And that aligned perfectly with Odette’s intentions.
‘The Emperor is a man made of suspicion. He doesn’t want his own children to stand out.’
The Second Prince must be feeling quite proud of himself for being in the spotlight. He would return to his quarters, toast with his mother, and celebrate having made such a strong impression on his father.
But he was wrong.
The Emperor, sitting on his throne, grew wary of the Second Prince who had so meticulously secured evidence and witnesses. His eldest son had been simple-minded, but the Emperor was now engraving it deep in his mind that his second son knew how to be patient before striking a major blow.
To this Emperor, a child’s competence was poison.
“How old is our son, Empress?”
The Emperor asked. However, he didn’t ask because he was genuinely curious about the Crown Prince’s age, and he finished his thought without waiting for his wife’s reply.
“How do you expect me to strictly discipline a man well over thirty? He is long past the age where he would listen to such things.”
“But, Your Majesty……”
“Enough. If you say one more word about this, you will only increase the severity of the punishment the Crown Prince receives.”
“Your Majesty……!”
“Guards, take the Crown Prince and the Third Princess away. Do not give them time to pack their belongings. Imprison them immediately in the gray palace in the North. No one is to see them, save for the person who delivers their meals.”
The final command fell from the Emperor’s lips. At this, the soldiers seized the Crown Prince by both arms.
Weren’t these the same men who couldn’t even meet the Crown Prince’s eyes just this morning?
Not only were these soldiers daring to lay hands on him, but they were actually attempting to bind him.
Of course, the soldiers were merely following the Emperor’s orders. But the Crown Prince was not one to accept this quietly.
“Your Majesty! Mother! Aagh! This is an injustice! Aagh! You damn bastards! How dare you lay a hand on me!”
As the sturdy adult thrashed about in a frenzy, the expressions of the soldiers only hardened. Realizing that this might not end until dawn, the Emperor issued an additional order.
“From this moment on, I strip the First Prince of his status as Crown Prince. What is the Captain of the Royal Guard doing? You have my permission to use force—take the prisoner away at once!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
With the Emperor’s explicit permission granted, the soldiers had no reason to hesitate. Several of them swarmed the deposed Crown Prince at once, pinning his neck and twisting his arms.
The Empress sobbed into her handkerchief, horrified at the treatment her beloved only son was receiving.
What was the gray palace? It was a fortress in the North where the sun barely reached. It was a place used primarily to confine disgraced royals.
One could say it was a better fate than being formally tried and locked away in the capital’s central prison.
However, the Empress was not confident that her son, who had been treated like absolute royalty since birth, could endure life in confinement.
It was said that the royals who had been imprisoned in the gray palace in the past had taken their own lives for this very reason—they couldn't handle the crushing gap between their pride and their suddenly bleak environment.
“This is a frame-up! You bastard, I’ll have your eyes and tongue ripped out while you’re still alive and cast into hell! Aagh! Let go, let go of me!”
“Oh, my poor son……!”
“Do you not know who I am? Let go! Aagh! Die, all of you die! You paranoid old man, your days are numbered too! When that day comes, you’ll see who the real winner is!”
The Crown Prince finally roared at the Emperor on the throne. To scream such treasonous things when he knew his father’s temperament perfectly well—the son was completely finished. Overcome by extreme despair, the Empress finally fainted.
“Did she really pass out?”
One of the onlookers whispering in the crowd asked.
“Could it be an act? In such a serious situation?”
“Because the situation is serious, she would try to win the Emperor’s sympathy even by acting. The Empress has used the same method to overcome crises several times before. But this time... it looks real.”
While the nobles were whispering, someone spoke to a woman wearing an apron.
“But what is this? I’ve been curious since earlier, but it smells wonderful.”
“Oh…… would you like to try some?”
“May I?”
“Yes, it was originally on its way to the Crown Prince’s palace. But now, there’s no one left to eat it.”
The woman lifted a round silver lid. Starting with the person who had asked first, everyone reached out to grab the cupcakes, which smelled fragrantly of rich butter.
“You there, have one too.”
Marien did not decline. As she bit into the dainty cupcake, sweet milk cream flowed out from the center.
‘So this is the taste of victory.’
Marien walked away, leaving the still-murmuring crowd behind.
Everything was proceeding exactly according to the original story, save for the strangely tangled romantic relationships.
The downfall of the Crown Prince, the Empress, and the Third Princess. Soon, arguments would arise from all sides to seat the Second Prince in the now-vacant position of Crown Prince.
If she had transmigrated into the body of Odette Rose, she would be tearing her hair out in her quarters right now.
Could she have survived in the midst of such a swirling political battle? Even with the protagonist’s privileges, there were limits. Ultimately, one had to be incredibly smart to survive.
She might have become even more frail than she already was due to the immense stress of having to align events with the original story.
‘I’m so lucky.’
The person she had transmigrated into was not Odette, but the insignificant extra aide, Marien Didi.
While the brilliant Odette dealt with her enemies one by one, Marien could just eat the sweet desserts Byleon bought for her and play at love.
Marien let out another sigh of deep relief.
“I wonder if there’s a song called ‘I’m Happy to Be an Extra’? If not, I’ll have to write one.”
As Marien spun around in place, her skirt puffed out in a circle. A cheerful melody came to mind with every step she took. And by the time she reached the end of the hallway, Marien’s humming faded away.
“That incident still…… weighs on my mind.”
