“I... I worked so hard... I worked so, so hard and yet...”
After finishing the investigation about what happened that day, I heard Lady Francess mumble this as Ana and I visited her where she was being held at the eighty-fourth noble prison, called the Wind Chime.
We’d captured every last member who’d joined House Lillard’s attack on us. After we’d taken Lady Francess into custody, we’d put her in the noble jail in the grand duchy’s first palace, formerly known as the Sevensworth mansion. I’d changed its name to the First Palace of the Grand Duchy of Sevensworth, with the second palace being in the former kingdom of Thorsdale.
“I’ve worked myself to the bone ever since I was young, all for the sake of becoming queen. I did all I could to be first in everything I did, whether it was school or politics or fashion or tactics. No matter how hard it got, I kept moving forward to become the most worthy of becoming queen.”
She wasn’t trying to brag but simply stating the truth. From the day she started at school until she graduated, she’d always been at the top of her class. Even in her training as the crown prince’s fiancée, she was touted as the best candidate to have ever been taught.
Even now, the high-end clothing store she’d inherited, Herr Mays, still made clothing that noble women absolutely had to wear. Using that as her weapon, she made herself the leader in fashion.
Before we even began this war against Thorsdale, she’d predicted our sweeping victory and had most likely been the only one to do so. She possessed foresight almost as impressive as my mother-in-law’s. Her plans were equally impressive too; not only had she been able to reduce our forces, but she’d created a situation where it was impossible for me to make use of my golems by creating rebellions in places where we didn’t have many covert operatives yet. Her strategy had been nothing short of brilliant.
Despite being an obvious cut above everyone else, she never forgot her humility and helping others. In school, she’d helped Ana when she saw her crying from being bullied. It was because of things like this that she had so many allies. All of her achievements truly made her worthy of her name as the Gold Rose. If anyone asked me who I’d thought was worthy of being the next queen, after Ana, I’d have said Lady Francess.
“You were able to accomplish so much that wasn’t possible simply with talent alone. I can only imagine how hard you had to work...” Ana said.
She was right. Lady Francess had put in so much effort that it was no exaggeration to say she’d worked herself to the bone. When she moved to attack us on the battlefield, she showed nothing but rationality, lacking her own personal emotions. She was truly a noble and was the exact kind of person meant to lead, which had surely taken a lot of work as well.
As humans, it was impossible to truly get rid of our feelings, so she must have trained herself strictly to be able to make these kinds of decisions devoid of emotion. She’d no doubt had to fight down that side of herself many times growing up, and I could only imagine how hard her life had been.
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I really did work so hard. It was awful when my engagement was canceled. Everything around me went dark. I’d spent my entire life preparing to become the queen, and having him end it all just like that was like having my entire life be rejected.”
Yeah, I can imagine. The ending of engagements was something that was typically only done with mutual agreement between houses. It must have felt like a bag of bricks was dropped on her when the former crown prince ended their engagement at their graduation party.
Of course, I couldn’t forget that I’d done the same thing to Ana, and had no doubt put her through similar pain. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the weight of the crime I’d committed against her. I need to treasure Ana even more than I have until now. I need to become someone who treasures his wife so much that nobody can even come close to how well I treat her.
“That’s why I didn’t want to rely on any man to help me become queen. I wanted to achieve it by my own strength, but...it seems that I’ve failed. But I can’t help but wonder what I did wrong. Did I make a mistake somewhere? Did I not work hard enough? I’ve been constantly thinking about that ever since I got here.”
Ana looked at Lady Francess, on the verge of tears. She could probably understand her pain. If the current king hadn’t used a flower operative to seduce the former crown prince, she would have become an incredible queen. Ana must have viewed her as yet another victim of the battle for the throne.
“Lady Francess, you seem to think that you only need the right amount of strength to become queen, but that’s wrong. The most important thing to gain status isn’t strength, but luck.”
“Luck...?” Lady Francess asked with confusion.
“If one is born a commoner or a lower noble, no amount of hard work will ever lead to them becoming queen. On the other hand, simply being born a greater noble won’t allow you to become queen if you aren’t a similar age to the crown prince. Many women are disqualified simply based on when they were born. What else would you call that besides luck?”
“Sure, that may be true for those individuals; however, I was actually in a position to become queen.”
“The same applies even in that situation, though. It’s all about luck.”
It’d been the same in my past life. Sometimes it just so happened that the project you were working on was a huge hit or the products you made sold like crazy. Those were the people who were promoted—the ones who’d gotten lucky. Of course, there were also people who dropped out of the rat race, but if we were comparing those who were actively striving for promotion, the ones who succeeded in the end weren’t too different from the ones who didn’t. If anything, more often than not, the people who got promoted weren’t even the ones who deserved it most.
What set the winners and losers apart wasn’t their skill, but luck. Those with good fortune continued to climb the ladder, and each time, luck remained the sole determining factor. I truly believed there were no rules. Just luck.
I’d read a lot of business publications in my past life that talked about ways to get promoted, but they all felt as reliable as the books that told you how to be successful at hitting on girls and winning at pachinko. Reading a book and suddenly thinking you’d learned the secret to success was just as unrealistic.
However, I definitely couldn’t reveal anything about my past life to her. So instead, I talked about my experience with running a company, and how servants were promoted in House Sevensworth. This was a kind of conversation that tended to be hard for people to take to heart and actually reflect on because regardless of if it came from the winner or the loser, it would either come across as patronizing or like sour grapes. However, considering how wise she was, I believed that she wouldn’t completely disregard what I was saying.
“The reason you didn’t become queen is because it wasn’t in the cards for you. Whether or not you climb the social ladder is up to the gods and not something you can obtain by your own sheer will. If you keep searching inside yourself for a reason you lost, you won’t find it.”
“If one believes that everything is based on luck, then what’s the point in trying?” Lady Francess asked, not convinced.