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Chapter 02
It had been three months since the mourning of Grandma Marshal’s death.
Being a princess with a silver spoon in her mouth turned out to be utterly useless.
“A princess cannot attend a commoner’s funeral. There are too many eyes watching. Who knows what rumors would spread.”
Rezen firmly denied Erne’s insistence on attending the funeral of Madam Nophia to pay her respects.
She hadn’t even been able to properly say goodbye when she left the cabin for the Nesheld Royal Palace.
Even though she raised her voice in protest, Erne’s words—now newly a princess—held no sway over them.
“A hollow title. My authority is practically in the dirt.”
It was exhausting to even think about where to begin setting things right.
There was no doubt her meticulously crafted plans would need a total overhaul.
“Should I go to the neighboring duchy? It’s warm year-round and known as a neutral country with no wars.”
Erne scribbled down the names of nearby countries she’d learned from her diplomacy classes, then began ruling them out one by one.
“This empire is notorious for its barbarism. Women’s rights are at rock bottom—eliminated. And Utopia’s emperor is a war fanatic who’s constantly provoking other nations. Out.”
As she drew red lines through each name, Erne found her list of options dwindling fast.
From more than a dozen choices, only two or three remained. That was enough to make anyone despair.
A dark cloud hung over Erne’s expression.
“Your Highness, Sir Babylon has arrived. He’s waiting in your room.”
At Rezen’s words, Erne mumbled, “Guess that’s it for today,” and stood up.
These days, Erne spent most of her time either in lessons with tutors appointed by the Queen or buried in the library, supposedly reviewing, but really planning for her future.
Other times, like today, her fiancé Derek would visit and they’d spend the rest of the afternoon together.
Derek Babylon.
The fiancé the Queen had chosen for Erne after calculating political interests.
It had seemed absurd at first, but now she felt nothing about it.
Despite their engagement lacking any affection, Derek was endlessly warm and kind to Erne.
“As your fiancé, I’ll do my best. I won’t bring shame to you, and I’ll support you in every way I can. Please, feel free to be at ease with me.”
With his gentle manners, Derek had even softened Erne’s reluctance toward the engagement.
“Maybe marrying him wouldn’t be so bad after all. Should I take him with me before Nesheld collapses?”
But dragging along another person would only make things harder.
Shaking her head, Erne slowly made her way to her room, where Derek was supposedly waiting.
And when she arrived, she immediately decided to abandon the thought she’d just had.
“I love you, Derek.”
“I love you too, Pashina.”
Soft voices floated through a crack in the door.
Through the small opening—just big enough to fit two fingers—she could clearly see…
A woman calling her fiancé by a nickname, and a pair of familiar figures tangled together in her bedroom.
For a second, Erne wondered if she’d come to the wrong room.
But then she heard unmistakable sounds—sounds you wouldn’t hear unless you were watching a scene flagged as “explicit.”
It stung, realizing that her kind fiancé had betrayed her. But Erne hadn’t expected much in the first place.
“If I had expectations, they’d be for her, not him.”
Her icy gaze turned toward Pashina—the woman the Queen had introduced as a “dear friend.”
The more obscene their noises became, the more Erne’s body trembled.
“They’re insane. Absolutely out of their minds.”
She wasn’t trembling from shock or betrayal.
She had simply forgotten something so obvious and simple.
“Blinded by shiny gold, I forgot what kind of place this was!”
Suddenly, she felt as if she had finally found the answer to several of her recent headaches.
This was the world of a third-rate novel. These kinds of insane plot twists would pop up all the time.
After the “secret birth” trope, now it was the cheating fiancé—and of all people, with her closest companion?
Erne silently screamed, clapping her hands over her mouth.
A classic K-drama cliché if there ever was one.
Turning pale, she immediately went to see the Queen of Nesheld.
She could not remain engaged after witnessing such depravity.
Fiancé or not, she had to get out of Nesheld before the original plot began.
“Break it off. Break the engagement! I need to get out!”
Her desperate muttering turned to silence as she stood before her mother.
＊＊＊
“Erne. There are many forms of love in the world.”
“…”
“Just like the beautiful love I share with Lord Highseed.”
As Erne burst into the Queen’s chamber crying Your Majesty! she was greeted by the sight of the Queen wrapped around Lord Highseed’s neck.
The Queen’s expression twisted in annoyance at the unwelcome guest.
She gave Erne a disapproving look, clearly blaming her for the intrusion.
