Chapter 16

“Your Highness Kistihart, why are you here?”

“Asking ‘why’ is quite the cold reception. The royal castle is the residence of us royals, after all. Is it really all that strange for me to be here?”

That may be true, but…

The royal castle is massive, you know. The odds of just casually wandering around and running into the Crown Prince should be practically zero!

“Lady Adelina seems to have gone home already, alongside her beloved fiancé. I’m truly glad they look so happy.”

“Everything is entirely thanks to Your Highness’s wise decision.”

“Not at all. I merely capitalized on your strategy, that’s all.”

“……!”

At those words, the expression I had been desperately trying to maintain shattered, and I froze in sheer astonishment.

Thank goodness I had been bowing my head in polite deference to the Crown Prince, meaning my face wasn’t being directly watched right at that moment.

“…Does that mean you knew everything from the very start?”

“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your quick thinking. If they had genuinely taken each other by the hand and fled the evening party, the disrespect toward the royal family would have been too severe to overlook, and I would have had to hand down a severe punishment myself.”

“As I have repeated, everything was brought to a neat resolution entirely due to Your Highness’s brilliant and enlightened judgment.”

All I had instructed them to do was directly petition the Crown Prince in that public setting.

The duel hadn’t been part of my plan at all.

The lovers’ romance, the face of the royal family… resolving every single aspect flawlessly without a single scratch was proof that the Crown Prince’s ability to read ahead and control the situation was superior to anyone else’s.

“To piece together a script of that caliber within the mere few seconds after Lady Adelina and her partner made their appeal… I can only stand in awe of how fast Your Highness’s mind works.”

“Let me repeat myself as well—I merely capitalized on your plan. There is no way I could have thought up such a roundabout workaround on the spot just by being told.”

Now that he mentioned it, that was true.

It was embarrassing that I only realized it after being pointed out.

“Were you eavesdropping, then? On those two’s rendezvous in the courtyard?”

“Because I learned of your plan at that exact juncture, I managed to buy enough time to gather my thoughts and append my own adjustments to the scheme. Even for me, it would be impossible to build a plan from scratch on the fly and pull off a resolution where everyone wins. In a sense, tonight’s affair was a collaborative joint project between you and me.”

Could you please stop phrasing it like that?

It gave me a rather unsettling feeling.

“I am thoroughly impressed… Still, Your Highness could have given me a heads-up beforehand, you know.”

“If I had done that, the whole thing would have felt like a staged play. Lady Adelina and her lover are far too pure; they wouldn’t have been able to pull off any acting, unlike you and me.”

Hearing it put that way made it hard to argue.

Indeed, the success of today’s events hinged entirely on the genuine, desperate sincerity of those two.

Precisely because Lady Adelina’s lover had charged in with a life-or-death intensity, the surrounding nobles watching were cowed into submission, making it easy for them to rally behind the Crown Prince’s subsequent decision.

“My assessment that the Marquis Civileton’s son will become a promising magic knight in the future is not a lie told just for the occasion. Securing such a rare talent and winning his absolute loyalty is mutually beneficial for me, too. Meanwhile, there are several other candidates of equal or greater caliber than Lady Adelina running for Crown Princess, so I figured letting her go was no great loss.”

“Calculated down to the last detail. I am deeply impressed.”

“And didn’t you benefit from this as well?”

What did that mean?

The sudden focus shifting back to me left me bewildered, entirely missing his intent.

“If everything was brought to a happy resolution, there has to be something in it for you, too. After all, you are just like me—one of the masterminds pulling the strings behind today’s events.”

“What a rather ominous way to put it. How on earth does those two getting together benefit me?”

The people I had dragged down in my past life were finding happiness in this life.

That alone was enough to erase a fragment of the guilt lingering within my heart.

That was benefit enough for me.

“My deduction is… that you managed to eliminate a rival candidate in the Crown Princess selection, perhaps?”

“Huh?”

“Lady Adelina is a holder of massive magical power. Thanks to that, she was listed as a leading candidate for the next Crown Princess. If someone like her disappears, the chances of you being chosen as Crown Princess naturally increase as well.”

This prince spoke such absurd conjectures without even a hint of guilt, didn’t he?

No, it wasn’t entirely absurd either. In my past life, that was precisely what I had aimed for when I trapped Lady Adelina.

And because of that, my heart grew heavy, feeling as though my past misdeeds were being thrown back in my face.

“It is a well-known fact that you possess no magic. For someone like you to be chosen as Crown Princess, you have no choice but to eliminate more promising candidates. That poor Lady Adelina must have been your primary target… isn’t that right?”

“……”

“At the very least, it is a fact that with her stepping aside, you have moved one step closer to the seat of the Crown Princess. Who are you planning to drag down next?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

…This is bad.

My tone had turned uncharacteristically harsh due to the sheer absurdity of it all.

Though I didn’t want to admit it, my opponent was the Crown Prince; I needed to show at least a semblance of respect.

“……Pardon me. However, Your Highness’s speculations seem wide of the mark.”

“Why so?”

“You must be well aware of how completely worthless ‘one with no magic’ is in this country. You just claimed that I would ‘eliminate any young ladies with a higher chance of being chosen than myself,’ but to pull that off, exactly how many young ladies would I need to get rid of? Every single person besides me?”

Practically speaking, the efficiency was far too terrible. To an impossible degree.

Even so, in my past life, I had used the power and wealth of the duke’s family to bulldoze my way through and nearly reached the finish line.

