Lia von Elleves (3)
“...Sir Cain.”
The chamberlain, who had been frozen like a statue, called to me in a rather stiff voice.
“Yes?”
“Might I ask whether Lady Lia is... being impolite to you?”
Maybe it was just my imagination, but it sounded an awful lot like, If she is, I’ll have your head.
I looked at the chamberlain, then at Lia von Elleves.
The woman who, within a few years, would become the most notorious villainess in the Empire met my eyes with a look that seemed almost pleading.
I thought it over for a moment.
“No, not at all. In fact, the young lady was trying to help me.”
“Help you? Lady Lia was helping Sir Cain?”
The chamberlain arched his brows and looked back and forth between Lia von Elleves and me.
He said nothing, but the suspicious way he stared at us made it clear he didn’t believe a word of it. So, to lend my lie a little more credibility, I pointed at the handmade sweets on the plate.
“Yes, well, I was eating one of the sweets Lady Lia gave me, and the crumbs fell. They just happened to land in my clothes. But the blasted thing wouldn’t come out, and I was struggling with it when Lady Lia said she would remove the crumbs herself. I was just about to trouble her with the task.”
Once I decided to start piling on lies, the story came pouring out of my mouth without even needing to be greased with saliva.
At my words, the chamberlain looked to Lia von Elleves as if asking whether it was true, and she bobbed her head up and down in vigorous agreement to support my fabrication.
“Then why was there such a loud noise...?”
“...Ah, my apologies. That was me as well. When the young lady’s soft fingers touched my skin, it tickled, and I cried out before I could stop myself.”
“Oh, I see...?”
The chamberlain blinked slowly, looking thoroughly unconvinced.
He was working his lips as though he had a great many more questions, but in the end he didn’t press the matter. Instead, he bowed his head politely.
“Understood. I apologize for causing such an untimely disturbance. Lady Lia, Sir Cain. Please, continue your conversation at your leisure.”
Led by the chamberlain, the servants filed out of the reception room.
The door shut with a creak and a thud.
Only then did Lia von Elleves, who had looked tense enough to snap in two, let out a long breath of relief.
“Phew. Thank you, sir knight. You saved me.”
“...”
Just for coming up with some clumsy excuse, I’d gotten thanks from the most infamous villainess in the Empire.
The whole situation felt so oddly unreal that I was at a loss for words. Eventually, I wet my lips and asked Lia von Elleves,
“Do you... perhaps find the chamberlain scary, my lady?”
“Mm-hm, yes. A little. Zeke is usually kind, but if I do something against etiquette, he gets really scary. I used to get scolded a lot when I was little.”
“Ah...”
So the fear etched into childhood really could reach even the Empire’s greatest villainess.
As I entertained that foolish thought, I suddenly realized something was off.
No, hold on. Lia von Elleves was supposed to be that spoiled noble young lady who treated everyone around her, servants included, like dirt, wasn’t she?
According to the original novel’s description, even before she fully became a villainess, she’d apparently been infamous for her appalling behavior, the sort of rotten brat everyone knew about.
Yet the way she treated me, and the way she’d just treated the chamberlain, didn’t seem villainous at all.
How should I put it? Rather than a villainess, she felt more like a kind, innocent, slightly bubbly noble girl.
What in the world was going on? The Lia von Elleves I had seen in the original story and the Lia von Elleves standing before me now felt like entirely different people. It was almost as if someone had been replaced.
...
...Surely not. But what if the original Lia von Elleves had never been a villainess to begin with?
Like one of those background-clue clichés often used for male leads in romance fantasy novels—what if she’d experienced some incident in childhood, gone dark, and become the Empire’s greatest villainess?
Once I’d followed the thought that far, I naturally lifted my head and looked at Lia von Elleves.
“...Sir knight?”
She still had the youthful softness of someone who hadn’t quite lost all her baby fat yet, and I couldn’t help wondering what sort of monstrous event could possibly happen to make her into the Empire’s greatest villainess.
If I could only learn what incident or turning point created the villainess Lia von Elleves, I’d want to stop it somehow, if only for the sake of my peaceful life as her escort knight.
Unfortunately, the novel How to Tame the Obsessive Male Lead, in which Lia von Elleves appeared, was narrated in a third-person point of view centered on the female and male leads.
That meant the backstories and hidden histories of any characters other than the main couple were almost never explored, which meant I had no way of knowing what that incident or turning point might be...
“Um, sir knight!”
“...Yes?”
At that moment, a high, bright voice cut through my thoughts.
When I came back to myself and looked ahead, Lia von Elleves was staring at me with a sullen expression.
“What on earth were you thinking about that you wouldn’t answer when I called you?”
Damn, I’d been thinking about useless things for too long. To let my guard down in front of the woman who would become the Empire’s greatest villainess... I bowed my head respectfully.
“My apologies. I was just remembering something from the past.”
“You don’t have to apologize so seriously... What kind of memory?”
“Ah, well...”
If I said, I was thinking about the contents of the novel where you appear as a villain, she’d undoubtedly think I was insane, so I decided to hedge based on my own childhood experiences.
“There was someone like the chamberlain of the Elleves family at my own house too. He was in charge of my education, and he was a very strict man. I’d get scolded and beaten for the slightest mistake.”
