The Villainess Princess Wants To Live In A Gingerbread House ​

“How dare you accuse me of being a tyrant? And it’s not me who’s tormenting him, it’s you. …Just give her the letters.”

The emperor frowned at the servant. The chamberlain discreetly wiped away tears with the collar of his robe and handed the bundle to Asha. Asha, who had been staring at the bundle of letters in her hands, looked at the emperor with suspicion.

“Your Majesty, you haven’t peeked at my letters, have you?”

“You are incredibly insolent and impertinent with your words. Just because you’re in a slightly bad mood, how dare you call me ‘Your Majesty’?”

“Hmm? What would be the meaning if I were to call you ‘Your Majesty’? The shining, eternal sun, the Emperor of the Empire?”

“Asha!”

Finally, as the emperor shouted, Asha smiled and tilted her head, looking at the emperor.

“Your Majesty, you really peeked at my letters, didn’t you? Hmm?”

“…I didn’t look at them, I didn’t!”

“Then it’s simply that you didn’t see them from the beginning.”

“You dare to defy the emperor and talk back so much.”

“Did you actually look at them? Hm? How many did you peek at, my letters?”

The emperor let out a deep sigh.

“This is quite a situation. How did I end up like this…”

“I won’t be angry. If Your Majesty honestly tells me.”

Asha blinked her eyes playfully, and the emperor let out a long sigh and gestured to the chamberlain to leave.

“…You dare to be angry with the emperor and talk about whether or not you should be angry?”

Asha tilted her head at the emperor’s words, who was bending his waist down and staring at her.

“So should I not say those words and just get angry? Can I?”

“Trying to evade and slip away from your words. You audacious girl.”

“So did you look at them or not?”

The emperor stretched his back with a groan. Then he pressed his brow and barely said it.

“Fine, I saw them.”

“I knew it!”

“Ha… I only saw Maxim’s and Dimitri’s letters.”

“Why?”

The emperor could not answer Asha’s question for a moment. Asha smiled with a smile that she knew the answer.

“You suspected me again, didn’t you?”

The emperor did not see the letters of Karnov and Yekaterina, but he opened the letters of Maxim and Dimitri because their succession to the throne was unparalleled to Karnov and Yekaterina. They were, after all, the emperor’s own son and grandson.

“Let me guess. You thought something big might happen if Maxim and Dimitri were involved, didn’t you?”

“Nonsense!”

“Hmph, even if all the spare buttons gathered together, they’re just spare buttons. Why worry so much? As long as the real button is there, there won’t be any problems.”

Asha replied fatally. Wasn’t the reason why the emperor left her behind in the first place to provoke Alexei and teach him the coldness of a successor to the throne?

At the same time, being a young child separated from her parents, she didn’t carry the burden of danger, so in the emperor’s eyes, she must have seemed like a very pretty spare button. As for Maxim and Dimitri, there was no need to mention them.

His son, who has the Spirit of Discernment, declared that he would not pay attention to the imperial throne, but what else could his son do?

“Did you even leave behind the fear for your parents?”

“I’m talking to my grandfather. Why should I feel scared?”

Asha deliberately spoke provocatively. Of course, if it were their first meeting, it would have been different, but it wasn’t now, was it? Even at this moment, behind the emperor, there were worries, concerns, a hint of anxiety, and an inexplicable, fragile passion raging.

“Your Majesty keeps saying that, constantly…”

“You just called me Grandfather a moment ago, and now you’ve changed your mind so quickly? That’s quite revealing, isn’t it?”

Asha pouted.

“While Your Majesty can act freely as the emperor, am I supposed to treat you as a grandfather? That’s incredibly unfair.”

“…Didn’t you say a moment ago that there was no need for fear when talking to your grandfather?”

“I don’t need fear even when speaking to Your Majesty! Right? As the emperor, you won’t scold someone who speaks the truth, right?”

“Just earlier, you called me a tyrant.”

“That was a joke?”

“Huh, a joke?”

“Well, then I’ll call it a jest.”

“Are you mocking people’s hearts and playing with them?”

“How can I play with the heavy heart of the emperor, like the sun?”

The emperor pressed his forehead as if he had a headache.

“Do you really want to hear me say that you’ve done something wrong?”

“Why would I want that?”

Asha innocently countered. The emperor fell silent. Asha extended her hand as if dismissing his words.

“How dare I get an apology when it’s His Majesty’s doing?!”

