RPL 7

Chapter 7

‘By the way, she really doesn’t seem to know.’

At first I thought she couldn’t recognize me because I was dirty, but it seemed Kisella didn’t know me at all.

Had they never met before Regina was imprisoned?

Was that why she couldn’t recognize her own half-sister?

Or had it been a memory from when she was too young, and she had simply forgotten?

“Thank you for lending me the bathroom and the clothes.”

At my words, Kisella smiled brightly.

“I’ll return the clothes later.”

“You don’t have to return them. I don’t need clothes like that.”

“Ah, really? Okay.”

I nodded briefly.

“Then goodbye.”

I offered a farewell.

“Where are you going? Back to fairy land?”

Kisella asked, her cheeks flushing pink with excitement.

“What about repayment? A wish? I helped you, you know?”

“A wish……?”

At my question in return, Kisella’s eyes went round and she tilted her head.

“They said if you do a favor for a fairy, the fairy will grant your wish.”

“……”

“Of course I couldn’t get you out, but this much still counts as a favor, right? Right? You said thank you too, fairy.”

……So that’s why she brought me all the way here. Because of such an innocent ulterior motive.

‘How am I supposed to handle the aftermath of this?’

One position of emperor and two Imperial Princesses. Half-sisters with different mothers, no less.

Even without having read the novel, one could easily predict how things would turn out between the two of them from now on.

That’s right. Kisella becomes the villainess who interferes with Regina at every turn as she tries to become emperor and commits all sorts of nasty deeds.

‘Looking at her now, it’s hard to believe……’

But if I thought of her as the daughter of that woman who had come looking for me, it seemed possible.

Anyway, she had come to hate even the Regina she had personally rescued so much—how much more would she hate me, who had not built up the same narrative as the original and had even lied about being a fairy?

I might have evolved Kisella into a villainess who would torment me even more diligently than in the original.

The warning siren that had blared in my head must have been about this.

“Get your repayment from your father.”

I suppressed the guilt, the sense of indebtedness, and the anxiety about the future as I spoke.

If I could lessen these emotions by giving some kind of repayment, I would gladly do so, but I had absolutely nothing.

“Huh? My father?”

When Kisella tilted her head, her beautiful dark-red hair reminiscent of roses slid smoothly down her white, plump cheek.

“You did something worthy of receiving his repayment. Get whatever you want from him.”

The emperor had not only tried to use Kisella to get me out, but would also put Kisella at the forefront to smoothly conclude my escape.

Having used the child from beginning to end like this, if he had any conscience he would grant whatever Kisella asked for.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

I avoided the transparent red eyes looking straight at me and slightly stepped back.

“Fairy?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not a fairy.”

“What?!”

“I’m sorry.”

I turned away from Kisella, who had frozen in shock, and was about to go out through the open door when I hesitated.

‘Ah, seriously.’

Why does my heart feel so uncomfortable?

I had said I would do whatever it took to get out, so what was this now?

And anyway, Kisella is the villainess who will hate me no matter what I do.

‘……Because I know.’

Afterward, Kisella receives punishment from the empress for the reason that she got me out.

I knew what that punishment was, and how Kisella was treated by her own mother.

A father who used his daughter. A mother who would not tolerate her daughter’s mistake and punished her.

And me, who knew everything yet still deceived the child, clung to her, followed her here, and received help.

Most adults are despicable. Perhaps those despicable adults had manipulated that pure and innocent child and turned her into a villainess.

Thinking that way, the guilt made it so I couldn’t bring myself to take another step.

“I’m not a fairy, but……”

In the end, I stopped myself from brushing past Kisella and hesitantly opened my mouth.

“If there’s a wish I can grant, I’ll definitely grant it someday. ……I’m sorry.”

Leaving those words behind, I quickly came outside. And I hurriedly moved my feet.

Even though I didn’t know the way, aimlessly.

“You.”

I hadn’t walked far when someone grabbed my arm from behind.

“What’s your real identity?”

It was Yunid, the male lead of the original.

“Imperial Princess Regina.”

“……”

“My name.”

His emerald-green eyes were calm.

As if he had already guessed. As if he had only asked the question to confirm that guess.

‘So he did know after all.’

And yet he had only watched me following them.

Was it to perform the “male lead role” according to the flow of the original?

But……

“I deceived you both. So let’s not see each other again.”

I removed Yunid’s hand from my arm and turned my back.

Kisella had liked Yunid, who had been her playmate, but Yunid had chosen not Kisella, but Regina.

Kisella’s hatred toward Regina grew even deeper. Because she thought Regina was taking away everything that was hers.

Since it was an obvious fact that if I became involved with Yunid I would be even more hostilely received by Kisella, I did not want to have any relationship with him at all.

‘And he’s only the male lead in the original.’

He was not the male lead of the protagonist that is me in my own life.

So this time I hoped he would become Kisella’s male lead.

It would be too sad if beside a pure child who believed in fairies there were only ugly adults.

* * *

Somehow I had come outside, but I didn’t know the way. On top of that, my physical condition was terrible.

