CH 2

2. She Didn’t Want Him

“That’s because I don’t love Your Highness.”

“……you don’t love me?”

Benelucia asked in disbelief.

He always looked like this after breaking up with Senelia.

“That’s what Your Highness wanted, that I shouldn’t fall in love with you.”

Benelucia’s mouth was firmly closed.

After being silent for a moment, he denied Senelia’s words with a painful face as if he were stabbed with a dagger.

“I know you love me.”

That’s understandable.

She wandered around him for a year without saying a word, followed him for another year, and dated him for six years.

Senelia has never been unfaithful to Benelucia in eight years.

Even though it was the first time she met Benelucia, and that was the only time she talked about love.

Senelia answered calmly, “Did you forget? I will never love you. That was my promise to you.”

“That damn promise……!”

There was a stark contrast between the momentarily excited Benelucia and her figure.

But Benelucia has no right to question the promise.

He soon forcibly calmed his excitement as if realizing something.

“……now that we broke up, isn’t that promise already broken?”

“Yes. But isn’t it weirder to say love to an ex-lover?”

Conversation flipped around.

Benelucia dragged his cravat down as if it was stuffy.

“What’s the problem, Sally?”

He said that he loved her, and he proposed marriage.

Still, Senelia does not believe Benelucia’s words.

“There’s no problem. What could be a problem between Your Highness and me?”

You and I have nothing to do with each other.

Therefore, there is nothing.

That’s what Senelia said.

“Ha…! Sally, don’t you know what happens if you refuse the promise of a marriage proposal from the imperial family?”

Benelucia also knew that his words were dirty.

But when he had to say something to hold onto the resolute Senelia, he could only think of this.

“It was just a verbal promise. Or was it an order, not a proposal?”

Senelia asked politely.

The sound of Benelucia’s teeth grinding could be heard clearly.

He glared at Senelia with his sharp eyes.

And that’s what Senelia wanted.

She must remain like a thorn in his mouth forever.

Even if he met Lucalina, every time he spoke to her, Senelia would appear in his mind.

Senelia devoted eight years of her time to Benelucia for that purpose.

Without that much effort, she wouldn’t be able to steal the male lead from the original female lead.

“Yes, it’s an order.”

Benelucia came up with something.

He rationalized his attitude toward Senelia.

He thought ‘Even if Senelia didn’t love me, I’d have to prove it by putting her next to me.’

“His Majesty has given me this.”

It was the emperor’s decree, written with a magic pen on a thin sheet of golden paper.

Benelucia smiled and said, “So you must marry me, Sally.”

After eight years, it was the moment when Senelia’s patience and efforts paid off.

***

Senelia and Benelucia’s first meeting was planned.

It was of course not what she wanted.

On the contrary, Senelia hated a man like Benelucia Afron.

She was a person who wanted to keep a very distance from such a man as much as possible.

A man who is so good in face and status that he has a lot of people around him.

So if she is next to him, she’ll be shabby even if she doesn’t want to.

Senelia was well aware that she would not be able to handle such a man.

If one day she hadn’t suddenly realized that the world she lived in was fictional deceit…… Senelia would never have intertwined with Benelucia.

“Lady Daphnen, His Majesty the Emperor is calling for you.”

One day, the imperial carriage suddenly arrived in front of the Viscount Daphnen’s gate.

The knights barged in without knocking on the mansion door.

The Viscount has lived his whole life managing his own territory without getting entangled in politics.

Suddenly a call from the emperor came.

That fact aroused fear in the viscount family.

“What the hell is going on? Knight commander……!”

A weak father hurriedly walked down from the second floor.

He glanced at his daughter and the knight commander with a blank expression.

He looked frightened by the intrusion of the imperial knights.

“Why is His Majesty suddenly calling our daughter?”

The calm mother’s face was not very good either.

What was there to do when the viscount family like them faced the knight commander heads on?

Senelia was no different.

She was a simple person who only thought about her future to be a good lord by inheriting this small estate from her father. That’s all.

The knight commander said, “The reason will be known when Lady Daphnen sees His Majesty. So be prepared.”

In other words, it meant that no further questions would be allowed.

Senelia’s hands were shaking with tension.

She looked back at her parents with an anxious expression on her face.