“Besides, isn’t Your Highness being a bit too overconfident? Could you possibly believe that every young lady in the world unconditionally adores you?”

“What did you say?”

“If that’s the case, your misunderstanding couldn’t possibly be more profound. It’s true that many women are drawn to the title of Crown Prince. No doubt a percentage of the noble ladies who attended tonight’s evening party felt that way. But there are also plenty of women who feel otherwise. For them, titles and wealth mean nothing; if there is a man who loves them sincerely, there is no greater prize than that.”

Lady Adelina, who had just stepped down from the Crown Princess selection tonight, was a prime example.

Rather than choosing you—the Crown Prince—she chose a man who was merely the third son of a marquis family.

That was only because true love existed between them.

“……Fufu, is that so? I suppose I truly was rejected tonight, then.”

Perhaps only just realizing it now, the Crown Prince let out a complicated, wry chuckle the moment I pointed it out.

“But are you saying you are just like Lady Adelina? That you have zero interest in the seat of the Crown Princess?”

“I have absolutely no interest in the title of Crown Prince, nor in you yourself.”

By this point, I figured I was already deep into the territory of lèse-majesté, but since I had already blurted out several disrespectful things, I adopted a carefree attitude.

It was far too late to round off the tips of my thorns now.

“Is that so? I had assumed you were quite enthusiastic about becoming my consort.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“The dress you are wearing.”

What about my dress?

Wondering if there was something wrong with it, I looked down at my own attire once again.

It was the absolute finest dress my father and mother had prepared for me for this special day. There was no way anything could be wrong with it.

“I heard it’s a top-tier masterpiece utilizing foreign materials and techniques to the fullest. It supposedly cost dozens of times more than the dresses worn by the other ladies.”

“Do you find it vulgar? Having to spend that much wealth just to adorn oneself.”

“No, rather, I believe it achieved an effect entirely worthy of the expense. In fact, at tonight’s evening party, everyone was captivated by your beauty.”

“My? Beauty?”

What on earth was he talking about?

It was true that I had felt gazes gathering from various directions in the venue, but weren’t those just contemptuous looks of curiosity directed at the “one with no magic”?

“Being visually stunning is undeniably a crucial element for a Crown Princess, and tonight you shone brighter than anyone else. I had assumed that was a manifestation of your firm resolve to seize the seat of the Crown Princess by all means.”

“What a dull misconception.”

Why did nobles bother dressing up, anyway?

They mobilized the highest-grade materials and craftsmanship, throwing money at them without restraint, and even used rare treasures like gems to deck themselves out in sparkles.

They poured thousands of gold pieces into acts that seemed nothing short of wasteful.

Why go to such lengths?

“To flaunt one’s financial power. Pouring vast sums of money even into the seemingly wasteful act of ‘adornment.’ If a family can do that, it means even greater amounts of wealth are being funneled into necessary sectors like military, construction, and production. This dress silently speaks of all that. I simply wanted to make full use of this occasion to thoroughly display the financial prowess of the Eldenvalk Duke family.”

“You had no intention whatsoever of catching my eye?”

“If that’s what you thought, Your Highness is simply suffering from over-imagination.”

I gave him a piece of my mind.

In my past life, even though I was ultimately the root cause of everything, the Crown Prince had unilaterally cornered, judged, and condemned me.

Surely indulging in a tiny bit of retaliation like this was acceptable.

It was fine; I knew for a fact that he was truly in the right.

As someone destined to stand at the apex, he would brush aside my trivial sarcasm and select a new partner to govern this country righteously.

He had likely done so in my past life as well, though I, having died, never got to witness it.

While I naturally had no intention of dying this time around, I also had no desire to meddle in high politics, so I would at least watch over his virtuous governance from afar.

“How cruel of you, Lady Eltriede…”

Yet, the Crown Prince wore an expression that looked genuinely heartbroken…

“Tonight marked the very first stage of my consort selection. In other words, an evening party held specifically for my sake. And yet, I am immediately rejected and told ‘I have no interest whatsoever.’ Isn’t that a bit harsh?”

“Ugh…!?”

“Especially since you put so much effort into dressing up like that. I genuinely thought that beauty was meant as an offering to me, so I had gotten quite ahead of myself, you know?”

No, even if you tell me that…!?

“That was why I went ahead and advanced you to the next screening…”

“Hah!?”

How did things turn into that?!

I had planned to drop out of today’s primary screening right away and leave the royal capital for my territory by tomorrow morning, you know!?

“I-I am ‘one with no magic’! There’s no way I could pass—!”

“This is an event to choose my consort. Naturally, my personal will takes priority in that decision. For the primary screening, I can push someone through with a single word.”

“So you forced me through just like that?! Please retract that!”

“That I cannot do. No matter how much my preferences take priority, if I were to issue opinions and retract them so easily, my own credibility as a ruler would be called into question. I fully expect Lady Eltriede to continue giving her best in the consort selection.”

…Good grief.

I was supposed to quickly finish up this bothersome event and head home.

Thanks to this whimsical prince, does that mean I’m going to be tied down even longer?

“If this serves as a prime opportunity for you to showcase your family’s strength, you are more than welcome to make full use of it. Of course, if you change your mind along the way and genuinely aim to become the Crown Princess, I would welcome that all the more.”

Crown Prince Kistihart.

This man never changed, whether in my past life or my current one.

He always managed to smash my plans into tiny pieces.