<Episode 52>
“……What?”
The answer I received to my absurd question was even more shocking.
“Edith, please……… Do you know how surprised your father was when I heard that you were gone? Please don’t make things difficult for me any more. Please.”
Roberick bent his knees, held my shoulders and spoke earnestly.
“But…with my grandfathers..”
“Stop talking about them. I don’t even want to hear it.”
As if it wasn’t enough to prevent me from saying anything..
The anger I had forgotten about until now began to creep up on Roberick’s unreasonable behavior.
In short, he didn’t want to leave me to them, so he is stopping the plan even though it’s a safe enough plan.
“……..”
I bit my lip and decided not to say any more.
How could I persuade someone I couldn’t communicate with anyway?
I didn’t even consider the option of asking Roberick to accompany me.
Because I didn’t want to do that.
Sincerely.1Wise choice!!
***
“In the end, I couldn’t go to Litera…”
I feel infinitely depressed.
I curled up further under the blanket and got lost in thought.
Why does it matter if I became a grand princess and received a promise from the Emperor not to harm Ashamed?
The authority to decide my actions was still in Roberick’s hands, and if he objected, I could do nothing.
When will I be able to get rid of Roberick and the Emperor and make everything right?
Kwang-!
“!”
It seemed like it was raining earlier, and then there was a loud noise that sounded like the sky was collapsing.
“There’s even thunder…”
Every time a thunderbolt struck the ground from the sky, the room, which was dark with all the lights turned off, flashed bright white and was stained with the shadows of the falling rainwater.
As I gradually got used to the fear-inducing roar and layed down comfortably staring into space, one of my memories from before suddenly flashed through my mind.
Countless golden thunderbolts struck from the dark night sky without a single star.
The noisy surrounding seemed extremely unrealistic to me as I was entranced by a truth I had never known before.
The hem of a pure white robe fluttered in the wind, and a pair of black eyes looked back at me as if they knew that I was looking at them…
“… A young man, fighting with electricity, golden hair and black eyes…Wait a minute, huh?!”
At that moment, the realization struck me like a thunderbolt and I jumped up and muttered in confusion.
“What, he is a character that appeared in the original work…?”
Hos name is Meinhard Ciel Astrape.
He was a faithful confidant of the villain Mariette and one of the supporting characters who diligently interfered with the path of the main character and his party.
***
“Grandfather-!”
“Edith, you are going to fall! Walk slowly!”
The next morning, as soon as the sun came up, I got ready and quickly headed to my grandfather’s place.
My grandfather, who was reading the newspaper in the garden, was surprised when he saw me and shouted at me to come slowly.
No, I can’t do that. I’m in so much hurry I could die!
“Huh, huh…”
“What on earth is so urgent that you’re running so much that you are out of breath? Come on, at least drink some water.”
After swallowing a few sips of the water my grandfather gave me, I calmed down a little.
Okay, I gathered my resolve and opened my mouth in an innocent voice with bright eyes.
“I had so much work going on that I forgot about it for a while, but he was there that day.”
“That day?”
“Yes, the day when my grandfather and the elders who came to rescue me from being kidnapped by His Majesty the King of Nisha fought a battle!”
“Ah….”
My grandfather let out a shallow sigh.
“Where did the young man who came to save me with my grandfather and grandmother go? I didn’t even see him when we were together for a while!”
“……..”
Heading to Litera was so frustrated, and there were no clues to clearly solve the other mysteries.
However, if the man I saw was the same Meinhard from the original, the story would be different.
Who was he?
Wasn’t he Mariette’s most faithful confidant, the closest confidant of the self-proclaimed evil woman who knew every detail of her innermost thoughts?
There were ways to find out the truth about Mariette, such as going to Litera to search for records about Lore, the spirit king who blessed her, and meeting him to ask about what happened in the past.
Since my plan to go to Litera was thwarted, I changed my plan to finding where Meinhardt was and ask him about Mariette.
Of course my grandfather would know.
Meinhard was Mariette’s confidant, but he was also the child raised by Duke Bastevan himself.
When I was waiting for my grandfather’s answer with a pounding heart, thinking that there was finally hope.
“…Well, in the blink of an eye, he disappeared.”
However.
My grandfather was strangely embarrassed and just answered like that.
…Uh, what is it?
I was embarrassed by the unexpected reaction and looked up at my grandfather, tilting my head.
“Uh……then what is his name?”