Her father couldn’t even make a decision, and he felt sorry that there was nothing he could do.

Eventually, Senelia’s mother nodded her head.

She bit her lip hard.

These are the ones sent by the emperor.

Her neck could have flown away if she said something stupid.

Senelia carefully opened her mouth, “Can you wait a moment? It’s an inappropriate outfit to wear to the imperial palace……”

I had no plans to go out today, so I was just wearing a light indoor dress. But I want to look a little less shabby when I meet the emperor.

“It would be good for His Majesty not to wait too long.”

The knight commander gave a stern warning.

Those words sounded like Senelia should not waste the emperor’s time too long or dare to run away.

I had no intention of doing that in the first place. Senelia nodded her head diligently.

She said, “I’ll get ready and come out soon.”

After that, Senelia left the mansion in just 10 minutes.

No matter how many maids helped her, it was too short time for a noble girl to dress up.

She was so impatient.

It was fortunate that she did not sprain her foot as she left the mansion.

From the beginning, the road to the imperial family was smooth and unobstructed, as if it was expected that Senelia would not be able to rebel.

Her heart was beating fast. She wanted to hold onto anyone and ask why is the emperor looking for her.

However, the knights did not give her a glance at all, as if she were not there.

She felt that she had become extremely insignificant.

“After you have said your greetings, you must not open your mouth first until His Majesty permits you.”

Senelia is the daughter of the rural viscount who is too modest to be associated with the imperial family.

She wondered if she would ever go to the imperial palace for the rest of her life.

So Senelia simply nodded her obedient head at the words of the handmaiden.

***

The door to the audience room opened and then closed again.

As Senelia calmed her trembling voice, she bent her knees and bowed towards the throne.

“Senelia Daphnen, Viscount Daphnen’s daughter, greets the sun of the empire.”

The emperor did not respond to her greeting.

Even though he only had his gaze on Senelia, she felt suffocated by the heaviness of silence.

Just before her posture trembled from her knees bent, the Emperor finally opened his mouth.

“My dear, why didn’t you love Benelucia?”

A random question came out of the emperor’s mouth.

Benelucia Afron. He is the emperor’s younger brother.

“……yes?”

Without realizing it, Senelia, who asked back in confusion, hurriedly bit her lower lip.

Cliff de Helios.

The man in front of her was a man who ascended to the throne by slaughtering all his blood and leaving only one.

She dared to open her mouth without permission in front of such an emperor. She couldn’t help but be afraid.

However, the emperor’s words were so absurd.

Senelia is a noblewoman of a small estate. What does she have to do with Benelucia Afron, the emperor’s younger brother and the empire’s only grand duke?

“You must have been destined to fall in love with Benelucia……”

The emperor’s eyes narrowed.

Cliff’s face was very beautiful, but Senelia thought the way he looked through her was really like a snake.

The horror ran down her spine at this moment.

As a person who slaughtered numerous people and took the throne, his body was huge.

The emperor rose from his seat and approached Senelia.

The steps overflowed with pressure.

Her breath was choked.

The emperor, who had already come close to Senelia, bowed his head.

He asked, looking at Senelia with snake-like eyes, “Are you a thorn of Chloracean?”

It is said that in the beginning there were three gods, Chloe, Race, and Ann, who made the fate of living things.

With their respective spinning wheels, they wove the thread that determines human destiny.

However, sometimes there were beings who twisted the fate set by the three sisters.

Like a thorn unexpectedly popped out of the spinning wheel, it pierces and twists the direction in which the gods spin their threads.

In the Empire, such people were called ‘Thorns of Chloracean’ because it is said they made their own destiny.

And Senelia shouldn’t be able to know the word ‘a thorn of Chloracean’.

Because…… This is because it is a word only the imperial family knows.

‘The Thorn of Chloracean.’

As soon as she heard those words, an unfamiliar landscape flashed through Senelia’s mind.

The tall gray buildings and four-wheeled vehicles move without magical power.

And while crossing those square buildings, a brunette woman was hit by a fast-moving truck at night……

It was her.

The book that had fallen from her hand rolled over the blood-soaked street.

On the cover of the book was written《The Thorn of Chloracean》.

“God, you really are a thorn of Chloracean.”

An eerie smile appeared on the emperor’s lips.

I have to live.