“Oh my, really? Even someone like you, sir knight, got scolded by adults?”
“Yes, of course.”
As I’d said before, the Reinhardt family’s educational policy came perilously close to child abuse. The moment a boy could walk, he was expected to take up a sword and learn his letters; in the year he turned ten, he had to step out into the world and shoulder his share, just as I was doing now.
Of course, ten-year-olds are just kids. And if that kid had to make his way in the world, the usual kind of education wouldn’t be enough, would it?
I’m not exaggerating when I say I received brutally harsh training. I got scolded constantly, and I was beaten a great deal too. Not even slightly exaggerating—I probably got hit ten times a day.
“...It was so much I can’t even count it anymore.”
“Mm-hmm, I see. Even such a grown-up knight as you got scolded a lot, huh...?”
I was sure I’d told a heart-wrenching story, and yet I had no idea why she was puffing out her breath and looking so pleased.
Could it be because Lia von Elleves was a villainess? Because she had a sadistic streak and enjoyed tormenting others?
As I stared at her, trying to make sense of her reaction, Lia von Elleves suddenly extended her hand.
This time, unlike before, there was nothing on her palm.
“Then we’re comrades, aren’t we?”
“Comrades...?”
“Yes, comrades. We both have scary chamberlains.”
“...”
What a ridiculous kind of comradeship.
I thought it, but didn’t say it out loud.
Instead, I gently took Lia von Elleves’s hand in mine.
“Sir knight. Let’s get along well, fellow comrades.”
“Yes. Understood. I’ll do my best as your escort knight.”
“Don’t call me ‘my lady.’ Call me ‘Lia.’ I’ll call you Cain too.”
“Yes. Lia... ma’am.”
“Hey, Cain. Not Lia ma’am—just Lia!”
Lia von Elleves, who would become the Empire’s greatest villainess within ten years, was now scolding me with a stern face and demanding that I call her by her name.
I still couldn’t quite believe it. It all felt so unreal that I let out a snort of laughter.
...Well, whatever.
At any rate, I didn’t know exactly how or why Lia von Elleves—no, Lia—would grow into the Empire’s greatest villainess.
But if possible, maybe I should try to stop her from becoming one.
If Lia, who might one day surpass even the original heroine and become the most beautiful woman in the Empire, were to be reduced to a villainess and vanish into the dust of the execution grounds because of some tragic incident... that would be a pity. No, not just a pity—far too much of a waste.
And if I was going to be stationed at Lia’s side as her escort knight for at least the next few years, wouldn’t it be much better if the young lady I served were a cheerful troublemaker everyone liked instead of a villainess?
Mm. That was right. No matter how I looked at it, it would be better for Lia not to become a villainess than to become one.
That was when I had that thought.
“Oh, right, Cain. I meant to ask and completely forgot.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“That red potion from earlier—you’re giving it to me, right? Mm?”
“...”
If possible, let’s tone down the greed a little too.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Night.
After finishing dinner, I followed a servant’s guidance to the room set aside for me in one wing of the manor.
It was smaller than the room I’d had in the Reinhardt household, but it had everything I needed, and if I required anything else, I was told I only had to ask a servant and they would prepare it. It wasn’t uncomfortable at all.
I took off the scabbard at my waist and leaned it against the wall, then sat down at the desk. After that, I pulled a notebook from the bookshelf, opened it wide, and stared at the blank page.
“...I need to organize this.”
Human memory is notoriously volatile. So even if I didn’t notice it now, after a year, or two, or more, I might forget some portion of what I knew and never be able to call it back again.
That kind of catastrophe couldn’t be allowed to happen, so first I wrote down the original story’s flow in order, page by page.
There was so much of it that it took me about twenty minutes, but fortunately there were no gaps in my memory.
“All right, that’s done...”
Then the next step was to sort out the information that had changed from the original.
The biggest difference was Lia’s personality. Lia von Elleves, the so-called unbearably nasty noble young lady, had somehow become far gentler than she was in the original story.
I had no idea why. But if I had to guess, I’d say this gentle version was Lia’s true personality, and that some event or turning point later on changed her into a villainess.
Of course, I couldn’t be sure, but for now that seemed likely enough—and since I didn’t know the exact reason, there was no harm in being cautious.
So from now on, I’d keep a close watch on everyone who approached Lia, and if anyone looked suspicious, I’d remove them from the picture.
Fortunately, my role was Lia’s escort knight. If I used the safety of the lady I served as my excuse, it shouldn’t be impossible.
“...Okay.”
I underlined the part about “removing them under the pretext of safety” several times and moved on to the next page of the notebook.
Since I’d settled on my course of action, I planned to jot down the events of each day from now on. The reason was simple.
I wanted to skim through the notebook to refresh my memory of what I already knew, and compare any new information against what I’d recorded before.
It was the same old principle: better safe than sorry. If you prepare in advance, there’s no need to worry later.
So I wrote the heading in Hangul, in a way that no one from outside twenty-first-century South Korea would be able to read.
Then, on the line below it, I began writing down my honest feelings from the moment I met Lia, and turned them into a diary entry.
[Imperial Year 434, May 17.]
[The villainess in this romance fantasy novel is strange.]