You Are Pure (2)

「Hero.」

「I’m so afraid of the outside.」

「People called me a cursed princess. They said tragedies had never stopped happening around me since I was born.」

「After I was born, Mother—Lady Eleonora—wasted away from an illness and died. When I was seven, my brother and a maid were on their way to his baptism when a monster appeared, and they were caught in an accident… and died.」

「I wanted to remember their faces, but in the end, I forgot them.」

「When I was left alone in the Dust Mansion, Grandfather Max, the gardener, took me in and brought me back to the royal castle. I don’t know what he said to His Majesty to make that possible, but for some reason, Grandfather Max disappeared soon afterward. And while I studied etiquette and academics at the royal castle, demon worshippers and monsters kept attacking all across the country.」

「Even so….」

「I studied hard as a member of the royal family. I wanted to show that I was capable of doing something, too.」

「But sadly, I don’t think I had much talent for academics or etiquette. No matter how much I studied, I’d forget everything in no time, and when I learned how a lady was supposed to behave… well, they said I was no better than a commoner. That I couldn’t even speak in an aristocratic manner. Now people call me the ‘Useless Golden One.’」

「They said I was only pretty on the outside and couldn’t do anything. That all I could do was flirt with men. That I wasn’t really royalty, but a wanton woman born from the impure seed of demons…. They even questioned whether my vow of chastity was fake.」...