I'm Just Rolling Over and Begging for My Life

Chapter 52

…….

…….

I suddenly realized I'd messed up.

I guess I'd been way too rude.

Even if I was the kind of guy who'd thrown all this world's noble etiquette in the trash, trying to hunch over and crab-walk away with a princess right in front of me was way too much.

It was basically the full-body equivalent of saying, "I hate you."

I quickly straightened up and put on the gentlest smile in the world.

"Ah, my apologies. Please forgive my rudeness. Then I'll be on my way."

I tossed out an obvious lie and tried to bolt.

A chilling voice stabbed me from behind.

"Wait."

…….

"My mind's a bit noisy, so I thought I'd take a walk. Would you escort me?"

I'd rather not.

The words rose to the back of my throat and tickled there.

But she was a princess.

If I said, "No thanks? I'm going to bed," the morning paper might run a headline like [Second Son of the Farne Family Beheaded for Imperial Insult] tomorrow.

I wept bloody tears on the inside and answered very politely.

"...It would be my honor."

* * *

Thud, thud.

The forest path was filled only with awkward silence.

I walked on blankly.

How should I put it.

In fact, maybe because the potion I'd drunk earlier had worked ridiculously well, all my physical fatigue had vanished.

So, honestly, I didn't really need the rest.

But the problem was my mental state.

"No, isn't this a bit too much?"

I glanced sideways.

Ibelin wore an expression as if she were carrying every ounce of misery in the world.

If it had been anyone else, I'd have faked a sprained ankle or some such and backed out.

Her expression was just too grim.

It was like she had "I'm depressed right now. If you touch me, Eternity will remember today." plastered in huge letters across her face and was walking around with it.

Both her public reputation and the original novel details that had just surfaced in my memory pointed the same way.

Apparently, Ibelin was the type who always managed her image perfectly, a proud swan and all that.

So these "unhinged girl" moments I kept witnessing were basically a limited-edition skin only I could see.

Of course, I wouldn't take a limited edition like this even if you gave it to me.

I'd have posted it on Cabbage Market as a free giveaway and even offered to cover the shipping before getting rid of it.

"Just what the hell did I do to make her face look that rotten every time?"

So annoying.

At this rate, wasn't I going to end up racking up a serious grudge with a member of the royal family?

Actually, I could guess the reason roughly.

It had to be because of that ridiculous magic I'd shown her earlier. What else could it be?

I'd solved the problem in a way even a genius like her couldn't have imagined, so her pride must've taken a hit.

"Damn it, I can't exactly tell her it wasn't my own skill and that I just clicked it on, so there's no need for her to feel inferior."

Damn it.

Guess I should placate her, huh?

In a class-based society, the default was for the lowly to crawl around smoothing over their superiors' moods.

Swallowing a deep sigh, I casually spoke to Ibelin, who was walking beside me.

"What I did earlier..."

…….

"You were about to ask how I did it, weren't you?"

Ibelin stopped in her tracks.

She turned to me and snapped sharply.

"Why are you bringing that up now?"

Those eyes were seriously prickly.

Ugh, this is driving me crazy.

"Because after seeing that, Your Highness, you've got 'troubled' written all over your face."

"You do speak rather bluntly, don't you?"

Ibelin's brows twitched.

She looked visibly flustered by how much blunter I was than she'd imagined.

Noble young ladies were usually said to be masters of speaking in circles, so she'd apparently never met a straight shooter like me before.

But I kept going stubbornly.

Even if I had to put my neck on the line, I needed to make this clear now if I wanted an easier future.

"If Your Highness looks that troubled, people around you will read that expression. And everyone will guess."

"Guess what?"

"Ah, so Your Highness has a very negative opinion of Cassian del Farne. That guy must have done something to upset you."

"..."

"Then what happens to my reputation? A man who's fallen out of favor with the imperial family. Public enemy number one. Something like that."

Ibelin let out a laugh of disbelief.

"Are you saying I'm stirring people up based on personal feelings?"

"No. I'm saying your status is so high that a single cough or a single glare can move people."

"So."

Ibelin crossed her arms and glared at me.

"Are you warning me? 'Keep my expression in check'?"

"No."

I answered immediately.

"I'm just rolling over and begging for my life."

"...Huh?"

The flustered look on Ibelin's face grew even stronger.

She looked me over with the eyes of someone staring at a talking monkey.

"...Don't you have even the bare minimum of pride as a noble? Flipping your belly up? Such a vulgar expression..."

"Nope."

"..."

"Honestly, when I acted like a total brat in front of Your Highness last time, I got hot-headed, acted on impulse, and immediately regretted it. I thought, 'Oh crap, I'm done for,' right away, and I actually couldn't sleep that night."

"...And now you're telling me you have manners?"

……그러게.

Even I had to admit my way of speaking was a long way from polite.

But so what.

That's what the thug-illiterate persona is for.

It looked like it would be useless soon enough anyway. Better use it while I still could.

"Anyway. If you keep finding me irritating, my life gets unbelievably exhausting. You're royalty, after all."

…….

"I'm not asking for anything great. Just treat me like an invisible man. Don't hate me, don't like me. I'd be grateful if you'd just see me as a pebble lying on the roadside, Pebble A."

Ibelin was silent for a while.

She looked at me with complicated eyes.

Contempt, curiosity, disbelief, and everything else besides.

It must all have been mixed together.

After a long silence, Ibelin opened her mouth.

"If I keep giving you the cold shoulder... that means you'll leave the capital?"

Oh.

A genius really was different.

Even if I say it like crap, you understand perfectly.

I widened my eyes and marveled.

"How did you know?"

…….

The princess made a dumbfounded face.

She must not have expected me to actually be serious.

To drive the point home, I continued very seriously.

