The one working at the counter is the girl that I met when I was seven! I can suddenly vividly remember her crying face, and her laughing face!
‘Was I your knight in shining armour?’
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
My heart started to beat like crazy. My face is completely red.
For her to become such a lovely and cute girl.
Cute, cute, cute, cute, cute, cute, cute!!!
I saw her for the first time in three years. Its as if there is a string of fate binding us, my long forgotten love came flooding back along with my memories of that time...... [TN-1]
I think I’m going to throw up.
I don’t get it.
Why do I feel like this? I’m feeling so guilty and it’s making me feel sick.
I look at Serea.
Her eyes are wide open, and her complexion is ghastly pale.
She’s trembling.
Her hand on the window frame was clutched so hard that it turned white.
“S...Serea?”
Tears are welling up in her eyes.
“Let’s go!”
We can’t afford to stay here any longer! I somehow came to that conclusion.
We start running across the street.
“Watch out !”
Shreegan jumped out and stopped an oncoming horse drawn carriage.
Looks like we didn’t even notice it.
“Watch where yer going!”
The coachman yells at us.
Shreegan grabs us in his arms and carries us over to the bench where miss Bells is.
The guard was pretty surprised when he saw us. Looks like he didn’t realize we are from the palace. Shreegan promptly gave out orders, and shortly after a guard coach came.
“Serea, are you ok?”
Serea looked pale like all of her blood had been drained, and she couldn’t stop shaking.
The same was true for me. I couldn’t stop shaking for some reason.
Serea went back to her mansion while holding mis Bell’s hand.
“She Is just feeling a little under the weather.”
Said mis Bell to the other maids at the mansion entrance, and proceeded to go inside.
......I also excuse myself after greeting the maids.
“Your highness.”
Shreegan asks me without looking back from the driver’s seat.
“Did you do something terrible to her?”
“......I might have.”
“I dunno what you did,but...”
You are displeased aren’t you Shreegan......
“If something happened that pained her, I’ll accept the punishment along with your highness.” [TN-2]
I think that I might havedone something deserving of punishment.
When night came, I couldn’t sleep. I can’t get that girl out of my head and, can’t stop thinking about Serea either.
I want to see Serea.
See her and talk to her. No, it’s not that I just want to meet her, I think that something unthinkable might happen if I don’t. My conscience is screaming at me to go see her now.
I get out of my futon, and change.
I wear my favourite set of commoner clothes.
I put on my shoes, take a rope out of a toolbox and put it into an over the shoulder bag, and then I put on a hat and leather gloves.I stealthily leave my room and head towards a hidden exit in the reception room.
I go through an underground tunnel that no one but royalty knows about, and emerge from a well outside the castle. The, almost, full moon is shining outside.
I run and run through the empty castle town.
I hide from the adults that are still out drinking, I enter a back alley and head towards the mansion of duke Colette.I circled around it, found a gap in the hedge and slipped in.
There are no guards or dogs right?......
Stealthily, I arrive under the terrace of Serea’s room and look up.
The light is still on. A small light, around the size of one candle’s worth.
Serea was crying.
She opened her balcony door, got out and leaned on the handrails.
“Sob waaaaaah.... Sniff... Sob waaaaaah...... ”
She is sobbing and wiping the tears flowing down her face on the sleave of the cute white negligee that I saw her wearing last time.
......She’s a kid.
Just a sad, crying, ten year old kid.
Isn’t Serea actually older than me? Since she died at the age of 10, and then her memories returned when she was 10 again, I used to think that she is older than me.
I was completely wrong.
She is just like me, a 10 year old kid.
I’m the one who made her cry.
It’s my responsibility.
While everyone else is already asleep, she is out here crying in the middle of the night because of me. My chest tightened.
One day I will break off my engagement with her and make her unhappy.
It’s not something that will happen in the future. Isn’t she crying because of me? Aren’t I already making her unhappy right now? I’m the worst......
When I stealthily call out to her, Sera is pretty surprised.Well, of course she is.
She rubs her face with the sleeves of her negligee in a panic.
“(I’ll throw you a rope, tie it to something!)”
“(Are you alone this late at night?!)”
“(I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait any longer. I want to talk to you please!)”
The rope I threw to the balcony gets lowered down again.
Serea tied it to the railing
One, two, one two. I climb up while grabbing the rope with my leather gloves.
“Shin-sama for you to come so late......”
“It’s not late. After you are still awake Serea.”
“......I couldn’t sleep.”
The two of us go inside.
Serea sits on the bed. I pull a chair next to the bed and sit down as well.
“Were you ok today? How are you feeling?”
“I’m already fine. I calmed down.”
Even if you say that, your eyes are completely red from crying.
“Um...”
“Yes?”
“Um... well, the girl from the shop, do you know her?”
She shakes her head.
“It was my first time seeing her, but I recognised her.”
“Aah, I-”
“She’s the girl you met when you were seven right?”
“......Yeah.”
Serea starts crying again.
It doesn’t look like the tears wile stop.
“When I saw that girl, I was overwhelmed by a strong sense of jealousy.”
“Eh?”
“She is a lot more beautiful than me.”
“That’s not true. Serea is the more beautiful one.”
That’s a lie. She was the more beautiful one.
“She is a lot cuter than me.”
“You are cuter.”
That’s a lie. That girl was a lot cuter.
“That girl is incomparably more lovely than me.”
“That’s not true!”
That’s a lie. That girl’s smile was lovelier. So much so that it made my heart pound.
No, what the hell am I thinking.
There is no way that that’s true! There is no way that that girl is prettier, cuter and lovelier than Serea! Serea is my fiancée! She’s my cute bride! I’ll protect her my whole life! There is no way that I can love some other girl more than Serea![TN-4]
“I started hating that girl. I had a huge urge to mess with her. I wanted to bully her. I thought that that girl will surely steal Shin-sama from me. Thinking that, I hated and hated until I couldn’t take it any more...... As things are I’ll end up really bullying her. I’m an awful girl.”
“That’s not true. You aren’t that kind of girl!”
“I’m a really unsightly and nasty girl.”
“That’s not true whatsoever!”
“You’ll end up disliking me. You will end up hating someone like me.”
“I’ll never end up hating you!”
“...sniff, sob, sniff...”
I have no idea what to do with Serea who broke down crying.
This is probably that thing she called the game’s compelling force.
The beautiful memory that came back to my mind as soon as I saw her was so sweet that it melted my brain. And what hurt Serea's heart was the ugly and evil thing that devoured her heart like a curse. It’s cruel. There is not way I’m going to accept it.
[TN-1] Shin, dude, calm your tits, you are still next to your fiancée for Christ’s sake!
[TN-2] Honestly sometimes I think that Shin doesn’t deserve Shreegan.
[TN-3] If it’s not clear the parentheses represent whispering so no one else hears them.
[TN-4] Ok, seems like Shin might be innocent, but whatever power is brainwashing him can go to hell.
TN: Well, this one was heavy, I’ll try to rush out a bonus chapter this week because of the cliff-hanger here, 2 cliffs in a row is unfair...
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