Chapter 4 — The Boys She Must Avoid
Chapter 4 — The Boys She Must Avoid
Translation: Godtl
She felt it yesterday too, but something felt off.
'In the original work, he acted so kind and gentle in front of the female protagonist. Was it all fake?'
Lelia looked at Romeo with disgust.
'Even though he has wounds not so different himself.'
Lelia stomped her feet as she walked, showing her displeasure.
She intended to go to the library, but with this mood, she thought she needed to take a walk first.
As she huffed and headed to the garden, at some point she turned her head and saw Romeo Roseberry still following behind.
Lelia looked at him and shouted threateningly:
"Hey, won't you get lost?"
"Oh. Now showing your true colors?"
Romeo acted surprised but also entertained.
"I don't think I need to be polite to someone like you."
"Ew. How thrilling."
Saying that, Romeo approached closer with an expression that was not thrilled at all.
Then he made Lelia sit on a bench right next to them and sat beside her.
Lelia brushed off her forearm where Romeo's hand had touched. Even though it should have been unpleasant, Romeo didn't care and spoke up.
"Tell me more."
"About what?"
"About people who have nightmares with their eyes open. Tell me more."
Romeo asked in a tone like a threat.
'Right, you'd be curious.'
He was just a child. Lelia scoffed internally.
She could see Romeo's eyes trembling slightly as he waited for an answer. Lelia spoke as if doing a favor.
"People's minds are very fragile. This head is fragile."
"...."
She pointed to her own head with her index finger.
"What's inside here is too fragile, persistent, and nasty. Witness a somewhat shocking scene? Then it keeps remembering it. Then when the body gets weak or tired, it keeps making you recall that memory."
"So?"
"What do you think happens if that repeats? It would be really hard. So that shocking scene keeps reappearing in your head. To the point of mistaking it for what's actually visible to your eyes."
"...."
"Sometimes you even hear it with your ears. Fragile people suffer their whole lives and eventually die. Some even take their own lives."
At those words, Romeo's expression twisted severely. He spoke slowly.
"Suicide is... a tremendous sin."
It was one of the most important doctrines of the Kreuz Order.
The temple strictly forbade the act of taking one's own life, considering it a terrible sin that couldn't be forgiven even through multiple regressions.
It was an act of betrayal, offering one's own soul to demons.
Everyone on the continent knew that. Lelia didn't deny it.
"It is a sin. Still, such people exist. People who keep seeing and hearing terrible scenes, fearful voices...."
"That's being possessed by a...."
"It's not demons. They're just suffering. Being tormented like this, they can't think properly and come to believe that only by dying will it end."
"...Have you ever experienced that?"
"No? My mind is very healthy? I haven't seen anything particularly shocking...."
She had hallucinated food from being too hungry. But after eating ravenously, it turned out to be dirt or snow....
"Anyway, he's not possessed by a demon. Actually, I don't even know if demons really exist...."
"...If you say that to priests or adults, you'll be treated as a heretic."
"Ah."
Right.
She was supposed to stay quiet here....
'If the rumor spreads that Auraria's Crown Prince is a heretic? The Emperor might strangle me to death.'
Lelia thought for a moment then glared at Romeo.
Romeo looked somewhat shaken by Lelia's words. His expression seemed somehow excited, sad, and frightened all at once.
Lelia thrust her clenched fist forward, pretending to be tough.
"If you tell anyone, you die."
"...Now you're threatening me? So low-class?"
"Yes. I'll kill you. Understand?"
"...."
Romeo looked a bit frightened. Lelia gained courage from that expression.
'Right, you're just a ten-year-old child.'
Lelia patted her chest with a haughty expression and said:
"From now on, call me not 'you'... but Big Brother."
Romeo's face twisted terribly.
"...What? I hate that! Why should I? I'm the one holding your weakness!"
"Then call me Boss."
"...."
Romeo frowned. He looked like he didn't understand why he should do that.
Still, eventually, he nodded.
He apparently judged that Boss was better than Big Brother.
"Then... tell me more of that story. I won't tell anyone."
"...."
"I won't even suspect you're a heretic."
"Well... if you put it that way. You mean the story that people like Oscar aren't possessed by demons? I can do that anytime."
Lelia knew why Romeo was interested in this story.
But she kept her expression controlled as if she knew nothing.
In the original work, Romeo confessed his own circumstances directly to the female protagonist. So she couldn't pretend to know first.
'Someday the day will come when Romeo confesses his inner circumstances directly to the female protagonist and heals his wounds.'
