When the Villainess is in Love

Chapter 7

After meeting with the emperor, I spent three more days cooped up in my room in order to recover from the mental stress. I also needed to adjust my plans. Although this was unexpected, I had earned favor with Linny and Irene thanks to the three days we had spent together. I guess that’s a good thing.

“Your Highness, is anything the matter? What did you mean by ‘grief?’”

The fact that Irene was able to ask me such a personal question without looking uncomfortable showed just how much closer we had grown these past few days.

“Well… I suppose it might not be all that serious.”

I won’t be able to ask for any money if I run away after three months. As long as I’m not… executed for it. The best option was to travel somewhere for a change of scenery with the excuse that I needed treatment. That would solve everything.

I knew that the crown prince would be happy to hear that I would be going somewhere far away, but of course, it was even more likely that he’d simply order my assassination during my journey. Especially since I won’t have given up my right to the throne yet! Ugh, that damned obsessive lunatic! He’s such a nuisance!

Tempering the anger welling up inside of me, I shot Linny and Irene a bright smile, noticing their worried expressions. Then I continued to explain.

“I have two options.”

The two maids blinked at me. They’re adorable.

“The first one sounds fine, but it’s most likely the wrong choice.”

Retreating to the countryside to rest seemed like an easy choice.

“And the other…”

The other option was Daniel.

“And the other?”

“Hmm… The other option is most certainly the right choice, but there’s a high chance that things will become even more complicated.”

It would have been so much easier if the crown prince had simply been a typical male lead. The princess, whose side of the family was powerful but could offer her no strength, was nothing but an obstacle for him to remove, seeing as the crown prince’s only weakness was that his mother was not of noble lineage. Giving up my right to the throne had been my only hope, but the emperor had rejected that plan. And if I were to simply run away, I would most likely be killed. It wasn’t as though I could just throw my birthright in the crown prince’s face and leave. Daniel was the remaining option I’d considered.

“You said it must be the right choice?”

“Yes.”

The man who threatened Ariel and the crown prince with one last setback before bidding the empire farewell and disappearing, Daniel was apparently stronger than the crown prince—so much so that the crown prince would be forced to sacrifice a great deal in order to defeat such an enemy. At the end of the novel, Daniel fled the empire with everyone he considered his allies. And so, the empire found peace once again.

The novel made him out to be a supervillain. It would be ideal if I could be one of those people he took with him at the end. Regardless, he was strong, and the novel described him as being very protective of his allies. This meant that if I somehow became one of his allies, he would protect me even if I were to leave the palace to ‘recuperate,’ which would make my plan work perfectly.

“But you said that it might go wrong.”

“I did.”

I zoned out as Linny and Irene continued to question me, frowning sadly. That’s right. It could turn out very badly indeed. Daniel was not simply another secondary male lead but more akin to a puppet master. In other words, he was dangerous.

Besides, he’s the guildmaster of the Assassin’s Guild! I didn’t even know what he looked like. And most importantly… Daniel despised the imperial family, and I was the princess. In spite of this, Daniel really was the only person who could square off against the crown prince.

“This is tricky,” Irene said after a moment’s thought. “But if it were up to me, I think I’d choose the latter.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because it’s the right option. No matter how disastrous, if it’s the right option, it’ll surely work out in the end, right? As long as you bear with it.”

“As long as I bear with it…” I repeated to myself. Moments later, I had made my decision. “You’re right. That really is the better choice.”

I would rather try to befriend the final boss than stake my life on the whims of the crown prince without any backup plans.

“Thank you.”

I smiled at them as I patted their heads. Linny beamed at me, and Irene blushed slightly, her eyes cast downward.

* * *

The next day, I checked to make sure I was alone and wiped the blood from my lips. Now, I was certain that I was regaining a memory from each year of Libertia’s childhood in chronological order. In the most recent memory, she was a three-year-old toddler.

The three-year-old Princess Libertia was a devastatingly pretty child, but it was as though she had been made of stone. Her face was expressionless, and she disregarded everyone she passed as she walked along. Toddlers at that age tended to be soft and cute—but not her.

“Still, she’s just so pretty.”

Heh. Libertia’s personality was like that ever since she was a toddler, huh? Until now, I had only heard the memories echo in my ears, but this time, it had been like a vision. I was ecstatic.

“Life is beautiful!”

