Chapter 17
My sudden declaration of loyalty. The moment I knelt before the 5th Imperial Princess, the banquet hall erupted into chaos.
Gazes that looked at me like I was mentally ill.
Even the very person I just pledged loyalty to was clearly bewildered, unable to comprehend my actions.
"The witch's daughter has brainwashed that professor."
"She's trying to bewitch and control people just like her mother."
"We need to check if he's under an enchantment spell right away."
Such whispers echo from all around the hall.
The growing murmurs are silenced by the Empire's 1st Imperial Prince, who has somehow appeared behind me.
"A moment, if you would. I'd like to have a private word."
An exceedingly polite tone.
Yet his expression and voice make it crystal clear this is no mere request but a command.
"W-wait. I..."
The 5th Imperial Princess grabbed my sleeve. She tried to say something, but the Prince fixed her with a bone-chillingly cold, mechanical stare.
The girl's tiny hand trembled.
She released me, her face pale.
"Well then, shall we move somewhere else?"
As if nothing had happened, the 1st Prince suddenly changed his demeanor and flashed me a smile.
In a situation where everyone had been trying to win me to their side.
You'd think someone would try to stop him, but no one dares prevent the 1st Prince from meeting me privately. That fact alone demonstrated who held the greatest power.
I followed the white-haired man.
After a short walk, various flowers came into view.
Walking through the imperial palace gardens, the 1st Prince asked me.
"What were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that? You must know about that child's origins."
Having been an ordinary citizen just months ago.
Though I know nothing of the imperial family's internal affairs, I maintain my silence. I'm used to this sort of thing by now.
If I stay quiet, the other party will explain everything themselves, so I just need to wait patiently.
"That child is the imperial family's shame incarnate. The daughter of a treacherous woman who dared betray the Empire by colluding with the Kingdom."
The 1st Prince said with a frown.
I had wondered why she was so isolated despite being royalty. It seems there were some complicated circumstances involved.
"That child's very existence tarnishes the imperial family's honor, yet you say you'll support her as the future Emperor?"
A fierce gaze.
Sharp killing intent radiated toward me.
"Know your place. Did you think you were something special just because you gained Father's favor?"
Though his aura was truly menacing, I wasn't about to curl up whimpering on the ground.
After all, I'm attending this banquet as the savior who rescued the Emperor. Killing me here would be social suicide for the Prince.
How would he handle both the Emperor's rage and the infamy of backstabbing the Empire's savior?
This wasn't a death threat - it was the 1st Prince's ploy to intimidate me into submission.
Such things can be politely declined.
"My apologies, Your Highness, but I am a teacher. I cannot abandon a child who has lost their way."
If the whole world rejects that child, shouldn't at least one person stand by her side?
I offered such a clichéd excuse.
The Prince should understand my intentions well enough now.
Though I've earned his enmity. If he were foolish enough to try killing me for emotional reasons, he never could have amassed such power and influence in the first place.
Now I just had to wait to be demoted after losing the succession battle. That's how it should have gone, but...
[Your actions are utterly unpredictable. I cannot fathom your goals. What you're trying to achieve. Nothing about you makes sense.]
The Prince's face melted grotesquely.
The overwhelming pressure made it impossible to breathe.
[Child of defying fate. I see I'll have to erase you here and now.]
Incomprehensible words. Yet that voice was somehow familiar. Like that being who called itself Amon during the entrance exam. The same instinctive revulsion welled up.
My head spun.
My stomach churned violently.
My vision grew darker and darker.
In my fading sight, the last thing I saw... was the trembling figure of a young girl.
*****
The Empire's 5th Imperial Princess.
Lucy Leonhardt hated herself deeply.
She was the world's most wretched coward.
She knew who the real witch's child was.
She knew who was born the child of a traitor and lived a life of hatred and discrimination.
She knew her eldest brother finally went mad and sold his body and soul to a demon.
She had to know.
"From now on, you'll be the witch's daughter."
After the demon wearing her brother's face said those words, her world turned upside down overnight.
Everyone had gone completely mad.
Even her mother completely forgot Lucy existed.
She lost everyone she loved to that demon.
The demon who stole her place played with her family like puppets as it pleased.
Close sibling relationships all crumbled.
Public sentiment grows more vicious under absurd tyranny.
Her father weakens day by day under a curse.
A man she met by chance lifted her father's curse.
But even after that, nothing really changed.
"Ryan... I'll need to keep an eye on him."
After muttering that, the demon decided it would summon and deal with the new professor someday. Meanwhile her family still marched toward destruction, oblivious to everything.
'I have to tell them, I have to find some way to tell them.'
But she couldn't find the courage.
A replacement to kill that professor and take his place.
She couldn't forget seeing people being crushed alive to make "dolls", seeing palace servants smiling as they tore off their own arms as offerings.
Maybe she would end up like that too.
The thought made her body freeze up automatically.
Pathetically, she found herself thinking: why was she the only one immune to the demon's brainwashing? It would have been easier if she could just forget everything like everyone else.
"Summon that professor. As Emperor, I must properly reward such great service."
The outsider born with a fate of defying heaven and the child of prophecy.
Kill them to achieve the destined destruction. After muttering that, the demon summoned the new professor to the palace.
That professor would surely die today.
Thinking that made her feel guilty, like it was all the fault of her cowardice, so the girl tried to avoid meeting that man as much as possible. But it proved impossible.
"I pledge my eternal loyalty to you."
Because Ryan approached Lucy first.
The girl had her rightful place stolen by a demon. She didn't even have a proper faction to support her.
Yet for some reason he approached her anyway.
Seeing that, Lucy felt a small hope. Hadn't that man managed to break her father's curse?
Maybe he had seen through everything, realized she alone wasn't brainwashed, and was offering to help solve all their problems.
Lucy followed Ryan with such thoughts.
But... she was wrong.
No matter how much she listened to their conversation, Ryan didn't seem to have noticed the other's true identity.
Her guess had been completely off, and all that remained was the risk of drawing the demon's suspicion by being caught following them.
In this situation, what she had to do was clear. Though she knew she was a coward, despicable and horrible, death was just too frightening.
She just had to close her eyes again.
Just close her eyes and run away from scary things...
"I apologize, Your Highness, but I am a teacher. I cannot abandon a child who has lost their way."
That voice reaches her ears.
She heard why he had pledged loyalty to her, even without knowing about the demon.
"If the whole world hates her, then at least I must stand by her side."
An unbelievably simple reason.
Even though helping someone hated by everyone could bring harm to himself too. She couldn't understand this man who would shield her for such a reason.
"That's reason enough to stake my life on."
But that professor declared.
Does helping another person really need some grand reason? He simply helped because he wanted to help.
...Her feet move on their own. Though her hands tremble violently, her steps won't stop.
Stepping forward now would only add another death.
She could survive by closing her eyes and running away again.
Though she knew this, the girl found herself advancing toward the demon. She had no choice but to advance.
That man alone had reached out to take her hand when the whole world had abandoned her. He willingly staked his life just to make her smile when she was crying alone.
How could she run away alone and leave such a person behind?
"Your opponent is me, not him!"
A powerless cry from a young girl.
A resolution that surely meant nothing.
Yet the earth trembled in response.
Power that should have only manifested years later through the protagonist is being drawn out early by twisted causality.
Pure white light dyed the world.
A man standing nobly amidst the great mass of light.
The Empire's Heavenly God extended his hand to Lucy.
A brilliant pattern etched itself onto her forehead.
"I won't run away anymore. Never again."
...And so the cowardly girl became a warrior.