“You are very insolent, aren’t you?”

The emperor remained silent after speaking. Asha continued to smile mischievously. They stayed that way for quite some time, with one person laughing and the other wearing an uncomfortable expression.

“…I’m not suspicious. I was worried.”

The emperor spoke in a rather weary voice, his eyes softened.

“One day I could say ‘I don’t want to eat apples,’ over breakfast, and by the next year, a count who was cultivating a huge apple farm in the south may be brought to the capital for treason.”

Asha made it known through their eye contact that she was listening. The emperor continued speaking.

“It’s not much different if I say, ‘I enjoy apples.’ The count who used to cultivate a farm in the south might create a daughter out of thin air and try to marry her off to Alexei to rise up through the ranks.”

The emperor’s eyes dimmed.

“There are more people vying for this position, where breathing north brings avalanches and breathing south brings mirages, than there are grains of sand. Even if one person abandons their greed, another person will pick it up.”

And it was these people, numbering in the tens or hundreds, who writhed and struggled in this institution called the Imperial Palace. They trampled on each other, exchanging their desires.

“When fragments of small greed gather, they can cause great trouble. That’s… the only reason for my concern.”

“Hmm.”

When Asha put her hand on her waist and made a deep-thinking expression, the emperor continued as if he had felt a sense of impatience.

“I know Maxim has no intention of doing that. Dimitri is greedy, but I also know that he is just craving affection.”

“If you know…”

“But. Even a small thing like me calling Maxim to have dinner together can be seen as a harbinger of the future by those dangerous individuals. Maxim may not have had such intentions, but there are people who twist even innocent words to serve their own agenda.”

Asha pursed her lips. The emperor spoke quietly as if to appease such Asha.

“If the fire splashes at you, it is not enough to spill a glass of water to put it out. Surely you understand, don’t you?”

“So what?”

“…What?”

“Well, look. Your Majesty just opened my letter, right now. I understand the reason why. You told me yourself. So, what do you want to say next?”

Asha folded her fingers one by one, speaking methodically. The emperor frowned upon hearing her words.

“Do you really want me to say sorry?”

“Why do you dislike saying that? If you don’t like it, don’t. How can I tell His Majesty to apologize?”

“Asha!”

“Hmm.”

Asha crossed her arms and swiftly turned her head. The emperor momentarily had a blank expression before taking assertive steps towards Asha to face her, but Asha turned her head in the opposite direction.

“Asha.”

“It’s Princess Anastasia. A, N, A, S, T, A, S, I, A. Your Majesty.”

“Do you truly want me to refer to you in such a way?”

The emperor asked in a low voice. Asha turned her head and met the emperor’s deep, azure eyes with her emerald ones. And then Asha’s golden eyes blinked slowly. The emperor eventually wiped his face with his hand.

“…I was wrong. I apologize.”

“You were really wrong! Seriously!”

“…”

“You will have to apologize to Uncle Maxim and Dimitri later.”

“…Didn’t I tell you earlier. Those kids…”

“I will invite them for a meal and have a conversation together. If someone tries to interfere, you can protect us, Grandfather. You have Shamal, after all.”

“You’re different from those guys, Asha.”

The emperor looked at Asha with a sharp look. Asha raised her chin as if confronted.

“What do you mean!”

“You think you know the imperial position so lightly. You don’t even care, you just do what you want, thinking it’s all fine and dandy. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? Huh? You treat even the emperor of the empire like I don’t matter.”

“Maybe not as if you don’t matter, but…”

It’s not exactly as if I treat you completely unimportantly… Asha muttered, causing the emperor to let out a sigh.

“But Maxim is different. He recognizes the difference in capabilities and has accepted it. It’s not that he gave up because something else was better or because he disliked it. We shouldn’t keep burdening his decision with false hope.”

“Then we should fill it with something else.”

Asha fell back to the floor and swept the clothes that the emperor had picked out for her with her fingertips.

“It’s Grandfather’s fault for not providing something else for Uncle Maxim to do. This is also Grandfather’s mistake.”

“…”

“If you had praised him for being pretty and praised him for being good at something else, maybe Uncle Maxim would have found something he wanted to do. He might even like making cookies, who knows.”

“…I can at least be sure that’s not the case.”

“Well, whatever. You know what I mean. And please, call Uncle Valery as well and pat his head. He always annoys me. If he’s going to do that, he should at least give me an allowance or something, but he doesn’t even do that. This is also because of Grandfather.”