◈ Episode 133: Sword in the Shadow (1)
Erendir’s hands trembled.
Her complexion was as pale as someone who had been told a secret they should never have heard.
“Are you okay, senior?”
“Uh, huh? Why?”
“Your complexion doesn’t look good.”
“Yes. Somehow, I guess.”
Erendir was barely able to answer.
But even as she spoke, she felt something black wriggling up inside her.
To be honest, Erendir was feeling a tremendous(?) sense of betrayal by Line.
‘You were a soul mate like me!’
The cry that I couldn’t bear to let out of my mouth was shaking in my chest.
Liné’s junior is kind and even pretty.
Obviously, there was nothing strange about having a friend to eat with.
The reason why I couldn’t admit it was because I was lacking myself, Erendir thought so.
‘That, though. I was going to tell you a story from the Kunst Auction House while eating together!’
She had already drawn the script in her head on how to tell the story.
Now all you have to do is find someone to listen to it, but to mess it up here.
Erendir was in tears at the unbelievable reality.
“Yeah, but that’s it. Line junior.”
“yes.”
“that… … The person who eats together… … who is this?”
“Uh, um. that is… … .”
Rinne hesitated to answer.
The person who made the appointment was Freuden Ulburg. But meeting him was a secret.
Freuden was a simple person who tended her own flower garden away from people’s eyes, and only she shared the secret.
—I want you to keep things a secret here.
These were the words Freuden had asked her when they were parting.
If you bring up the name of Freyden here, you become a light-mouthed person who talks about other people’s secrets.
When Linne, who had gone mad in her thoughts, kept her mouth shut, Erendir was shocked again.
That kind and naive junior, Lyne, kept secret about who she eats from!
‘This is a man! It must be a man!’
Erendir was sure that the person eating with Line was a man.
It was a judgment that was left to anger and anger, but it was surprisingly accurate.
Erendir opened his eyes and hurriedly began to manage his expression.
“That, so? What can you do if you are busy? Ho ho ho.”
“I’m sorry, senior. Let’s eat together tomorrow!”
“of course. And I’m not a narrow-minded person like that. know? Really. I’m not offended or anything like that.”
“yes?”
“Just~. Yes.”
“Ah yes.”
Seeing Erendir smiling and talking, Line nodded and was relieved.
‘thank god. Because the senior understands with a big heart.’
Still, I thought it would be a little hard on the inside, but maybe it’s because she’s a senior and a princess, so she was considerate of Line with a broad mind.
“See you tomorrow.”
“huh. Goodbye.”
Line bowed her head to Erendir, who waved her hand, and disappeared across the hallway with wobbly steps.
Erendir, who had been waving at Linen, stopped as if time had stopped the moment her figure disappeared from sight.
‘Liné’s junior is going to eat with a man?’
Erendir thought.
Due to her personality, there was no way she would have approached someone first and offered her a meal.
That said, it was highly likely that the male side approached first.
A situation was drawn in Erendir’s mind at once.
‘A guy like a wolf must have seduced our naive junior Lyne!’
There were not a few male students who were aiming for Line.
Since her status was a commoner, noble male students especially looked at her easily.
No matter how much Linen hit the wall, he wouldn’t be able to knock out everyone who approached him while hiding his true feelings.
‘You can’t stay like this! I have to step in and help my juniors!’
A sense of justice is also a sense of justice, but Line was the first friend Erendir made when he came here, Seorn.
My friend was about to go down the wrong path, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open and watch it.
Erendir pursued Linen with stealthy steps.
‘Hey there!’
Linen was just about to leave the main building and fall toward the park.
‘park! It’s a favorite place for students to secretly have s*x with the opposite s*x!’
Erendir also had ears to hear, so he knew where the students were secretly whispering love.
She followed Line, feeling that her uneasy imagination was gradually becoming a reality.
‘What unscrupulous guy dares our juniors! Let’s meet at least once!’
With that in mind, isn’t Linen going into the remote forest adjacent to the park?
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Erendir became urgent. I wondered if I should step out and grab Linen’s hand now.
‘Oh, no!’
While thinking for a while, Line went into the forest.
Erendir hurriedly followed her trail to the forest.
No matter how far they had gone, Erendir found an empty lot in the forest and stopped.
‘Is there a small vacant lot in a place like this?’
