Commoner Shield
Day ten as the crown princess's personal attendant.
I opened the office door the way I always did, and froze where I stood.
"…?"
Where costly gowns should have been, Evangeline and Christina stood dressed as commoners, hoods pulled low over their faces. Rough cloth, not a single ornament on it. At that jarring sight, a bad feeling slid down my spine—the certainty that something had gone wrong. And that feeling had never once been wrong.
Evangeline jerked her chin at a bundle on the sofa. Unfolded, it held a man's commoner clothes.
"Ethan. Change into those."
"…Your Highness. Might I ask the reason?"
"An inspection."
Aha. An inspection. Of course. Do have a safe trip.
That was what I wanted to say. My body, unfortunately, was already moving toward the clothes.
Ha… I want to refuse. I want to refuse so badly I could lose my mind.
But I couldn't. From my very first day, the Chief Chamberlain's voice had been hammered into my ears until it rang there still.
That, apparently, was the true heart of a servant. Or something like it.
I wiped every thought from my head, took the clothes, and stepped into the attendants' changing room. A short while later I reappeared in the office looking like Extra Number One in a shabby crowd scene, and Evangeline nodded, satisfied. One glance at Christina, and she led me without hesitation into a secret passage of the Imperial Palace.
We wound through the maze of hidden corridors and slipped out the rear gate, and the capital's bustle opened in front of me until my head spun. Something was wrong, though. The ones going were Evangeline and me. Only the two of us.
"Your Highness, Lady Christina isn't coming? If we meet some thug on the road…"
"It doesn't matter."
She cut me off.
"The escort is already following from where they cannot be seen. Christina will be no different, so put away your useless worries."
Saying so, Evangeline gave my collar a light tug.
"You need only focus on me."
"…Yes."
She made straight for the capital's busiest streets. Hood drawn low, Evangeline peered about like a bird seeing the world for the first time, as if everything were a wonder.
"Oh…"
A low gasp slipped from her. Merchants barking their wares, children laughing, even the rumble of carriage wheels—none of it belonged to the Imperial Palace, where only silence ever moved. She stopped to listen to a street band, then stared, spellbound, at the odd little things on a stall. Every time she did, my heart dropped. What if someone recognized her face?
I eased up beside her and asked, quietly.
"Your Highness—no, my lady. Is this… your first inspection?"
At the question Evangeline flinched, shoulders drawing in. Then, as if to hide the embarrassment, she cleared her throat and answered.
"It is. His Majesty always said it was too dangerous, and would never allow it."
"So until now you've only seen it in books?"
"Yes. The capital's layout, its markets, the mood of the people… all of it, only through reports and books."
She looked down at her own hands as she said it.
"But seeing it for myself, it's entirely different. Their faces, the smell of the air, even the noise of things living. Everything is different from what I knew."
The faintest tremor had slipped into her voice. In that moment I understood. The pure curiosity wasn't an act. Every face of hers I had seen—the blushing, the awkwardness, and now this wide-eyed wonder—all of it was real. She had lived under total control, and for the first time she was meeting the actual world. The original story's cold-blooded tyrant had only been a preconception blinding me. The person in front of me was not the Iron-Blooded Empress. She was simply Evangeline, a girl to whom everything was new.
We had been walking in a daze for a long while when her steps stopped dead before a stall. Meat sizzled, and a sweet, salty smell hung thick in the air. Where her finger pointed, skewers of meat were browning on wooden sticks, glossy and tempting.
"Ethan. What is that?"
A child's pure curiosity filled her voice.
"Ah, those are skewers. Street food commoners eat all the time."
"…Is it good?"
"By my standards, quite good. Of course, it isn't exactly wholesome, so perhaps you shouldn't—"
I hastily tacked on the line of a faithful attendant, fretting over her health. Before I could finish, Evangeline declared it like a verdict.
"We shall eat."
Like a general leading a great army, she strode toward the skewer stall without a shred of hesitation.
"Ha…"
I let out a deep sigh and followed. Pushing through the crowd to her side, I stole a glance at her face. Under the hood's shadow, Evangeline was smiling, small and quiet. Not the cold crown princess buried in work. Not the shy girl who blushed. Just the face of an ordinary woman, bright at the thought of trying something new.
…She looks like she's having the time of her life.
I hadn't known she could make a face like that. Over the original's ruthless tyrant, this pure face laid itself, and somehow—only a very little—I thought she was cute.
She was already pressed right up to the stall, eyes sparkling as she asked the owner.
"Proprietor, how much for one of these?"
The man in the grease-stained apron answered with a good-natured grin.
"One copper apiece, pretty miss!"
"Is that so."
Evangeline nodded with grave seriousness and drew a small pouch from her clothes. What came out of it was a gleaming gold coin. One gold.
