CHAPTER 27
I smiled gently and tried to console Baroness Filleren.
“Her Majesty the Empress will soon calm down and accept you back again.”
“I’m only hoping for that. Sniff!”
Baroness Filleren sobbed even more bitterly.
Perhaps because I had already experienced this before, I could read her behavior like the palm of my hand.
I said the words she most desperately wanted to hear.
“It may not be enough as a replacement, but if it’s alright with you, I’ll be your friend.”
Just like the first time we met in the previous timeline.
“If someone like me is acceptable, would you please be my friend?”
“Oh my, I’d be so grateful, Your Highness the Archduchess.”
Edith Filleren once again welled up with tears of gratitude.
It was the exact same expression I’d seen before.
But I hadn’t forgotten. That very same face later twisted into betrayal as she falsely accused me of crimes I didn’t commit.
“Did you really believe someone as foolish as you would have a friend who truly cared? Just like Lady Evangeline said, you’re naive and greedy.”
Baroness Filleren had been a spy placed beside me from the beginning, under Evangeline’s orders.
It must be the same this time too.
There was a high chance even her expulsion from the Empress’s palace had been staged.
She was kicked out in a showy way, then loitered around the Crown Prince’s palace as if begging to be noticed.
It would be impossible not to suspect something.
I smiled innocently, hiding my thoughts behind a facade.
“I didn’t have any friends since I don’t really do social activities, so I’m really happy!”
Keep friends close. But keep enemies closer.
Especially if that enemy is the bait to catch an even bigger one.
After sending Baroness Filleren away…
I returned to Sangah’s bedroom feeling somewhat down.
And there, someone was waiting for me — someone whose presence wasn’t surprising, but whose appearance definitely was.
There was only one person besides me who could enter Sangah’s bedroom freely.
Arpad.
And the reason I said he looked unexpected was simple:
He really did.
I stood there for a moment, staring blankly at Arpad’s annoyingly flawless figure, and asked:
“Did you hear some rumor somewhere that my type is scholarly men or something?”
Arpad lifted his eyes behind his glasses and frowned at me.
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
That’s right. Arpad was wearing glasses and reading a thick hardcover book.
If someone liked scholarly types or intelligent-looking men in glasses, they’d fall for him immediately.
Not that I have that kind of taste.
Still… I had to admit, this look was refreshingly new.
I walked over with small steps and answered:
“Well, there’s no way someone like you needs glasses to read.”
Dragon blood was remarkable — even Ludwig, whose blood was relatively diluted, had never gotten sick.
Wounds healed quickly, and unless there was a major accident, his eyesight never worsened.
So for Arpad, who had the strongest lineage, that went doubly so.
“Oh, so you were being sarcastic, suggesting I wore glasses to match your ‘type.’”
“Well, I do know someone who tried to seduce secrets out of people by being handsome.”
Arpad didn’t get mad.
He just gave a short chuckle, took off the glasses, and said,
“It’s more about trying to understand normal human vision. I don’t really know what average sight feels like.”
A genuine gasp escaped me.
“You’re insufferable!”
“And why am I being attacked now?”
“You’re so blessed with perfect eyesight that you’re pretending to have bad vision just to experience what it’s like? That’s like a rich person playing poor for a day just to see how it feels!”
And then I added,
“I’m jealous!”
“Of what? Your eyesight is perfectly fine too, isn’t it?”
Well, right now it was.
My body was perfectly healthy, and my vision was fine. I hadn’t been tortured yet by Ludwig or Evangeline.
But before I returned in time, I suffered so much in temples and prisons that my eyesight deteriorated — and it was miserable!
My clear vision now was one of the first things that made me realize I had regressed.
So I reaffirmed my resolve:
This time, I’ll eat vision-healthy foods, take care of my body, and live long and well — until I’m 100!
After dying young three times, that had become my number-one goal.
Knowing how awful bad eyesight felt, Arpad’s little “experiment” felt all the more obnoxious.
Maybe sensing my genuine indignation, Arpad offered a halfhearted excuse.
“Having perfect vision isn’t always a good thing.”
I replied with 100% sincerity:
“The taller a man is, the better. And the better your eyesight, the better!”
To that, the privileged man replied with pure arrogance:
“That’s not always true.”
“No way!”
“When you’re too tall, you keep bumping your head into door frames.”
“But the palace doors are all huge and tall!”
Arpad shrugged.
“Not the ones commoners use.”
Given poorer nutrition, commoners were likely shorter, and raising ceilings or expanding doorways cost more.
Crown Prince Arpad probably hadn’t visited those places much, but Gerald the Mercenary King certainly had.
“Still, I refuse to believe there’s any benefit to poor eyesight!”
Do you know how humiliating it is to squint constantly and then be insulted for always looking grumpy?
Arpad stroked his smooth jawline and answered, surprisingly seriously.
“You end up seeing things you didn’t want to.”
“Things you didn’t want to see?”
“Yes. Like… blackheads and acne scars all over some guy’s face.”
“…!”
“Or a couple in a garden corner who are very enthusiastically engaged in something not-so-productive.”
“…Okay, I’ll give you that one.”
Yeah, if I saw that, I’d want to gouge my own eyes out too.
It was a silly conversation with a ridiculous conclusion, but surprisingly, Arpad looked genuinely pleased.
His lips held a smile, free of cynicism or sharpness.
“Why are you smiling like that?”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever won a verbal sparring match with you so easily.”
“People might think I’m always trying to argue and win by force.”
“…”
I ignored his silence and peeked at the book he’d been reading.
“What were you—ah, ‘The Founding History of the Istrid Empire’? That’s what you were reading?”
A red silk bookmark marked the page he’d left off in the luxurious volume.
Every citizen of the Istrid Empire knew the story.
‘The dragon said: “My only flower and bride. The moment I saw you, I knew you were the one who could make me whole. That is why I could not resist the instinct to claim you.”’
“….”
I casually closed the book and handed it back to Arpad.
Then I met his gaze — and realized something.
He’s observing me.
He was watching my reaction with a sharp gaze, so unlike the playful man from earlier.
Tension prickled in the air.
Then Arpad reached out and grabbed my wrist.
He reopened the book.
“I always loved this part since I was a child. When you brought up Artanus and Istrid in front of the Emperor, it reminded me of it, so I came back to read it.”
“I… see. What do you like about it?”
Arpad chuckled softly and gazed into the distance.
“I wished I had something like that too.”
His fingertip tapped the engraved text.
“A destined partner.”
Romantic words.
But the eyes of the man who recited them like poetry were saying something entirely different.
“I wanted someone who could make me whole…”
Then he clarified.
So I couldn’t pretend not to understand.
“Someone who could pull me out of my madness. I longed for that so desperately.”
His blood-red, inhuman eyes gleamed dangerously.
“And I always wondered — if such a person really existed, would I recognize them the moment I saw them, like Artanus did?”
His elongated pupils narrowed.
Thin as needles. As if ready to pierce me at any moment.
“How lovable would that person be? Or perhaps… how utterly hateful, for showing up too late?”
So which one is it for him?
Like a snake offering cheese to a mouse, Arpad asked,
“What do you think? Should I love that person… or hate them?”
I felt every hair on my body stand on end.
And I couldn’t help but wonder—
Could it be… that Arpad already knows?
Knows what?
That I’m the ‘bride’ — the one with the power to stabilize the madness inherited through dragon’s blood.
U r already loving her
Keep on fighting