‘It hurts like hell.’

Starting from my scalp under the blazing sunlight, my entire body stung as if it were burning. My eyes stung so badly I could barely speak.

Even though I had regained freedom from the shackles, every step I took was unbearably heavy.

Strictly speaking, it would have been strange if I were fine, but in the joy of having gotten out I hadn’t considered it at all.

‘I feel like I’m going to throw up……’

I leaned my back against the wall of a shaded building and cooled my body. It felt like I would collapse at any moment.

‘Isn’t someone going to pass by?’

I didn’t know where the emperor was. To meet him I needed someone’s help.

In my current physical condition, all the more desperately.

How long had I been standing there? Someone came into view. A woman wearing a long gray dress and a white apron.

“……Excuse me.”

The woman who had been walking somewhere turned toward me.

“How do I get to the emperor’s palace?”

“Pardon me, but which family’s child are you? Have you lost your way?”

I’m the emperor’s daughter. Can I say that?

I pushed my body away from the wall, stepped out of the shade, and walked toward the woman.

I had only taken a few steps, yet my legs were trembling.

“Y-you……”

The moment she saw me, the woman stammered. It seemed she recognized me.

Regina’s imprisonment had not been that long ago. If she had been working in the imperial palace for several years, she might have been able to recognize Regina.

‘Thank goodness.’

I let out a breath of relief. If she recognized me, finding the emperor might become easier.

“Re-Regina, Your Highness……?”

“Yes. Please guide me……”

Before my words even finished, the woman let out a scream as if it would tear. A scream as if she had seen a monster.

At the sudden scream I froze in panic.

In the meantime, people began to gather after hearing her scream.

I hesitated and stepped backward.

I didn’t know what it was, but it felt like I had to run away.

* * *

“She said she’s not a fairy……”

Returning to the room, Yunid found Kisella squatting on the floor even though there was a perfectly good sofa and chair.

“Why are you like that?”

“I was tricked. I was tricked!”

Kisella grabbed her own hair as if she felt wronged.

“She tricked me and is even shameless about it!”

In that state she glared at Yunid with wide eyes.

Looking at Kisella’s fierce glare, Yunid rolled the truth he had learned around in his mouth.

“We have to go! We have to go and punish her!”

While Yunid was deliberating, Kisella sprang up and pulled on Yunid’s arm.

“How dare she deceive the Imperial Princess! I won’t forgive her!”

Then she began to drag Yunid along.

“I even lent her the bathroom, and gave her clothes, and, and all that! She tricked me!!!”

Yunid decided to keep his mouth shut.

If in her current excited state she also learned the truth—that is, the fact that she had a half-sister?

If that happened, it seemed Kisella would cause some kind of accident she couldn’t handle.

‘She’ll find out soon enough anyway.’

Yunid did not want to go out of his way to tell her with his own mouth right now and get caught up in that unmanageable accident.

“You’re saying you’re going even though you don’t know where she is.”

Kisella stopped dead in her tracks and stared fixedly at Yunid.

“Aren’t you angry?”

“I never believed it from the beginning……”

“But we still went back together!”

“That’s because His Majesty the Emperor said it was okay to get her out.”

“Even so!”

“She did lie about being a fairy, but it’s not like she tricked us into coming outside. She came out on her own.”

Kisella did not refute Yunid’s words and pouted her lips. Because it didn’t seem wrong.

“And lending the bathroom and clothes is something you can do even if she’s not a fairy, right? Looking at the state she was in?”

“Still, lying is bad! If you lie, Mom will scold you!”

“For someone who says that, you also lie this way and that and sneak through the secret passage……”

It was right at that moment. Yunid’s face hardened in an instant.

If that child really was Regina.

And if the empress learned this fact—that Kisella was even slightly involved in Regina’s escape.

“Th-that……”

Kisella’s face hardened no less than Yunid’s. No, it turned pale.

Because she had newly recognized the fact that she had crossed the secret passage behind her mother’s back.

She had been so excited about the first secret she had made with her indifferent father, who never paid her any attention, that she hadn’t thought that far.

On top of that, the fun the secret passage itself provided and the thrill of deviance, and the encounter with the existence called a fairy. She had been completely absorbed by those facts.

But if her mother found out she had lied, she would certainly be scolded.

“Let’s go to His Majesty the Emperor.”

“Huh?”

Looking at Kisella’s pale face, Yunid took Kisella’s hand. And he thought.

Kisella was strangely afraid of her mother.

He could not know exactly what the reason was.

But looking at that reaction, he could sufficiently guess that if the empress learned the truth, she would not leave Kisella alone.

If it was the emperor, he would stop the empress. At least enough so that the child would not be frightened.

“Why suddenly to Father……”

It was when Yunid took Kisella’s hand and opened the door to the room.

“M-Mom……”

In front of the door stood a woman with the same dark-red hair as Kisella, neatly cascading down.

“Where are you going?”

She asked with a smile.

That was all, yet the hand of Kisella that Yunid was holding turned cold and stiff.