“It’s only to be expected,” I said. “Plenty of busybodies here will give you all sorts of information out of the goodness of their hearts since you only just arrived. It must be difficult to sift through it all. Do be more careful in the future. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
I’d received information that Aisha had made several advances on Evan but hadn’t succeeded as she’d hoped. After that, her target shifted to me for a reason I couldn’t fathom. She had all sorts of schemes to lower my public image.
Not that lowering my image would have any impact on Evan at all.
I felt Aisha’s gaze on my back and heard the buzz of her entourage behind me as I walked away.
“Agh! Don’t just stop like that all of a sudden, Lady Selena. What are you doing?” Scarlanette banged her head into my back because she was so distracted by Aisha that she didn’t notice me stop. “Oh, isn’t that Prince Shaghad?” she asked with a look of curiosity as she followed my gaze. “Why is he alone?”
Scarlanette probably had it in her head that royals were always surrounded by their friends and guards. Evan and his brother Heinrich were always like that. Shaghad, on the other hand, was always alone, which must be a rare sight for her.
Though, while you might say he was alone, he wasn’t really. Tiegel was acting as his guard, hiding so no one noticed him. He noticed me and nodded his head in a bow of greeting.
“Hm? Isn’t that…” said Scarlanette, looking towards Ismail and his entourage.
What, can you not do anything without your herd? I said, insulting him in my mind before I could stop myself.
“What are they doing?!” shrieked Scarlanette as Ismail and his entourage attacked Shaghad.
There was no one else around. It was an area of the path where not many people walked, and that’s why their true nature reared its ugly head.
“We can’t let them do this!” Scarlanette moved to help, but I grabbed her arm, covered her mouth, and pushed her against the wall as she tried to shout.
“Watch in silence,” I said.
I imagined she wanted to say something like, “I can’t believe this! Why?!” but all I heard were muffled sounds because I had my hand over her mouth.
Tiegel, who was meant to be guarding Shaghad, didn’t show himself, likely because he understood what I was trying to do. I kept an eye on Shaghad while I held Scarlanette against the wall. I doubted they would kill him, but I’d need to step in and stop them if it looked like they were going to seriously injure him.
“He’s like a doll…” I whispered.
He didn’t resist. He didn’t even seem interested in resisting. That allowed Ismail and his cronies to act like that. Ismail’s entourage were low-ranking members of the nobility. The people below would devour even royalty if they were that weak.
I saw it several times in my previous life. No matter how much high society focused on status, there must be some sort of rule that said the weak-minded and poorly defended were fair game for insults and violence, just like Shaghad now. They’re as barbaric as assassins.
Ismail and his group tormented Shaghad until they had their fill, then left, laughing at the battered prince.
“Gasp!”
I let go of Scarlanette’s mouth once everyone was gone. She took a deep breath of fresh air after having her mouth blocked for so long, then glared at me.
“Why did you just watch as they beat him like that? They can’t be permitted to do that sort of thing.”
“Whose permission do they need then?”
“What? No, I…”
Did she think they needed permission even though she didn’t know whose permission they needed? What a weird person. Well, she used to be that ridiculous girl who went up against me despite being weak.
“A-Anyway, it wasn’t right of you to not step in and do something,” she said.
“Why?”
“Why? Because…it’s not right!”
“Who decides what’s right and what’s wrong?”
“Urk.”
Again, she can’t answer. Is it that she knows the answer but doesn’t know the logic that leads to it? I thought people answered questions by using reason, though.
“It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t right, anyway,” I said.
“Why?”
“Life isn’t about how rightly you live. It’s about how well you do. Or at least, that’s how you nobles have survived all this time, isn’t it?”
“…You say that like you’re not a noble.”
Crap.
I got dragged along by my emotions from my last life. Maybe it was because I never really resonated with the noble environment and lifestyle that I still felt odd thinking of myself as a noble. It was going to expose my true nature someday. I needed to get a hold of myself.
“You’re right, Lady Selena,” said Scarlanette. “Nobles have survived like that. But I want to live my life as correctly as I can. You taught me that.”
“I did?” I didn’t remember ever teaching anyone such an unseemly way of living.
“At the Festival of Hunting. You saved me. Even though I said such horrible things about you because you were in my way to becoming princess consort. You still saved me.”
“……”
It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t trying to save her. I just had an enemy in my face, and I eliminated it. She just happened to be behind me at the time. That’s all. There’s no deep meaning there.
“…You don’t need to thank me,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to save you. I just killed the enemy in front of me. It was just a side product that doing so saved you, too.”
“Lady Selena, are you a tsundere?”
“A…tsundere?”
How in the world did she get to that conclusion? I cannot keep up with nobles’ powers of reasoning. They leap to something barely even tangential far too often. It was tiring just to talk to them.
“I mean, the option to run was there for you,” said Scarlanette. “With your skill, you could have retreated while dealing with the monsters. You could have even used me as a distraction while you ran. If you really prioritized your own life, wouldn’t that have been the right choice?”
“……”
“But you didn’t do that. Because—”
“Be quiet.”
I feel like I’m being turned into something I’m not. It’s not a pleasant feeling. It’s incredibly unpleasant.
“I did what I did just now because there are considerations around letting these students come from Rienbul,” I said. “Besides, Prince Shaghad Rienbul is a weakling with no intention of baring his fangs against his enemies. I am not required to interfere unnecessarily or put in effort for someone like that.”
Scarlanette didn’t say anything else. I started walking again, but I didn’t sense her move to join me.
But her eyes did bore into my back the whole time. Why was it so uncomfortable?