The Third Princess Is Drawn In

Iris Asteria, Third Princess of the Asteria Empire and protagonist of Lilium Crown, had one great worry weighing on her heart.

And it was none other than this:

Something had gone terribly wrong with Adrian Belloc, the man she had believed to be her destined partner.

When they had first become engaged, Iris had felt a fated pull toward him. His face outshone that of any noble scion of their generation; his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠temperament was gentle, and he attended to even the smallest trifles with meticulous care.

But about a year ago—

On the day Adrian complained of a splitting headache and slept from morning until night, the Adrian Belloc she had loved simply vanished somewhere far away.

—"Oh, fuck! So this is what an eroge isekai is!!"

Had she known the story a little better, Iris might have blinked and swallowed the excuse whole. But the man named Jeon Minjae, who had transmigrated into Adrian's body, had never liked Lilium Crown, never played it with any real care.

It was nothing more than a pirated eroge he'd downloaded for a quick wank.

The opening? Naturally, he skipped it—he barely knew the content.

The story? He'd bulldozed through it with cheats on, grasping only the broadest strokes.

Complicated battles and elaborate scenarios were, to him, nothing but obstacles standing between one H-scene and the next.

And so every one of his actions was subtly off, and a vulgarity no born noble could ever display seeped from his every word and gesture.

He must have suffered a terrible fever. He'll come back to himself soon...

The Third Princess, Adrian's fiancée, had convinced herself it was only a momentary lapse. People do change a little after a bad illness, after all.

Even when Adrian abruptly developed a taste for coffee—a drink he had never once touched in his life.

Even when he tried to pass off mayonnaise—already sitting on the table—as some new secret sauce, drawing open snickers from the imperial chefs.

Even when he began racking up countless defeats in sword training, a discipline in which he had never lost a single bout.

Through all of it, Iris never gave up on Adrian.

...But then.

"Come here, Iris..."

"W-wait a moment, Adrian! Just a moment!!"

"Heh heh... let me see those titties..."

They had sworn an oath together—that nothing would cross the line before they entered the Academy. Yet Adrian behaved as though that promise had been bleached white from his memory, and at last the Third Princess began to feel a profound terror of her own fiancé.

—"On the eve of our Academy entrance, let us join the bodies and hearts we have each so preciously guarded, Iris."

That iron rule Adrian had never once broken since childhood—he tried to trample it one dawn after drinking deep, forcing his way into none other than the Third Princess's own bedchamber.

It was then that she finally admitted what she had spent so long denying: this Adrian was a stranger. And terrified of being defiled by someone she did not know, she panicked and screamed.

"KYAAAAAH!!! Royal guard! ROYAL GUARD!!!!"

—Your Highness!

"H-help me!!"

"No, wait..! I'm her fiancé! Married couples are supposed to—"

—Your Highness! What shall we do!?

The princess's royal guard, dismissing Adrian's protests out of hand, fixed their gaze squarely on their mistress. And so Iris turned away from the hand her fiancé stretched out toward her so desperately...

"Drive him out..! From the palace... from before my eyes!"

—Yes, Your Highness!

"No!! Wait! Just a moment!!!!"

"Haa... haa..."

When the guard had dragged him away and she was left alone, Iris bathed in the moonlight and swallowed her sobs where no one could hear them.

Afterward, Iris petitioned her father the Emperor and entered a hundred days of prayer to claw her way out of the shock.

Lovers are bound to share a certain degree of intimacy—it's only natural. Was Adrian hurt because I kept him at too great a distance until I came of age?

On the day the good and dutiful Iris emerged from her prayers, she carried that very noble thought with her and went to meet her fiancé ahead of even her father the Emperor.

Even though she was, unmistakably, the victim of the whole affair.

She even wept, believing that Adrian had been wounded on her account.

...However.

"I missed you~ Iris~!!"

"..!"

The moment she laid eyes on Adrian, come out to greet her, the color drained from Iris's face.

His eyes... they're blood-red...

"Why...?"

"Hm? What's wrong?"

He smiled as though he knew nothing at all. And of course he didn't. How could a transmigrator possibly grasp the meaning of red eyes?

On the day the two of them were betrothed, they had sworn their purity to one another before the Imperial Archmage, sealing the Vow of Purity. The moment either party broke that promise, the oath would turn the oathbreaker's eyes blood-red—visible as such to their betrothed alone.

"..."

"What's with that face, Iris?"

