Chapter 4 - Volume 01; Act 02 – Part 02 (1/2)

Volume 01; Act 02 – Part 02

Is this how it feels to be caught red-handed?

Or an evil villainess who relentlessly pushes a weak lady down the stairs? Should I laugh loudly while holding a fan in my hand? Or should I curse her and say 『You don’t know your place! 』.

… Oh my, this isn’t good.

I, of all people, got involved in something that looked like a stage play, and my thoughts went off into the distance. My aunt made me repeatedly read romance novels to her just the other day, and I couldn’t stop myself from overlapping a scene from the novel with reality. Were they actually bad influences?

“Irene… Did Miss Elianna really do this to you?”

“I, I…” Irene, who was shaking pitifully, spoke and a new protagonist appears. No, should I say hero in this case?

“――― What is this fuss?” His Highness Christopher appeared. He seemed unusually irritated, but that didn’t damage his handsomeness at all.

It is concluded that the Heroine would be the one who calls his name.

“Prince Christ…!”

Miss Irene looked joyful as tears ran down her face, and my heart grew cold and sunk.

Even if this is a well-orchestrated farce, is the role that I’ve been given to follow the plot accordingly? Is this also part of the deal that I had made with His Highness?

His Highness calmly grasped the situation and got onto one knee by Miss Irene’s side.

Miss Irene looked like a tragic heroine as she clung to his sleeves with tears running down her face while he was checking to see if she was injured.

He asked her about the situation in a dignified voice. She was frightened, but answered as if she was determined, “I, I… I just told Miss Elianna that the relationship between me and Prince Christ… His Highness is a misunderstanding. B-but, Miss Elianna said that I… that I was in the wrong. Then she suddenly pushed me down the stairs…!”

The way she was covering her face and grieving reflected pitifully in other’s eyes. Prince Christopher comforted Miss Irene gently.

“Irene. Why a misunderstanding? Did Elianna do anything else to you?”

“Y-yes… Prince Christ. I couldn’t say it all before…”

“You don’t have to worry about anything anymore. Will you testify so that all her crimes are clear?”

Miss Irene’s eyes full of tears coincided with Prince Christopher’s.

Even the trails of tears coming down her face looked like a painting.

… I wonder why. I feel like I have chills on my back.

I feel like I have seen this side of His Highness before.

His glistening eyes before he catches his prey, and the smile of the devil that perfectly covered his carnivorous slaughter.

Miss Irene eagerly accused me.

According to her, every day had been tough for her ever since she started learning manners through apprenticeship at the inner palace. She was abused by lower-ranked nobles, treated like a servant, and her meals were skipped. On top of that, she was forced to sleep in the stable and narrowly escaped from being violated by a lower class soldier.

And all of this was instructed by the future Queen of the royal palace, Miss Elianna.

“A-and…”

Her harassment had become even worse after she got acquainted with Sir Glenn, Lord Alexei and Prince Christopher.

“――― The other day, Miss Elianna wanted a rose from the garden, so I went there to pick her one. It was on the day that the pipes were damaged and she laughed at me while I was soaking wet. When I went to the palace archives to borrow a book I’d been asked to borrow, the ladder was tampered with, and Prince Theodore saved me when I almost fell down… The candy I received from Miss Elianna the other day had a… b-bug in it…!”

Dear me! I, 『Princess Bibliophile』, had done a lot of things. The first half aside, the second half sounded kind of familiar.