Chapter 1
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: There Is No Place for the Fake
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Everyone has a place where they rightfully belong. For Philomel, that place today—and her final one—was atop the execution platform.
A massive crowd had gathered at the execution grounds to witness the villainess's end. Philomel thrashed about, screaming that she didn't want to die, but the merciless kicks from the guards gripping her arms soon silenced her.
Emperor Justis gazed indifferently from the highest seat at the being who had once been his daughter. Beside him clung Princess Ellensia, her face pale.
"Hear ye, traitor to the realm!"
The officiant stepped forward and began reciting Philomel's crimes one by one.
The crime of conspiring with her mother to impersonate the princess for over a decade.
The crime of envying and slandering the princess even after being spared by her mercy.
The crime of sowing discord between the Magic Tower and the empire, attempting to trigger a national crisis.
A litany of lesser offenses followed.
"Thus, she deserves death by execution!"
No sooner had the officiant finished than coarse shouts and curses erupted from the crowd.
"Kill her already!"
"How dare a lowborn wretch pretend to be the princess!"
"They should've executed her with her mother ages ago!"
Eggs and stones hurled by the furious mob pelted Philomel without mercy.
Only after a long while did the officiant raise his hand to quiet the enraged masses.
"By rights, a criminal like you would not be granted this privilege, but in her mercy, Princess Ellensia has bestowed upon you the chance to leave final words. Have you anything left to say?"
Philomel's yellow eyes, which had been staring lifelessly at the ground, turned toward the emperor.
"...Ah, Father."
His brows twitched slightly at her raspy voice.
"I never impersonated the princess. All this time, I truly believed I was your daughter... I won't beg for mercy on the other charges since they alone warrant my death. Just... please acknowledge that one truth..."
It was what she had mulled over endlessly in the pitch-black solitary cell that let in not a single ray of light.
Countless heads had rolled simply because they had shown her even a hint of friendliness or pity for her wretched state.
In that moment, all the lingering attachments that had bound her felt utterly futile.
Why had she tried so desperately to win his love, fretting over losing it? In the end, neither the affection nor the position had ever been hers.
But just one thing.
Among the list of crimes, the first and gravest—the claim that she had impersonated the princess—was untrue, and that injustice gnawed at her.
She didn't care if no one else believed her innocence. She only wished for one person to recognize it.
Father. Emperor Justis of the Belleroph Empire.
The man who, even during the dozen years he believed her to be his true daughter, had shown her not the slightest interest.
Still, she had thought him her only family and yearned for his love.
Now that she had come this far, she couldn't shed her resentment, but at the very least, she hoped he would know the truth.
That she had never intended to deceive him from the start. That only after Ellensia appeared did she learn she wasn't his real daughter.
Thinking back, it was all so obvious. Philomel's birth mother had swapped her with the princess when they were newborns.
After that, Philomel had lived in the palace as the princess, while Ellensia had grown up as a commoner with her birth mother—they had never even met.
So when could she have conspired with her mother, and how could she have fooled everyone?
Anyone could deduce this simple fact, yet all treated Philomel as a fraud. It was the infamy she had built over the years.
Even so, she had clung to hope. Even if others refused to believe, perhaps the rational and wise emperor would uncover the truth.
Of course, it was a vain hope.
"Guards! Fetch a needle and thread at once and sew that wretch's mouth shut."
The emperor's command doused the clamor like cold water, only for it to reignite moments later.
"Well said!"
"As His Majesty commands!"
"Sew it shut! Sew it shut!"
The attendants scrambled to find thread sturdy enough to stitch a prisoner's mouth, while Ellensia, her face growing even paler, clutched at her father's sleeve.
Unlike Philomel's common brown hair, Ellensia possessed beautiful golden locks—the spitting image of the late empress, the emperor's beloved daughter.
Despair flooded Philomel's eyes.
'What on earth was I hoping for?'
I knew full well it would end like this.
Torture must have addled my brain after all that time.
'Just accept death quietly.'
That's the only way to preserve what little pride I have left.
Yes. No matter what anyone says, I was once the princess of the great Belleroph Empire.
'That... that alone is... my one and only pride.'
"Your Majesty!"
That had been her intention, at least...
Philomel shot to her feet as if spring-loaded, calling out to the emperor.
Despite surviving on mere bread crumbs for days, an astonishingly loud voice burst from her.
