In my past life, Arthur Barcklith died on his way to the capital. It was because of a fire.
The large inn he was staying at had completely burned down in the incident, so all the knights who were traveling to the capital with Arthur died as well.
The local lord offered to hold the funeral right away. Since the capital was too far for Kayan and the other knights to visit, it was said to be an act of consideration.
“Something feels off. We need to go there.”
“Shouldn’t we check it out ourselves? Even if it was a fire, at least one or two people could have survived! We need to perform an autopsy as soon as possible.”
“Even if not that… shouldn’t we at least attend the funeral? We can’t just leave them to be buried by strangers.”
The northern knights were extremely united. So, the knights in the capital insisted on going to the region immediately.
Then, someone approached them.
“Why not go by sea? If you take an illegal express ship, you can arrive in just three days.”
Kayan and the others were already consumed by anger and grief over the sudden deaths of their brothers and parents.
They weren’t familiar with the capital’s affairs and paid a large sum to board the illegal express ship.
However, that ship sank, and they were all lost to the sea.
All except one—Kayan.
Both the fire and the shipwreck were such large-scale disasters that the newspapers covered them extensively.
Because the ship was illegal, they didn’t even receive proper compensation.
I cried so much reading the news from inside the imperial palace.
“I have to go… I have to go. I want to go to the funeral. They were like family to me… Please, Your Grace, let me go…”
“Confine the Princess. I cannot risk her life just to see the dead.”
Simon locked me up as I begged and sobbed.
Because of that, in my past life, the Barcklith family never received the title of count.
Since all the northern knights had vanished so pointlessly, the northern territory once again fell into the hands of barbarians.
To make matters worse, even Kayan, who returned alone, was in terrible condition.
It took an immense amount of time just for him to recover.
“Where’s Kayan? I need to go see him. He survived, didn’t he? Then I—”
“He may resent the Princess. Seeing him could endanger your safety. It is not permitted.”
No matter how much I struggled to see Kayan, I couldn’t leave the imperial palace.
From then on, I was plagued by overwhelming helplessness and depression.
The psychological damage from that time is what caused me to confine myself and do nothing in the princess’s palace.
I thought I was doing fine, but in truth, it was more like a form of destructive self-brainwashing—“Everyone I loved died, yet here I am, doing fine.”
Even though I read the news every day thinking, “If only it had gone this way…” I couldn’t bring myself to take any action.
Sometimes I would see Kayan at official events, but we never grew close.
I couldn’t even imagine how Kayan, with nowhere to go, returned to the capital to inherit an empty title and endured those years.
‘In the end, after the disappearance of the Barcklith knights, the Ogiano tribe took over the northern lands again, and the count title was never granted…’
He must have originally endured out of sheer will, hoping to uncover the mystery behind the deaths.
But it must not have been easy. At some point, he probably started living in a way that helped me from the shadows.
‘Even then, I thought something was wrong. I just never imagined everyone would be wiped out like that…’
I bit my nails.
‘When I later learned it was all Simon’s doing, I couldn’t understand why he went so far… What reason was there to go to such lengths just to eliminate one minor noble house?’
But after hearing Kayan’s words, I understood.
‘If the Barckliths had become a count family, everything would have changed.’
Count rank meant true nobility.
There were so few of them that they couldn’t be ignored.
Clever Simon must have been wary of the Barckliths’ strength and wealth from the start.
When he heard they’d been promised a count title, he must have orchestrated the whole thing.
‘So he killed Arthur before he could receive the title.’
Now I could roughly guess the methods Simon used.
“Just now, word arrived that the Crown Prince has died. I sent him a drink that causes temporary paralysis—he drowned easily.”
Under the Emperor’s strict laws, poisons were heavily regulated.
So no one knew about the existence of “paralysis wine.”
Since temporary slowing effects weren’t classified as poison,
if the Serno family had hidden such wine,
they could’ve served it as a welcome drink, part of the meal, or whatever.
That made people vulnerable to fire, shipwrecks, assassinations…
‘From the perspective of someone planning a major disaster, it’s an inefficient but effective poison’
Now I understood why only Kayan had survived.
He was the only minor who hadn’t consumed anything containing alcohol.
And he was strong enough to swim to safety.
“Ah…”
My heart thumped, and the color drained from my face.
‘In the end, everyone died because of me.’
“The Princess has grown loyal eyes and ears—nothing good will come to me from that.”
Simon feared that Arthur would return, become a count, and I, growing older, would drift from his control and rebuild ties with the Barckliths.
He feared I might start thinking and acting for myself—
like I was doing right now.
He probably believed that if everyone died, I would fall into despair, lose my will to live, and destroy myself—
just existing like a puppet.
And in my past life, that’s exactly what happened.
‘If only I hadn’t been born…’
I trembled as the thought crept in.
It was something I’d heard every day until my mother died, so it naturally surfaced.
‘If only Mother hadn’t killed Father…’
‘If only Arthur hadn’t received the barony…’
Then Arthur, Kayan, and the knights could have lived happily as mercenaries in the borderlands.
‘No, if only I hadn’t whined about being lonely when I was little…’
If I had just kept my distance from the Barckliths, they would have lived their lives without ever getting involved with me.
“Princess?”
My complexion must’ve suddenly worsened, and Kayan asked in concern.
“Princess? Are you alright?”
“Ah…”
Tears began to fall from my eyes.
Kayan, startled, stepped closer to me.
“Princess!”
He gently wiped my tears away with his large hand.
But the tears wouldn’t stop.
“What’s wrong?”
Tears even rolled down his hand.
But he didn’t care and kept gently wiping them.
“Why…?”
I couldn’t possibly say, “I’m crying because I feel guilty for being born.”
“Ah, something got in my eye. My eyes are so big, things get in them all the time.”
I brushed it off awkwardly, and Kayan gave a faint smile.
Then, slowly, he asked:
“…Is the thought of our family becoming a count house really that horrifying to you, Princess?”
He must have known I wouldn’t answer, so he made a joke to lighten the mood.
I sniffled and took a deep breath.
“No, I won’t think like that anymore.”
What brought me back was something Kayan had said in my past life:
“Princess, you don’t need to feel guilty toward me.”
Even though I never reached out to him,
Kayan said he was glad I existed in his childhood memories.
‘That’s all in the past now. What matters is how I live from here on out.’
If I fall into depression again like I did in the past, the tragedy will just repeat itself.
‘I’ll make up for the guilt by doing better from now on.’
I’ll now act on all the things I only imagined back then.
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