TSTRP 04

Chapter 4 

Crash!

The moment I entered my uncle’s room, a deafening noise rang in my ears.

The flowerpot my uncle had smashed against the floor shattered, sending fragments flying in every direction.

It looked like he had already thrown quite a tantrum.

The room was a complete mess, with an overturned table and broken teacups scattered everywhere in addition to the shattered flowerpot.

This wasn’t the first or second time my uncle had behaved like this, so I stood by the door without much reaction.

There was no point being surprised now. I had already seen this many times before.

It happened whenever his business failed, whenever he got swindled, or whenever he managed to squander another portion of the family fortune.

Come to think of it, there’s hardly any money left in the household, yet he’s smashing expensive teacups and flowerpots.

Maybe if he had fixed his temper before thinking about selling off his niece, the family’s financial situation would have been a little better.

Ah.

Then again, he wouldn’t have gone into debt in the first place.

“Phew… Haa…”

After taking a few moments to catch his breath, Uncle Torres irritably waved his hand.

A servant who had been waiting nearby hurried into the room and placed a chair that had been prepared beforehand.

My uncle sat down and tightly shut his eyes as though trying to calm himself.

“So. Are you satisfied now?”

I remained silent, watching my uncle.

Perhaps my silence only made him angrier.

“Are you satisfied, I asked, Solana! Everything has fallen apart because of your disgraceful behavior! Are you satisfied now?!”

“……”

Satisfied?

Of course not.

Nothing I truly wanted had been accomplished.

For the moment, I had merely escaped from a train that was headed straight to hell.

“Thanks to you, House Albre is finished! Do you really think Viscount Montrache will sit quietly after suffering such humiliation?! He’ll certainly retaliate! Now we’re going to have to pay back the debt in full! What are you planning to do about that?!”

Pfft.

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

My uncle’s eyes widened in disbelief when he saw me laughing.

“You little—!”

“I think you’re misunderstanding something, Uncle.”

“What?”

“The reason House Albre is going bankrupt isn’t because of me. It’s because of you.”

My voice was surprisingly calm.

“You’re the one who borrowed money from Viscount Montrache. You’re the one who tried to force me to marry that old man. And you’re the one who squandered most of the family fortune. Where exactly is my fault in all this?”

My uncle opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water.

His body trembled with rage, apparently unable to believe how boldly his niece had changed.

“You had the audacity to apply for a position as an Imperial secretary, and this is what happened! If you weren’t exceptional at anything, you should have quietly gotten married. Why can’t you understand that I was doing this for your sake?!”

“For my sake?”

“Yes! Do you have any idea how important Viscount Montrache is?! How dare someone like you make such a fuss about breaking off the marriage?! Reject the secretary position immediately, go to the viscount, kneel before him, and apologize!”

My uncle’s mind seemed to be consumed entirely by the debt that Viscount Montrache had promised to erase in exchange for taking me as his bride.

The thought of having to repay all that money must have made his future look bleak.

And what about the interest Viscount Montrache would demand?

My uncle’s ugly insistence made my heart sink.

My uncle really doesn’t consider me family.

That was the only reason he could say something so shameless.

The uncle who had tried to get along with me when I was a child was gone.

“The secretary position can’t be refused anymore. You know I can’t disobey an imperial decree.”

I paused before continuing.

“And… I have no intention of kneeling before the viscount either.”

I wondered if my uncle would have said the same things if it had been his daughter, Alice, standing in my place.

I had thought there was nothing left to be disappointed about.

But perhaps some tiny fragment of attachment still remained inside me, because my throat tightened.

There was nothing more to discuss.

I turned away from my uncle.

“Ha! Do you really think your father will be able to rest peacefully in the afterlife after watching this family fall apart?”

I didn’t turn around.

“Don’t talk about my late father.”

My voice was cold.

“If my father knew everything that had happened, he would have drawn his sword against you a long time ago.”

And considering how much he had loved me, he absolutely would have.

I had no intention of shrinking back inside this household anymore.

I straightened my back and walked out of the room with my uncle behind me.

His enraged voice followed after me, shouting for someone to bring him cold water.

When I returned to my room, I gently pressed a hand against my trembling chest.

Unlike my previous life, when I had never had a single blood relative, my uncle had been the closest thing I had to family in this life.

But now I knew the truth.

When I was young, my uncle hadn’t been affectionate toward me because he genuinely cared.

He had simply been bowing and scraping before my father in hopes of getting something from him.

