Come On Now, Even If I’m Not A Villain - Chapter 1
It was a quiet meal time.
Seraphine enjoyed the steak, feeling a gaze directed at her.
“I heard that you brought up ending your engagement to the Crown Prince first.”
It was the Duke of Rubia who broke the silence.
Seraphine’s father spoke to his daughter, who was eating her meal in an elegant manner.
Then, as if they had waited, Seraphine’s brother blatantly stared at her.
“Yes.”
It was a simple answer.
The Duke of Rubia listened for more details.
But Seraphine did not speak afterwards. Instead, she opened her mouth and ate the steak.
“This is a marriage with the Royal Family. It is not up to you to decide personally. You should have at least discussed it with me.”
“……”
“This will make it impossible for you to get engaged to His Majesty again.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter?”
It was an answer that they would have never heard from Seraphine.
A brother who was slient and looked distraught.
Seraphine, who was looking at her father with mixed feelings, suddenly changed her attitude and put down her knife and fork.
“I’ve made up my mind. I will never change my decision.”
“You loved him even as you pretended to die. You’re not going to change your mind?”
As if it was a lie that didn’t make sense, her younger brother Joshua looked up. Recalling the past, Seraphine nodded.
“As you said, I’ve been pretending to die so many times that I realized how stupid I was during that time.”
As she gracefully wiped her mouth with a napkin, she went on.
“When I become an adult, I’m going to be expelled from the family. That’s why I mentioned ending the engagement.”
“……”
“And wouldn’t it be good for my father if I, the disgrace to the family, left?”
“Seraphine! Where did you learn to speak those words?”
“Comments about speech should be made to Joshua. Father, don’t raise your voice at me.”
She looked at her father sternly and stood up.
“Let’s get up first.”
Seraphine, who turned her back on her family without any regrets, thought.
It’s right to do this.
Because she wasn’t Seraphine von Rubia, the daughter of the Duke of Rubia.
The whole story goes back to about a month ago.
* * *
Before becoming Princess Rubia, Seraphine was a princess of the kingdom.
The king had only three daughters, but the second had no exceptional skills compared to the other children.
Her appearance was necessarily not beautiful, but compared to her gorgeous sisters, her presence was insignificant.
And there was a more serious problem than that.
She of divine blood was born without wings, unlike her family.
Being born with wings was as natural as having limbs.
It was a race so powerful that they called themselves ‘the bloodline of God.’
The pride of the people was very high, but the royal family that controlled them had no wings.
There was also a man who doubted Seraphine’s birth because she seemed like an ordinary human being on the surface.
-The second princess must be unclean. Banish her because she is no different than an uncivilized human being.
-My King, the very existence of a wingless princess undermines the authority of the royal family.
The king shook his head in frustration. It wasn’t to protect his daughter.
-Leave it alone. Anyway, it won’t be a problem.
It was pure indifference.
Growing up in utter indifference, she lived like that.
Until the coming-of-age ceremony.
– Have you ever heard of weapons, whether they were soul infused?
The day the princess became an adult.
After she asked for a private meeting with the king, she offered a crossbar.
Her weapons were of the kind that did not exist in the world.
Even those who have never killed before can easily commit genocide by possessing one.
After she created it, Seraphine’s life seemed to change.
-Thanks to you, we won this war!
Thanks to its powerful power, the kingdom was able to win without any difficulty.
The king, who was in the midst of a war of conquest at the time, wanted the princess to build more weapons.
However, a powerful soul was needed to make a weapon.
One life was needed for each weapon.
Wench, witch, demon.
Over time, the brutality of the princess, which seemed to be a secret forever, became known.
-You’re crazy! Do you kill people to build weapons?
-You’re an evil woman. Just breathing the same air as you makes me laugh!
Everyone pointed out that the powerful force that led the kingdom to victory was created in an inhumane way.
Despite suffering from numerous accusations, the princess silently built weapons, believing that the war would soon stop.
However, while she was making a total of eight weapons, there was no signs of the war ending.
Rather, more people died than expected due to the king’s greed.
The princess, who realized that she was mistaken, declared that she would not do anything.
But the greedy king did not give up the enormous power that he had once knew.
-Sell, teach me how to put a soul into a weapon. Only one. If we have one more weapon, the world will be ours.
The princess kept her mouth shut despite the king’s continuous squabbles.
The king actively tried to convince her, but it was useless. The princess’s heart was already closed.
When the princess openly showed her dissatisfaction, the king became uneasy.
‘What if the princess turns her back on me and makes weapons for another country?’
Now he had the upper hand thanks to the princess’s weapons. But now she’s completely turned her back.
He never knew how and when he would cooperate with other countries and gain control.
An uncontrollable anxiety encroached on the king.
“If the princess were gone, I’d be the only one with the eight weapons in this world!’
The king pushed his daughter into boiling water.
The body, which fell into the red water that melted even steel, could not even scream and died.
Obviously it should have happened.
“But why on earth…”
It was cold.
The distant scene was as if it were in water.
“Wait, in the water?”
As soon as I realized the fact, I choked and bubbles leaked through my lips.
“Prin… princ …princess!”
I heard someone calling me. I couldn’t see their face in detail because it was blurry.
But it wasn’t the point that mattered right now. I was suffocating.
I struggled to get up to the surface in a hurry to survive.
As she struggled, she grabbed the outstretched hand and climbed up.
“Gasp…”
Fortunately, it wasn’t deep.
Soon the cold air filled my lungs.
Gahg.
I was so happy to be able to breathe properly. It was painful to even drink a small amount of water.
As I coughed and frowned because I was wet, the man in front of me asked in a formal tone.
“Are you all right? Princess?”
“… Princess? Now, did you say that to me?”
I could barely pull myself together and look at the person in front of me properly.
It was an unfamiliar uniform.
Especially, it was hard to tell which country the badge that was worn on the chest was from.
At first glance, he looked like a guard, but I wasn’t sure.
The title of princess was unfamiliar to me, so I asked again, but the other party seemed to be confused.
“Even if you pretend not to know, I will dispose of you according to the law. Princess Rubia has damaged the nation’s property, so you must go with me.”
What do you mean by destroying national property?
Where the hell are you taking me?
I couldn’t even understand why I was called by the unfamiliar name, Princess of Rubia. Everything was questionable.
However, all the questions circulating in my head disappeared with the cold feeling that wrapped around my wrist.
Steel.
My wrists were handcuffed.
“……?”
I was taken away and put in jail.