Chapter 2:
Duchess-to-Be
"FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, I am an Imperial prince no longer. I am
simply Wallace!"
My new lackey had come to my room to loudly declare this to me for
some reason. Kurt was visiting, too, so we three boys were stuffed together into
one small room, just killing time.
"You sure are chipper," I said to Wallace.
"Well, I managed to escape my position as an Imperial prince, thanks to
you, Liam. I really can't thank you enough." He spoke as if the position of
Imperial prince were anathema to him.
"You'd think it'd be more desirable to be an Imperial prince."
Wallace gave me an exasperated look. "You still don't get it, Liam. It's
extremely dangerous to be part of the line of succession. If you want to make it
in that world,
you have to be prepared to fight your siblings tooth and nail in order to
become emperor. I find the whole Imperial history of blood fighting against
blood to be abhorrent."
"I've heard all sorts of rumors," Kurt said, and started talking about
something that sounded like it was straight out of a tabloid. "They say when His
Majesty ascended to the throne, he conveniently lost quite a few siblings at the
same time. Maybe they're just urban legends, but the rumors are pretty scary."
Wallace lowered his voice, his face grave. "Don't spread this around, but
most of those rumors are true. All of my father's rivals died before he took the
throne. Another thing is that he even uses body doubles or holograms to attend
most ceremonies."
Kurt went pale when he heard this.
I heard similar stories in my past life too. It wasn't all that uncommon of a
thing for relatives to fight each other when there was a profit on the line. That
was just how any world worked.
Wallace went on, looking relieved, "In any case, now I can safely drop out
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from that competition."
I just sighed, unable to picture this carefree-looking boy seriously
competing for the throne. "Well, your chances were pretty much nonexistent
from the start, weren't they? Could you really say you were even part of the
race?"
"That's not true. The situation in the palace is complex. It's not just the
royal offspring that factor in; you have to consider our mothers' standings as
well. If someone at the top of one faction makes a wrong move, before you
know it the whole group can end up being executed together."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. The palace isn't some fabulous paradise like commoners think
it is. It's a place of vicious competition between wives and wars between
siblings, all of them with their sights set on the throne."
So basically, you could be marked for death at any time without having
done anything wrong yourself. It did indeed seem like the palace was a very
dangerous place to live. Royalty has it way harder than you'd expect.
Wallace explained that there had been a period when this type of conflict
was particularly heated.
"I hear things were especially bad two thousand years ago. The stories
from back then are bad enough to freak me out, and the stuff that happened then
left scars that persist to this day. So, you see? If you'd escaped from a life like
that, you'd be happy too, wouldn't you?"
I now better understood why Wallace looked positively elated to have
been freed from all that.
"You've practically saved my life. Thank you, Liam."
"Be grateful."
"Of course!"
Well, I had heard some interesting things in our conversation, but there
was something else I was curious about. "Wallace, why not try to ride on the
coattails of one of your siblings who seems likely to succeed? That would seem
as likely a path to independence as any."
There already had to be some leading candidates for the next emperor.
Having lived in the palace, I assumed Wallace would know who they were. Yet,
as it turned out Wallace hadn't considered attaching himself to one of his most
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promising siblings. In fact, he acted like that wasn't even an option.
"There are many cases where the candidate everyone thought was most
likely to take the throne ends up passing away under suspicious circumstances.
And what do you think happens to the siblings who threw in with them?"
"They're executed?"
"If you get a quick death, you're lucky, but if a really petty person ends up
emperor, then you're in even worse trouble. Rosetta of House Claudia is a good
example."
I wasn't expecting Wallace to mention Rosetta's name. When I heard it, I
pictured her looking at me coldly with hate in her eyes. She still hadn't let down
the wall between herself and those around her, remaining firmly aloof from the
rest of the class.
"Rosetta?" I cocked my head. Kurt didn't seem to know what Wallace
meant by his remark either. We both looked at him curiously, so Wallace began
to tell us the story.
