Chapter 69

Chapter : 69

The Midterm Exams passed without anything in particular happening.

Because I had not touched a book all this time, I ruined them properly. If the Academy ranked students by how much their grades had fallen compared to the previous semester, would I not be at the very front?

In Navier’s case, she received grades close to perfect marks in every subject, so my grades were not something that mattered.

Like that, the Midterm Exams ended, and we were now facing a large incident.

It was the Flower Festival we had been sharpening our blades for all this time.

We had invested no small amount of money and a great deal of time into it. It was all to remove Kartea from the list of male leads.

If we handled tomorrow’s event well, we could erase his name.

“Just thinking about tomorrow already makes my heart pound.”

“Mine too. Even though I know there is no way it will fail. Even though I know success is guaranteed, I still feel nervous.”

“Yes. I think so too. It will succeed. It will go well.”

“We already did this enough, but should we check the route one last time?”

“Yes. All right.”

Navier grinned and spread out a map of the Academy. Then, with her eyes closed, she moved the pen smoothly and traced the route. After that, she opened her eyes and drew circles here and there.

“Here, Lilia will scatter the flowers... Then we will walk along the flower path and move toward the fountain....”

I nodded at Navier’s long explanation.

“There is no need to go over it any more.”

“We have checked and checked it over and over again, after all. But do you intend not to tell me until the end?”

“Tell you what?”

“Why you are helping me this much. Even if things go well between me and His Highness the Crown Prince, you gain nothing. At the time, we were not even friends.”

“Do you have to know now?”

It was an uncomfortable subject. Why was I helping Navier this much?

If I confessed what Raphael had done before I possessed him, I could make Navier understand.

I only had to speak as though the things Raphael had done in the past were things I had done.

If I explained that if Bishot, harboring a grudge over what happened in the past, ended up with Kartea and asked him to punish me, I would be as good as dead, she would understand.

“That is not it. But we are friends, are we not? Is this not something I can know? We are at least that close now, are we not?”

Yes. This was the problem.

If I shouldered the blame for the wicked things Raphael had done to Bishot, would she not despise me? That frightened me.

As Navier said, we were friends. But even after knowing about that, would Navier remain my friend until the end?

I did not think I would, in her place.

“Later. I will tell you later.”

As though satisfied with that, Navier smiled.

“All right. I will stop pestering you and wait until then.”

---

To Kartea, a spouse meant the woman who would become Empress.

A person who could serve as a model to the Empire’s citizens and maintain dignity as the lady of the household. If she could also help the Imperial Family, that would make it even better. His mind was so full of scoring families and weighing strengths and weaknesses that there was little room for his emotions to enter.

Kartea had considered this natural. The first reason was that no woman had ever caught his eye, so he had no dissatisfaction, and the second was that this was something he naturally had to bear as Crown Prince.

Once he graduated from the Academy, the woman who had received the highest score would be selected as his spouse.

It was in the midst of that that Navier entered his eyes.

The first time he met her was at the ball. What was she doing?

Why was she holding a book even in a place like that? It had been only that kind of curiosity.

Affection toward her as a woman had not been in his mind at all.

He was curious about Navier as one person to another, but deep down, he had assumed she would be the same as the rest.

Because everyone wanted the same thing. He expected her to cling desperately to the background of the Crown Prince.

That was not the case. Every time they spoke, it was fresh. When he was with her, he experienced things he had never experienced before.

His heart pounded.

Today, he had plans with Navier.

It was because a festival was being held at the Academy. He found the timing of the festival strange, but decided not to care because it was not important.

Navier was waiting for Kartea at the meeting place. Since it was the day it was, she had put a great deal of effort into her appearance, and without realizing it, Kartea smiled faintly. There was a lively side to Navier.

There was the recklessness she had shown at the Fencing Tournament, and unlike the fake young ladies whose only thought was to look good to him, she was easygoing.

“You put a great deal of care into your attire.”

“Yes, because it is a special day. I rarely have occasion to wear clothes like this, so it feels a little awkward. How is it?”

“It suits you.”

Navier led Kartea along the route she had rehearsed in advance and repeated the previous festival. She went through the planned course and spoke the lines she had prepared. Kartea’s reaction was good. Navier enjoyed the fact that everything was flowing according to plan. The two smiled. Smiles bloomed on their faces.

As they had before, they ate skewers and then walked along the flower path.

Since it was a festival put together quickly in a short period, there were no large trees or flowers that were difficult to cultivate, but it still had the proper appearance. The flower beds were presentable enough.

