Broken Emblem
Due to the curse of the monstrous tribe chief, Remian had never been able to reveal herself to the world, had never mingled with other nobles except for her family, and had never interacted with anyone other than her personal maid and Gelwood.
Of course, she had been educated by Lord Gelwood and her father, but there was a significant gap between those who had lived and absorbed this knowledge from a young age and those who had merely heard about it.
‘Wow… this, this is the Royal Academy…!’
For Remian, it was only important that she could receive specialized education at the kingdom’s finest academy.
“Ho ho, are you pleased?”
Despite it being her first grueling journey, Remian, who had arrived at the Royal Academy with her now deceased maid, Ronica, felt her fatigue washed away by her sheer happiness upon seeing this new place.
“Yes! It’s truly the best!”
The entrance ceremony soon took place.
Many noble young lords and ladies gathered in the auditorium.
‘There are so many….’
Among the seemingly hundreds of students, a timid Remian recited the oath led by the principal.
Loudly and clearly.
“I swear! Article 1! In learning, there is no distinction of rank, and under the sacred aegis of scholarship, all are equal!”
Remian found this clause particularly heartening.
Forced to hide her status due to the curse, posing as a baroness from a remote domain never heard of was the best she could manage without risking exposure of her higher noble rank.
Therefore.
“Professor! I have a question!”
Remian, following Article 1 of the oath, engaged purely in learning without concern for status.
She was overjoyed.
Unlike the past days of solitary study and pondering, she now had someone who could immediately resolve her queries.
She participated passionately during lectures, and after classes, she did not hesitate to seek out professors to clarify any doubts she had.
It seemed like a new world had opened up.
Her academic progress soared as if the past stagnant days had been compensated, with scholarship unfolding its wings on a smooth breeze.
She always sat in the front row during lectures, and was always the first to raise her hand to the professor’s questions.
That was the problem.
Remian, who was unaware of the darker aspects of noble society, did not realize that the oath claiming no distinction of rank was a futile promise.
That was when it started.
Due to the resentment of being nobody from a remote domain, the cruel abuse began during lecture times for the audacity she showed.
“Insolent wretch. If you’re from low origins, you should just shrink back into your place.”
“Why… why are you doing this. We all took the oath…”
“Ha! The oath? What’s that?”
“I just… like to learn…”
“Really? Then from today, you’ll learn from us.”
“Learn what…?”
“Life lessons, bitch!”
Thud!
Thump!
“Ahh!”
She was dragged daily to the back of the campus and endured hard times.
Her face bruised, her neck scratched, and no one would apply ointment; thus, for three years she suffered from various forms of group bullying including physical torture and hide-and-seek.
“Heh heh. If you get caught, you’re dead. Run away quickly.”
“Please… stop….”
Crack!
“Ahh!”
“Bitch, whether to stop or start is up to us. Understand? Now, I give you 10 seconds. Better run fast.”
Just because.
Just because they disliked her appearance, she suffered thus.
Yet Remian did not give up.
With a bruised face, she sat in the front row of the classroom, dragging her aching body to devote herself to research and experiments.
Even if it would invoke their greater wrath, even if her passion and stubbornness would bring greater disaster, she did not give up.
As a result, she was honored as an outstanding scholar.
And.
“Fuck. So just share some of that glory with us, will you?”
The Deron group also became outstanding scholars, and thus they graduated as valedictorians.
For Remian, who simply loved learning, it was not unjust.
It was merely regrettable that after three years she had to leave the academy.
“Heh heh. Now this tiresome evil connection is ending? Must be relieving, huh? Erinshia?”
“Now we don’t have to see each other, so smile. Heh heh.”
“Live well. Don’t forget the life lessons we taught you over three years.”
That was the end.
Three years of hell ended so anticlimactically.
She was not resentful.
As they said, it was relieving.
She would never see them again.
She would never encounter them again.
Thus, Remian returned to the northern command, immersing herself more in research and experiments to forget the memories of the past, slowly fading as if heading down the path of oblivion.
No.
If only their names had not appeared on the candidate list, they surely would have disappeared.
