Why Are You So Obsessed With Rejecting Affection? - Chapter 35

At his words, instead of just smiling and handing him the necklace, I sprang up onto the lap of the Grand Duke who was sitting at his desk.

“Ugh!”

I heard a whisper around me.

But the Grand Duke won’t punish me for acting spoiled this much, right?

“It’s pretty!”

I put the necklace around the Grand Duke’s neck and clapped happily. The dangling necklace on his wide chest looked like a decoration.

“Do you like it?”

“… You made it well.”

I also took out a small hand mirror from inside my dress pocket and handed it out to the Grand Duke.

The Grand Duke looked at his reflection for a moment and mumbled something in a hoarse voice.

Then, as if impressed, he shut his mouth and looked at me.

‘Your eyes could also moisten.’
(T/N: Shuelina is saying here that the Grand Duke could also have his eyes moisten by suppressing his emotions of crying, because of her gift.)

The Grand Duke seemed a little awkward and was struggling with the medal a little. He was at loss, he was trying to be careful about the medal, so as not to let any single piece of sparkling glitter fall off.

“I have to give you a prize.”

The Grand Duke opened a small porcelain box on one side of the desk. As soon as he opened the lid, a cool breeze came out.

It was the snack box from the Grand Duke I had seen last time.

“Say ‘ah’.”

“Ah-”

The Grand Duke then proceeded to take something out of the container, putting it in my mouth.

“I also had something to say to you, but you came to me on your own.”

“It‘s cold… What do you want to say?”

I asked while eating the cream puff, still sitting on the Grand Duke’s lap.

“This time, I am trying to find a tutor for you to receive your education as a princess.”

“Studying?”

“If you don‘t like it… ”

“No way!”

I jumped up and down in excitement.

Study! I’m studying too!

‘You have to learn for the future.’

Considering that I was embarrassed when I first entered this body due to my lack of knowledge, having it is similar to having power.

Most of all, I wanted to hear that I am a princess who can learn quickly and be smart enough for the Grand Duke.

Since I was adopted, I would have no choice but to go out into the social world someday, but I didn’t want to embarrass the Grand Duke and my brothers.

“My daughter will be a model student of learning.”

The Grand Duke mumbled with a happy face.

“You are our Lady!”

“You’re smart so you’ll learn fast!”

Then his aides hurriedly said their words of encouragement.

‘I don’t think this has happened once or twice… Why was his praise so natural?‘

It’s a very straightforward attitude.

I tilted my head for a moment and looked up at the Grand Duke with twinkling eyes.

“Dad, thank you! I will definitely study hard!”

I kissed the Grand Duke with gratitude. When I kissed his cheek, the Grand Duke’s face became flushed.

“I have to find a good teacher. Cahill, get a famous teacher from the Palace.”

Cahill, who was instructed by the Grand Duke, bowed his head ‘Yes!’

‘A teacher from the Imperial Palace… ‘

The first outsider to meet me as the grand duchy’s princess.

When I briefly thought of Azuela, who was having fun inside the Imperial Palace, I furrowed my brows at such a thought and shook my head to cast it away.

***

“Finally… “

She didn’t know what the Grand Duke did, but it was clear that Shuelina became the Grand Princess.

The Empress tried to squeeze the letter she was reading out of existence but released the power she had in her hand.

When she checked the contents of the carrier pigeon sent to the Imperial Academy from the Grand Duke, she knew it contained trouble.

‘I am looking for a teacher for the Grand Princess.’

The letter was written with long and elegant phrases, but in the end, the main thing was to find a teacher.

The contents of the letter expressed “concern” about how cute and smart Shuelina, who will become a student, is.

The sender was Cahill Riglette, the famous assistant of the Grand Duke. It seemed to be a command directly ordered by the Grand Duke.

“How did this happen… ”

The Empress put the letter on the table, her eyes closed and opened.

Her gaze turned to her fingertips resting on the letter.

Long, slender, elegant hands. However, there was a slight bump on the tip of the nails trimmed with an oval shape.

‘It looks exactly like this hangnail.’

It would have been nice if she could have killed Shuelina right away.

However, she couldn’t do that because she had to choose between her ability and her child.

She glanced at the maid, who was trying to hide her nervousness at the door.

It was a contact network from the Marquis’ house Bertilde.

‘It would have been nice if it had been properly handled earlier.’

Her father, the Marquis, offered to take care of it, so she left it alone, and now things have gotten complicated.

When the wizard failed his orders and lost contact, he should have prepared properly.

The marquis thought that it was only one helpless child, so he sent only one person to kidnap the child again.

They can track down the magic that Shuelina has, and they can always find out where she is, but…

‘She just happened to be in the Grand Duke’s estate.’

Even if she knew where the child was, it became difficult to touch her easily.

“Go to my father and tell him to be vigilant. You can go out now.”

She bit her lips lightly and said to the maid.

He’s her father but she couldn’t forgive him for making it so twisted.

The maid, who was worried because the Empress was not in a good mood, quickly left the reception room.

As the intruding eyes disappeared, the Empress immediately opened the door on the right side of the living room and entered the bedroom.

She twisted the edge of a large cherry blossom decoration hanging on the bedroom wall.

Then, like smoke, a white mask appeared over the flame of the first torch.

“Isn‘t that a problem for her?”

