[Episode 12] - Replacing the Teacher (2)
“I cannot accept this!”
“I am not asking for your understanding. How many times must I tell you? This is the decision of the Ministry of the Royal Household.”
At Marchioness Lorenzo’s raised voice, I was able to regain the senses I had briefly lost. The First Queen’s suicide was the sort of issue that made my mind go blank, and I wanted to confront Ainsel about it at once, but...
For now, the matter before my eyes came first.
Marchioness Lorenzo was still causing an uproar with Chancellor Baengsho, insisting she could not accept her transfer. Well, I had expected that a woman with her temperament would not accept it easily.
Ahem.
I set the coffee cup in my hand down on the table and drew the marchioness’s gaze to me. The moment I looked at her with Vivian’s specialty, that insolent look in my eyes—
‘Ugh.’
Because the marchioness was glaring at me with bloodshot eyes, growling like a beast, I almost looked away without realizing it. Was that the expression of someone who valued etiquette?
“Marchioness Lorenzo, do you know why I said I would take charge of the princess’s education?”
“...Did Your Majesty dislike me that much? To begin with, education is not as easy as Your Majesty seems to think...!”
It seemed the marchioness could no longer hear me. She merely seemed to be spouting whatever came to mind in order to somehow smooth over this moment, this situation.
I rose from the sofa and walked up to the marchioness. When I came close enough that only a single step remained between us, I could hear her panting as she held back her anger.
“Yes, just as you said, Marchioness, I do not like you.”
“Ha..! Is that why you took charge of Her Highness’s education? For such a petty reason? Simply because you hate me?”
If it had been for such a petty reason, I would have used another method.
Seeing the marchioness’s expression as she grew angry, as if she truly were the victim, I let out a small sigh. Just looking at that face irritated me because it reminded me of that “ending” I had seen in the game.
Honestly, because of this matter, I had wondered a great deal whether what I was doing was truly right. This place I was in now was not a world that flowed in scripted form like a game, but reality.
So I wondered if perhaps the marchioness might also be different from the game.
But...
It was not as if I had come here and done nothing but eat and laze around. Through the maids I had grown close to, I gathered the rumors spreading through the royal castle, and I had even confirmed the rumor that the marchioness seemed obsessed with the princess.
“If you had not seen the princess as a substitute for the First Queen, I would never have had to step forward and say I would become the princess’s ‘teacher.’”
“...What..?”
The marchioness’s bloodshot eyes went round. As if I had struck home. Baengsho, who heard it from the side, also widened his eyes as if wondering whether what he had heard was truly real.
“When the First Queen married His Majesty, the late king and Her Majesty the Queen Dowager praised you without reserve. They said you had truly raised a beautiful young lady befitting His Majesty.”
At my words, the marchioness’s shoulders trembled violently.
I looked at the marchioness and continued speaking.
“The rumor that you had received the late king’s praise spread quickly through society. Everyone must have lauded you. Calling you an excellent ‘educator,’ saying they would pay any amount of money if only you would educate their children too.”
“......That is not true.”
“In that way, having your achievement of raising the First Queen recognized, you were able to remain in the royal castle and assist the queen. And that, too, with the position of the First Queen’s ‘godmother.’”
“...That is not true.”
“Is that not life in the royal castle, something every noble envies? Congratulations. You at that time were truly a successful noble whom everyone would have envied.”
When I patted the marchioness on the shoulder, she glared at me as if she truly wanted to tear me to death. But no matter how she glared, there was nothing she could do.
Because this story was only truly beginning now.
“But what a pity.”
“Your Majesty..!”
As if trying to stop the story that would come next, the marchioness called out to me. But I smiled brightly at the flustered marchioness and continued.
“The First Queen you raised died.”
Grind—
No sooner had I finished speaking than the sound of teeth grinding slipped through the marchioness’s clenched jaw. As if she was barely holding herself back at my words, her tightly clenched fists could also be seen trembling.
“...After the First Queen died, your position in the royal castle became extremely precarious. After all, the position of the First Queen’s ‘godmother’ vanished in an instant.”
“......”
“Worse still, rumors spread that you were involved in the First Queen’s death. Worthless nobles began finding fault with you, saying perhaps there was a problem with your educational methods.”
I was shocked to hear that the First Queen had committed suicide, but even in the game, the First Queen had already been treated as someone dead. In the game, however, she had not died by suicide, but from illness.
That was why, not knowing the First Queen was dead, I could not understand why the marchioness was so obsessed with the princess. I had merely guessed that perhaps something had happened to the First Queen.
But the moment I heard today that the First Queen was dead, I clearly understood why the marchioness was obsessed with the princess.
In the end, no matter how the First Queen died, the marchioness had no choice but to become obsessed with the princess.
All for the sake of reclaiming the honor she had lost.
“Did you want to restore your prestige somehow through the princess?”
“No..! I truly did it for Her Highness...!”
“Did you truly think raising the princess like the First Queen was for the princess’s sake? Were you not planning to make the princess follow in the First Queen’s footsteps and raise her to be exactly the same as the First Queen?”
“What is wrong with that! My method of education has already been proven! I raised the First Queen with my education, so what exactly is wrong with that method?”
“Because of that ridiculous method of education, the princess will..!!”
Take her own life later.
Those words rose all the way to the tip of my throat.
In the game, the princess receives an education from the marchioness that is no different from “brainwashing.” She is told that every action must be befitting the First Queen, starting with her tastes and extending even to her manner of speech.
The marchioness’s “education” was no different from an act of erasing the princess’s personality. Everything like the First Queen. Everything befitting the First Queen. That was the marchioness’s “education.”
