CH 13

I moved up to the third year.

Ihmut and Nathe are still good friends.

As Nathe had suggested during the winter break, I was to teach some commoners and children of lower nobility to study after that.

For that commoner girl who I stopped the abuse from the first year,「I am really, really grateful to Shefinko-san for your help. Thank you very much! No matter how many times I denied it, the bad press just wouldn’t go away…,」and she bowed her head.

The more I denied that this person was anything different, the more my bad reputation was rekindled. I can say that the Prince and his group don’t believe in me in the slightest, and I can’t blame them for thinking that way about me.

I had never done much in the way of teaching others how to study, but I was told that I was able to teach them well because someone said,「Shefinko-san is good at teaching.」

Although we were not close enough to be friends, I was happy to see the number of acquaintances at the school gradually increase.

My school life became a little more fulfilling thanks to Ihmut and Nathe.

Well, on the surface, I am still a loner, because I don’t know what the Prince and his group would say if I were in contact with them in a conspicuous place.

In the midst of these fulfilling days, the situation I had feared finally occurred.

「Ahh, they already ripped up my textbooks today!!」

Nathe began to be harassed.

The reason, of course, is because of the Prince and others’ preoccupation with Nathe. The Prince who try to get close to Nathe whether she wants them to or not, honestly, are they out of their minds? I think they’re being rude.

It seems that Djeeta-sama and the others have been quiet until now because she was former commoner bastard who was the Crown Princess’s favorite, but they have run out of patience.

It was all the more refreshing that they started harassing Nathe.

「And to try to blame Ollie for everything!! They are in the habit of harassing me themselves coming at me saying,『It seems that Shefinko-sama is harassing the fiancée of His Highness the Second Prince, and I don’t know what Shefinko-sama, the villainess, will do, so shouldn’t you stay away from her?』What do they know about Ollie? I wanted to say that.」

「In the first place, it was a rootless rumor that Ollie wants to get close to the Second Prince, even though Ollie and Miss Weshia are such good friends. There are rumors circulating that Ollie instructed someone to do it, but Ollie never talked to anyone outside of this library in the first place.」

Nathe and Ihmut say such things.

Seriously, why is that? I am tempted to say that they’re the ones who is harassing Nathe, but rumors have been circulating lately that I am the one who is harassing Nathe. I would say that this is a rumor being spread by ladies who are intentionally harassing Nathe.

It would be hard to live in this country if they found out that they were abusing the bastard that the Crown Princess thought was special and wanted them to look out for her. His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince also loves the Crown Princess very much, and the Crown Prince would be staring at them if they did such a thing.

So the scapegoat is me, who, as you all know, is not well-liked.

My reputation is as low to the ground as ever, so let’s put all the bad rumors on me, who is so hated by the Crown Princess! And they think so, apparently.

「If I show that Nathe and I are good friends, will that stop?」

「That’s fine too! For me, I want to be friends with Ollie in a dignified way. But even if I talked about Ollie for a minute, people would say bad things about you. If you stayed with me, Ollie might be made into more and more of a villain.」

「…I have a feeling that’s true too. But if I stay with you, wouldn’t Nathe be harassed while I am with you?」

「No, that won’t happen! I hate it when those people accuse Ollie, who is so sweet to me, of being strange.」

「But… my reputation was originally something that couldn’t fall any lower.」

「No! I’d rather keep it up than have Ollie bother me! I have Father’s permission to go to the neighboring country, too. I just have a little more patience left!」

I figured that if I was next to Nathe, at least in the meantime, the ladies who wanted to be the Prince’s fiancée would not harass Nathe. But that was denied by Nathe.

「But Nathe, I will stop harassing Nathe as long as I can stop it. I’m a loner, so I may not have much influence, but…」

「Thank you, Ollie. But Ollie, don’t just push yourself too hard, okay? I don’t want Ollie to be in a tough position because of me.」

But still, don’t the ladies who harass Nathe understand how much Nathe hates the Prince’s group?

「I’ll also work to do something about the harassment of Miss Weshia. I will also try to dispel the rumors about Ollie as much as possible. But then again, Miss Wesiya really doesn’t want to get involved at all when she’s being approached by the glamorous Second Prince’s group.」

「That’s right! Do you know why those people are approaching me in the first place? It’s not so much that they’re interested over me, but because Louise-sama thinks I’m special, because she says I’m their destiny—— What a thing to say! Louise-sama this, Louise-sama that, it’s true that among aristocrats, there may be political marriages, but I wouldn’t be happy to be contacted with such a feeling just because someone told me to. In the first place, the Crown Princess and I have never even met, partly because I have managed to deny it! And yet, the Crown Princess, she knows what I like, or something… I’m scared. They really bring what I like just because Louise-sama said she liked Nathe or something. I was horrified. And I never told them that they could call me by my name. And then they asked me to call them by their first names. I couldn’t be rude to the royalty, so even if I gently refused, they wouldn’t be convinced, and if I strongly refused, they would say I was embarrassed. They said that’s what Louise-sama said. They’re not mothercons, they’re Louise-sama-cons!」

Nathe says such things at once.

Ahh, she seems to be very hung up on it.

But I think the Prince’s group are terrible. They are approaching Nathe only because the Crown Princess told them to. They say that everything they do is often because the Crown Princess told them to.

But still, this thing about destiny… There are a number of people, including your brother, to whom Louise-sama has left the mysterious words,「Your destined one should appear in time.」Does that mean that their fate is Nathe? What does it mean to have more than one person to deal with? Does it mean she have to choose?

It’s said that the Crown Princess has always had the power to see into the future. Whatever it is, that’s how she works for the Crown Princess and her family, and that’s how she has won their trust. From that Crown Princess’s point of view, it seems that Nathe is the destined one of the Prince and the others. I can’t believe she’s forcing fate on her when she has absolutely no intention of doing so… And to be honest, she’s drawn to the Prince’s group and the Crown Princess.