TPMBHSW 01

Chapter 01

To summarize my current situation, it’s like this.

“From a third party’s perspective… it’s extremely entertaining, I’d say.”

I glared at Noah in disbelief.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes right now.”

“I’m not joking either. Honestly, try thinking of it as someone else’s problem. How fun is it? The legendary couple who started a betting pool over elopement this and elopement that are now, ten years later, each with different lovers, locked in a battle of pride!”

“…Don’t tell me another bet’s been made.”

When I asked with a foreboding feeling, Noah subtly averted his gaze. That alone was answer enough.

This damned social circle, unable to kick its habits, had once again transformed into a massive gambling den.

“Hey!”

“I bet on your side, my lady.”

“What are the terms, the terms!”

“Which of the two will regret it first.”

“……”

So betting on me meant betting that I’d be the first to regret losing Richard.

Noah, whose eyes met mine, began fleeing with a benevolent smile as if to say that was the correct answer.

“Noah Bellua, don’t you dare run!”

Chasing after him, I gritted my teeth. Thinking of that day, the start of all this.

* * *

The story has to go back a few months.

The sudden death of the Duke of Bellua.

The moment I heard of my father’s death, what I felt was emptiness. Not sorrow, but the hollowness of a tower built with effort collapsing.

“Ha. Just a little more and I could have seen the end. What will you do?”

Even from Noah, who asked that, I couldn’t sense any regret for the head of the family who had died mere hours ago.

I was the same. There was no affection between father and daughter, and the only thing he’d left behind was garbage, so why would I be sad?

“First, I need to secure the title.”

“Shouldn’t we investigate, though? He didn’t have any chronic illness. The Crown Prince might have noticed and taken action.”

“It’s acute heart failure.”

“And the blackened, dried-up fingertips?”

Why is someone who knows better acting like this?

“Noah, my father died of heart failure, even if it was murder.”

Only then did Noah nod with a look of realization.

“Right, of course. If it’s revealed as murder, the ledgers might all come dragging out.”

“Exactly. Father died of acute heart failure. The blackened fingertips were a side effect of medication he’d been taking. And Damon is…”

I trailed off and picked up today’s gossip rag, ‘Trouble-Love,’ from the nightstand.

[Trouble-Troubled Love].

The full name written in ornate calligraphy.

But everyone calls it Trouble-Love, the Empire’s greatest gossip publication.

True to its name, Trouble-Love was filled with all manner of love-related scandals and incidents.

The name that appears there day after day is Damon Filliard, hailed as the Empire’s next sun.

I showed the glossy face that graced today’s front page to Noah and said,

“If someone who knows my father embezzled his personal funds is walking around like this, he shouldn’t be Crown Prince—he should be an actor.”

[There is no reader who doesn’t know that a courtesan who strays from the next sun’s halo is not recognized for her worth. The flower of Rowan is, in that sense, a woman expected to finally take her place beside the sun this time…]

The rest was filled with verbose concerns and worries about me. It was a roundabout way of pretending to worry about whether I’d be discarded by Damon while gleefully tearing me apart.

‘Anyone reading would think I’m clinging to Damon begging him not to leave me.’

Noah nodded in agreement.

“There’s no way that philandering is an act. I really don’t understand why he replaces them every time a new courtesan appears. If you’re going to two-time, just stick with one person—what is he, a migratory bird?”

“Must be a hobby.”

“That person with the filthy hobby is your lover, my lady.”

I recoiled at the horrifying relationship setup.

“Don’t even say that as a joke. He and I are a contractual relationship based on mutual need.”

“Everyone else firmly believes the two of you will eventually marry, so what does it matter if only you claim otherwise?”

“My feelings. My heart. Everything, anyway!”

“Yes, yes. Whether it’s a contractual relationship or a romantic one, if you don’t want to be misunderstood further, please break up with him as soon as possible. If you’re going to fling mud, fling it at the imperial family—getting Bellua tangled up in it too is no small hardship for me.”

Anyone listening would think that guy was dating Damon.

“Anyway, there’s no way Damon would know his personal funds are leaking. He’s not that clever.”

“That’s true. Either way, things have become troublesome. Ten years of effort, and it’s come to this.”

Indeed.

Damon isn’t the important thing right now.

“The deed is already done, so I need to clean it up. Hurry with the funeral preparations. First, secure the title.”

“…Are you serious? If you do that, the problem of the predecessor’s embezzled personal funds will all become your responsibility.”

