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<Chapter 2>
At twelve years old, I fell in love with Cheshire as if it were fate.
I had no choice but to feel it was destiny.
“Hello, Princess. Are you lost?”
From the moment I saw that boy, the same age as me, fiercely swinging a sword in a forest path on the outskirts of the imperial capital, the axis of my world shifted towards him.
Falling in love, I gave up my position as the young lady of the Baltresse Duchy and became engaged to Cheshire.
For the past ten years.
All I ever wanted from him was a place by his side, but.
“……I couldn’t even have that.”
And so, just moments ago, I had tried to kill him of my own will. And I intended to die right after him.
As a result, I wanted my family of love and hate, the Baltres Duchy, to be utterly ruined too. I was that desperate, that I wanted everything to be destroyed.
But, they say one’s mindset can change between entering and leaving the restroom, and my heart now, having realized I’ve been reborn, was exactly like that.
‘I don’t want to die.’
My current age, and the age I died in my previous life from an accident, is twenty-two.
Life is too precious to die young again. There are so many things I haven’t been able to do because of the pretense of being the Crown Princess-in-waiting or the Princess of Baltres
Whether I’m a villainess or not is one thing, the problem is that I’ve messed up the punishment properly.
Maybe it would be more fitting for a villainess to stab the hated female lead instead of the beloved male lead, but.
‘It was Cheshire who betrayed me.’
In truth, I never envied or hated Lishie as the world says. That child was just an outsider who rolled in one day.
One day, my father brought her without any prior notice, a pretty-looking orphan from the temple, and seated her in the position of Princess.
At first, I thought about her value, which seemed to be something everyone knew but me, then I thought she was lucky, and finally, after she awakened as a saint…….
It was then.
“Uh, sister……?”
Wavy, blue water-colored hair and vivid golden eyes.
The heroine of this world, Lishie, with colors like the dawn rising in the early morning sky, appeared.
The moment our eyes met, her face turning pale, she dropped the tray she was holding.
Crash!
“I, I thought your conversation m, might become l, long…… so, I just, brought some refreshments…….”
“Lishie.”
“B, But…… there’s b, blood……. Why…… are you so h, hurt?”
Teacups and other tea sets shattered messily and rolled across the floor. Lishie trampled over the debris and staggered towards me.
A sacred golden light burst from both her hands.
“I’ll h, heal you with divine power. Just a moment……!”
……Does she think I’m hurt?
Come to think of it, from where Lishie was by the door, Cheshire would have been hidden by the sofa. I was also covered in blood, so I must have looked like a ghost.
I gently grabbed Lishie wrist, trembling like a newborn goat, and led her towards Cheshire, collapsed on the floor.
“Lishie, calm down and look carefully. It’s not me who’s hurt, it’s His Highness.”
“……Ugh!”
“Surprisingly, he’s not dead yet, so you can save him with your divine power.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, the blade hadn’t gone deep.
It seemed his not-fully-destroyed aura core was still protecting his heart.
‘……I don’t feel anything for Cheshire anymore.’
Can the world really turn upside down like this?
My love vanished in an instant. Just like the day I fell for him at first sight, it started abruptly and ended abruptly.
“Who on ear, who……!”
“I did it.”
Lishie knelt beside Cheshire, looking up at me with eyes wide in disbelief.
But divine power wasn’t emanating from her hands.
That was a little strange.
In the ‘original work’, at this point Cheshire receives Lishie treatment and recovers perfectly, then holds the villainess’s execution. That content was the climax of the middle part.
Just watching her, her feelings were easy to read.
“You don’t love His Highness, do you? Or do you hate him?”
Her hands, which stopped ambiguously without immediately pouring out divine power even though he was in such a miserable state, clearly said as much.
‘Cheshire. Your noble love seems to be just obsession after all.’
Come to think of it, in the original work, Cheshire was what you’d call an obsessive male lead.
“……This is really funny.”
My feelings were so mixed I couldn’t tell if I was pleased or displeased. I muttered carelessly.
“Lissie. You choose.”
“Huh? B, But can you at least explain what’s happening…….”
“I did it because I was too angry. And you, stop standing there foolishly and do something, anything, of your own will. Are you just going to let yourself be dragged around by the men who like you?”
“Why say such things, I…….”
“You can report that I’m the culprit and let him die like this, or you can save His Highness now, but don’t come looking for me. I’m going far away from now on.”
Yes, I need to leave for somewhere, anywhere, for now.
‘If I stay like this, I’ll end up on the execution block immediately.’
Fortunately, only Lishie is here.
It seems Cheshire gave this villa to Lishie, saying he wanted to be alone with her here, of all places. Because of that, there wasn’t even a single attendant.
A thunderous realization flashed through my mind.
‘If I’m going to run away, it has to be now.’
Before long, my older brother, Noaren Baltres, will arrive here. To take Lishie, who is held captive by the Crown Prince, back to the ducal residence.
‘Run. Quickly. To a place where they can’t easily find me.’
If I cross the Mammut Mountains to the north from here, lies the Duchy of Belmire.
An enemy country in a tense ceasefire with the Hilbarcia Empire, and the place where the ‘Demon Grand Duke’ resides.
‘Although that Grand Duke will bring about the end of the world in a year.’
For now, there’s no refuge as suitable as that place.
If the world really ends, I’ll die wherever I am, and before that, the great saint will probably save the world.
……She will save it, right?
“Lishie, take care of the rest.”
I couldn’t think any more cold-calmly.
Even if things go wrong and I die in Belmire, it will be better than the final moment of dying on the execution block like in the original story.
Because I refuse to live a life controlled by the original work any longer.
“Let’s never see each other again.”
Whoosh!
I roughly tore open the window and jumped down from the second-floor terrace.
“……Sister!”
Lishie’s shrill scream followed me. Landing with the aid of magic, I mounted the horse I had tied up without looking back.
As I ran recklessly north, I thought of only one thing.
‘I have to escape.’
From the Empire, and from my destiny.
