Chapter 18

I am Crown Prince Kistihart.

It was the first day of the Crown Princess selection, the night of the grand banquet.

Even though the start of the banquet was fast approaching, that fact had completely and cleanly vanished from my mind.

Inside my head as I dashed down the stairs, there was only one thing.

The young lady as beautiful as a wild rose whom I had seen from the terrace.

It was the first time in my life that I had been captivated by a woman’s appearance in a single instant.

Given my position as Crown Prince, getting carried away by feminine charm was something that simply must not happen, yet I was certainly not infatuated.

I was merely going to verify up close that beauty which had been difficult to confirm from afar.

Once I could look at her clearly, I might simply think, “Oh, is that all it was?”

Knowing the layout of the royal castle like the back of my hand, I was able to reach her side just as she was about to step inside.

Yet there stood an uninvited extra guest.

What on earth were those young ladies thinking?

Surrounding a single girl with three of them lined up like that—what were they trying to pull?

No, there was no need to even think about it.

Women’s bullying was always underhanded and malicious, anywhere and anytime.

Coming all the way to the royal castle just to hunt for prey? …No, considering today’s event, was their scheme to weed out even a single rival by doing something like this?

I myself had no interest in the Crown Princess selection, but standing by and watching such unpleasant, malicious mockery also put me in a foul mood.

Just as I was about to step forward to rescue the isolated girl surrounded by them…

“We heard the outrageous rumor that this ‘one with no magic’ dared to aim for the seat of the Crown Princess, and we rose out of a sense of righteous indignation!”

Was that the voice of those idiotic young ladies?

If they said ‘one with no magic’, could it be that girl… the daughter of the Duke of Eldenvalk…?

The one I had seen nearly a decade ago, persistently and single-mindedly working away at that magic training grounds…?

Ah, of course, since she was also a noble young lady, she had been summoned to the Crown Princess selection.

How many years had it been since I last saw her? Who could have imagined she had grown up into someone so breathtakingly beautiful?

Precisely because she could not use magic, she adorned herself in foreign-made, sophisticated dresses, and the fragrant aura of refinement could be felt even more clearly now that I was close.

It was as if she were a princess of a foreign realm… no, a queen.

“If you gracefully withdraw right here, how about we introduce you to a suitable husband? What do you say to becoming the fourth junior wife of an elderly gentleman in his sixties?”

Those underhanded wretches, saying such utterly vile things!

I would discipline them on the spot right now!

However, there was no need for me to lift a finger.

Eltriede, a noble young lady herself, struck down those unruly miscreants all by her own hand.

Since she was the ‘one with no magic’, any direct action she took had to be purely physical.

Yet Lady Eltriede must have had training, because she expertly and brilliantly twisted one of those malicious wretches into submission.

Her skill handling herself was astonishing, but at the same time, what left me appalled was the sheer defenselessness of those underhanded women.

Trying to use magic at such close range. Magic always required a moment or more of “buildup” for mental concentration or chanting offerings to the spirits.

Once you closed the distance that much, simply throwing a physical punch was bound to be infinitely faster.

Lacking even that basic understanding and relying on magic in every single situation. Perhaps those three were simply fools, but a comprehensive ideological reform of our nation’s nobility truly seemed necessary after all.

Only after that did I finally have my cue to step in, and trembling in terror at the Crown Prince’s displeasure, the malicious women fled.

Later on, I would issue a stern protest to their fathers and brothers so they wouldn’t at least have the luxury of running around playing idly.

Reunited after all this time, Lady Eltriede up close was so gorgeous it made one forget to breathe.

Perhaps precisely because she lacked magic, she had mobilized every alternative means available to adorn herself, and that was why there existed a beauty refined to its absolute limit.

Her plump, thick lips stained with lipstick were all the more alluring.

A woman like this had come here to become my bride.

That realization made me happier than I cared to admit to myself.

Yet when it came to confirming that, her attitude was surprisingly evasive.

Uttering things like “It’s by royal command” and so forth…

Could it be that she actually didn’t want to be here?

When I thought about it, the reason immediately came to mind. The royal capital—a gathering place for magic-supremacist nobles—must have been an intensely uncomfortable place for her, someone branded as “one with no magic.”

In the end, we parted ways while still keeping our distance, and the banquet properly got under way.

Since it was a banquet hosted essentially for my sake, I couldn’t simply not attend, and the moment I showed my face, a crowd immediately gathered around me.

The main faces were the young ladies vying for the seat of the Crown Princess. They were glaringly eager to make a good impression on me.

Even with young ladies so transparently driven by ambition, they had come at the royal family’s behest, so I couldn’t dismiss them coldly and entertained them with a manufactured smile.

All the while, my gaze kept searching for her.

Eltriede’s beauty was matchless, so she stood out and was easy to find right away.

Yet at the same time, the gazes of everyone around us were also converging on her.