When I first saw that ending, I was so disgusted that goosebumps rose on my skin.
With the high stats the marchioness gave, I had been filled with expectation, wondering whether I might finally see a happy ending this time. But this damned game, as if punishing me for entrusting the princess to the marchioness without much suspicion—
Truly without warning.
Suddenly.
Showed me an illustration of the princess found hanging by the neck.
Before I could even escape the shock of the princess I had raised so dearly committing suicide, this damned game kindly began explaining in detail exactly why the princess had killed herself.
The marchioness who had lost her honor with the First Queen’s death.
The delusion of trying to make the princess exactly like the First Queen in order to regain that honor.
The princess who, unable to endure that delusion, ultimately took her own life.
‘A vicious woman.’
Looking at the marchioness in front of me as she argued back fiercely, I thought that. Unable to forget the honor she had once enjoyed, the marchioness who tried to make that woman’s daughter the same felt terribly vicious to me.
“...In any case, I have no intention of understanding your educational policy. How malicious must the rumors about you have been for even the Ministry of the Royal Household to choose me, rumored to be a witch, over you?”
“Ha...”
“Accept it quietly and retire. Baengsho will make sure you receive a generous severance payment.”
I picked up the crumpled “transfer notice” lying on the table and held it out to the marchioness again. The marchioness stared blankly at the transfer notice I offered her, then suddenly let out a giggle.
“Your Majesty said this to me last time, did you not..? That Her Highness’s opinion was important.”
“...I did.”
Upon hearing my answer, the marchioness whipped her head around and stormed out of the room, her footsteps thudding loudly. At the sudden situation, both Baengsho and I could only stare blankly after her.
I let out a small sigh and turned my head to look at Baengsho. Baengsho seemed just as bewildered by this situation as I was. No matter how little the marchioness thought of me as royalty...
Baengsho looked at the wide-open door the marchioness had left behind and sighed.
“...Your Majesty seems especially merciful today.”
“Is the marchioness not an old person like you? Every time I see the marchioness’s face, I keep thinking of you, so I have been holding back quite a lot.”
“Hoho!”
At my joke, Baengsho laughed, “Hoho!” If it had been Vivian’s personality, it would not have been enough even to behead the marchioness right here and now. Vivian was someone who had no mercy for those who dared climb over her.
As Baengsho and I were exchanging jokes, the thudding sound of footsteps came again from the corridor. Hearing it, Baengsho sighed once more, and I, too, let out a sigh in time with his.
It would have been nice if it had ended with the marchioness’s thudding footsteps.
But among the footsteps echoing through the corridor, a child’s voice could be heard as well.
“W-wait..! Ah... it hurts..! Slowly..!”
In the hand of the marchioness, who came recklessly through the open door, was the princess’s arm. At the sight of the marchioness bringing her in as if dragging the princess along, for a moment, I nearly stopped breathing.
Neither Baengsho nor I could say a word at the sight of the marchioness. With an expression close to madness, the marchioness entered the room, grabbed the princess by the shoulders, and shouted.
“Your Highness..! Her Majesty is trying to drive me out! Saying I am of no help to you! Your Highness..! Just one word... Please say just one word. Hm? Tell her that I am more helpful to you than Her Majesty!”
“Ah, ugh..!”
At this absurd situation, I lowered my head and looked at the princess. Through the sleeve that had ridden up from the marchioness’s rough grip, bruises could be seen here and there on her arm, and vivid red marks remained on her wrist.
As if someone had grabbed her roughly and twisted with all their strength.
“Wait..! Loren—”
When Baengsho saw the wounds on the princess’s arm, his face turned deathly pale and he tried to stop the marchioness, but my movements were faster than his restraining voice.
I grabbed the shoulder of the crouching marchioness, shoved her backward and away from the princess, then raised my hand high and struck the marchioness across the cheek.
Slap—!
Because of the sound of the slap, silence descended over the room for an instant. With pain ringing in her cheek and her hair disheveled, the marchioness covered her cheek with her hand and looked up at me with disbelief in her eyes.
I forcefully glared down at the marchioness, doing my best to ignore my stinging palm.
“Have you truly gone mad, Marchioness?”
“T-this...”
At the same time as I struck her cheek, Baengsho quickly took the princess and moved her far away from the marchioness. I crouched in front of the marchioness sitting on the floor and met her gaze.
“Marchioness. Though I hate you, I did not particularly think I had to do anything to you.”
“Y-Your Majesty...”
“I thought of it as nothing more than the complaints of an old person and endured a great deal. Even though you acted without showing me that ‘etiquette’ you are so proud of.”
I held out the badly crumpled “transfer notice” in my hand before the marchioness again. The marchioness tried to take it with trembling hands, but—
“But now, is there any need for me to endure it?”
I tore the transfer notice in half right then and there. At the same time the paper ripped, the marchioness’s complexion began turning deathly blue. As if foretelling her future.
You should have accepted it when I gave you your last chance.
After scattering the torn pieces of the transfer notice across the floor, I rose and commanded Baengsho. Baengsho would settle this sort of matter appropriately.
“Baengsho, I trust you will handle this well without my having to say it.”
“...Yes, Your Majesty.”
Leaving behind Baengsho, who bowed his head, I raised my hand toward the princess, who did not know what to do. Looking at the bright red, swollen handprints, I felt needlessly sorry.
I gently stroked the princess’s hair, smiled brightly, and said,
“Starting today, you may come to my room during the marchioness’s lesson time.”
“Yes...?”
“Because from now on, I am your teacher.”