I Have Become The Heroes’ Rival - Chapter 23

TL: gaeulriri

Editor: Daed

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As soon as I came to the Imperial Palace, I had a bad experience, but it wasn’t long before I could forget it.

It was because there were two angels beside me who erased my bad memories.

They were like human dreamcatchers. It seemed like I could dream a beautiful dream just by holding their hands and sleeping together.

In fact, since I lived with them, I had no memories of having nightmares or sad memories anymore. Everything was healed by these siblings.

However, the Crown Prince’s efforts to get me away from Claudia were really persistent.

Because Lord Moore failed, Lucas started sending me all sorts of handsome men one after another.

It seemed that he believed that among those men, at least one of them would suit my tastes.

It wasn’t even a big entertainment agency, so why did you put quantity first?

Regardless of the quantity of men sent my way, everyone was met with my iron wall. This wasn’t a matter of taste, it was because the entertainment agency’s CEO was the prince.

At that time, one of the lords, who had been previously been pleasant to me, seemed to get impatient with me in the end. His face turned red.

“Playing hard to get, huh?!”

He pointed at me with his finger. His jugular veins on his neck looked like they were about to explode.

“How can you be so proud of yourself?! You don’t even have anything to be proud of, be it your appearance or your family!”

“Even if you have nothing to say, can’t you just say ‘no’?”

I didn’t owe you anything nor did I do anything wrong to you. So should I thank you for being interested in someone like me?

In the first place, that Lord didn’t even have feelings for me. He just came to flirt with me at the order of the Crown Prince, to use me to get his pay.

I didn’t want to hear those words of love and admiration from people who constantly had ‘greed’ clearly written in their eyes.

If someone who really sincerely liked me confessed to me, I would have considered it.

If you wanted to be respected by someone, you had to respect them first.

I sighed without responding to him at all despite the blatant insult.

Then he began to shudder at the thought of me ignoring him. He lowered his voice and said,

“Seems like living in the Chamberlains’ mansion has caused Lady to falsely believe that she can do anything.”

“Hmm?”

“What is the difference between a maid who supplements a princess and a maid who raises her head in front of other nobles as if she is a princess? You should know your place.”

“Place….”

I muttered quietly. Based on what exactly did people judge someone’s place?

Appearance? Family? Money? Ability?

Well, I was a snobbish human who always entangled with things like that. I tried to fix it, but it was not that easy.

However, when I heard that word come out of someone else’s mouth, I felt embarrassed somehow.

Maybe it was because of what Claudia and Felix told me a while ago.

“So we’ll keep telling you. How pretty and adorable Irene is.”

Perhaps Claudia and Felix were the only ones in this novel who didn’t judge people easily.

Even before I transmigrated to this world, they had always been like that.

They saw everyone without prejudice, treated them without discrimination, and tried to help if there was someone in trouble.

Wasn’t that the characteristic of the heroine that was popular about 10 years ago?

How could they have such a personality when they were born as a noble with a worldview like this? How could they be more open-minded than me, who had lived in the modern times?

No matter how I thought about it, they were unicorns…..

I became embarrassed for trying to identify myself with them.

“Your words were true.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t know my place, but the siblings of the Chamberlains told me.”

“Hah, no matter how cheap you are, you keep trying to find your place…”

“They said that I am ‘pretty and adorable’.”

“…..?”

As if he was caught unawares, he stopped laughing and stared blankly at me. It seemed like he couldn’t believe his ears and hoped that he misheard.

Don’t be surprised like that, I only repeated what I heard from them.

“That’s what I heard from people who mean so much to me. They said that to me. So now, because I know my place, my standards for man are quite high.”

I scanned him up and down with narrowed eyes.

Beep! Disgusting personality!

“Honestly, you don’t even stand out right now.”

“You’ve gone crazy.”

The lord spat on the floor as if to add the final flourish to his insults. What a bastard.

“It seems like you were shocked to hear such words from my mouth. Even though it sounds like I was making it up …..”

