Chapter 11

Many of the young ladies were dressed in fantastical gowns interwoven with magic.

…Well, rather than “many,” it was pretty much all of them.

After all, for the nobility of this country, using magic was simply the default.

The purpose of those fairytale-like dresses was to showcase both beauty and a high degree of magical power all at once.

Amidst all that, I stood out precisely because I was dressed up without borrowing the power of magic.

Catching the curious gazes right away, a few young ladies drifted over.

“My, my, what an unusual attire! There isn’t a single magical decoration on it at all.”

“Is your specialty element wind? Or perhaps earth? Either way, isn’t ornamentation so modest that you can’t even feel any magical power a bit too understated?”

The dresses worn by those ladies sparkled with a deep, dazzling radiance.

It was almost as if they were walking around wearing stained glass… I thought, but kept it to myself and answered with a pleasant smile.

“Good evening. My name is Eltriede, Eldenvalk Duke family’s young lady.”

“Eldenvalk…?”

“That ‘one with no magic’…!? “

Merely stating my name conveyed everything without needing further explanation.

Rumors about me must have been swirling quite a bit, after all.

The Duke and Duchess of Eldenvalk were both powerful mages, yet from the two of them, a defective child completely devoid of magic had somehow been born…

“My, my, we hadn’t seen you around for the past few years, but it seems you were still lingering in high society.”

“Were you chased out of your house long ago… no, never minding that.”

Traces of contempt instantly surfaced in the ladies’ gazes.

If I were my past self, I would have already raised my voice in a fit of anger right here.

Even if someone is “without magic,” if they possess the power and wealth of a duke’s family, there are plenty of people they can silence.

Though doing so would severely tarnish the dignity of the duke’s family.

In this life, putting the family first was the priority.

“Pardon the absence. I have spent the last few years living in the territory, so it has been quite a while since I was last in the royal capital.”

I started by taking a humble posture.

Perhaps thinking my low stance made me an easy target, the opposing lady responded.

“Oh, so you were ashamed of being ‘without magic’ and scurried off to the countryside, were you?”

“Yet wasn’t that the correct judgment? Better than making a scene in high society and embarrassing yourself further?”

They were likely mocking my behavior prior to age ten.

Back then, my actions had indeed been exactly like that.

“Still, if you had gone to the trouble of holing up in the countryside, wouldn’t it have been better to stay hidden away? To bother coming all the way up to this radiant capital just to make a fool of yourself.”

“Indeed, no matter how wonderful a magic dress you wear, ‘one with no magic’ cannot pull it off, can they? You’d only be exposing your own pitiful appearance. In contrast, look at me—this is a four-tiered earth-element decoration, you see.”

The lady boasted, showing off her dress.

The entire dress emitted a glass-like, shimmering sparkle. She must have used earth-element crystallization magic.

I maintained a bright smile on my face and replied…

“My, what a lovely outfit. Is the material linen, perhaps?”

“Huh?”

“Within the Spiritual Kingdom, locally sourced items are always the easiest to handle, aren’t they? And thanks to magic, decorations like lace and frills aren’t even necessary. I am quite envious.”

I kept a smile plastered on my face as I spoke.

“My dress looks plain, doesn’t it? Since I myself cannot use magic, I wanted to be meticulous about at least the materials, so I used plenty of high-grade silk imported from abroad.”

“S-Silk…?”

“Adorned with lace and frills crafted by specialized artisans, thanks to which it manages to look presentable without relying on magical decorations. It cost a tremendous amount, though… Let’s see, roughly speaking, is it perhaps sixty times the price of your dresses?”

“S-Sixty times?!”

It was a dress crafted for tonight by Father and Mother, mobilizing all of their wealth and connections.

Colored in a rose-like red that made my black hair stand out, it had been ordered from a representative designer of the neighboring country of Lunetsia—famous for its culture and arts—with costs spared for nothing, making it an unquestionable top-tier masterpiece.

Though I still had mixed feelings about the neckline being cut low to accentuate my figure. Well, I was satisfied with how comfortable it felt to wear, at least.

“Just because I cannot use magic, I have to rely even more on sheer financial power. I truly envy all of you. In another country, a dress like that is at a level where even impoverished nobles would be too ashamed to wear it, yet the power of magic makes it look so wonderful.”

“W-We are honored by your praise…!”

Did she seriously think that was a compliment?

Though she probably had to tell herself that to preserve her pride.

“Say, shall we move on to another table?”

“Indeed. After all, this is an evening party gathering young ladies from all across the country. Fussing over just ‘one with no magic’ isn’t very constructive.”

They hurried off.

At any rate, I seemed to buy myself a moment of breathing room.

Yet, since I couldn’t afford to let my guard down just yet—worried someone else might come picking a fight—I still couldn’t relax.

I could still feel curious, staring gazes gathering on me.

I really wished this would just end as quickly as possible.

