CH 139

“Fun♪ Fufu~n♪ Fufufu~n♪” I hummed as I came back home.

“You’re certainly in a good mood, Miss Flora,” Katharina said, glaring at me.

Ordinary maids don’t have this attitude toward their masters. But I’m already used to it, so it’s okay. Right now, I’m more excited than that.

“Ufufu~,” I giggled. “Can you guess why?” I asked playfully.

“Did you enjoy the tea party with the Crown Prince that much?” Katharina muttered as she looked down.

I don’t understand her answer at all. What does Ludwig have to do with any of this?

“Huh? His Highness? Why would you mention him?” I asked. “It wouldn’t be fun to have tea with Prince Ludwig, would it?”

“Huh?” Katharina asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“…… Huh?” I asked, tilting my head right along with her.

What is Katharina saying? I want her to explain a little more so that I can understand.

“Katharina? Could you explain this to me so that even I can understand it?” I asked.

“Ah, uh… that’s… umm…” Katharina said, flustered and her gaze swimming.

It seems she’s going to say something difficult.

“I mentioned Prince Ludwig because… I thought your good mood was from enjoying a tea party with him, Miss Flora…” Katharina said, squeezing out the words.

But it doesn’t make sense to me at all. I heard that before. I don’t understand, so I ask, but nothing changes.

…… No, wait? Could it be…….

“Katharina? Are you perhaps jealous of His Highness?” I ask.d

“N–! That’s…! Umm…!?” Katharina sputters.

Just as I thought. It seems that she is jealous because she thinks I had a fun tea party with Ludwig. This face of hers is really cute. But I need to correct it.

“Why would I be happy just because I had tea with His Highness Ludwig? It’s just trouble to me,” I said

“…Huh? But, Prince Ludwig is your fiancée, right, Miss Flora?” Katharina asked.

Well, yes, but it’s not like I wanted this. Why do you think I’m looking forward to meeting Ludwig even though I don’t like him? This is making no sense to me.

“Unfortunately at the moment, it is unofficially true, but I have never thought of marrying His Highness Ludwig,” I said. “Rather, I’m constantly thinking of how to break off this engagement.”

“Huh…!?” Katharina cried. “Huuuuuuhhhhh~~~?!”

“Shhh! Your voice is so loud!” I said, clapping my hand over Katharin’s mouth.

No matter how much I say it’s my room, no, because it’s my room if Katharina starts screaming, I don’t know who will come flying in.

“I just assumed you wanted to marry Crown Prince Ludwig, Miss Flora…” Katharina muttered.

Why would you think that…? Did I ever say I wanted to marry Ludwig? It looks like we need to talk about this point.

Ah, but come to think of it, I didn’t say I didn’t want to get married either. I thought it would be troublesome if I said too publicly that I didn’t want to marry a Prince, so I hid it, so no one may be able to realize that I want to break off the engagement.

“Let’s calm down first and then we’ll talk,” I said.

“Yes……” Katharina said.

After Katharina has quieted down, I confess my true feelings.

First of all, I don’t want to marry Ludwig. From the time the engagement was decided, I was thinking about how to break off the engagement in a way that would avoid consequences for us. Father also tried to persuade me not to get engaged to Ludwig, but it seems that he failed. I told Katharina the story from when I was a child.

“Miss Flora……” Katharina muttered. “I understand that you don’t want to marry Crown Prince Ludwig. But there’s a misunderstanding here.”

“A misunderstanding?” I asked.

What am I not getting right?

""

“Lord Albert is in favor of the engagement and marriage between you, Miss Flora, and Prince Ludwig. Since I was first informed about it, Lord Albert has been instructing you to make sure the engagement between the two of you is successful.”

“…………Hmm?” I asked.

What? Is Father in favor of my marriage to Ludwig? How ridiculous…

………………No, no, no! Wait, wait, wait! That can’t be right…

But… when I think about it, it certainly makes sense to think that way. I always thought Father was against my engagement and marriage. And if you take it that way, it all makes sense. However, even if all this was Father’s support of engagement and marriage, it would still make sense.

What does that mean? Could it be that Father really approves of my marriage to Ludwig?

“Lord Albert believes that a marriage between you and Prince Ludwig and making House Carruthers relatives of the royal family will only benefit the Kingdom of Ploiss,” Katharina explained. “That is why he is in favor of you two getting married, Miss Flora.”