"A long time ago, there was an Imperial prince who married into House
Claudia..."
The tale he told us was of House Claudia's fall, two thousand years ago.
***
In a girls' bathroom in the First Campus, Rosetta regarded her reflection in
the mirror and said to herself, "I am a daughter of the prestigious House Claudia.
One day, I will be free of this torment."
House Claudia was a dukedom with some particular circumstances. The
family had been headed by women for a long time, but it was a dukedom in
name only, ruling over a small territory on the outskirts of the Empire. Normally,
their humble domain would have classified them as minor lords, but the Empire
was forcing them to maintain their status of a duke's house, as it had for nearly
two-dozen centuries.
The reason for this was due to events that had occurred two thousand
years in the past. At that time, the Empire had been going through a particularly
nasty succession conflict. The crown prince, who should have ascended to the
throne, passed away just before his succession. House Claudia had backed this
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crown prince and had taken in his brother from the same mother through
marriage. When the new emperor was finally crowned, the new ruler was a
prince who had been in competition with the deceased crown prince.
What followed was retribution from the Empire that targeted all those
Imperial princes and princesses who had opposed the new emperor and the
families that had supported them. Naturally, the former prince, now a duke of
House Claudia, also received harsh punishment, and thus began the decline of
the house as a whole. Their plentiful domain was seized, and instead, they were
given a planet in ruin.
On their harsh new planet, survival itself was difficult, so they could
hardly expect any tax revenue. From their meager income, they should have
been demoted to minor lords, but the Empire forced them to maintain their title.
They were left as humiliated dukes, setting an example of what would happen to
anyone who defied the new ruling party. They were nobles, but at the same time
they were outcasts. Though subjected to wretched mockery, those of House
Claudia nevertheless persisted and held their heads high. All of the leaders of the
family had been determined to escape their suffering one day, and that was true
for Rosetta as well.
"I will change my family's fate."
***
The purpose of primary school was to provide sheltered noble children
with at least the bare minimum of education, so they wouldn't shame their
families. Those who showed promise, however, were sent to the First Campus to
receive their education. Their routines were strict, but their placement was proof
that the Empire recognized their abilities.
Rosetta was hopeful after being assigned to the First Campus, but reality
was harsh.
I can't keep up with our lessons.
She barely understood the curriculum. The material was too difficult, and
the classes moved too quickly. She struggled because her family hadn't had the
means of providing her with a proper education beforehand. The other students
in her class all had easy access to expensive education capsules, but she'd only
been able to make use of a simple one for some basic learning. Compared to the
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rest of the students in her class, she was clearly falling behind.
Rosetta was doing her best to keep up, but it felt like there was an
insurmountable wall before her, the presence of which only became more
undeniable by the day. She dared not waste a moment of her time, so she used
even her short break periods to study. Still, the gap between her and her
classmates only seemed to widen.
I will not give up. I will persevere and escape this terrible cycle.
She was desperate to succeed, because she knew she and her family had
no future if she didn't.
I will get ahead.
While her classmates blithely attended their lessons, Rosetta alone was
frantic. The stress didn't ease even when she returned to the dorm that day.
When she got back to her room, she was so exhausted that she just wanted to
collapse on her bed and sleep. While her peers had plenty of time to grow
accustomed to their new lives here, she alone was forcing herself to sit at her
desk and study. Even if this effort didn't help as much as she would like, she
knew that without spending her time reviewing the material, her classmates
would leave her even further behind.
"I will not give in. If I do, I'll be forcing my own daughter to go through
the same thing."
The tears wouldn't stop. Her consciousness soon grew hazy, and Rosetta
collapsed against her desk in exhaustion.
***
Rosetta dreamed of a time long ago, when she was still a child. A
messenger had come all the way from the Empire to invite her to a party. The
young Rosetta was elated at the news, but her grandmother looked sad. Her
mother embraced Rosetta and wept. At the time, Rosetta couldn't understand
why the two of them were so sorrowful.