"I'll quit everything and just go back home and live quietly."

"...Huh?"

"I only came to the capital against my will, and I'd been hanging on because I had no reason to go back. Your Highness hates me? What better excuse could there be?"

I babbled excitedly.

Just imagining it made me happy.

"If I go to my father and say, 'The princess even hates the fact that I breathe. For the sake of the family's safety, I'll retire to the countryside,' my father will just say, 'Can't be helped,' and accept it."

…….

"Then I'll live quietly as if I were dead—just breathing, farming, and growing old until I die. That's my dream."

Ibelin's red eyes shook as if an earthquake had struck.

It must have been a statement her common sense simply couldn't understand.

"...Are you serious?"

"Of course."

I really hope she'd let me go.

Ah. If my conscience had been even a little deader, I'd have deliberately poked at that buildup until my father couldn't help but send me back to the countryside.

No matter how I thought about it, I really was way too conscientious and good a son.

* * *

Without stopping, Ibelin glanced sidelong at the man walking beside her.

Was he serious?

No matter how she looked at it, he seemed serious.

In this man's eyes, there wasn't even the slightest trace of the capital's glittering lights or the wealth and glory the imperial family could bestow.

Only the primal longing to go home burned there.

But there was still a deep contradiction in his words.

So Ibelin decided to probe that part.

"Then why didn't you ask to retire to the countryside when you were making a name for yourself as the Farne barbarian?"

…….

"Even if not that, if you appealed this situation to the court count, you'd be able to retire to the countryside however much you wanted. Like saying, 'Father, I've accomplished such a great deed, so please grant me one wish.'"

It was a sound argument.

Which made her feel very strange.

"Why?"

Ibelin soon realized the source of the discomfort she was feeling.

"His words have holes in them, but strangely, they don't feel like lies."

Usually, it was the opposite.

The capital's nobles spoke with perfect logic on the surface, yet beneath it they harbored black lies.

And the thing she and her older brother had been taught most strictly was how to see through those lies, crush them, and break them apart.

For some reason, this man spoke inconsistently, yet it felt true.

A sensation completely opposite to the way nobles spoke.

Thinking about it, maybe the reason she'd always been flustered around him was because she couldn't use the usual communication tactics that always gave her the upper hand.

Both when they first met and even now.

Because he spoke honestly.

At Ibelin's question, Cassian gave a snort of a laugh and answered.

"Of course not."

"Why not?"

"Because I respect and love my father."

"...I'd like you to explain that a little more."

Cassian scratched the back of his head and continued calmly.

"Well, he must have called me because he had a reason. Whether he's upset that I'm rotting away in the countryside, or because he raised me into someone useful and has something he wants me to do."

…….

"How could I shamelessly lie to such a father and say I want to go back home just for my own sake? That wouldn't be the duty of a family member."

Ibelin's eyes trembled slightly.

She had seen countless people appeal to filial devotion before.

More often than not, their filial piety was calculated acting for the sake of family glory or succession.

But this man was different.

That stubborn determination not to go against his father's wishes, even if it meant giving up his comfortable life.

"I thought he was a barbarian... but he turns out to be a man with a deeper sense of loyalty than even chivalry."

But one question still remained.

"You said you'd go back home if situations like today kept repeating, didn't you? Isn't that contradictory?"

"I did my best today."

Cassian cut in decisively.

There wasn't a trace of hesitation in his voice.

"I was faced with a scene I'd never seen before in my life, and I poured everything I had into not turning my back on people living in a place not much different from hell. To the point where my body was almost wrecked."

…….

"If I truly did my best in the situation before me and the result is still ending up out of favor with Your Highness, then that's just unavoidable. My father isn't the kind of man to blame me for a lack of ability."

Cassian shrugged.

"Then he'd say, 'You're the kind of man who shouldn't be in the capital anyway, so now go home, live quietly, and die there,' and he'd approve both my departure and my return to the countryside. In other words, that wouldn't be filial impiety, just something unavoidable."

At some point, nothing else Ibelin said reached her ears.

The words ability assessment and filial impiety evaporated from her mind in an instant.

Only one word kept pounding at her eardrums.

"...body."

A rough expression she'd never used in everyday life, one that didn't exist in the royal vocabulary at all.

So Ibelin hesitated before she knew it.

"...Are you not feeling well?"

"Yes. I was close to getting smashed to pieces. Of course I wouldn't be fine after causing that mess, would I? I thought I was going to die."

Thump.

It felt as if Ibelin's heart had dropped to the floor beneath her feet.

It was a shock.

After he cast that incredible spell and then calmly rubbed his arm while looking up at her, she'd assumed he was perfectly fine.

If she thought about it even a little sensibly, that assumption made no sense at all.

The magic Cassian del Farne had unleashed was powerful enough that even the greatest archmage would have had to endure serious side effects.

He had clearly ignited his own body as kindling to produce a miracle.

"Then... in that state, your body..."

Blinded by jealousy, she had turned away, seeing only the things she wanted to see and thinking only what she wanted to think, all so she could watch him suffer.

Ibelin's gaze swept over Cassian from head to toe.

Even if he looked fine on the outside, he had to be a wreck inside.

Mana backflow, torn muscles, and maybe even organ damage if it was severe.

And he dragged that body along and followed my request for an escort without a word?

Just so he wouldn't offend my feelings as a princess?

"I already told you earlier. I'm flipping my belly up so you'll go easy on me."

"This foolish man...!"

Once she realized how cruel she'd been, her face burned so hot she couldn't bear it.

The gloom and self-loathing that had swallowed her all day vanished in an instant.

All that mattered now was that the man before her was on the verge of collapsing.

Ibelin hurriedly grabbed Cassian's arm.

"Quickly, to my carriage."