A mask with a delicate design of a Brilliant. What she heard coming from inside of it was the voice of a young boy.

“I have to drive her out of the Grand Duke’s house.”

The empress bit her lips and muttered. Shuelina was a dangerous entity to be in the possession of the Grand Duke as it is.

‘I was thinking of taking her to a different orphanage and locking her up until the emperor stops looking for her….’

At the same time, Shuelina caught the right timing and entered the Grand Duke’s house. It was really the worst.

‘Why the hell were you there!’

She was pulling out the spiritual power so that she wouldn’t have to worry about Shuelina at all. Keeping herself away from worrying about that child.

Anyway, the spirit power was substantial enough to be used for Azuela. Shuelina will never be able to live as a princess for her whole life, so why did she need that ability?

But the plan went wrong.

The empress, who became an imperial family member through marriage, could not detect a single ounce of elemental power. There was only a short phrase that confirmed the result of stealing the spirit power failed.

If the emperor had not issued an edict looking for talented children, it would have been almost possible to forget about Shuelina’s existence.

It was a real shock to the Emperor, when this ruse had started, to learn that the Empress was somehow absolutely sure of the life and death of a child of the Imperial Palace.

However, when he told the Empress to come to the palace and join him on her own through an edict, it was evidence that he couldn’t find out where his actual daughter was. He failed to secure the child’s kidnapper.

So, it was a big deal if she didn’t somehow quickly fix it before he could find his real daughter.

“So?”

The mask reacted profoundly to the empress’s words. It didn’t seem to have much interest in Shuelina.

“Don’t you realize you need her? The reserve Brilliant for Ella is almost empty.”
[e/n: Ella is Azuela’s nickname in case it’s kind of confusing.]

“What, you’re gonna ask for a little kid’s help?”

The Empress slightly hardened at the words of the mask as it mocked her.

“I need your wisdom.”

The mask bowed to the Empress’s words. Then the picture popped out of the frame.

The mask that bowed down and placed my face right in front of my face made a long ringing sound.

“Is it okay to kill about a thousand people?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, wouldn’t you be kicked out of a house if you killed someone and turned everything upside down?”

The mask reached out his hand in front of the empress. Like magic, a small purple bottle popped out of the palm.

“Pour it in water. There will be something that can be blamed on her magic. It’s just mixing it with water, you can do it right?”

It was poison that might kill a thousand people. However, the Empress picked up the bottle without even worrying about it for a moment.

For someone who commits evil deeds, she matched the stereotype well with her tightly pulled back hair.

It was a pleasant image painted in her imagination, driving Shuelina out of the Grand Duke’s estate.

***

“Lady, hwaiting!”
(T/N: Hwaiting = fighting/cheer up)

Nina fixed the ribbon around my neck, raised her arms to cheer me on, and closed the door of the study room.

I took a seat beside the desk to unwind. But I was still nervous.

Today is the first day of class. Soon it was time to meet my new teacher.

‘Will the teacher like me?’

I must study hard.

After being praised by the teacher, I had a joyful daydream of showing off to the Grand Duke while holding a test paper with a hundred points on it.

The door opened when I was imagining the part where the Grand Duke said I did well and put a cream puff in my mouth.

I reflexively straightened my waist and looked towards the door.

“Greetings Teacher!”

In the eyes of my teacher, I probably looked like a spoiled child who was nervous because of anxiety.

I wore a long robe to cover my body shape, but when she looked at the slim curves of my forearm, I was unable to deceive her eyes.

‘I guess she is Teacher Rima!’

Rima, who will teach me from today onwards, was an assistant professor of the Imperial Academy.

I don’t know how much he has offered to pay her, but she came from the Imperial Palace to the Grand Duchy to teach a girl who was only six years old.

If it were me, I wouldn’t have come to this far place without a lot of voluntary determination.

I laughed broadly as I promised to get along with the teacher.

“Surely, you haven’t learned any manners yet. A subtle smile is a way to show the sophistication of a noble spirit. If you smile with your teeth showing, you’ll look shallow.”
[e/n: I dislike this teacher already]

I tried to smile sweetly… But somehow, my mouth was stiff.

“Uh… “

“Indeed, I heard that there was a situation that made it so that the young lady hasn’t learned anything yet.”

“That… “

“Unfortunately… just like before… It seems that none of the traces of a commoner orphan have been corrected.”

Teacher Rima looked at me with eyes full of pity. You seem to be displeased and sad to know that I was a commoner orphan…

‘What is this? Why was it sad?‘

Lucy was sorry for me, too, and it was the same for the Grand Duke and my brothers.

Why does this person’s gaze feel so different?

“Fine. I’m here because it’s very difficult to keep dealing with the original commoner manners you have anyways.“

Huh…? I looked at the teacher in embarrassment.

Because she kept emphasizing the past, I felt like I was back at the old orphanage, not the Grand Duke’s, in an instant.

‘I thought I was behaving irritably… ‘

Am I really talking and acting like a ‘commoner orphan girl’?

Is it absurd for me to be a noble lady? What is family-like behavior for nobles?

It was hard to tell whether Teacher Rima didn’t like me or didn’t think about it much.

“Let‘s make a great noble lady reborn through this class.”

“… Does a princess need to be excellent?”

At my words, Teacher Rima frowned slightly.

‘Are you angry?’

Then she began to stride toward me. I flinched and closed my eyes for a moment.