On one side of the artificially decorated vacant lot, there was also a flower bed presumed to have been tended by someone.
And the line she was chasing stood in the center of the clearing.
Looks like waiting for someone.
That means that the person I promised to eat with Line is here.
‘Where are you?’
It was then that Erendir, who was hiding behind a tree and looking around, heard a voice from behind.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Erendir was hurriedly surprised and looked back.
And when she recognized the other person talking to her, her eyes widened.
“Are you Freuden Ulburg?”
“… … The third princess of Erendir?”
Freuden Ulburg.
With a cold expression, he narrowed his eyes and glared at Erendir.
“I was wondering who came here secretly like a rat, what are you doing here?”
“No, why are you here anyway?”
“Yeah… … .”
Freuden shook his head as he tried to answer.
“I see no reason to explain it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“oh! senior!”
Did you hear the conversation between the two? Line, who was waiting in the clearing, approached.
She saw Freyden and was about to say hello, but stopped when she saw that Erendir was there too.
“uh? Why is Erendir-senpai here?”
Then, he turned his head and looked at Freyden and Erendir alternately.
A strange silence fell between the three of them.
* * *
“therefore.”
Sitting down on a mat, Erendir glanced at Freuden with suspicious eyes.
“You said you took care of this vacant lot and the flower beds yourself, and you mean that your juniors will meet and eat with you?”
“Is there anything strange about that?”
Freuden responded bluntly, eating the food from the lunchbox he had packed.
Line, suddenly caught in the battle of spirits between the two, became unable to do this or that.
She thought about what to do with this situation before opening her mouth cautiously.
“Well, what is Erendir-senpai doing here?”
Erendir trembled at the question that hit the point.
She evaded Line’s gaze and replied hesitantly.
“Well, that’s why you said you were eating, but I was worried when you suddenly headed to the park… … .”
“ah. I see.”
Line immediately understood why Erendir had followed him.
If an acquaintance went to the forest to eat, she would have had similar thoughts.
At that time, Freuden snorted and refuted Erendir’s words.
“You make lame excuses. That’s why I don’t have friends.”
“What, what? Hey! I’m not without friends! You’re not dating on purpose!”
When he said that he had no friends, Erendir hit the floor with his palm.
Freuden’s words were tantamount to digging into her open wounds.
“joy. What the hell are you, Ulburg? It’s not like you’re planting a cute flower bed in a place like this. It’s completely different from your usual image, isn’t it?”
Freuden frowned at Erendir’s counterattack.
“… … Don’t talk about other people’s hobbies.”
“I never dreamed that that cold wolf would have such a girlish taste.”
“I think a princess like that should have a bit of a girlish taste.”
“I beg your pardon?!”
No matter how you look at it, the two people growling at each other were that of an enemy.
Freuden shook his head.
“If we talk like this, it will only consume each other’s strength.”
“joy. That’s me too. Let’s go our separate ways.”
“… … Why are you eating the lunch I brought while you say that?”
Erendir had been eating the food Freuden had brought for a while.
At those words, Erendir stopped forking and decided to shamelessly go out anyway.
“What should I do if the food that my juniors are going to eat doesn’t taste good? As a senior, I eat it instead to confirm that.”
Freuden put on an expression of astonishment at the shameless attitude of the princess.
It’s not a food inspector to prevent the poisoning of some kind of king.
What’s even more absurd is that the princess, Erendir, offers to eat instead for the sake of the commoner, Line.
Aren’t things the other way around?
“I don’t have any friends because I’m so obsessed.”
“radish… … !”
Erendir was about to shout what he was talking about, but shut his mouth when he saw Line staring at him from the side.
“Uh, um. I’ve felt this for a long time, but maybe Erendir-senpai… … Don’t you have any other friends?”
“What do you mean! Line junior! My, I don’t have any friends?!”
“is not it?”
“no. saw it right Line. Unfortunately, this irredeemable 3 princess is a pitiful person who has not been able to properly make one of her friends.”
“you… … !”
Erendir glared at him like he was going to kill him, but Freuden just shrugged.
Hearing that, Line couldn’t understand the situation. Erendir said she was a princess, but why is she not popular?
If you have a high status, don’t people around you know and approach you?
“The response is that I am curious about why. Simple. The reason why 3rd Princess Erendir became like that is because of 1st Princess Eileen.”
