I reincarnated as the Duke’s only blind daughter - Chapter 4 Part 2

“Oh well, it is just a rumor not based on facts~”

I held back my trembling voice and continued spending time with the ladies. However, the anxiety and worries from the talk before didn’t leave my head.

When Mommy came back from the restroom, I pleaded with her to leave right away while struggling to press down all the dizziness.

“Alicia dear, what’s wrong?”

Usually I would skillfully lead the conversation with them, but looking at my state in front of Mommy now made her worried.

“Mother..the gossip..”

Mommy quickly grasped the situation and held my hand.

“Let’s leave it for today, shall we?”

As we got into the carriage and settled down, Mommy started to ask me.

“So you heard about it, dear?”

“Y..yes..”

“About his highness? Prince Karl?”

“Yes”

I answered with my head down the whole time.

“What do you think about it, Alicia?”

“What do I think you asked.. Of course it is unbelievable.”

“Me too, dear. We are talking about his highness here, it is impossible for him to be with another lady.”

“Mother..”

“It’s only a rumor,Alicia! You must have faith in his highness!”

Mommy patted my hand and comforted me. Her kindness touched my heart and I could not hold back my tears any longer.

“Oh my, don’t cry dear..” (  *´ー)ノ”(ノ_<、)

I calmed down thanks to her kindly patting my back. I raised my face towards Mommy.

“You..you were right. I need to have faith in Karl. I’m sorry. I quickly lost my calm just because of some rumor..”

“It’s alright. He is your first love anyway. It is normal to feel anxious while being separated.”

“F..First love?”

“Isn’t it? You made a face like that when you heard about him cheating on you. The truth is you like his highness very much, don’t you!?”

“I..I like him..”

“Don’t you agree that it is love~”

Swayed by Mommy’s words, I felt my face somewhat heat up.

On the way back in the carriage, I thought a lot about what happened, I know I have to face my feelings from now on. Now that I properly gave it a thought, the feeling I had for Karl when we were ‘ childhood friends’ evolved into something stronger. If I still ‘like’ Karl like when we were kids, I surely wouldn’t get angry if Karl decided to hang out with another lady.

Is..Is it love?  (⁄ ⁄•⁄﹏⁄•⁄ ⁄)

“…That’s right, this is my…first love..”

I felt my face would get really red right now so I quickly put my head down and nervously replied back to her. But Mommy suddenly hugged me tightly.

“My!! How can you be this lovely, my cute Alicia!?!?” (*/▽＼*)

Embraced by her, my heart couldn’t stop pounding to the realization of my first love.

So this is it, I really love Karl. As a person of the opposite sex, as his fiance, I like him. Our social status has nothing to do with my feelings, I just simply fell in love with the real Karl.

As I realized my own feelings, I couldn’t help but get more curious about what they were gossiping about.

“I hope to see him soon. I want, when we meet, to talk, hang around, and laugh at the stupid rumor together!”

Seeing me become so firesty about the idea, Mommy straightened her back.

“If that is your wish maybe this time it can be fulfilled.”

“Why is that?”

“They will hold open campus for a couple of days which only happens once a year. Parents are allowed to come with their children to see the school around. The festival where shops, restaurants run by students are held there too!”

“Really? I want to go! If I go I can meet Karl too!”

“I understand! I will talk to your Father about this!”

When we arrived at home, Mommy quickly went to meet with daddy and talked about it.

He opposed the idea at first, but knowing that I really wanted to go, he gave me his permission. Maybe it will be the first time for the 3 of us to go on a vacation. It sounded so fanstanatic, I was thrilled and thinking about the preparations.

That night, while talking about others, I told Karl that we will come over on the open campus day on the magic telecommunication device.

“What? You’re coming on that day?”

“Yes! Mother and Father will also join me on the trip!”

“…I see. But don’t you think the distance is too far away?”

“It is impossible to go there and come back in one day, so we will be staying at the guest villa. I am really looking forward to it!” ＼(≧▽≦)／

Once a week, we talk to each other with the device I received from Karl before he left. The device is like this world’s mobile phone. I don’t know how to press the numer, but it has a smooth texture as my recorder. It will automatically connect with the person if I say their name out loud. According to Karl, the device is filled with magic, even a non-magic user like me can use it with ease. As always on the promised time, I called Karl and chatted with him.

“I see.. So you are coming.”

Karl seemed to dislike the idea of me coming over to school. As I remembered the rumor from this morning.

“Hmm.. Is it better for me not to go?”

“No! There is nothing like that.. It’s just.. I’m worried..”

“Worried?”

“..No. I’m happy to be able to see you after a long time. But..”

Karl went silent a bit after saying that and quickly changed the topic.

From his attitude, for the first time in my life, a new feeling was born. It’s a sense of distrust.

After that, our conversation didn’t go anywhere, the call ended quickly without making any promises for the next call like usual.

To think that he was hesitant to see me was quite unpleasant. Now you mentioned, the open campus is held once a year, but Karl did not invite me to come last year or the year before too. If Mommy didn’t tell me about it I wouldn’t have known.

…Maybe the rumor turned out to be true after all? He might be afraid to let me meet his cheating partner? What is this attitude?? I didn’t have a chance to experience love in my previous life, even in this life I just realized my first love. A newcomer like me, how could I handle the fact of being cheated on right now??

As I squeezed my head, I only had negative thoughts, I went to bed just like that.

—・Kalt’s friends ・—

“Open campus?”

Hearing about Alicia coming over, Karl didn’t mind about it at all. At this time, he didn’t know about the rumor that has been running around. For a person busy like him, Karl had no time to be interested in another thing.

“ Alicia is coming over here.. To school!”