“Derek and Pashina are in an immoral relationship—!”
“Don’t speak like a child. Everyone just learns to live with things.”
What?! Did I really just hear that?
Erne’s eyes widened like full moons.
“…I’m calling off the engagement.”
She spoke firmly, staring at the Queen’s displeased lips, but the Queen wasn’t going to yield.
Still stroking Lord Highseed with seductive hands, she tilted her head and said coldly:
“Do you think a royal marriage is some child’s play? Denied.”
“What? Why?!”
“I told you. There are many kinds of love in the world.”
With an annoyed face, the Queen pointed to herself and Lord Highseed.
Unbelievable…
Revelation after revelation crashed down on Erne like a storm.
There wasn’t a single sane person in this palace.
Lord Highseed had a wife and three children.
And yet the Queen, engaged in a secret affair with him, was utterly corrupt.
Trembling, Erne fled the Queen’s bedchamber.
She had no idea what twisted logic her mother followed.
She could hear the Queen clicking her tongue behind her, but all Erne could think was:
“I need to get out of this animal kingdom as soon as possible.”
“I used to worry when the male and female leads disappeared.”
Now she was the one with problems.
After the “secret birth,” now came the cheating fiancé—twice in a row.
She wanted to scream at her mother’s face:
“This isn’t love—it’s adultery!” But she swallowed the tears.
“Damn it. If I stay here, I’ll go crazy too.”
With a low curse, she changed tactics.
If she stayed in this rotten palace any longer, she’d crumble to pieces—if not physically, then mentally.
“Alright. I’m leaving Nesheld.”
Nesheld was doomed anyway!
She’d return to a humble life outside the palace and flee the original novel’s destruction by escaping to another country.
Erne had no intention of becoming like her biological mother, the Queen of Nesheld.
“They call her a tyrant who kills at the drop of a hat…”
Now that she’d seen the Queen’s secret affairs, she felt utterly disillusioned with the royal family.
She trudged back to her room, which still hadn’t been cleared of its “red tag.”
“Is that woman really going to be the next Queen?”
“Yes. She’s the only successor. The Queen just brought her back because she needed an heir. She must have known her own daughter was living in a rural backwater.”
“Then… when Erne becomes Queen, we’ll kill her, right?”
“Of course, my love. Pashina. And I’ll become king. You’ll be my queen.”
“Ah! I love it, Derek! Promise you’ll become Nesheld’s king for me!”
Hearing their ridiculous conversation from behind the door, Erne thought just one thing:
“What a joke.”
Who in their right mind would accept the Queen’s throne just to please those two?
She had just set her dream.
As she glared through the crack at Derek and Pashina, Erne sneered and turned away.
She never imagined the jewels she received as a princess would come in handy like this.
She’d exchanged all of them for cash and stored them in a secure vault.
Even hard-to-sell pieces were tucked away thanks to a helpful banker.
People gossiped that she was “frugal” or “a bumpkin who never shook off her country roots.”
But cash was king. South Korean financial wisdom worked anywhere!
Erne left the lovebirds behind and headed for the study to quietly pack her things.
“Your Highness, where are you going?”
When she emerged with a bundle, the knight guarding her palace looked puzzled.
This was when she needed to stay calm—and brazen.
She looked up at the clear blue sky, smiled, and replied,
“The weather’s too nice. Thought I’d take a stroll.”
Indeed, it was the perfect weather to run away.
Getting past security and out the castle gates was even easier than expected.
Because…
She aimed her wristwatch precisely at the knight’s neck.
With a pshh sound, a sleep dart fired from her self-defense gadget.
As expected, the knight yawned and slowly collapsed into sleep.
She’d gotten that dart while foraging herbs—and thank goodness she had!
＊＊＊
And so, without a letter, Princess Erne vanished without a trace.
The Nesheld royal family was thrown into chaos. The Queen sent out knights to search, but all in vain.
“Did the enemy kidnap our princess?!”
“Gasp! Could she be… already dead?”
“No way. How would an enemy sneak in past these tight guards?”
As everyone speculated kidnapping or murder and slowly gave up searching for the only royal heir—
A strange rumor began to circulate.
“Apparently… she left on her own.”
“And there’s been a weird rumor coming out of Vanessa, where she’d gone for recovery.”
“What kind of rumor?”
That a girl resembling the princess had founded a tiny, shabby academy far from the capital.
And the name of that place was difficult to pronounce and utterly bizarre:
Cheonghak-dong.