…… I can see now. Father would put his country and family first, even if he had to throw away his personal feelings in the process. And he should think of the Kingdom of Ploiss first and foremost, rather than House Carruthers and the happiness of his family members. Considering the current power struggle in the royal court, it would be in the national interest for House Carruthers to become in-laws with Ludwig and support the Third Prince’s Faction.

I don’t know about the First Prince, but the Second Prince was just an idiotic asshole. Second Queen Amelie is also an idiotic asshole. If such people take the throne, this country will be doomed. In that case, there is no choice but to put Ludwig on the throne, and the easiest way to support Prince Ludwig’s Faction is for him and me to get married.

It’s not just that Ludwig will have the backing of House Carruthers. Between Carruthers territory and the Royal Domain lies Nassam territory. In order to suppress the Second Queen’s Faction and House Nassam, it would be effective for House Carruthers and the royal family to cooperate so that they can attack from both sides of Nassam’s land.

If you think about it, this arrangement is more ideal for the stability of the country than House Carruthers joining Ludwig’s faction, and Father allows me and Ludwig to marry in order to secure the stability of the Kingdom of Ploiss and to have an excellent king ascend the throne, so it’s no wonder that he would approve, no, actively support it.

“His Highness Ludwig had refused to marry anyone until he got engaged to you, Miss Flora,” Katharina said. “That’s why Lord Albert has been trying to have you make the engagement official and secure the bloodline of the Crown Prince.”

Oh… so that’s how it was~~~~~~! Father didn’t mean for me to dodge the engagement at all costs, but to make it successful, instead! And if that’s what I’m hearing now, it all makes sense now! What in the hell?!

“That’s why I thought that you would be happy to get engaged to Prince Ludwig and get married to him, Miss Flora,” Katharina said.

“…… You’ve got it wrong,” I said, my head hanging down.

It was all I could manage. Certainly, if you think about it that way, it can’t be helped if you think I’m for the marriage, just like Father. I’ve never thought of it that way, but it wouldn’t be strange if it appeared that way to the outside observer.

I see……. so that’s what she was talking about, huh…? If you think about it that way, all the inconsistencies up until now make a lot of sense.

“Are you okay now, Katharina?” I asked. “You must not tell anyone else about what we just discussed, alright? No one else must know, and we have to break off the engagement with no fault on our part.”

“You can say no one else can now, but you need collaborators, don’t you? You can talk to those four others, right?” Katharina said.

Something about her face is scary… certainly, there will be some parts where it would be helpful to have close collaborators moving forward. Besides, I don’t think those four will betray me. No, there’s no reason for them to, right? However, I don’t worry that anyone will betray me, and if they did, I could give up then. It’s just that I didn’t form a proper bond with these five people.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s get the five, those four plus you, Katharina, to cooperate.”

All right. This will further my plan. It was a miscalculation that I thought Father was against it, but in exchange, I was able to get five trustworthy collaborators, Katharina, and the other girls.

“So then… why were you in a good mood, Miss Flora?” Katharina asked.

“Oh, right, about that…” I said.

""

I explained to Katharina what happened today at the royal castle today.

………………

…………

……

There were many good things at the royal castle today. First of all, Ludwig’s little sister, Princess Eleonore, was very cute. I may marry Princess Eleonore. Of course ,I’m not looking at her in a sexual sense!

Huh…? But I did like Cure-chan in my previous life… don’t tell me… maybe I really am a loli-pedo…

No, no, no way…

Well, anyway, there is no need to explain this to Katharina. There was something more important than that.

First of all, I got to know Margarete. She was a beautiful older sister type of noble lady. Ludwig was also a man who wouldn’t leave a childhood friend like that in the corner. When the two of them were arguing amicably as if they were in a world of their own, I was out of the picture and so was everyone else aside from them. Thanks to that, all I could do was play with Princess Eleonore.

And Queen Elisabeth. I was a little worried about what the First Queen would be like thanks to the Second being so terrible, but I didn’t have to worry at all. Elisabeth is a very strong queen. And she looks young and beautiful. I don’t think she’s old enough to have a son as old as Ludwig. She seems to have the King around her finger and is much more reliable than him, even.

After eating pudding, I went to the First Queen’s room with Margarete. Surrounded by beautiful older sister types, it’s a relatively happy space just to talk the “ufufufu, hohoho” type of nothing in particular. On the other hand, I was a little nervous, but… Elisabeth is a good orator, so I almost ended up talking about everything. Pretty dangerous. It’s dangerous to speak to her.