Just as the lord approached me as if he was going to grab my collar, a clear voice was suddenly heard from behind me.

“Rin.”

It was Claudia.

She suddenly appeared while holding a flower in her arms, looking so innocent. It was really out of sync with the situation.

“I’ve been looking for you~”

She drew out the end of her sentence cutely, looking brighter than the bouquet she had in her arms.

It was as if there was a sun shining behind her head.

“U-uhkk, Lady Chamberlain?!”

The lord was enthralled by Claudia’s appearance, but later regained his wits.

He blushed in front of me, completely different from his arrogant attitude earlier.

It was a foolish expression, as if he had completely forgotten his anger towards me.

“I-I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m the second son of Count Belle…”

Lord Belle began to introduce himself, looking away in nervousness.

However, before the lord could finish his introduction, Claudia treated him completely as an invisible person and shrugged him off.

She gave me the flowers.

I blinked with a blank expression for a moment at this unexpected situation, then I looked down at the flowers in my arms.

It was a rose with thorns carefully trimmed to prevent pricking one’s hand, surrounded by pale yellow freesias.

The petals of the rose started with a pale yellow color and had a lighter pink color toward the outside. This rose had a unique color and seemed larger than any other rose I had ever seen.

“What flower is it?”

“I made it for Rin.”

Back then, I would have thought that our heroine was so innocent and her personality was like a flower field.

But now I wonder, ‘Could it be that you understand this situation? You know that I’m in trouble, that’s why you’re doing this all by yourself?’

Although Claudia maintained that thoughtless face.

I glanced between Claudia, who was more beautiful than the flowers, and Lord Belle, who was treated worse than a ghost and hardened like a stone.

Sometimes, being ignored was far more torturous than being yelled at.

Especially if you had feelings for the person who ignored you.

‘You’re really unlucky, Claudia caught you bothering me.’

I clicked my tongue while seeing Lord Belle, who couldn’t manage his facial expressions.

He might never have the chance to talk to Claudia for treating me so carelessly.

“It’s unexpected, but thank you. It’s really pretty…..”

Wait, didn’t freesia only bloom in early spring? It’s almost midsummer now.

I stuck my nose in the flower, smelled it, and then sneezed.

“Achoo!”

Ouch! The pollen got into my nose!

“What is it? Is it Felix’s magic? It doesn’t seem made by magic.”

As I rubbed my nose and made a nasal noise, Claudia smiled cutely and gave me the answer.

“I picked it up from the greenhouse.”

Of course, it was an unusual answer.

“Greenhouse? If so, then…”

I heard that the Imperial Palace’s greenhouse only had either rare flowers or exotic flowers.

The greenhouse was strictly managed and available only to the well-established royal family, because if a variety was leaked out after an outsider was brought in, its scarcity would decline.

Of course, Claudia would not have trespassed into the greenhouse. It seemed like she was allowed to enter the greenhouse with the authority of the Crown Prince…

“His Majesty said it was okay to pick the flowers. I thought Rin would love it, so I picked it up.”

“For me?”

“Mmm? Of course.”

She tilted her head as if she had stated the obvious, and then said with excitement.

“This rose is called ‘Bellaroma’. Isn’t it really pretty? There are so many unique roses in the greenhouse, it would be nice if Rin could see them too.”

You picked up a flower that bloomed only for the royal family under the Crown Prince’s permission.

‘Wow, it’s such an insult to the Crown Prince.’

It was like Lucas had given everything for Claudia so far, but Claudia merely threw dirt in his face in return.

Did the Crown Prince know that these flowers were spoiled only for me?

Even if he didn’t know, he would find out sooner or later.

Because there was someone who heard our entire conversation since the beginning.

Lord Belle, if he was sent by the Crown Prince, then he would give this information…

As I stared at Lord Belle with such a thought, Claudia’s gaze turned to the same direction.

“You’re still here? I thought you were gone.”

“…….”