Lelia glanced at Romeo.
Romeo looked somewhat desperate. Thinking of his circumstances from the original work, she felt a bit sorry for him.
"...."
When Lelia stared intently, Romeo's expression crumpled a bit.
He probably thought she was urging him to call her 'Boss' quickly.
"Thank you... Boss...."
"...Right, you're my subordinate from now on."
"...."
Romeo frowned as if displeased, but kept his mouth shut.
"I'm going for a walk, so follow me."
Lelia said that and rose from the bench, walking through the garden. Romeo followed behind her.
'He listens well. Even though his tone was fierce just a moment ago.'
Lelia glanced at the well-behaved Romeo and laughed inside. At the same time, she looked at Romeo with pity.
Actually, Romeo's biological mother who gave birth to him passed away when he was young.
'The cause was... suicide.'
The Roseberry Empire desperately hid that fact, but they couldn't stop young Romeo from witnessing the scene directly.
Examining the cause of suicide, her parents, that is, Romeo's maternal grandmother and grandfather, were largely responsible.
'Parents driving their own child to death.'
Romeo's mother had someone she loved, but due to family coercion, she ended up marrying the Emperor.
But even after becoming Empress, she couldn't erase her lingering feelings for the man she loved and suffered.
Her parents got their wish of making their daughter Empress, but they learned that the relationship between the imperial couple was distant.
Then, furious, they found out the cause through the maids.
"The reason the imperial couple's relationship is unclear is because the Empress rejects the Emperor. That's why."
Actually, there was another cause, but the Empress's parents, hearing only the maids' words, were disappointed in their daughter and raged.
Then they sought a solution, and unfortunately, that method was....
'Threatening their daughter.'
They held the life of the man their daughter loved and threatened her. To fulfill her duty as Empress, to bear the Emperor's child.
Unable to overcome that threat, she conceived Romeo.
The fortunate thing was that the Emperor didn't blame her and waited for her heart to open slowly.
The Emperor, despite it being a political marriage, genuinely tried to treat her with love.
'He was also a kind father to Romeo.'
But the misfortune started from there.
The Empress's parents, Romeo's maternal grandmother and grandfather, kept prodding their daughter's weakness.
Whenever they wanted something, they threatened her by holding the life of the man she had loved.
On a day when such conflicts repeated.
The man, learning that his own life was the woman he loved's weakness, took his own life.
'Probably knowing that as long as he lived, the Empress would suffer her whole life, he couldn't bear it.'
After that, Romeo's mother fell ill and suffered. She started seeing hallucinations of the man she loved dying before her eyes and hearing hallucinations of him begging to be saved.
Her condition grew increasingly serious, and not only did she have seizures, but she also suffered from sleepwalking.
The rumor that the Empress was possessed by a demon spread in an instant.
Suffering like that, she chose freedom by taking her own life, just as the man she loved had left the world.
Without ever imagining that young Romeo would witness that scene.
As she lay dying while bleeding, she discovered Romeo crying, said "I'm sorry," and passed away.
Romeo too would still have the shock from that time.
'At least thanks to having a somewhat healthier mind than Oscar, he doesn't seem to see hallucinations or hear voices.'
After Romeo's death, the new Empress who ascended cherished and raised Romeo like her own son.
Though not his biological mother, Romeo grew up receiving the love of a kind stepmother and affectionate father.
'But he gave up the throne because of his maternal grandmother and grandfather, poor guy.'
After Romeo's stepmother bore a son, Romeo's maternal grandmother and grandfather began trembling with anxiety. Worried that their grandson, their only remaining hope, might not become Emperor.
So they even planned to kill the new Empress's son, but young Romeo suddenly gave up the throne.
Actually, Romeo had heard nobles visiting the imperial castle secretly pointing fingers.
"The former Empress was surely possessed by a demon. Who knows when her son Crown Prince Romeo might become a demon too."
Perhaps that's why he was afraid. Afraid that he too might really be possessed by a demon.
Romeo begged his father to allow him to give up the throne, using his maternal grandparents as an excuse, and the Emperor understood Romeo's deeper meaning and accepted his heart.
Then he sent Romeo's maternal grandparents far away. To prevent them from reaching toward Romeo.
'He's actually quite deep-minded when you look at it.'
His mouth is quite troublesome though....
Anyway.
'I tried not to get involved if possible.'
But somehow she ended up making one of the future heroes who would defeat the Mad Dragon into her subordinate.
'Well, it should be fine. Just one of them.'
Lelia thought something had gone wrong, but it was already too late.
The next day.