If her memory served her correctly, a grand ball would soon be held at the Imperial Palace. To get straight to the point, that was the day Byleon would be stabbed by a dagger while protecting Odette from an assassination squad.
◇ ◆ ◇
The day of the ball.
“He won’t die.”
They hadn’t left the Viers estate yet. Marien muttered to the empty air. She hadn’t counted exactly, but she felt like she was repeating the same words for the 999th time.
“That’s the most important thing. That Byleon won’t die today. Even if he gets stabbed deep in the stomach with a dagger, his life won’t be in danger.”
Wasn't this a common trope in other romance fantasy novels, too? It’s just an episode meant to emphasize the self-sacrificial nature of the second male lead.
Because of this incident, Odette would pour her attention onto the injured Byleon, and her frequent visits would provoke her fiancé, Cain. In the end, poor Byleon was just being used as kindling for the main couple's romance.
From then on, the original story would devote a massive number of pages to showing the swirling possessiveness of that Northern Bastard, Cain.
Byleon would only be mentioned briefly in a servant’s report.
He would recuperate alone, far from the eyes of Odette and the readers, only to reappear much later with the line, “Thank you for your concern. I have already recovered.”
“It breaks my heart, but still, the original story guarantees his life, right? I don’t need to worry in advance.”
Marien suddenly sighed. Now that Cain had declared, “Not the Fourth Princess, but you,” could she still trust the original progression?
Looking at the current situation where the Second Prince was gaining power as the Crown Prince’s faction collapsed, it seemed she could still trust the political events to play out the same way.
“Will Byleon still throw his body to save Odette even though he’s dating me?”
The moment the words left her lips, she realized it was a futile question. Byleon would naturally do so. He was just that kind of person.
Even if Marien were in Odette’s place, or if it were Countess Viers or his younger sister, he was a man who would block a dagger with his own body without a moment’s hesitation.
“It burns me up inside……”
She didn’t want to keep agreeing with her lover’s past love.
Marien finally understood what Odette meant when she said she hated Byleon because he was too good to everyone.
‘Would it kill you to cherish your own body and heart a little?’
Knock, knock.
“Aide Didi, if you’re finished washing, we’ll come in. It’s time to get you dressed.”
Six maids in total swarmed into Marien’s room. At their appearance, Marien couldn’t help but stare at the problematic dress she had been willfully ignoring until now.
The dress of immense majesty had been set up in front of the full-length mirror since earlier. Today was the long-awaited day of the ball where she finally had to wear that outfit.
There was something she had to let them know before they started. Marien declared in a tone that suggested she wouldn’t repeat herself twice.
“I’m not wearing a whalebone corset.”
“Yes, we’ve already been told. Our young lady also only orders dresses from the Lumière de Chacha Salon and detests corsets.”
An elderly maid pointed to an improved version of the undergarment. She explained it was made of a cool material that absorbed sweat and would be very comfortable. That was a relief. Marien decided to trust them and leave herself in their hands.
One hour and forty-five minutes later.
“So, a ‘proper’ dressing really does take nearly two hours even with several people working on it……”
Marien muttered blankly, staring at herself in the mirror.
The sparkling tiara perched atop her updo and the deep pink pear-cut diamond necklace were truly dazzling.
She momentarily forgot her burdensome worries. Marien was purely overwhelmed by the beauty of the jewels themselves.
If they were this brilliant in the indoor natural light, how magnificently would they shine when she stood under the flashy crystal chandeliers later?
That wasn’t the only surprising thing. Indeed, the touch of an expert was on another level.
The maids had added a veil of semi-transparent, mist-like fabric inside the deep neckline of the dress, and it was a brilliant stroke of genius.
It reduced the exposure while allowing her skin to shimmer through, making it look far more mysterious and alluring than if her chest hadn’t been covered at all.
“To be honest, we didn’t even put our full effort into this.”
“Pardon?”
“If we were to do it properly, we would have handled your bath as well. Besides, we kept the makeup simple today.”
Marien doubted her own ears. They had constantly showered her with praise, saying her skin was so clear and moist that there was no room for improvement, and they had invested thirty solid minutes just in basic skincare.
They had repeatedly applied extracts from various flower petals and roots to her face, wiped them off with cotton pads, and then applied mashed mixtures of other mysterious things.
Only when her bare face, pampered with such intense care, began to glow with a pearlescent luster did the maid in charge of her makeup finally pick up a brush.
And they called this simple?
“Today, we merely helped you put on the dress.”
“I feel like I’ve been reborn. It feels like you’ve maximized every ounce of beauty that could possibly be drawn out of Marien Didi……”
“Aide, I can assure you, this is not the maximum.”
The maid, who seemed to be second in rank, looked at Marien in the mirror and said,
“If you wish to see your beauty truly maximized, we must set a date.”
“Oh, no. I was just speaking figuratively. Regardless, I appreciate the sentiment.”
As she hurriedly declined, the maid stepped back with a look of profound regret. Marien had sensed that the sheer tenacity in the woman’s eyes was no ordinary thing, and as it turned out, she was the maid who enjoyed the absolute favor of Chloe Viers.
Suddenly, the maid’s quiet madness made perfect sense. Marien flashed a bright smile at everyone before walking quickly toward the door.
It was absolutely not because she feared that if she delayed any longer, they would drag her back to the vanity, insisting, “We really must attend to you just a little longer!”
“Oh?”
“We’re all finished, Mari…… en……?”
As the door opened, she locked eyes with Byleon in the hallway. Byleon froze in the exact posture he had held while reading his book.
0 Comments