it was both.
In any case, to that man, I was likely a symbol of misfortune rather than luck.
—Why are you apologizing for something like this? I am the one who put you in danger! Why do you do nothing but smile and say it’s fine because you saved someone else?
As I recalled that voice pleading with me through clenched teeth, my chest felt a faint ache.
But well. He was a man with an extreme sense of responsibility, and he felt he owed me a debt.
However, the engagement was about to end, and I no longer needed Raymon’s protection.
All that would be left was for us to cleanly live our separate lives.
You can’t bring a dead person back to life, right? There was no way that cold Young Duke Raymon would obsess over a relationship with a dead ex-fiancée.
He’d find someone new.
“So, shall we have some dessert now? Hmm? I prepared this specially since it’s been a while since Bibi visited.”
“…Alright.”
I simply gave a bright smile to Bibi, who rolled her eyes dissatisfiedly but did not refuse the fork I handed her.
“Liar.”
Inside the carriage returning to the Duke’s residence, Bibi muttered in a voice thick with resentment. She was preciousy clutching the tart box the Princess had given her as a gift.
“How can she say it’s fine because she’s the only Imperial Princess! She doesn’t even think that herself!”
Bibi’s loyal maid, Lucy, spoke as she tidied Bibi’s disheveled hair.
“It is because she is worried about you, Lady Bibi.”
“…If the engagement is broken now, there really is no way to protect unnie. Does she really think it’s okay to be sold off to a foreign country? Of course, I won’t let that happen, but….”
The girl, who had been chattering away with worry, suddenly paused.
Maybe she really didn’t care.
If it was the Titania she had come to know.
Bibi, who had experienced a miserable death and regressed to enter the Ducal family as an adopted daughter, had vowed to change everything.
However, Titania, the Imperial Princess famous for her arrogance, was not included in that plan.
At least, that was the case originally.
Until five years ago, when she accidentally ran into her at the Imperial Palace and fell into the palace maze.
Originally, she had intended to find a hidden Imperial relic near the maze. A relic that no one in the Imperial Family remembered anymore.
She had tried to take it secretly when no one was around because it would be troublesome if someone asked about the source of her information. It was an item that could be taken even if one wasn’t of Imperial blood.
But something went wrong, a trap was triggered, and she fell into the legendary underground maze of the Imperial Palace.
If Titania hadn’t rushed out from somewhere and shielded Bibi, she might have died right then and there.
Even as her limbs were bitten and torn by the demon beast guarding the maze, Titania smiled with a pale face.
That demon beast basically wouldn’t attack those of Imperial blood unless provoked. If she had ignored Bibi, Titania would have been safe. Yet, Titania protected Bibi.
She held the child’s body tightly and wouldn’t let go until the demon beast, growling for the intruder in her arms and snapping its teeth while looking for an opening, finally retreated.
Titania had smiled with bloodless lips, saying that people would come soon and not to cry.
—You have to go back to the people who love you, Bibi.
Then, what about you?
While soothing the child frozen in instinctive terror with hands cold from losing too much blood, Titania left behind her final words.
Yes, they were final words.
Princess Titania was….
Her voice sounded as if she didn’t expect to survive at all. If Bibi had truly been just a child, she might not have known, but Bibi had already lived a life, died, and regressed.
She had witnessed the deaths of many. She knew when people made that kind of voice.
When they had resigned themselves to everything.
That was when they made such a voice. A voice terribly quiet and calm.
Why are you doing this here? Why are you saying that? To me?
—I’m okay. …Now, Young Duke Raymon will be alright, too.
Upon realizing that, Bibi felt a bit stunned.
This person really thinks it’s okay to die like this.
Even if she died…. It wouldn’t be a problem.
Because once the troublemaker fiancée was dead, Young Duke Raymon would be at peace as well.
Something seemed to surge up hotly in her chest.
—…That’s not true.
So Bibi grabbed that pale hand and cried out.
—I, I am not okay! I haven’t even repaid my life-saver yet, so I can’t let you go like this!
Titania’s hands were small.
Compared to her brothers, compared to her father, and compared to the hands of people Bibi had held until now, they were too small.
They were hands barely large enough to wrap around the young Bibi’s hands.
Ah, I see. Bibi realized. This person is only fifteen years old.
Yet, in this vast Imperial Palace, there wasn’t a single person who loved or worried about Princess Titania.
—I, I am a daughter of the Castline family. We never forget a debt or a grudge; we must pay them back.
Bibi suppressed the feeling of bursting into tears.
The Princess Titania that Bibi had known before her regression was arrogant and haughty.
She had high pride, was a bundle of inferiority complexes, and couldn’t let go of her obsession with Raymon. She was the laughingstock of everyone, with people saying they wished she acted even half as good as she looked.
To think such a being was her big brother’s fiancée even after she returned. To be honest, she hadn’t liked it. Since her brother didn’t like her either, she had intended to find a way to break the engagement.
But….
—Where in the world is there a person whose death is okay?
To say Young Duke Raymon would be alright.
Even though he was her beloved big brother, for this moment, she felt a brief resentment toward him.
She is still his fiancée.
No matter how forced the engagement was. Couldn’t he have treated her a bit more kindly?
If he had, …then even after risking her life to save her beloved fiancé’s younger sister, she wouldn’t have calmly said that her fiancé would be at peace once she was dead.
At those words from Bibi, Titania, who had paused for a moment, gave a faint laugh. It was a sorrowful smile, like a withered spring flower.
—…Yes, thank you.
That face, so ethereal it seemed it might vanish at any moment.
Just thinking about that time still made Bibi anxious. Even during tea time just now, she had soothed Bibi, who was begging her not to break the engagement, with exactly that kind of smile!
“…That idiot big brother!”
At Bibi’s sudden outburst of anger, her escort knight Killian, who was sitting beside her, spoke up.
“Young Duke Raymon’s personality is a bit like that.”
“I’m sure big brother likes Tia unnie too!”
“I suppose he must.”
“If he likes her, he should express it! Instead of only caring about things like limiting my snacks to three chocolates a day so my teeth don’t rot!”
“That’s why he frequents Princess Titania’s palace to eat desserts. Everyone knows the Princess went through a lot of trouble to scout a talented pâtissier and have them settle in the Rose Palace for that reason.”
“Uuuu.”
The dejected Bibi rubbed her cheek against the surface of the tart box in her arms. Before the paper box could collapse, Lucy skillfully rescued it from Bibi’s embrace.
Looking at the confiscated box with a tearful face, Bibi was suddenly struck by a strange thought.
Come to think of it, when exactly did the ‘arrogant’ Princess Titania start changing like that?
Bibi slowly retraced her memories.
Let’s see, surely….
Was that also about five years ago?
It was after that problematic ‘accident’ where Princess Titania was said to have almost died.
