“No. I don’t believe it.”
How honest.
“My mother was an ordinary maid, but I will become a wise ruler.”
“…You will indeed.”
“But I also find myself wanting to believe it.”
Eldon’s lips touched the nape of my neck. When I tried to stand up in surprise to avoid him, Eldon instead turned my body to face him. As my ears reddened up to the tips from embarrassment, he lightly flicked the flower petal inserted in my ear.
“This flower is Prolain. It’s the symbol of omegas and the flower of the Empress. Only the Empress and Crown Princess can possess this flower.”
My spine went cold. The flower of the Empress and Crown Princess. I’d rather it be the flower of prostitutes.
He might later try to kill me, saying ‘The only one who can possess Prolain is Seha!’ No matter how much they say it’s a world where they’ll steal your nose with your eyes open, to add a gruesome death route while sitting me on his lap. As expected, he’s a cruel bastard.
“It’s too much of an honor for me.”
As I hurriedly tried to remove the flower, Eldon caught my hand as if he’d expected this.
“When omegas enter their heat cycle, they insert Prolain flowers in their ears. It announces the precious time to conceive an imperial heir. Then the imperial family must embrace them. They can neither avoid nor refuse.”
“You’re… joking, right?”
In the original work, Rosenthal summoned different men into the palace whenever his heat cycle came. If there had been such a method, he wouldn’t have done the crazy thing of secretly feeding Eldon an aphrodisiac.
“No. I’m not joking. The Empire doesn’t acknowledge premarital acts, but if you hold the Prolain flower, it can be recognized as an official wedding night.”
“After entering the palace, I faithfully learned imperial etiquette, but I never heard such a story.”
“Of course you wouldn’t have. Once you become a married couple, there’s no need to use the flower, is there? If I want to embrace you, I embrace you; if I want to bite you, I bite you.”
Eldon lightly bit my neck. The feeling of his teeth pressing against my flesh was both strange and eerie. I stood up with a start in confusion.
In short, the Prolain flower is a custom for having an official wedding night with an omega before marriage or before being appointed a concubine.
So, so—he’s saying he’ll sleep with me today! He unfolded the founding Emperor’s legend at length, but in the end it meant having the first night today.
“I-I’m not in a heat cycle!”
I desperately shook my head. If it’s not a heat cycle, the meaning of inserting the Prolain flower in my ear also disappears.
“You seem to have forgotten about heat cycles too.”
“I really haven’t.”
They said that during a heat cycle, all reason disappears and you become a lewd beast covered in sexual desire. But I wasn’t. Though my body was a bit hot, I was fine compared to yesterday and my consciousness was clear.
“You have a scent. The heat cycle will start by today.”
…Come to think of it, Forti also said I smelled good.
“Even if it’s a heat cycle, I can get through it alone. Since I’ve lost my memories, I want to start fresh. I don’t want to be intimate before the wedding ceremony.”
“Do you think you can leave if we don’t mix bodies?”
He suddenly stood up and bit my earlobe.
“Hgyah!”
As I stepped back in confusion, Eldon burst into laughter.
“How could I not notice you’ve become this dull and dense?”
…Did you add to my dullness? And I admit I’m dull, but I’m not dense, okay?
“With your cleared head, don’t think unnecessary thoughts and just diligently receive Crown Princess lessons.”
His hand caressed my earlobe, then descended along my cheek to my neck. Whether from the Ryrium sap’s influence or if a heat cycle was really starting as he said, heat spread wherever his hand touched.
Just then, a clear voice rang through the gazebo.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince, Leon-kyung is looking for you.”
Seha stood at the entrance below the stairs and respectfully announced. But in his gently curved eyes dwelled a chilling light. I’m going to get caught in their love quarrel like a shrimp whose back bursts in a whale fight. As I tried to push Eldon away, he caressed the Prolain flower inserted in my ear.
“You will receive the wedding night tonight. Be prepared.”
“Your Highness, that matter should be reconsidered once more…!”
I urgently grabbed Eldon as he tried to descend the stairs. Then Eldon held my hand, patted it, and whispered low in my ear.
“Finally, we become one with the rain.”
It was an unexpectedly sweet voice. My mind became wildly tangled at the kindness I’d thought would never be directed at me. And while my thoughts stopped, Eldon had already disappeared.
I also trudged down the stairs, where Seha was waiting. And claiming to serve me, he even boarded the carriage to the separate palace.
But I had no leisure to pay attention to Seha who was glaring daggers in front of me.
‘Finally’? What does that mean? Why did he speak so sweetly? Eldon had continuously wanted sex with me. But that was an emotion close to basic human sexual desire. Moreover, it was before love accumulated with Seha.
Even though he was with Seha for two weeks, he still wants me? No way…! A thread of thought suddenly coiled around my mind.
I went up on the slave auction instead of Seha, and I also found the secret ledger for him. Could it be, perhaps could it be that the main shou changed due to the alteration of major events…?
