Chapter 5
“Aaaah! Save me, Your Majesty!”
“The corruption has reached the capital!”
“Open the gates! Otherwise, the people will…!”
That was the scene I had seen and heard right before the regression, when I broke free from the brainwashing.
The people who had desperately flocked to the gates to avoid death, the blackened, dead land spreading moment by moment without a single blade of grass left.
And the rampaging, monster-like beasts wreathed in black smoke.
It was absolute chaos, no other word for it.
What could I have done back then?
Only to flee from the rebellion that had risen up using that chaos.
And so, what happened in the end?
Sacrificing the life of a loved one to escape, and then…
“Ah… it was a dream.”
The light was dazzling. She lifted her eyelids. The day was clear. Coming to her senses, she realized her hand was reaching out into the air.
“Ehrant…”
It was a name she hadn’t called in a long time. Shairin rubbed her face dry and rose from her seat.
“I slept a lot.”
That was natural. Time had passed, after all.
When she stopped thinking, she was overtaken by sleep and lethargy. Morning, noon, and night, endlessly.
Rest was good, but now it was time to run again toward her goal.
She sighed and stood up. Judging by her tangled hair and the badly wrinkled one-piece pajamas, she must have thrashed around violently again.
“How annoying.”
She felt like being late. But the maids had already dragged in dresses and cosmetics and were waiting in the toilet room.
Forcing her heavy feet to move, she got dressed and headed to the main palace where the noble council was being held.
“Princess Shairin has entered.”
“This is a meeting, not a banquet. Why the announcement? Unnecessary.”
I’m not the king, so why do they need to announce my entrance?
I’d rather fade into the background unnoticed. I don’t want attention.
“Ah, yes. I’ll be careful.”
“Good.”
She went straight to the chair next to the king and sat down.
Nobles from various factions tried to approach, but she raised her hand and firmly stopped them. She crossed her arms and legs.
Some clicked their tongues at the princess who sat arrogantly, glancing sideways at the meeting hall.
Most of them were nobles from Princess Rellina’s faction.
They were a group centered around Rellina’s maternal family, the House of Serint March.
Most of them held the opinion that since the king was still young and healthy, “Why insist on appointing the mediocre Shairin as crown prince just because she’s the eldest daughter?”
They argued that experience could be gained once Rellina came of age, and they found Shairin displeasing.
In truth, it was less about Princess Shairin herself and more about their distaste for her faction’s arrogance.
Shairin ignored the nobles’ power struggles.
Deep down, she wanted to agree with them because they weren’t wrong, but now wasn’t the time to contact the Serint March faction.
I have to prove that I am friendly and safe toward Rellina.
Only then would they take her seriously.
Shairin glanced at Rellina’s maternal grandmother, the Marchioness of Serint, then turned her head and looked forward.
“His Majesty Perinton Ravantra, the 46th king of the Ravantra Kingdom, enters!”
The king walked into the hall. Just his presence, even merely walking, was immense.
“You have arrived, Your Majesty.”
Everyone, including Shairin, stood to greet him.
“Let the meeting begin.”
As Perinton took his seat and declared the start, many nobles began to speak.
Various agenda items poured out. Many debated heatedly to solve the problems.
“What do you think is the best way to handle that issue, Shairin?”
The king asked her a question.
Of course, her answer was the same as always.
“I wouldn’t know, Your Majesty.”
Shairin answered every question with “I don’t know.”
She clearly knew the answers but kept her mouth shut.
Even without her, someone would find the answers, and she had no intention of receiving praise for answering.
From now on, I’m a thoroughly incompetent princess!
This was a small (?) revenge against her father.
And as her father, Perinton, who naturally knew Shairin’s true feelings, sighed.
The reason he had appointed Shairin as acting monarch was simple.
First, because it would be a waste to see his precious daughter’s efforts turn into scrap paper.
Second, because Shairin was not lacking in ability to become the next ruler.
She was simply overshadowed by Rellina’s genius.
This wasn’t a father overestimating her abilities, but a judgment made as a king.
But he had never imagined she would resist and show such aversion like this.
Do I really have to let you do what you want…
Just then, Shairin, who had been showing an uncooperative attitude throughout the meeting, changed her demeanor.
The trigger was an agenda item brought by the commander of the Knight Order.
“This is a message from Ehrant Pejis, the officer in charge of the recent kingdom patrol mission.”
“What is it?”
“He reports that near the border, for unknown reasons, the land has turned black and become polluted.”
The strange phenomenon of land becoming polluted and sinking for no apparent reason.
That was the pre-regression disaster she had just seen in her dream: the corruption.
The main cause of the continent’s collapse before her regression. Corruption.
One day, the ground suddenly sank, and the area around it turned black.
Poisonous gas would occasionally spew from corrupted areas.
Just passing through caused people to die, and animals transformed into monsters, destroying everything around them.
And it didn’t stop there—it spread wider, collapsing the continent’s foundations and destroying neighboring kingdoms one by one.
No crops could be planted in corrupted land, so by the time Shairin regressed, many people had starved to death.
Naturally, public sentiment turned violent, and crimes such as murder, robbery, kidnapping, and assault ran rampant.
Like a typhoon, the corruption destroyed everything, turning the continent into an abyss.
For Shairin, that remained a nightmare.
The biggest reason she wanted Rellina to become queen was that she wanted to be a layabout, but the corruption was also a factor.
Preventing the corruption was, for her, almost like a symbol of shedding her past incompetence.
So, I could say that stopping it is my task.
Biting the inside of her cheek, Shairin focused on the commander’s words.
“We don’t know if it’s a temporary phenomenon or a continental anomaly, so I ordered further investigation.”
“If there is damage, compensate them properly, and be sure to find the cause.”
“Yes, I will command so.”
If she knew something, she would have spoken up. It was truly a shame.
When the existence of the corruption was officially revealed, Shairin had been under brainwashing.
Her fiancé and other nobles kept her under strict watch, tying her hands so she couldn’t do anything independently.
Because of that, she knew the corruption existed but didn’t know its cause.
She didn’t even know whether it occurred naturally or through someone’s intervention.
…This time, I won’t be fooled.
She recalled the scented candles in her room and gritted her teeth secretly.
The candles she had never used since regressing, buried in a box, were tightly sealed so no one could touch them.
Once she secured “that man,” she planned to hand them over to find the mastermind.
Anyway, I’m glad Ehrant is doing well.
Her childhood friend, and right before the regression, the first and last love who had reached out to her.
It was a shame she couldn’t do anything for him since he hadn’t returned to the capital yet.
Once she made Rellina the crown prince, she naturally planned to repay him.
Even if he didn’t want that.
Realizing that she was the cause of their past falling-out, Shairin sighed inwardly.
Truly, she had committed many sins.
So in this life, she intended to atone for all of them and enjoy her own life.
But before that, she had to get rid of this damn acting monarch position first!
This is a nightmare. Really.
When she started being treated (?) like in her previous life despite acting incompetent, Shairin began to deny reality.
No, even when she said she couldn’t do it, that she didn’t know, why did they keep forcing her to attend meetings?!
Being this buried in work left no time to meet Rellina and build a relationship.
Moreover, because she unconsciously displayed the experience from her previous life in handling documents, the king only grew more expectant of her.
Damn it. What have I done now?
She felt like cutting off her own wrist right there.
This won’t do!
Eventually, a week later:
“I’m going on strike.”
Shairin declared firmly and began skipping the noble council meetings.