From her demeanor and feelings, I could see that she wanted to marry Margarete to Ludwig. That’s why she doesn’t want me to marry Ludwig. I honestly confessed that Margarete would suit him better.

If they had even suspected something was wrong, I would have been in prison by now. But, my gamble paid off and they listened to me.

Of course, we didn’t immediately reveal our true feelings to each other. However, I thought it wouldn’t work if I didn’t make the first move, so I played my cards first.

Both Elisabeth and Margarete were surprised at the start, but they listened to me seriously. Even if I don’t marry Ludwig, I won’t go against the Kingdom of Ploiss or its royal family. And I can never get in between Margarete and Ludwig, who have been together for many years and are very close. Above all, I said that there is no one who can beat Margarete’s feelings for Ludwig that have been growing all these years.

They were wide-eyed but they didn’t get angry, and I think they understood my true feelings.

It’s not really an exaggeration, I thought that the interaction between Ludwig and Margarete was because they were childhood friends. I’m a man inside, so I don’t want to marry Ludwig, but I don’t think it’s bad for him to marry the beautiful Margarete. But I can’t imagine being able to turn Margarete’s strong heterosexual romantic feelings towards Ludwig to me, instead. In that case, it would be better for everyone to have those two get together.

“I see…” Katharina said. “So you were in a good mood because it seemed like you could get the cooperation of Queen Elisabeth and Lady Margarete among the royal family?” Katharina asked.

“That’s what I meant,” I said.

It seems like my thoughts have finally been conveyed to Katharina. Well, besides that, there are various things, such as the cute appearance of the little angel who stuffed her cheeks with pudding and made her face all sticky, but it seems like I’ve said it many times, so I don’t need to say it again.

Thinking that Katharina’s misunderstanding had been resolved, I ate dinner in a good mood, took a bath, and then fell asleep.

Yesterday, something good happened at the royal castle, so I feel good today as well. I finished the morning class in such a good mood that I almost skipped as I moved to the dining hall with Mikoto to eat lunch. Along the way, I ran into an unpleasant situation.

“O~ooh my, I’m sorry. I mistakenly thought there was a pig there.”

“Kusu-kusu,” some girls snicker.

In the middle of the corridor leading to the dining hall, it was done where many other students would have witnessed it.

A somewhat chubby girl was on all fours in the hallway. I have to wonder, will she become fat as a drum, just like her mother? But her salvation is that she’s not that fat yet. She certainly has a slightly slovenly figure, but many noble daughters are like that. She has enough food, but she doesn’t starve as much as the poor, and she can pick and choose to a certain extent, so her nutrition tends to be imbalanced.

“…………”

And that girl is Emma Valtek, her head wet from having water dumped on it. And the one who did that is none other than Sophie Arnhardt. The usual four surround Emma. Of course, Christa is there too. When she noticed us, she averted her eyes. She probably didn’t want to be part of this scene.

The other three are lower in rank than House Valtek, but even so, if the three of them get together, they’ll be stronger than House Valtek. Above all, House Valtek is a relative of House Arnhardt. Moreover, House Valtek is the branch family, so when Sophie is the bully, Emma can’t resist. The power relationship between Emma and Sophie is clear regardless of the other three.

“Your mother is just a white pig awaiting slaughter at the abattoir right now, isn’t she? Why don’t you go squealing home to your mother, little piggy?”

“Kuh…!” Emma gasps.

Woah… that is ghastly… it’s childish bullying, but if it’s done by people of the same age as you, I’m sure it’ll be unbearable. Moreover, it’s with the full knowledge you can’t resist your bully.

It’s probably Helene’s instructions. Duke Bayen’s Faction seems to be in trouble because of the arrest of Marquess Valtek, so I guess they’re making an example of her. But it’s not hard to imagine that Sophie is able to do that to her relative’s child because it’s not just because she’s ordered to do it, but because she naturally has that sort of sadism.

Above all, I feel terrible. I’ve been in a good mood since yesterday, but today has ruined it. At first, I thought of pushing Ludwig onto Helene and sticking them together, but no more. Helene is too twisted and rotten to her core. Now that I know I have a better partner in Margarete, I no longer need to push Helene forward.

“Please wait!” I said.

I think it’s troublesome, but I got in between the quartet and Emma.