Chapter 58 - Princess Amelia
The detached palace I was staying at was for foreign guests. I was treated as a guest because the paladins from Vios could not enter the inner palace. And besides, they kept saying they needed to protect me.
“When will they go back to Vios?”
“Who… who knows?” Luciana replied with an awkward laugh.
“…Are they here because I’m still a saintess?”
Luciana’s silence confirmed my hunch.
“Send them back!” I said angrily, to which Luciana shook her head.
“That’s not up to me.”
“Ugh! That pope is so annoying! I knew this would happen!” I cried. He had stabbed me in the back.
Luciana tried to calm me down, “Please be patient. They’re doing this because they worry about you.”
“If they really cared about me, they would leave me alone!”
“It’s your homeland.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way!”
Then, I made a decision, “From today onward, I’m from Rahel!”
“…” Luciana looked at me, her eyes full of compassion. She had no idea of her own future.
“Luciana, you too.”
“…Is that how it works?”
“Yep! We’re always together!” My smile made Luciana click her tongue, but she quickly resigned herself to my decision. I liked how she gave up quickly.
“Fine. No matter what happens, I need to stay by your side.”
“Yup yup! You have no idea how great it is to have you with me,” I said, giving her a big hug. “And on that note, I remember how we first met.”
Back when I first became Priscilla, I couldn’t accept it and kicked up a fuss. Luciana was the last maid assigned to me, and the only person who listened to me.
“Do you still want to go back?”
“No, it doesn’t matter anymore,” I said sincerely. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my home or that I wasn’t sad, but I had made peace with my present situation. I decided to go on living in this world.
“I have you and Daddy, so I’m okay.”
“Saintess…” her distraught expression made me grin.
Perhaps it was because of my young body, but I felt like acting a bit spoiled, “Luci, you know that I like you, right?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then you have to stay with me forever, okay?”
“Yes, I will,” Luciana laughed, indulging me in my spoiled ways.
“Luci, I really like you.”
“I really like you too.”
A warm and cozy feeling lingered in the air. I felt a bit lonely thinking about my home, but my conversation with Luciana cheered me up.
“Well, in that case, Luci—”
Catching on quickly, Luciana made a face. I loved that about her.
“I need you to do something!”
* * *
Aside from the saintess-turned-princess, the detached palace also housed the paladins from Vios and the 132 people whom Amelia saved.
“You have all been saved by the saintess, so live the rest of your lives for her sake,” the paladins, unable to hide their contempt for the survivors, would say such things whenever they saw them.
The 132 people were of different ages and genders, and they had different homelands. Since there were criminals and slaves in their midst, the paladins were domineering towards them. It was the same for Kais.
“Hey, you!” Claud, a paladin hanging around the survivor area, called for Kais. Kais heard him but kept walking.
“That bastard,” muttered Claud, his face changing after being ignored.
“Hey, you! Are you deaf?”
Kais let out a grunt as Claud grabbed his arm and threw him against the wall. Enduring the pain, he looked into Claud’s eyes. A strange feeling came over Claud as he saw the deep bloodlust within Kais’s dark eyes.
Claud flinched momentarily. Feeling ashamed of himself, he glared down at Kais in anger, “You son of a bitch…” He didn’t like Kais’s rebellious gaze. ‘He’s nothing but a parasite leeching off the saintess’s boundless mercy! I need to teach him a lesson!’
Claud was determined to knock Kais down a few pegs so that the latter would know his place. ‘If he’s already like this now, how much worse would he get when he’s older…?’ Claud started hitting him. Despite getting punched repeatedly in the head, Kais didn’t make a sound, which only made Claud hit him more.
Although Claud’s actions were causing a commotion among the survivors, no one intervened. To them, Kais was a different kind of being.
Kais’s skin tore open, and blood gushed out of the wound. But his expression didn’t change. Claud intuitively knew that Kais would never bow to him unless he totally broke him down. ‘Let’s see if he can keep up this act when faced with a sword.’
Claud unsheathed his blade with a swish. As he swung it down, there was a brief sound of metal clashing before the sword was taken from him.
“What’s going on here?” Amelia asked angrily. She was standing behind Ludwig, who had taken Claud’s sword. Claud was surprised to see her, but he quickly regained his composure.
“I was teaching him a lesson.”
“A lesson? On what?”
“On manners,” replied Claud confidently. Amelia smiled. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and Claud went down on one knee.
“What was that for…?!” Just as Claud raised his head to retort, Amelia kicked his other knee with a smile.
“I’m also teaching you some manners,” she said coolly. The smile was now gone from her face. “Don’t you know that you should greet me when you see me?”