“If it’s Princess 1… … .”
1st Princess Eileen von Exillion.
He remembered that Erendir had warned him that he was a very dangerous and frightening person.
“Why is that?”
“It happened because the position of the first princess was so firm.”
“Are you going to stop saying useless things?”
Erendir rebuked him for saying no more, but Freuden had no intention of doing so.
After all, he was also quite annoyed at the arrival of uninvited guests to his nest.
“In normal families, it is not uncommon for children to fight over succession rights. In severe cases, a fight breaks out on a national level.”
Just look at the civil war in the northern kingdom of Utah.
The fight between the factions of the prince and the princess sparked a war across the Kingdom of Utah, resulting in many casualties.
“But very rarely, there are times when you don’t need to have such pointless disputes.”
“What the hell is that?”
“If there is a firm next successor.”
Erendir let out an uncomfortable silence.
However, she didn’t have anything to say in response. Everything Freuden said was true.
“First Princess Eileen is a person with no room for disagreement to become the emperor. Because she has everything as a ruler. … … It’s too much to say.”
Freuden had previously met Eileen at a banquet held in the imperial palace.
The emotion I felt then was the fear of falling into the ocean and looking into an endless abyss.
What was contained in the empty eyes that I could not understand at all seemed to be something other than human.
“As a result, other people have no choice but to become vague.”
Usually, it was standard for a fight between the heirs to the throne to flow into a factional fight with the support of the nobility.
However, if there is an overwhelming superhuman, such a faction will not even form.
Since everyone bet only on the winner, the fight itself was not established.
As the first princess received overwhelming support, the position of the rest of the heirs became ambiguous.
Nobles did not have to risk being attached to another heir.
It was enough just to swear allegiance to the first princess.
“Of course, even so, the strong background of the position of the third princess would still be quite attractive to other nobles. If she marries someone from her own family, she can maintain a closer relationship with the imperial family.”
“Is that too?”
“But even that was canceled by the first princess. I don’t know what kind of affair the princess had, but she didn’t throw away her siblings, she rather embraced them.”
It was not enough to save those who might become his rivals, so he embraced them.
If someone had done this, they might have been called crazy.
However, if the executioner is Aileen, the story is different.
“It’s not holding. My sister, she just needs some toys to play with.”
Erendir refuted with tears in his eyes, but Freuden did not respond.
“Anyway, in reality, she is the first princess called the next emperor. There are no great nobles who do things that go beyond her eyes.”
It was for this reason that Erendir was treated unbecoming a princess within Seorn Academy.
The nobles didn’t even approach her because the act of trying to be friendly with the 3rd princess could offend the 1st princess.
Conversely, the commoners could not approach her because they felt burdened and rejected because of her high status as the third princess.
“Actually, the 3rd Princess didn’t know that, and when she was a freshman in the first year, she said she wanted to make friends, and went around all over the place, including club activities and volunteer activities.”
“Ugh.”
“I couldn’t even imagine how uncomfortable the other students must have been.”
“It’s great.”
As Freyden continued to speak, Erendir’s head turned downward.
In the end, the past that had been desperately hidden from juniors was exposed.
The noble third princess was actually a loner who couldn’t make a single friend!
Erendir couldn’t bear to raise his head in shame.
Line also felt sorry for her, and opened her mouth to defend her somehow.
“Hey, then, was Princess 1 always that great since she was little?”
“Surprisingly, it is not. There was a time when she too was alone without her supporters.”
At that time, there were no nobles who showed blatantly disquieting movements.
They saw the talent of the 1st princess as dangerous and plotted to expel her.
“However, all of those nobles disappeared without even knowing a mouse or a bird without fulfilling their purpose.”
“Is it gone?”
“I don’t even know the details. It’s a thing of the past, and it’s a closely guarded secret. However, there is one warning that spreads implicitly among the nobles.”
It was then that Erendir, who had been listening quietly, received the words.
“Beware of Princess 1’s shadow. There is no place where the princess’s shadow is untouched.”
Freuden and Line’s eyes turned to her.
Erendir’s face was feeble, but he was terrified.
“If you face that shadow, you will surely die.”
“that is… … What is it?”
“A floating taboo among the nobility.”
It sounds ridiculous, but I had no choice but to call it that.
“This is the reason why no one can go against the first princess unnie.”