“That’s something to think about later. First is the title.”

Noah grimaced at my words. It was as if I’d been asked if I intended to self-destruct. Perhaps I would.

Since I started it with my own hands, I should end it too. No regrets. Only a single lingering wish remains. Like everyone else, I had at least one thing I wanted to do once everything was over.

There was someone I wanted to find.

No matter how far away, even if they’d never meet me, I wanted to go find them and say I’m sorry, that it was all insincere.

I, too…

‘…felt the same.’

I’d meant to say.

But now it seemed I’d dreamed a dream that could never come true.

‘Well, Richard will never know anyway, so it doesn’t matter.’

I forced myself to shake off the lingering attachment. Come to think of it, I doubted that man still remembered me. Rather than going to find someone who’d long forgotten someone like me and stirring things up, perhaps it was better to just disappear like this.

‘It’s already been ten years, after all.’

Waaaah, whoooa!

As I struggled to shake off the feelings that remained like dregs, the outside of the window grew noisy.

“What’s all that noise?”

When I asked, startled by what sounded like hundreds of people cheering, Noah began to visibly panic.

“Is this really the time to worry about that? Isn’t the capital being rowdy an everyday occurrence?”

“…Something’s suspicious. Tell me honestly. You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?”

“Me? From you, my lady? Why would I?”

Definitely suspicious.

I strode across the study. Noah made a groaning sound and chased after me, but I didn’t look back and threw the window wide open.

And then.

“Extra, extra! The hero of the North returns with the dead princess! The hero of the North returns with the princess!!”

The hero of the North?

“The Sword of the North! The Shield of the North! Richard! Richard!”

A familiar name rang out amid the crowd’s shouts. The moment I heard the name I’d only repeated inwardly, I was instantly dragged into a distant past.

A fair face that smiled innocently.

Eyes full of affection, and a body always turned toward me. And the eighteen-year-old him who would quietly listen to me for an hour or two—the moment I pictured him smiling at me, I gritted my teeth and turned my head.

Ah. Of course.

Noah was avoiding my gaze with a face full of dismay. It meant he’d known everything.

“…Noah Bellua. When did you find out about this?”

“…I received it as an urgent report at dawn today.”

“So, really, it’s Richard?”

“According to my confirmation, yes. He’s apparently made quite a name for himself in the North for several years now.”

I know.

“He was called the Shield of the North for defending the border from monsters.”

I know that too.

“Then a year ago, he killed the King of Monsters and was called the Sword of the North or something. How can a person be both a sword and a shield? There’s a limit to how contradictory something can be. It’s absurd.”

“He must be that skilled.”

Noah’s eyes narrowed sharply.

“…Don’t tell me you haven’t forgotten him?”

“Me? Who? Richard? Ha! It seems you’ve forgotten—I’m the one who dumped him?”

I raised my voice instead to hide my bewilderment.

I’m the one who did the dumping, not the one who got dumped.

Who can’t forget whom?

At that, Noah crossed his arms and looked me up and down. What an insolent gaze.

What. Why. What are you going to do by staring like that? Do you think that’ll change the fact that I dumped Richard?

Outwardly, I had never once been the one in the inferior position in that relationship. As if reading my thoughts, Noah shrugged.

“Yes. Well. I suppose so.”

Then he smirked.

“Though I wonder which family’s young lady locked herself in her room and cried for three days and nights the day after she said let’s break up.”

“……”

This is why cousins shouldn’t be friends. Someone related by blood knows all my past, so there’s no way to win.

“Anyway, I’ll circulate the obituary before that fellow steals all the attention.”

“Who’s competing?”

Noah sighed deeply with a look of utter incomprehension and shook his head.

“Just trust me.”

…So what exactly am I supposed to trust?

* * *

Noah kept his word.

He’d swiftly circulated the obituary.

And the result appeared in a completely different direction than I’d expected.

My father was a human piece of trash.

He was a man who’d long abandoned the estate to fend for itself while obsessing fanatically over a union with the imperial family.

Needless to say, he persecuted my mother for not bearing a son to the point of driving her to suicide.

And on top of that, he embezzled imperial funds and left the family in peril before dying.

So it wasn’t surprising that no one mourned his death.

“Does everyone really have nothing better to do?”

But why.

I checked outside from the window with a sickened face.

“Or did they mistake today’s event for a banquet…?”

Why on earth were people coming from families I hadn’t even sent obituaries to?