As Justis's cold gaze fell upon her, unexpected words spilled from her lips. Tears streamed endlessly down her cheeks.
"Was there even once... just once... that I felt like your daughter to you? Did you ever see me even a little as one?"
Yes. That's what she had always wanted to ask him.
Not just since Ellensia appeared, but even when she believed herself to be his real daughter.
Why do you always look at me with such cold eyes? Am I truly your child? Even if you can't love me, can't you at least treat me as one?
Fear of his answer had kept her from asking all this time. But with death looming, a strange courage welled up.
"..."
"Daddy, please... that's enough..."
The emperor, who had parted his lips as if to respond, turned his gaze as his daughter whimpered.
Kind-hearted Ellensia found even the execution of the villainess who had tried to harm her too painful to watch.
The emperor gently embraced the shoulders of his beloved daughter, who was pleading to leave, instructed that the execution proceed without him, and departed the grounds—utterly ignoring the Philomel he left behind.
"...You could at least give me an answer before you go."
Philomel uttered her final words in hollow resignation.
And so, the notorious villainess Philomel met a death with not a soul to pity her.
Fortunately, since the emperor had ordered her dealt with swiftly, her mouth went unstitched. The last stroke of luck for a wicked soul.
Though they denied her a painless end on the guillotine, opting instead for the executioner's dull blade to drag out her suffering.
Her sole innocence was buried beneath a mountain of misdeeds, never to see the light. A fitting end for a villain...
"Kyahhh!"
With a shriek, Philomel flung the book she was reading across the room.
"Who does this?! Sure, I—no, the Philomel in the book—did some wrong, but not enough to deserve death!"
The girl stomped her little feet and pounded her chest, but the book's contents remained unchanged.
The nine-year-old princess regretted picking up that suspicious book from the garden.
Who in their right mind writes a novel using the real imperial family as a backdrop? What started as intriguing reading left her only with rage and unease.
From the very beginning, it shoved some unheard-of commoner girl forward as the emperor's true daughter, branding this Philomel a fake—utter nonsense...
"I'll tell Father right away and make sure the author pays for this."
It reeked of imperial defamation.
Daring to call the Belleroph Empire's sole heir a fraud!
And not content with that, they even gave her a cruel end. Had they not killed her off, a life sentence might have sufficed, but execution was the only fitting punishment now.
"Sigh."
Philomel, who had been pacing as if ready to storm out, collapsed weakly onto the carpeted floor.
Her nanny would have scolded her for unladylike behavior, but since her confinement, she had been alone—no one to care.
In the first place, the only reason she had read nearly to the end of this absurd and insulting novel, Princess Ellensia, was sheer boredom.
Confined to her room except for twice-daily garden strolls. Even if the confinement ended, she wasn't sure if she could see her father.
Justis was an utterly indifferent father with no interest in his daughter. The times they had faced each other for conversation could be counted on one hand.
Requests delivered through servants for shared meals or tea times were routinely ignored, and unannounced visits earned her nothing but dismissal as a nuisance.
The reason for yesterday's confinement was her barging into the emperor's study in frustration over his constant avoidance and throwing a tantrum.
"Remove that at once."
Seeing his crying daughter demand why he never visited, the emperor had ordered the attendants with the coldest of expressions.
In the end, she had been dragged kicking and screaming back to her room.
His callous attitude, persisting for nearly a decade, led others to subtly look down on the princess as well.
Rumors swirled that the emperor would adopt a talented child from a collateral line instead of Philomel and pass the throne to them, fueling their insolence.
They openly gossiped that the emperor, who had deeply loved his late empress, resented the daughter born from the woman who "devoured" his wife.
Moreover, the princess resembled her mother not at all and caused nothing but trouble without a single redeeming quality—small wonder he felt no affection.
Philomel, slumping dejectedly, shuffled to the mirror on the wall.
"Do I really not look like them?"
The Philomel in the mirror was a flawlessly adorable girl with brown hair and yellow eyes.
But she bore no resemblance to her mother, whom she knew only from portraits, nor to her father.
The emperor had black hair and gray eyes; the empress, golden hair and green. Even comparing just hair and eye color showed no match.
As a child, Philomel's hair had been lighter, almost blonde.
She had prayed nightly for it to fade to gold, but as she grew, it darkened instead to plain brown.
Fine, say her hair color took after her late maternal grandmother, but where on earth did these bright yellow eyes come from?
The girl grew depressed, convinced she might not truly be her parents' child.