I had thought that after everything my uncle had done to ruin House Albre, there was nothing left inside me except anger.

And yet, perhaps I had still thought of him as family.

Because I knew what it was like to be lonely without a family, the sweet affection I had received as a child had become a poisonous attachment that was difficult to let go of.

And yet this uncle of mine treats his own children well.

Ironically, despite everything he had done to me, my uncle loved his own children dearly.

Especially Alice, my cousin who was only a year older than me.

“Father, Lady Mollia said my dress was old-fashioned!”

“What? That girl from some backwater family had the nerve to say that?”

“So, can I have a new dress made at Elishop this time? If I wear one of their dresses, I’ll be the most beautiful woman there!”

“Of course! Put that girl in her place!”

His way of loving his daughter certainly wasn’t particularly admirable.

But to someone like me, who had already lost both parents, it was painfully enviable.

Whenever I saw how much my uncle cared for Alice, my anger toward him would sadly weaken a little.

He didn’t resemble my father in the slightest.

So why did seeing him always make me think of my father?

I really am too softhearted for my own good.

Trying to shake off my thoughts about my uncle, I picked up the appointment document the administrator had left behind.

“…Everything will be all right now.”

I murmured those words softly as I read the appointment document with my reddened eyes.

This was the document that had saved me.

I was determined not to miss even a single word.

[Solana Albre is hereby appointed as a secretary of the Imperial Household. From this moment onward, Solana Albre shall possess all the authority granted to an Imperial secretary.

Her assignment shall be under the First Prince……]

My eyes stopped halfway through the document.

There was a familiar name written there.

Wait.

Something’s strange.

“The assignment is… under First Prince Lynel…?”

Why was that name written here?

First Prince Lynel was an extremely famous figure throughout the empire.

You might say, “Of course he’s famous. He’s a member of the imperial family.”

But that wasn’t the problem.

He was famous because of his infamy.

Prince Lynel is that notorious delinquent, isn’t he?

There were rumors that he had shown up at balls he hadn’t even been invited to, overturned tables because no one had invited him, and even had servants dragged away and tortured over ridiculous reasons.

He was constantly earning the resentment of the nobility with his various outrageous antics.

I was certain that Prince Lynel would go down in the history books.

Whether he became emperor or not.

If he became emperor, he would be remembered as a tyrant.

If he didn’t, he would probably go down in history as some sort of psychopathic prince.

In this boring world without smartphones, Prince Lynel’s existence was practically a limitless source of dopamine.

Most people in the Imperial Capital eagerly listened for the latest news about him.

Honestly, I was one of them.

But as they say, comedy becomes tragedy when you get too close to it.

[Solana Albre is hereby appointed as the secretary of First Prince Lynel Borgone Gluston.]

“……!”

That single sentence was enough to make everything that had just happened with my uncle disappear from my mind.

I reread the words several times in disbelief.

At first, I thought I had simply read them wrong.

Had the administrator actually said this earlier?

I had been so overwhelmed at the time that perhaps I had heard it without really processing it.

Is this really correct?

No… Is this seriously correct?

“Of all people… the F-First Prince?”

Becoming a member of the imperial family’s staff was like a miracle to me—something that could invalidate my marriage.

That was why I had immediately shouted that I would accept.

But—

“My superior is First Prince Lynel?!”

From my previous life, I already knew how miserable working life could become when you had a strange person for a boss.

This was horrifying news.

No.

Even without any prior work experience, there was no one in their right mind who would want the position of First Prince Lynel’s secretary.

I hurriedly rummaged through the old newspapers stacked to one side of the room.

Then I pulled out several of them.

They were weekly newspapers from the previous week.

One enormous headline on the front page immediately caught my eye.

[First Prince’s Secretary ‘Missing’ Again?!]

[The Complete List of First Prince Lynel’s Missing Secretaries!]

The First Prince’s secretaries disappeared one after another.

Everyone claimed it was a coincidence.

But was it really?

Some people said the secretaries simply couldn’t endure First Prince Lynel and ran away.

Others claimed that he had killed every single one of them.

There was even a chilling rumor that their corpses were piled up in the basement of the First Prince’s Palace.

Some people claimed to have witnessed vengeful spirits wandering around the palace every night.

“I-I’m not going to die too, am I?”

Suddenly, the magnificent appointment document, adorned with a golden dragon made of pure gold, looked less like an appointment and more like a death warrant.