"Grandmother, Mother, why are you crying?"
The two of them did their best to smile for the innocent child, but their
tears still flowed.
"It's nothing, Rosetta. You're looking forward to the party, aren't you?
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We'll have to dress you up so you can attend."
"Yes!"
Though her mother had little money to spare, she prepared a dress for
Rosetta, and her grandmother styled Rosetta's beautiful blonde hair. Rosetta
loved seeing her hair in thick curls, and felt like she'd become a princess.
"It looks great on you, Rosetta."
When her grandmother praised her hairstyle, Rosetta loved it all the more.
"Thank you, Grandmother!"
They had dressed Rosetta up as finely as they could, but it had all been in
vain. When she arrived at the party on the Capital Planet, what awaited her were
the jeers of real nobles. Even in her dreams she could recall those voices.
"My, what a tawdry dress."
"So that's the new clown of House Claudia. They're nobles in name
only."
"I can't believe they'd show their faces on the Capital Planet. Aren't they
embarrassed to even be alive?"
She'd been expecting to take part in a fun party, but when she arrived, she
realized the reality of the situation: she had only been invited to be ridiculed.
This was a form of entertainment that had been established by a long-dead
emperor: a public event where those who he deemed had wronged him were
made an example out of.
The whole reason for House Claudia's existence was to serve as an
example to other noble houses—and this cruel reality had been thrust upon
Rosetta when she was only a child.
Even after the emperor at the time had left the throne and passed away, the
practice continued. It had gone on for so long now without anyone putting an
end to it that it seemed it no longer could be stopped.
Some of the nobles at the gathering looked at Rosetta with pity, but none
of them reached out to comfort her. If they had done so, they would have been
going against the standing decree of the late emperor. However sympathetic they
may have been, no noble wished to help House Claudia enough to do such a
thing.
When Rosetta returned home after learning the hard truth, her mother
welcomed her with a tight embrace.
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"Remember the men there who pitied you. In the future, you will take the
seed of one of them and have a child. That is how House Claudia has carried on
until now."
The reason House Claudia was headed by women was because no one
would be willing to marry into their family. The humiliated women had to make
do with simply receiving the seed of men from noble houses.
"Rosetta, maintain your beauty as you grow up into a woman. If you do,
men will take interest in you."
"Huh?"
"That is how House Claudia has continued its line all this time."
That day, for the first time Rosetta learned why she had never known her
father, and why her house was trapped in their situation. The only reason women
carried on the House Claudia line was because it was cheaper. If the head were a
man, he would be able to have children as long as they had some money and
facilities to attract a wife from another house. The problem was that it cost
money to invest in such facilities, and House Claudia did not have the means for
such a thing. For a house with such little money, their only option was to pass
their name down to their daughters the way they had been.
In the past, certain heads of the family had tried to put an end to their
wretched situation, but there were people watching House Claudia. Two
thousand years ago, that spiteful emperor had created an organization to keep
watch over House Claudia. This malicious group was called the Observers,
whose sole purpose was to ensure that House Claudia remained impoverished.
Because of this organization, there was seemingly no way to bring an end to
their suffering.
Rosetta felt the only way to escape this hell was for her to achieve success
on her own.
***
When Rosetta opened her eyes, it was already morning.
"O-oh, no!"
Realizing it was already past time for breakfast, she flew up from her
desk. Rosetta tidied her clothes and headed for the school building as quickly as
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she could, yet she still ended up being late for her first class. The young woman
entered the classroom with tousled hair and her uniform disheveled. Her
classmates laughed at the sight.
Mr. John shot her a look but didn't scold her too harshly. "You're late,
Rosetta. Be seated."
"Yes, sir. I'm terribly sorry."
He was not being kind. He merely didn't expect as much from her as he
did the other students, so it wasn't worth giving her too much attention.
Normally, Mr. John would have given any late student an earful, but he didn't go
to the effort to do so for Rosetta.