Now that I had decided on a plan and Libertia’s memories were coming back to me like incredibly adorable home videos, I was set. Everything was great.

“So now, it’s time to fangirl!”

Let’s do this! Fangirling meant being incredibly fond of something or someone and reveling in their existence. That’s right. This was the carrot on the stick that had kept me going these past nine days.

“My beautiful secondary male leads and my darling extras!”

In my eyes, my favorite characters were all main characters. However, each of them was fated to be a victim of Ariel and the crown prince. While Princess Libertia may have died as a villainess, the others had been hurt because they loved the female lead and gave up their dreams or even their lives for her sake. Besides, the crown prince’s overzealous love for Ariel was to blame for several of these incidents. What a mess.

“That obsessive crown prince couldn’t bear to have anyone be closer to Ariel than he was.”

It could be said that the crown prince simply despised anyone who liked Ariel. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have ended up killing the knight that had pledged to protect her or ordered a swordsman’s right arm cut off.

“But the female lead isn’t all that great, either.”

In the novel, Ariel had watched as all those people were sacrificed for her sake but felt little pity for them. Her attitude was something like, “Sucks to be you! I appreciate it, though!”

“I guess terrible people attract each other.”

The secondary male leads’ deaths or misfortunes, the loyal girl who ingested poison in Ariel’s stead, the woman who gave up her life’s dream for her friend, and even the last conflict against the puppet master—in the end, all were merely plot devices used to strengthen the love between Ariel and the crown prince.

“Now that I’m in the novel, I want my favorite characters to have happy endings.”

While I might not be able to interfere with the main plot, I could probably at least sow a few “seeds” before the beginning of the story in order to keep my favorite characters safe. And I was really looking forward to seeing just how handsome and pretty they all were.

Heh. I couldn’t help chuckling at the thought.

2. A Beautiful World

Ariel, the female lead of the novel, was a lovely girl with sky blue hair and eyes to match. She cried quite often. And it was those tears, as well as the protective instinct they stirred, that stole the hearts of three men—including the crown prince, the main male lead. Among them, Eugene was the first secondary male lead to fall for Ariel. As the first of the secondary male leads to make an appearance in the novel, he had known Ariel the longest. And it was this familiarity with her that ultimately led him into the crown prince’s trap and his doom.

I decided to make contact with this poor soul first—after all, Eugene was the most antagonistic toward Princess Libertia among the secondary male leads, so he had the most negative impression of her. Only due to all the terrible rumors about her supposed misdeeds, though. But they had no direct conflict, which I figured meant that I could change his impression of Libertia with just a little effort.

Eugene de Volton. He was a free knight—a title given to a knight recognized by House McNahan. The family was known throughout the empire for their famous ancestor, the Free Knight, who was the greatest knight to have ever lived. This meant that he was already a powerful and respected knight, and he happened to be the strongest of all the free knights.

However, because he was a citizen of the empire, he was subject to a certain rule: In exchange for lifelong funding from the imperial family, free knights of the empire were required to serve at least one year as a knight of a princess’s palace. Currently, Eugene was in the middle of this one-year service as a free knight. As such, he was a direct servant of Princess Libertia. However, he was currently on leave that he’d requested. In terms of physical distance, he was the closest of the novel’s characters for me to encounter.

Eugene had always disliked Princess Libertia’s frosty demeanor, which was also why he’d fallen for Ariel in the novel. It had been love at first sight, seeing as Ariel was almost the complete opposite of Libertia. In any case, I knew what Eugene had desired before he’d fallen in love with Ariel—it was the goal that the crown prince had utilized in the end to lead him to his death. Maybe, if I was able to satisfy that desire beforehand, Eugene would leave the palace without any regrets and freely wander the world rather than get involved in the novel’s storyline.

I knocked on the door. “Is anyone there?”

As soon as I woke up that morning, I headed to Sir Eugene de Volton’s private quarters. It had been a very long trek. If I show him a completely different side of me, I bet it would sway him, seeing that he’s been influenced the most by all the rumors. I was pretty confident that I would be able to leave a better impression based on this theory. Just by going against all of his prejudice, I should be able to improve the way I come off to him. And by helping him achieve his goal, I might even be able to get on friendly terms with him.

On friendly terms! That would be great. Hehe…

As I grinned at the thought, the door opened with a creak, and a man appeared before me. It was like a scene straight out of a movie.