…Even as I stood here, they were likely measuring the baseline magical power of the young ladies attending the evening party and ranking them accordingly.

They would weed out any young ladies whose standards fell short at a single glance, advancing the rest to more detailed selections.

In other words, tonight was essentially the primary screening.

Starting tomorrow, the screenings would continue through the secondary and tertiary stages until the young lady with the strongest magical power in the entire country was chosen.

Since I had experienced it in my past life, I was more or less familiar with how it went.

Back then, I had applied myself far more fervently than now, even researching the rival candidate ladies in advance.

……

Well, standing around like a potted plant wasn’t going to make time move any faster.

Perhaps getting lost in deep thought would help the time pass by more quickly.

So, to pass the time, let’s review the leading candidates for the Crown Princess selection.

In my previous life, it was said that the Crown Princess would ultimately be chosen from among four young ladies.

Countess Adelina Fwanze.

Marchioness Françoise Bonukut.

Margravine Celine Chevallier.

Duchess Chantal Woltow.

These young ladies possessed an exceptionally high volume of magical power even among their peers, making it difficult to simply tell them apart.

Only after such high-ranking magic holders were narrowed down would comparisons of family lineage and character finally take place, leading to the final decision.

Me?

Someone like me wasn’t even in the running. I was at the level of getting filtered out right at the primary screening.

Yet in my past life, I had forced my way to remain a candidate using the power of my family.

Even so, by relying solely on my intelligence-gathering abilities, I had identified these four as exceptional early on and regarded them as dangerous threats.

If I wanted to become Crown Princess, I had to kick these four down no matter what.

Because of that, they could be said to be the primary victims of my past life’s reckless rampages.

Since “one with no magic” like me wanted to break convention through sheer wealth and power and forcibly claim the position of Crown Princess, I had to eliminate the four orthodox, high-magic young ladies.

Some young ladies became targets of my past life self—who only cared about forcing others to acknowledge her—and had their subsequent lives ruined, while others sustained incurable, severe injuries.

Looking back now, it went without saying how foolish I had been.

Through the rewind of time, my foolish actions had been undone, and the young ladies I had hurt could start over.

In this life, I wouldn’t interfere at all.

I had long since recognized my own station.

I would pursue a scale of happiness suited for myself alongside my family, so I truly hoped that they, too, would seize their happiness through their own efforts this time around.

Thinking about that, the face of the young lady that popped into my mind first was…

Countess Adelina.

She was a daughter of the Count of Fwanze family, possessing the lowest social standing among the four leading candidates.

Yet she seemed to have been born with high innate magic, and was strictly raised as a treasured trump card to elevate her family.

The complete opposite of me.

Knowing she was close in age to the Crown Prince, they must have expected her to eventually aim for the position of Crown Princess.

She was thrown into this Crown Princess selection with full preparation.

Yet Lady Adelina would end up getting eliminated tonight during the primary screening.

By a demon named me.

In my past life, as I meticulously gathered information aiming to become Crown Princess, I had noticed Lady Adelina’s strong potential even before the actual start.

Along with top-secret information that made her the perfect target to eliminate.

She had a lover.

Naturally, it wasn’t Crown Prince Kistihart, whom she was supposed to marry as Crown Princess.

The partner was the third son of a marquis family.

While his social standing was higher than Lady Adelina’s paternal Count family, a third son with no right to inherit the house was vastly inferior to the Crown Prince as a prospective match.

There was no way Adelina’s father—who schemed to use his daughter to bring prosperity to their house—would ever forgive that.

Unable to even confess her feelings to her parents, Lady Adelina ultimately ended up participating in the Crown Princess selection.

If she were auspiciously chosen as Crown Princess, naturally she could never marry her true lover.

They were tragic lovers torn apart by parental ambition.

And the wicked snake that set its sights on them… was me.

The existence of another man was the most optimal, prime material to kick a consort candidate down.

Moreover, my past life self planned the exposure at the worst possible timing to exploit it to the absolute limit.

The primary screening evening party in my past life.

I first lured Lady Adelina’s lover, the marquis’s third son, and summoned him to this evening party.

There, I forced him to confront Lady Adelina—who had steeled her grim resolve to become Crown Princess—and revived the feelings she should have thrown away.

Right as the two of them embraced tightly, insisting they could never part, I exposed it to every single attendee at the evening party.

To the Crown Prince, and to Lady Adelina’s parents as well.

Under any other timing, it probably wouldn’t have blown up into such a massive scandal, but since it occurred right at the site of the consort selection, it resulted in the worst possible outcome.

Lady Adelina faced severe punishment for shifting her affections to another man while putting her name forward as a consort candidate, and was sent off to a monastery.

The marquis’s son was disowned, and his subsequent whereabouts remained unknown.

I had engineered it all to turn out that way.

My past life self hated every single young lady capable of using magic other than myself as beings who looked down on me, and sought to harm them far more than necessary.

Truly beyond redemption.