Adrian had groped whatever women of the marquisate he could get his hands on, summoned courtesans and maids to his bedchamber until there were few nights he slept alone—and both of those eyes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now burned a vivid, scarlet red.

"Come here. Let's kiss, you and I~."

The scent of other women wafted from her fiancé as he approached, tongue flicking lewdly. The Third Princess went deathly pale all over again, shoved him away, and climbed straight back into her carriage for the return to the imperial palace.

"A-ah, Iris? What's gotten into you all of a sudden!!"

"Forgive me. I suddenly feel dizzy..."

Something's wrong. Something is very, very ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wrong... ugh...

Inside the carriage, Iris clapped a hand over her mouth.

She could keep her distance for now—but the moment she entered the Academy, she would have to face him again, and the thought turned her stomach day and night.

She ached to break off the engagement. But she could not.

Because the world she lived in was the setting of an adult eroge.

The noble society of the Asteria Empire was hardly a bastion of sexual propriety. In the Empire, political marriage and chastity were two entirely separate matters.

Granted, Adrian had been the first to break their Vow of Purity—but that was a private promise the two of them had made in childhood, not a contract that automatically dissolved the marriage alliance the imperial house had arranged for political ends.

For a betrothed nobleman to visit a brothel or take a woman of lower station to his bed was a stain on his name, certainly—but it was no grounds to shatter an engagement.

The instant Iris demanded to break the engagement over Adrian's reckless debauchery, the opposition factions would crow, without fail: 'She overturned an imperial pledge out of private jealousy.'

"..."

Iris ground her teeth.

The Iris of the original story would, years later, forgive her husband again and again for taking other women to his bed. But that had never meant just any woman was welcome to share him.

It was simply that she had been his first.

The first to be loved. The first to be chosen. Because she held the unshakable certainty that she was his number one, above all others—her magnanimity as the lawful wife was nothing more than the confidence that position afforded.

But now she was no longer Adrian's number one.

The first place she had coveted above all else had been tossed, without a second thought, to some nameless woman whose face she would never even learn.

And so Iris resolved to stop loving Adrian Belloc.

Love was far too generous a word—she now loathed him without end. To her, Adrian Belloc was nothing more than a filthy pig.

The main gates of House Ballenstein.

Iris waited for Carla Ballenstein with a faintly restless expression. Carla's family's restoration had come to her as pure joy.

Her elder sisters had long since written off House Ballenstein as a fading power and thrown in their lot with House Harben and House Arkray.

For Iris, who had been run ragged cleaning up one catastrophe after another as Adrian rampaged across the court, the news of House Ballenstein's revival was the single most crucial cornerstone of her bid to break the engagement—one of the few hopes she had of ever escaping Adrian.

—Clunk.

"Carla Ballenstein requests an audience with Her Highness the Princess."

"Admit her."

At Iris's word of permission, Carla scrambled up into the carriage and bowed her head.

"I-it is an honor to be received, Your Highness."

Carla stole a careful glance at the Third Princess's face. Naturally so. Adrian's forged letter—the one that had driven Iris into Carla's confession—had been the very spark of her excommunication affair.

Whether the Saint's demonization had truly been progressing, or whether that oracle had simply lost its power in time—neither could change one undeniable fact: Iris had received a confession letter from Carla. That much stood as an 'incident' neither of them could deny.

"Please forgive the insolence of the past."

"What insolence would that be?"

"!"

Carla's face lit up like the sun. With a single sentence, she had been forgiven.

It was only natural. To the Third Princess as she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was now, whether Carla was a lesbian or not could not possibly matter. If anything, Iris was of a mind that being held and pointed at by every finger in the Empire alongside Carla would still be preferable to being touched by that filthy, disgusting Adrian.

"I will never forget this kindness, not for as long as I live."

Carla bowed her head again and again to the princess who had smoothed over her confession-letter affair.

"Carla."

"Yes!"

"I hear you are now engaged."

"I am..!"

Carla gazed down at the ring on her finger with burning love.

"..."

Watching Carla's blissful smile, Iris felt a strange pang of envy.

I want to make a face like that too.

The thought led her, quite naturally, to one particular person. That Carla still carried feelings for her, Iris knew better than anyone—she was the one those feelings were aimed at. And yet this same Carla, who had once recoiled at the very touch of men, now held for her fiancé half or more of the love that had once been pointed at the Third Princess herself.

What kind of man could this Evan possibly be?