"W-wait a moment!"
I caught her hand on reflex. She turned to me, startled.
"My lady, you can't pay with that."
I said it like a whisper, fished two small coins from my pocket, and held them out to the owner.
"Two coppers, sir. Two skewers, please."
He looked blankly from the gold to the coppers, then seemed to catch on and laughed, loud and hearty.
"Haha, happens all the time! Our young miss found herself a fine lad. Must be nice, having a sweetheart who's so capable!"
Sweetheart. The moment that word stabbed my ear, a chill ran down my spine. Evangeline's face went red enough to burst. At a complete loss, she only worked her mouth and flicked a glance at me.
I'm dead.
An alarm went off in my head. I couldn't carelessly agree, and I couldn't flatly deny it either. Agree, and this misunderstanding becomes something I can never take back. But draw a cold line in front of eyes that hopeful, and Evangeline would obviously be hurt. When someone with power is wounded, that anger finds the weakest person nearest them. I had to slip past this gently—and firmly.
"A-ahaha! Sir, that's going a bit far! A sweetheart?"
I put on the softest smile I could manage and waved it off.
"She's a distant relative of the young lady of the house I serve. I'm only helping her on an outing."
"Oh, is that right? Haha, I misread you entirely! My apologies!"
The owner laughed, big and open, apologized, and handed over two skewers cooked to a gloss. I breathed out in relief and took them. Then I glanced aside without thinking, and stopped.
A moment ago Evangeline's eyes had sparkled with flutter and expectation. That sparkle had dimmed, just a little. She was looking down at the skewer in her hand with a sulky face, and her slightly pouted lips made it perfectly clear she was thoroughly offended by my desperate denial.
"My lady, are you all right?"
"…I don't know."
She answered curtly, then—as if to show me—ate the entire skewer in one bite. The empty stick went into a nearby bin with a toss, and she walked off without a backward glance. I hurried after her.
I had been following through a long, awkward silence when something out of place entered my sight. In the packed crowd, one figure in a black robe, hood drawn deep.
Who is that?
Nothing especially strange about it. In the capital, nobles and the wealthy who wanted to hide their station often went about dressed just like that. But maybe because I was with the crown princess, my nerves—already scraped raw—were reading that figure as a danger signal.
And in that instant, a setting from the original novel I had forgotten flashed through my mind. Evangeline's first inspection. On this day, she is cursed by a curse-caster sent by the crown prince. Of course, thanks to the palace mages, the curse lifts in less than a day. The problem was what came after. The enraged emperor beheaded every servant who had gone on the inspection, except the escort knight Christina—for failing to attend the crown princess properly.
…Wait. Then this is my death flag, isn't it?
It felt as if my heart had dropped to my feet. Cold sweat poured down my back like a waterfall. But the fear lasted only a moment. My head started spinning like mad.
Calm down. There has to be a way.
In the original, this curse wasn't the fatal kind. Just a warning curse, the sort that lays you up for a few days. Then…
Right. I just have to take the hit instead.
By rights, I should have told the escort knights hidden nearby that the robed one was suspicious. I decided not to. A crisis is an opportunity. Save the crown princess's life. There would never be a surer chance to earn merit than this—a massive reward, of course, and Evangeline's trust on top of it.
I cooled my head and stuck close to her side as if I knew nothing. She was still putting on her sulk and wouldn't even look at me, but I ignored that and watched every shadow in the crowd.
"…Hmph."
Even while sulking, she didn't stop walking, so she still meant to continue the inspection. And before long, the robed figure moved. His hand reaching toward us, and a ghastly violet mana blooming over his palm—it was almost the same instant. Time seemed to slow.
"Your Highness, danger!"
I shouted and shoved Evangeline's shoulder hard at the same time. Her losing her balance and falling back, and the violet flash fired from the curse-caster's hand striking my chest—almost the same instant.
Violet mana strikes the chest.
A warning curse — life force drained from the root.
"Ghk…!"
There was no impact like being shot. What swallowed me was worse. A sickening sensation, as if tens of thousands of cold insects were crawling through my veins and spreading into every part of me. A crushing weakness, as if my life were being sucked out from the root.
Thud. The strength left my legs, and I dropped to my knees. The world spun.
"Ethan! Ethan, stay with me! What is this…!"
Evangeline's urgent voice reached me. I felt her grab me and shake. But that voice grew farther and farther away.
Eeeeeee—.
A horrible ringing tore at my ears and wiped out every other sound. I could see her mouth moving desperately, and I heard nothing. My vision darkened, bit by bit. My body grew heavy as cotton. The fear of death closed in.
Th-this… hurts a lot more than I thought….
Reward or whatever else—am I actually going to die like this?
…Did I take that hit for nothing?
With that last thought, my consciousness sank into deep darkness.