“Let us do that.”

Navier pointed at one student with her fingertip.

Judging by how he was drawing portraits, he seemed to be a student from a department related to art. Kartea inwardly thought that the painter’s skill was not trustworthy, but he nodded.

The two complained that it had been hard to hold the same pose for so long and received the completed picture.

Ordinarily, it would have been a picture that caught some especially striking feature of the face and exaggerated it in a funny way, but thanks to their status or appearances, the drawing came out beautiful.

The two laughed as they argued that the real people looked better.

Everything went as intended. Smoothly. At that moment, while leading Kartea, Navier felt a strange thought arise in her.

‘He who conquers fear conquers the world.’

She wondered why that had suddenly appeared again. When she turned her head, the sun was setting. The cheaply mass-ordered flowers swayed in the wind and scattered petals in every direction. As the vermilion sun set and dyed the flower bed, the atmosphere became quite convincing.

“This is a gift. Countless flowers are on display during the festival, but this one stood out the most among them. It was the prettiest.”

“Kalsia, you mean?”

“Ah... was that the name of this flower? Yes. Now that I look closely, it does resemble what I have heard.”

“Among all these flowers, this was the prettiest? This stood out to you?”

“Yes. The flower was so pretty that merely looking at it made me smile.”

“Is that so...? How interesting.”

Kartea looked down at the Kalsia resting carefully inside the vase. Everyone had at least one object that carried memories. For Kartea, this Kalsia was that object.

It was a flower that resembled joy from the time in Kartea’s life when he had been weakest.

As he quietly looked at the Kalsia in the sunset-colored flower bed, something welled up in him.

On top of that, perhaps because of the atmosphere, Kartea dismissed it as a ridiculous thought, yet still felt that something like fate truly existed in this world.

Kalsia was a beautiful flower. Even with just one bloom, looking at the mass of petals, each with a different color, naturally made his heart tighten. But if it was buried among a mass of flowers, it was not especially conspicuous. Even so, she had chosen the Kalsia. That surprised him.

“I will gratefully accept it....”

Watching Kartea gaze faintly at the flower, Navier smiled.

Everything had gone according to plan until this point. How long had she waited for this day? The sharp education from her parents and teachers that had begun in her infancy, the suffocating etiquette and human relationships she had endured, all of it had been for this very moment.

It felt as though she was being compensated for all the pain she had endured. Chewing over all the resentment she had felt until now, she savored the ecstasy before her eyes.

‘He who conquers fear conquers the world.’

Navier smiled with all her might and said,

“I want to become Empress.”

Kartea, who had been looking down at the vase, turned his head. Their eyes met.

“I understand what kind of position the Empress’s seat is. I understand that there are people better than me, people more suited to it, but I want you to choose me. Please love me.”

“You are too fast... If you say that, then my confession from this point onward will seem as though it is because of your request, will it not? That is not what this is. Even for you, a moment like this must be tense and burning inside. So I will speak quickly. From the first time I saw you at the ball, you caught my eye. After I speak with you, vitality returns to me. When I am with you, I enjoy myself. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

---

Since this was the conclusion of the matter, I wanted to confirm the final part with my own eyes. And before long, I regretted that decision. It felt as though my hands and feet were being crushed. If I had simply waited a day, Navier would have come to tell me the result, so I did not know what had made me so impatient.

Ugh. How embarrassing.

In any case, I was glad things were going according to plan, but ugh, how embarrassing.

I was unfolding my crumpled hands and feet when it happened. This place was the rooftop of the tallest building among the Academy’s department buildings. In other words, it was the Magic Tower of the Magic Department. So it was not particularly strange for Ian to be here.

He appeared suddenly without any sign of his presence and poked his head over the railing. He looked down at Navier and Kartea, hummed, then stretched his arm over the railing. He pointed at Navier with his fingertip.

“Do you like that girl?”

Wondering what nonsense this was, I turned toward Ian. He kept watching Navier and spoke.

“You were always sticking around with her. But unfortunately, it seems she does not like you. She looks completely taken with that blond man.”

“What are you suddenly talking about? Hey. It is not like that. It is not, so do not say strange things. You are framing innocent people. You idiot.”

“I have never liked anyone before. That... the pain of heartbreak, is it? I have heard of it. Are you all right? I have never experienced it, so I cannot sympathize, but I understand. Well, time will make it better.”

After saying that, he patted my shoulder and moved away.