If only the sudden throbbing of her scars hadn’t begun the moment she saw their names, if only the memories she had tried to bury hadn’t surged forth.
And in that moment, Remian realized.
Three years of hell were not so easily forgotten.
“Ah, there come the candidates.”
Sitting in a chair with her eyes closed, Remian opened her eyes at Gelwood’s words.
And she saw.
Kyle, running from afar.
Behind him, Blund, pale as snow, running as well.
Deron, who had always turned ashen after the game of death, now looked just like her own past face.
A smile formed, but she held it back.
Since Elden went in the opposite direction, they could not have brought back the Emblem.
They must have given up, chased by the giant monsters placed in each cave.
Remian stood up from her chair to meet Kyle personally.
“Ho ho. You’ve returned early? How was it?”
It was terrifying.
It was horrifying.
They wanted to give up.
She hoped to hear such answers.
But…
“Look at this! Your Highness!”
Kyle, panting, presented the very Emblem of the Grand Ducal family, which should have been in the northeast cave, the one Elden Rapellion should have brought.
Remian took it from him.
“…”
“I nearly died, but after a fierce battle, I brought it back!”
“…”
Soon after, Blund and Deron arrived.
They looked as if they had much to say, but they merely glared at Kyle’s back, and for Remian, whatever had transpired between them was utterly trivial.
Trembling.
Trying to contain her shaking hands, Remian asked Kyle.
“Elden… Did you see Prince Elden?”
“Pardon?”
“Was Prince Elden not there?”
“That is… Why…?”
“Answer the question I asked.”
Kyle, who thought the Grand Duchess would be pleased and that he would receive the highest score, having snatched the Emblem and rushed back as soon as the Wild Big Boar fell, faced an unexpectedly furious Grand Duchess instead.
“Uh, he wasn’t there, but…?”
Remian sighed.
Her grip on the Emblem tightened.
Just thinking about it made her seethe with rage, a villainess who had even confessed her feelings to him.
It was humiliating not to bring up the rising nausea she felt from using the last resort she had never wanted to use.
Yet, what was Elden Rapellion doing out there?
She was furious.
She was humiliated.
She had gone so far as to make a confession she didn’t mean, just to motivate him.
She had even sought out Lady Ariel herself.
But yet again, it failed.
It was unclear whether Elden had tried and failed, or hadn’t tried at all, but she felt it was more likely the latter.
He hadn’t even shown up there, which meant he might as well have rejected her confession.
She trembled with rage.
Her face burned with shame.
She had believed it would surely succeed.
She had promised victory, expecting him to do his best this time.
He had to.
The desperate measure of motivation had to succeed to show Elden how terrifying the game of death could be.
What could it be?
Why did it always end in failure?
Her insides churned with rage, feeling like she might vomit any moment despite having written the confession note, only to end up the butt of repeated failures.
Was the grand premise flawed?
Had he really abstained from the contest out of a desire for repentance?
That couldn’t be.
It just couldn’t.
“Your Highness…? Then I won the second evaluation…”
“Shut up.”
Without realizing, harsh words escaped her as Kyle cautiously spoke.
Her mind was too clouded to think rationally.
She had used the tradition and sacred festival of the engagement battle for personal vengeance.
It absolutely had to succeed, yet that one snake, Elden, kept elusively slipping away.
And then.
“…!”
Elden, walking along the forest path back to the starting point, appeared.
Naively chewing on a fruit.
His very presence was irritating.
His appearance was unbearably aggravating.
Trembling.
She wanted to slap his face right then, but restraining herself by grinding her teeth, Remian realized that her intense emotion was similar to how Deron and his group had looked at her for the past three years.
Eventually.
Crack!
She threw the Emblem brought by Kyle to the ground, turning around to start descending the mountain.
The Emblem hit a rock and shattered.
Like the fractures forming in Remian’s beliefs.
Then, belatedly returning to the starting point, Elden bit into his fruit and asked from behind the frozen Deron and Blund.
“What’s going on? The mood seems off.”
Crunch, crunch.
Elden every time remian plans a trap
” Not interested!”