CH 35

Life on the frontier of Seanno Barsheikh ①

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

「Isn’t he that rumored…」

「He falsely accused a Duke’s daughter of a crime——」

I, Seanno Barsheikh, have been whispering those words. The eyes that are directed at me are not friendly. They are looking at me with disdain.

——Not long ago, I was in a completely different position than where I stand today.

As the second prince of this Barsheikh kingdom, surrounded by so many people, there was not a shred of anxiety about the future.

I thought I would live my life supporting my elder brother who would become the king.

And in the future, as a matter of course, I thought my brother, sister-in-law, and friends would be there. Now, none of them are by my side.

This is also because I… no, we made a mistake.

——Ottilie Shefinko.

She is a Duke’s daughter with crimson hair and blue eyes.

My sister-in-law was wary of her. She called her a “villainess” and told me from an early age that she wanted to be my fiancée.

That girl and I even had an engagement. I remember my sister-in-law saying so at the time,「Don’t make that person your fiancée.」

My sister-in-law has always been a special person. Because of her specialness, I believed what she was saying.

Now that I am thus separated from my sister-in-law, those feelings that I have been assuming have disappeared like a bubble.

I don’t want to think that what my sister-in-law is saying is a lie, so I assume that she is telling the truth—— And I think I was out of control.

As a result, I did a terrible thing to Ottilie Shefinko, and that’s exactly what I did, irrevocably.

It was only when Ihmut told me for the first time at the graduation ceremony that I realized she was not what we had assumed she was.

We had made an assumption about one Duke’s daughter, and we had driven her away. Her ten years will not be returned.

And with Ihmut, she and Nathe also went to a neighboring country.

I did bad things to Nathe. Narthe was my『destiny』as my sister-in-law had long said.

I met the person my sister-in-law had told me to meet, and she was the person my sister-in-law had told me to meet. Not only because she was called my『destiny,』 but because Nathe was pretty and attractive… But now that I think about it, I think it was because my sister-in-law told me that she was my『destiny』after all.

My sister-in-law said with such confidence and conviction that Nathe would choose one of us, and I believed her as always. I didn’t think for a minute that Nathe didn’t like us approaching.

I really don’t know what I did… now that I’ve cooled down. I’m glad Nathe had the character to speak clearly and was able to escape to a neighboring country. She’s a bastard in a calm way, and yet a former commoner. If she had been a weak-minded person, she would not have been able to say no if she was pressed by someone in power.

There are many stories of people who, despite not wanting to do so, succumbed to the power of authority and ended up being taken in hand and hand by men they didn’t like. I shudder to think what I might have done that could have been the same thing.

After Ottilie Shefinko and her family left for the neighboring country, my brother and sister-in-law left the Royal Capital. They went to the frontier. I left the Royal Capital, too, thinking that I couldn’t go on like this.

I thought that if I stayed with my brother and sister-in-law, I would continue to be cunning and spoiled, and I wouldn’t be able to change, so I decided to come to the frontier town alone, without contacting my brother, sister-in-law, and my friends.

I was in a land where no one knew who I was. But the frontier lord who ruled this territory knew me, too. And they didn’t think well of what we had done.

I’m running away from what I did—— I guess that’s how they saw it. The frontiersmen were spreading the word about what I had done and who I was throughout the land as if to say, “You won’t get away with what you’ve done.”

They didn’t hide it originally. I’m willing to face what I’ve done and accept it. So I’m glad they spread the word.

I’m staying here for a while. I am working as a knight under the frontier lord. I am a lowly knight. And I am not well thought of by the other knights.

These are the days when no one speaks to me and I am kept at a distance.

It is somewhat sad to think of the past, but this is also what Ottilie Shefinko was experiencing.

I shouldn’t have been so weak in such a short period of time after what she had endured for ten years. That’s all I’ve done.

There is no such thing as conversational conversation. The knight’s life is one of minimal conversation.

That’s the life I lead.