Everyone had noticed Eltriede’s breathtaking beauty.

Thinking that, for some reason, the inside of my body grew hot and restless. Was this the emotion known as impatience?

I had to speak with her as soon as humanly possible. Thinking that, I somehow managed to brush off the intensely glaring young ladies and carved out enough leeway to move freely.

I immediately thought to address Eltriede, but her figure was nowhere to be seen?

Where had she gone?

I anxiously cast my gaze around, but fortunately, I quickly managed to spot her black hair.

With her back turned… where was she trying to go?

My feet naturally chased after her.

Eltriede walked straight ahead without a moment’s hesitation… and it was clear she was purposefully heading somewhere specific.

Had she even left the banquet hall? Could she possibly be planning to go home already?

However, her progression stopped quite abruptly.

Her destination was the courtyard outside the castle?

Wondering what on earth could be out in a place like this, I found out almost immediately.

In the courtyard that should have been deserted, an unfamiliar young man and woman were embracing, creating an atmosphere straight out of a romance.

Eltriede was secretly peeking in on them, and I, in turn, was peeking in on her from even further outside the perimeter.

It seemed Eltriede was concerned about those two lovers.

According to snippets of their whispered endearments that drifted over, it appeared the young man—the lover—had tracked down his beloved because she had been forced to participate in the Crown Princess selection against her family’s wishes.

I couldn’t help thinking they should take that sort of thing elsewhere, but Eltriede was apparently going to help the two of them.

She revealed herself of her own accord and began offering counsel.

I continued to observe the scene while remaining hidden.

Her conclusion was that the only way to bring their romance to fruition was to make a direct appeal to the Crown Prince.

Meaning, to this very me.

On that, I basically shared her opinion.

They were trying to spirit away a woman publicly recognized as a Crown Princess candidate. Without the permission of myself, the principal party involved, it would undoubtedly constitute a clear crime no matter how they struggled.

If she failed to secure my permission, she would scar the young lady’s face and use that as grounds to be dropped from the candidates… which actually made a certain logical sense.

Making a direct appeal to the Crown Prince. Frankly, I would be troubled if they didn’t have at least that much resolve.

After all, the royal family’s prestige was on the line in my judgment as well.

Yet the words Eltriede uttered next plunged me into sheer confusion.

She declared that she herself would be the one to slash open the face of the young lady in question… Adelina Fwanze.

Why?

Causing a bloodshed incident at a royal-hosted event would be a massive scandal. At best, she would be permanently exiled from high society.

Eltriede had no relation to those two whatsoever, so why on earth did she have to shoulder that kind of risk?

Honestly, up until that exact moment, I had been debating whether I should accept their direct petition or not.

While I felt a desire to support the lovers, I had my doubts: should I go so far as to lower the royal family’s authority in exchange?

However, Eltriede’s declaration immediately settled the policy on “accepting the direct appeal.”

Building on that, I frantically spun my gears to think of a clever way that wouldn’t tarnish the royal family’s authority… any far-fetched justification would do.

I had used my head more in this past year than at any other time.

Thanks to that, with a brilliant impromptu idea, I challenged the opponent to a duel, allowing the other party to keep their dignity while I ultimately won in the end, thereby stepping down from the position of Crown Princess candidate from the standpoint of the victor… managing somehow to wrap everything up neatly on all fronts.

That dueling opponent, the Marquis’s son Berem, was genuinely a promising magic knight, and even a powerhouse like me could have been overwhelmed if I had carelessly held back.

Moreover, since marriage to his beloved woman was on the line, he pulled off performance levels that far exceeded his usual limits.

In the end I won, but it made me want to praise myself for pulling off a victory at all.

Through that, everything was settled smoothly, and since Eltriede came out of it completely unscathed, it was an exceptionally stellar outcome from my perspective.

By this point, I could no longer avoid acknowledging it.

I was treating Eltriede with exceptional partiality.

I knew full well how she was treated in this country as the “one with no magic” young lady.

Even if she wished to become Crown Princess, gaining consent would undoubtedly prove difficult.

Yet it also forced me to confront the vague anxiety I had harbored all along: “Is this country really going to be fine as it is?”

Having her by my side might just transform her into a deeply reliable presence.

However…

“Could it possibly be that you think every young lady in the world unconditionally adores you?”

“Certainly, there are many women captivated by the title of Crown Prince. No doubt a percentage of the noble young ladies who came to tonight’s banquet feel that way. But there are also many women who do not.”

“I have not a shred of interest in either the title of Crown Prince or in you as a person.”

Good grief.

Eltriede truly, genuinely had zero desire to become my bride.

Hearing those words stated so plainly felt like having a blade driven straight into my chest.

Yet at the same time, a fighting spirit flared up within me.

It seemed I was the sort of person who preferred being chosen over choosing.

Since it had come to this, I would make Eltriede turn her eyes toward me no matter what it took.