...A young woman's curiosity soon curdled into something far more risqué, and the direction of her imagination drifted steadily off course—until it was saturated with thoughts no one should ever have about another woman's fiancé.

"Hah..!"

Snapping out of her brief reverie, Iris came to her senses and slapped her own cheek—hard—for entertaining beastly thoughts that would have shamed even Adrian.

—Smack!

"Y-your Highness!?"

"Forgive me. Idle thoughts got the better of me."

There was a mountain of work waiting for her, and here she was, fantasizing about a man. Chastising her own lewdness, Iris drew from her breast the confession letter she had received from Carla and held it up.

"That's—!"

She snapped her fingers and burned the letter to ash, then handed Carla a formal petition she had written out in advance.

"Why would you go this far? I am beyond grateful, but isn't this a little premature, Lady Iris?"

"What makes you say that?"

"The investigation into the Saint's demonization has yet to conclude... hasty support on our part could invite the Church's censure."

"And do you think I don't know that?"

"I-I beg your pardon. That was a careless remark."

The Third Princess gently stroked the crown of Carla's bowed head.

"I am deeply honored!"

"I am fully prepared to endure every hardship and trial that comes with it. Ah—but tell me, am I being rash yet again?"

"..."

"And yet, even if it is rash—to show the most resolute conviction of anyone watching the tide, precisely when everyone else is waiting to see how the wind blows. I believe that is what truly earns one the right to be called a friend..."

At the princess's words, Carla nodded with fierce vigor.

"You are right, a hundred times over!"

"I look forward to the wonderful friendship that lies ahead of us. You see, I have always believed the tawny lions of Ballenstein to be the most loyal of vassals, standing at the very front line in defense of the Empire."

A flawless family restoration. A discredited oracle, and the Third Princess's public declaration of support!

Carla had never in her life felt a euphoria to match this day's. Her life, once in utter ruins—the reign of House Ballenstein, which had nearly been reduced to dodging thrown stones and chasing chickens out of the back yard—was once more turning its face toward the very summit of the Empire.

But at the same time, a small anxiety crept in. For the Third Princess to step forward this openly, Carla reasoned, there had to be some weighty favor behind it.

"Carla Ballenstein."

"Yes! Your Highness!"

"And what of you? I believe you to be my friend—do you have the confidence to stand firmly beside me, and more?"

"You needn't even ask!! I, Carla, have every confidence that I would lay down my life for you, Lady Iris, gladly and from the heart!"

"Above all else?"

Carla flinched and began to stammer. Iris knew all too well that Carla was incapable of lying, and understanding exactly what the question meant, her expression tightened a little.

"It seems there is something more precious to you at present than even I."

"My fiancé, Evan, weighs on my mind."

"..."

"I am a knight, Your Highness. No matter how magnificent a lord may appear before me, I am bound to protect with my very life that which I first swore to protect."

Carla's answer was the correct one. Had she been some base creature who bowed her head to power over her own fiancé, the bond between House Ballenstein and the Third Princess would have ended right there.

"He must be quite the man, then—to hold his neck straight and unbowed even before a princess."

"He is more than I deserve. To be honest, I always believed men were, at bottom, beasts. But..."

"But?"

"When I tried to pull him in with my body... Evan refused me."

"Why?"

"He says he doesn't want to love me while I'm still unsteady on my feet. He said that when I can truly stand on my own—when my love is greater than my need to lean on someone... that is when we should come together."

"Ha."

"?"

"It's nothing."

To the Third Princess, tormented as she was by Adrian, the story of Evan struck deeper than her heartstrings—it moved her to the bone. In that single moment, a place opened up in Iris's heart where Carla could take root.

From now on, behind House Ballenstein would always stand Iris Asteria, Third Princess of the Empire.

"Very well. I shall forgive you for denying me the most precious place in your heart. But do not forget—just as you set me aside, so too can I set you aside."

"I have long since prepared myself for that."

"..."

The Third Princess closed her eyes and fell into thought for a moment. The mere thought of Adrian made her body tremble and cold sweat run down her back. But when she opened her eyes again, there was no hesitation, no fear to be found anywhere in Iris's face.

That was the bearing of a princess—and the dignity of one who would someday be Empress.

"Carla."

"Yes, Your Highness."

She leaned in close and, with utter sincerity, delivered her true request. And at once, a deep shadow fell across Carla's face.

"...Please. Kill my fiancé, Adrian Belloc."