My eyes naturally snapped wide open, and at the edge of my vision caught Seha’s gaze, twice as murderous as before. My head felt like it would split from complicated thoughts, but it was impossible to ignore.
Is he really an innocent shou, a mischievous shou? My mood sank unpleasantly at the too-obvious hostility, when suddenly I remembered yesterday.
“Ah, please give me the letter. I’ll see that it’s delivered to His Highness the Third Prince.”
After telling Eldon only the ledger’s location, I’d planned to return and deliver Seha’s letter, but I’d momentarily forgotten due to the unexpected Ryrium attack.
“Are you making fun of me now?”
Seha shot back with a sharp voice.
“What? What do you mean?”
“You knew it would turn out like this from the start, didn’t you? You knew the ledger’s location, knew the Third Prince’s ship was sinking, so you pretended to be generous saying you’d deliver the letter—what hypocrisy!”
“…So you’re saying Seha-kun knew His Highness the Crown Prince’s ship was sinking and tried to board His Highness the Third Prince’s ship?”
I felt like I’d been stabbed in the back. I thought the Seha in the original work was instinctively playing the field due to the main shou’s fate, but that wasn’t it. He wasn’t acting with pure innocent goodwill while fulfilling the mission given by the author—he thoroughly calculated profit and tried to abandon Eldon.
But right now, there was no point of contact between Seha and Arleigh. And Seha was merely an attendant of Hyeon Tribe origin. How could he be confident he could become Arleigh’s person with just one letter?
He couldn’t possibly know about the novel <Three Crowns>, nor could he be aware that this is a world inside a novel and that he’s a protagonist so beloved that everyone in the world would fall for him with just a smile.
Could it be…!
“Seha-kun, did you hide the ledger’s location even though you knew it?”
“Wh-what-no way-what are you saying!”
That’s right. Looking at Seha’s face tangled with indignation and confusion, I was certain.
Following the flow of the original work, Seha found the ledger’s location. But when rumors spread that Eldon would be deposed as Crown Prince, he hid this and returned to the imperial palace, attempting to contact Arleigh with the information he possessed as a weapon.
Seeing that Seha found the evidence means the power of the original work is effective. But will it continue to be so?
If I hadn’t told them the secret ledger’s location, Eldon might have really been deposed. And Eldon gave me the Prolain even after spending two weeks with Seha. He held my hand in front of Seha and whispered about the wedding night.
Until now I’d acted believing only the original work’s contents, but the situation might change from now on.
“Are you saying my thoughts are wrong?”
“Don’t recklessly slander people!”
“Seha-kun.”
I quietly called the name of Seha who was shouting indignantly.
“It’s been nearly a month since you became an attendant, but your etiquette is quite lacking.”
“Didn’t Young Master trap me and slander me!”
A voice sharp enough to scratch eardrums rang through the carriage. I looked directly at Seha who was glaring daggers and breathing heavily, and shouted sternly.
“I am the person who will become the Empire’s Crown Princess!”
“……”
“Though I especially respected you as a palace attendant His Highness cherishes, you increasingly cross the line! If you spout such impious words one more time, I will not forgive you!”
“……”
Seha clenched his teeth and gripped his pant leg. Tears welled up as if frustrated, but he never said sorry in the end.
I also said no more and got off the carriage. Originally he should have gotten off the carriage and escorted his master into the separate palace, but Seha sat inside the carriage like a waiting stone.
I looked at Seha’s eyes filled with anger. This was a kind of adventure.
If the story is faithfully following the flow of the original work, Eldon won’t take me tonight. He’ll make a scene saying, “What did you dare say to our Seha?”
Though I’m stepping into the villainous sub-shou character I’ve been careful about until now, this was an adventure worth taking.
Rosenthal bullied Seha using all kinds of methods besides pointing out etiquette, but I didn’t. Moreover, Seha definitely crossed the line, and above all, he hid the secret ledger despite knowing about it. I have justification. I won’t be mercilessly marked by Eldon like in the original.
And though I took a risk, I could find out Eldon’s true feelings with this.
Even if he pours out anger at me for pointing out Seha’s etiquette like in the original and the wedding night is nullified, that’s fine, and if he ignores Seha’s words and wants the wedding night with me…. Then, then….
Wouldn’t that be okay too…?
Apparently my imagination was far poorer than I thought. For Hereis’s meals too, I need the experience at least once. And it doesn’t seem like I’ll meet my destined partner right away, so if I have to have sex out of necessity anyway… it wouldn’t be bad if that partner is Eldon.
“Haah….”
Rosenthal, are you in your right mind now? Do you really think that?
Suddenly I felt a heavy heat from my lower parts. Is it really a heat cycle? They said during a heat cycle you’re covered in sexual desire. I might be in that state now. So my rational judgment has become clouded.
