The Lion and the Royal Princess - Chapter 1

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1. 1. She’s Back

“Princess!”

The lady-in-waiting hastily knocked on the carriage window from outside.

Adelaine leisurely unlocked the latch from inside the door. The lady-in-waiting’s face, visible through the open door, was pale with tension. She must have been resentful as she had to run errands like buying newspapers with the current situation of the constant threat of assassins.

“Here…”

The lady-in-waiting handed over a bundle of newspaper with her trembling hands.

The lady-in-waiting, who appeared ten years younger than Adelaine, was the only surviving member of the six attendants from Marma and departing from Nova. The rest had already perished before crossing the border.

Perhaps due to that, Adelaine had a strange belief that this lady-in-waiting would not die. There were humans in this world who were born with more persistent lives. When someone tried to kill them, the arrow of death often turned and pierced the throat of the one attempting the killing.

Like herself.

“Tell them to depart.”

 Adelaine gave her command and opened the newspaper. The lady-in-waiting quickly climbed onto the carriage and signaled through the window. Soon, the hooves of several horses echoed loudly. For a while since then, there has been only heavy silence in the carriage.

It was a hurried departure from a shabby inn, without even being able to sleep properly. As the extreme tension was repeated, everyone’s faces were colored with fatigue.

As time passed, the eyelids of the lady-in-waiting sitting opposite Adelaine began to close little by little.

“Lucky girl…”

She was the one who really wanted to sleep at that moment.

Adelaine unfolded the newspaper and tiny letters caught her eyes. There was nothing better to do to pass the time. It would be good to know information about the hometown she would return to.

After all, it had been nearly 11 years.

Adelaine took a long, deep breath.

“Hmm…”

Then, she found a totally ridiculous article.

The Fall of The Lady of the Lion King!

Young Lady Tamirren’s Suicide, Discovered in a Gruesome State

“What an extraordinary title.”

The protagonist of the article, Meunier Tamirren, was the Lion King Baltica’s fiancee. However, after his unilateral declaration of disengagement, she succumbed to the weight of shattered dignity, trampled affection, and the decline of her noble family, ending her life.

Of course, there was an extremely dry criticism that the Lion King, who must have heard the news, did not even offer his condolences.

The Lion King, huh? How extraordinary a man must he be to cause such a commotion?

Adelaine sneered. The same went for this woman. Dying just because her love did not go as planned, being a noble lady seemed like quite a good job.

Adelaine let out a dry laugh. Either way, it was a ridiculous story.

Marma’s nobles seemed quite bored these days. The whole time she was reading the newspaper, she could only sigh and let out a meaningless smile. It suddenly dawned on her that what she held in her hands was not the familiar ‘Nova Union News’ but rather Marma’s ‘Noble Gazette’.

All that filled the newspaper were other people’s private lives, rumors, and trivial gossip. Adelaine read the articles aloud to herself.

“A body presumed to have fallen from the first tower of the North Temple…”

That was when the lady-in-waiting who had just woken up, blinked her sleepy eyes. Then, she looked at Adelaine’s face, who was concentrating on the newspaper, and asked.

“Your Highness, does it hurt…your pride?”

“What? Pride?”

Adelaine looked at the maid with a bewildered look.

Perhaps because they had faced the brink of death together many times, this young lady-in-waiting occasionally asked questions boldly as if they were friends.

The lady-in-waiting murmured again.

“That’s today’s newspaper.”

Right. It is. I ordered you to buy it as soon as I woke up. So?

Adelaine alternately looked at the lady-in-waiting complex face and the newspaper in her hand, then soon burst into short laughter.

“So, what you’re saying is does it not hurt my pride that the newspaper made the scandal of a mere noblewoman’s affair on the front page instead of me, who is returning to my homeland after eleven years?”

The lady-in-waiting remained silent. However, looking at her gaze that was strangely averted, it seemed that the guess was accurate.

Adelaine shut up for a moment because she did not know what to say.

Outside the window, it had been raining heavily for some time. The rain that had started two days ago continued relentlessly until now, as the capital of MArma, Sol-Marma, had come into sight.

She had been in a bad mood since the morning, as the heavy rain fog outside seemed to have filled her head. Her dress had become heavy due to the humidity and the damp carriage cushion made her feel unpleasant.

However, it was definitely not because the Lion King’s fiancee had committed suicide. There was no way her pride was hurt because she could not become a hot topic. That was such a craziness.

“Is this man that good-looking?”

“Pardon?”

When Adelaine asked, the lady-in-waiting was surprised and asked again. When she realized that the princess in front of her did not know anything about Marma’s situation for the past eleven years, she quickly spoke up.

“Yes! It goes without saying! There is even a saying that every young lady in the capital admires him. Even the palace’s ladies-in-waiting and the women in the downtown…”

“Even if he’s someone like this?”

Adelaine shook the newspaper in her hand a couple of times.

Honestly, she could not call him a good man even with empty words. She disliked kings. Neither the king of Marma, nor the king of Nova, nor this man called the Lion King. not only did he neglect his fiancee’s death, but he even let her death go around with bad rumors. It was not something to easily overlook just because he was good-looking.

“But such a man is rare…”

The lady-in-waiting did not blame the Lion King to the end.

In Adelaine’s eyes, he seemed like the worst person in the world, but she seemed to be the only one who thought that way.

Adelaine glanced at the hazy print of the Lion King’s portrait in the corner of the newspaper.

I guess he’s indeed good-looking.

The printed portrait was blurry so she could not see the details of his face. Still, judging by the sharp jawline and his well-shaped lips, it seemed like he did look nice.

I know a few handsome faces. It would be interesting to compare them side by side.

While she was making such frivolous thoughts, the carriage running in the mud suddenly shook heavily.

 

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