Of course he should know this much, right…
However, even though all he had to do was to say his name, my grandfather opened his mouth with a hint of hesitation.
“Meinhard Ciel…It was Astrape, I guess.”
He could only reply like this.
“…….?”
Something was strange.
Fortunately, according to my guess, the man was really the evil woman’s henchman, Mainhard Ciel Astrape, but my grandfather seemed strangely reluctant to talk about him.
What… Was Meinhard a person who had a bad relationship with grandfather in the original work?
I searched through my memories, but there was no such description.
Meinhardt was simply portrayed as a person who stayed by Mariette’s side like a shadow and was loyal to the father and daughter pair.
…I couldn’t just miss the opportunity to get information about him.
“I see, then who is this Meinhardt? I’ve never heard his name or seen his face, but did he know my grandfather for a long time?”
I was asking out of pure curiosity.
I bombarded Grandpa with questions.
“…Edith, are you that curious about that person?”
“Yes!”
My grandfather still seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it, but when I kept prodding him for a while, he finally opened his mouth and started talking about Meinhardt’s past.
“When he was young, his family fell and he was wandering the streets. Your mother found him and brought him in. I also anxiously searched for his origins, so I took him in and raised him as my own child… I couldn’t bear to let him go. He was just a child.”
The words he added later were muttered so softly that they were difficult to understand.
It was not described at all what Meinhardt’s past was like, but there was such a situation.
After hearing about his past, I seemed to understand why he was so loyal to Mariette.
“So where is he now?”
I have to know his whereabouts to find a way to approach him.
“……Oh my, Edith. This old man has been wanting to go for a walk these days. I think I should just get up and take a look around.”
“……Huh? Then let me join you.”
“No, no. It’s been a while since I decided to meet up with Count Juppes to catch up together. Let’s go together next time. Then, bye.”
However, the grandfather quickly got up and left, blatantly revealing his intention to avoid the questions.
“……Eh?”
I never expected my grandfather to avoid answering…
“Why is he doing that?…”
I didn’t get as much of a harvest as I expected.
I trudged back to my room, faced with my grandfather’s strange rejection, the road ahead becoming difficult.
“…Huh, what is this?”
When I returned to my room, I found something on the table and lifted it up to check, it turned out to be none other than an invitation.
Because I was still young that I had not even had a debutante, and because of my unusual background, there were only a handful of nobles who wanted to invite me to their family.
But which unique noble family did this invitation come from?
The sender’s family name was Kandel.
“……Kandel?”
However…
“It’s a family I’ve never heard of.”
As I became engaged to the royal family, I learned the basic information about the noble families that existed in the Roshan Empire, so I was able to immediately realize that the name of the family written in the first ledger did not exist.
“Let’s read it first.”
I opened the invitation and read what was written inside.
“I invite you, Edith Ronen Heilian, to the great Kandel family’s regular banquet. If you want to attend the banquet, drop some blood on the pattern drawn at the bottom of the invitation…? What is this crazy nonsense?”
As explained, the bottom of the invitation had a strange design engraved on it, showing a giant snake curled up and biting its own tail.
“…Who on earth brought this here?”
No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like a bad prank.
What did they say about this… That’s right. Isn’t it just a chain letter?
I pulled the rope hanging from the side of the bed and called the maids.
“Did you call me, Grand Princess Edith?”
Soon, the maids came in a row and bowed politely.
“There was this invitation on the table. Who brought it in?”
I asked, flapping the piece of paper around.
The maids stared at the invitation in my hand, then looked at each other and responded with expressions of embarrassment.
“I…I’m sorry, Grand Princess, but we never brought you an invitation.”
“…What?”
No, why was an invitation that no one had brought in lying on the table?
“No way. Who would have brought it if not you?”
“I really have never received an invitation like that…Which family sent it to you?”
I asked, thinking it couldn’t be possible, but honestly, I was starting to feel uncomfortable about this invitation.
“It says the sender is… Kandel.”
I checked the outside of the invitation once again and read it to them.
And the moment I looked up again, I was faced with a shocking sight.
“……Yes?”
“Grand Princess, what are you saying now… !”
“Oh my God, great Fire Spirit King, please protect us!”
“……This doesn’t make sense, what on earth is going on?”
Four or five maids, all with faces as white as dead people, were staring at the invitation in my hand with expressions of horror that went beyond shock.
***
TL:
Wow, is this the legendary cliffhanger finally making presence here….