Even here, I'm nothing more than a miserable example.
Her classmates' eyes contained various emotions like scorn, pity, and
interest—but all of them looked at her as if she were some kind of exotic
specimen.
She could overhear some of the boys murmuring to each other.
"Late, huh? What is she, a delinquent? That's quite a look she's sporting
today."
"Yeah, she could stand to put more care in her appearance, don't you
think?"
"Uh, that's not very convincing coming from you, Tom. Do something
about that head of yours, seriously."
As she headed for her seat, some of the girls pinched their noses. In her
rush to get to class, she hadn't had time to shower.
"What an awful smell."
"It wrinkles my nose."
"How crude can you be?"
Rosetta knew she had fallen behind everyone else in her class. She passed
by the seat of the star student, Liam Banfield. As she passed by his desk, she
ground her teeth.
Banfield...
For his part, Liam just stared forward at Mr. John, uninterested. Rosetta
could only interpret this to mean she was so far beneath him as to not be worthy
of notice. What else would she think? Liam's political abilities had been praised
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ever since he was very young, and he held full mastery of his school of
swordsmanship as well. He was even known by the nickname "Pirate Hunter
Liam." He was a child prodigy with social status and prestige to spare. He was
different from her in every single way.
Liam was another student Mr. John never scolded, but unlike Rosetta's
situation, it was because there was nothing about him to scold. Liam had the best
grades in the class and remarkable practical skills, but the area where he excelled
the most was probably martial arts. Even up against Kurt, the second-most
skilled martial artist in their class, he won every match.
The other students in their class never picked a fight with Liam because
they knew they wouldn't win. Even the troublemakers and upperclassmen never
tried to start anything with him either. After all, Liam had personal and political
power...completely unlike Rosetta.
Unlike her, he had everything. Rosetta couldn't help but hate him.
I'm not worthy of your notice, I'm sure... You, who were born with
everything. I detest you so much, I just can't stand it.
She knew her resentment of him was unreasonable, but Rosetta's envy of
Liam was so strong that she couldn't help but hate him.
***
In a dark alley on the Capital Planet lurked the Guide. As he watched
vagrants rummage through garbage, he ground his teeth in frustration.
"Dammit... Why is this happening to me?"
Right now, the Guide was much the same as these specimens. Filthy and
powerless, he wandered in search of sustenance. His bond to Liam had become
so strong that he could only feed effectively on negative feelings that had to do
with the boy. The Guide could survive only on whatever dregs of bad feeling
that he could get his hands on.
Even now, though he was far away, Liam's feelings of gratitude reached
the Guide, choking him. He staggered along, holding his chest, collecting
whatever negative emotions he could encounter, but his absorption of them was
terribly inefficient. Under normal circumstances, he could get enough sustenance
from a single person, but right now it would take about ten to keep him going.
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As the Guide wandered miserably in search of negative emotions, dealing
with the pain of Liam's gratitude, he expressed his grudge aloud.
"I'll kill you... I will kill you..."
The Guide swore revenge and was determined to sever his connection to
Liam and be free from this suffering, but to achieve that, he had to slowly but
surely collect whatever negative emotions he could, however inefficiently.
Suddenly, the vagrants he'd been eyeing started to fight each other.
"Hey, I found that food!"
"Shut up! This is what you get for drinking my booze before!"
When the Guide passed by the two men, however, their fierce expressions
softened.
"S-sorry. I'm just so hungry. Do you mind if we split it?"
"Yeah, that's fine. I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have kept the booze all to
myself."
With their negative emotions sucked away by the Guide, the two vagrants
apologized and considerately divided their scavenged food between them. The
Guide was sickened by the sight. He hated to see them reconcile, but he didn't
have the strength to spare to cause them to fight again.
Once again, he expressed his hatred for Liam, who had driven him into
this dire situation.
"Just you wait, Liam. I will cast you down into the deepest pit of despair."
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