The reason why Karl hesitated is because he was embarrassed about what he had been doing here. As a member of the Royal family, Karl was an excellent individual and so talented that only in third year, he managed to finish almost all the studies in the whole 5 years. However, he also used the fact that he was the Prince to take control over people and manipulate them for his own purposes. In order to become the person to support his brother who will be the King and the successor of Duke Holsten, it was necessary for him to have comrades of the same age.

Karl wondered if it was okay to show Alicia who he was in school. For 3 whole years, he never talked about the things that happened in the academy to her. Afraid that it would scare her and lead her to hate him. Nevertheless everything he did was for the sake of Alicia’s future. Most of the students were on his side, however there were still some individuals who rebelled. And those people, if they were to lay hands on her or hurt her, he didn’t have any confidence that he would be able to stop them. Just like what happened before with the wolf (magical beast), there was the possibility of him using the prohibited spell again.

“I need to do something about them fast..I had hidden myself and put on a face In front of them. But it is now useless to make them think that the Fifth Prince is useless and powerless.” – He quickly wrote down the name of his targets –

“The open campus will be held in 2 weeks, I don’t have much time.”

Karl smirked and decided that he will never show Alicia his dark side.

“I need to hurry to make this place a safe environment for my Alicia to enjoy fully, am I.”

Karl had a new goal that needed to be done before the due day.

“She has to enjoy the event. She must..”

Karl only wanted Alicia to know about his untainted self, so a lot of things needed to be done for that sake. Instantly, he called over 5 individuals who have been working with him. They have been carefully selected, trusted as his comrades and maintained a good relationship after he enrolled in the academy. Looking at their profile, Karl made a difficult face.

First, Karlise Alaclair( ͡°’ ͜ʖ ͡°)

The eldest son of Duke Alaclair, he may come off a little bit flirty, but he was a serious guy in reality that could be trusted. Karlise was also Alicia’s cousin and his future family member when he got married to Alicia.

Second, Erick Nakahayasu( °−° )

The Knight Captain/Count’s third son. A muscle maniac, always thinking about his sword and magic skills training. He wanted to enter the Knight order before, but after a while he said to enter Duke Holsten’s order of Knight after graduating.

Next is Mikhail Tennyson  (-◯ _ ◯-)

The Tennyson family used to be famous for their business but recently received the title of Baron for what they achieved. As the second son, he was really good with numbers and calculations. I needed his support in the future because I knew that surely the Duke house would benefit greatly from working with him.

Moving on to Aramic Berkeley (^▽^)ノ

An exchange student from faraway land. I needed him for his new ideas and his knowledge of the outside world.

Lastly, Emilia Fredcécht (っ˘ω˘c )

She was only the daughter of Baron, but helda lot of information. From the gossip among the ladies to the complaints from young mens. There was no information that she didn’t know at school.

Karl seemed to be satisfied with the chosen members sitting in front of him.

“So, what are we going to do?”

The wishful Knight, Erick, raised his head and asked.

“Of course. For the sake of my blind fiancé, we need to do anything for her to laugh at ease.”

“Karl’s fiancé? And she is blind?”

His arranged marriage has been the famous talk among people, however it seemed the third son of the Count was not familiar with it. It couldn’t be helped so Karl decided to explain to him.

“Yes, my fiancé is the princess Alicia Holsten, the daughter of the Duke. Even though she is blind, she is known for her exquisite beauty.”

“I heard about her! When his highness Karl engaged with the princess, it became really big news. A lot of gossip going around that time too.”

With Emilia energetically raising her hand, Karl smiled.

“As expected from Emilia. But the gossip is all wrong so please don’t put your heart on it.”

“The rumor about the princess is carefully raised but isolated from the outside. She is rumored to be calm and beautiful but will fall sick if no one helps her. That is why your highness took sympathy and engaged with her. Is that true?”

“So the rumors were that bad, I see.. aside from the fact she was raised isolated from the outside, everything is false. Please do something about those lies will you?”

“Ro~ger!”

“But, Karl. Why did the princess decide to come this year? Didn’t they totally ignore the event last year? My Mother and Father, the Baron, told me that the Duke firmly stated that they will not let the princess join any public event. Aren’t they?”

As Emilia kept asking further about Alicia, Alicia’s cousin, Karlise made a mystery expression.

“They did that because of the rumor saying she is so weak that she cannot even protect herself. But this time both the Duke and Duchess will be with her. I have not heard anything further about the reason, but the 3 of them will come over here on open campus day.”

“I see. Mother and Father must have looked down on them before. I understand.”

Karlise seemed to come to terms with the situation in Holsten house. Realizing that, Karl bitterly smiled.

“Now, 2 weeks until the open campus day. However the group that opposes his highness is not slowing down anytime soon. We need to ‘play hide and seek’(＊)with them, don’t we!”

“You got it right, Mikhail.”

“That’s troubling. Our finances are not enough to seize their movement completely.. the only thing we can do is shut their mouths… however it will be considered us blackmailing them.”

Mikhail said those words with a hint of horror in a straight face. Pleased with what he was hearing, Karl smiled but his eyes deepened that it was terrifying.

“We don’t have enough time. I think it is perfectly fine to be a little bit hard on them. Don’t you agree?” ( ◠‿◠ )

“I can’t say no, can’t i?” (-◯ ‿ ◯-)✧︎

While Mikhail smiled with his eyes thinly closed, he slowly took out his papers and distributed them to everyone. Reading what was written, Aramic couldn’t control his excitement and raised his voice.

“I don’t mind the way that you always smile but silently control the whole school before. However, this time the dark Karl is thrilling, not less. I’m in! This is going to be fun!!”

—–

(＊) what he meant is to lure those people and eliminate them at once without nobody knows.

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