I Was Happy to Be Dumped by My Fiancé, But Something Seems Off - Episode 15

“Argent…”

Watching Argent’s retreating back as he left with the High Priest carrying Bertina, I recalled the first time I had seen him.

For some reason, he had been inside a box on the street with “Please take me” written on it. A very beautiful boy with a neat appearance, silver hair that turned blue at the tips, and strangely colored purple and gold eyes. Even Clarissa, who had been doted on by everyone since childhood, had never seen such a handsome boy and wanted him for herself. That day, she happened to be out shopping with her father Luigi and mother Agnes. Her mother usually avoided the commoner-filled streets, but had come because her father had suggested visiting a café with recommended cakes.

When they left the shop, she saw the beautiful boy and wanted him. Since the sign said “Please take me,” he clearly wanted someone to pick him up. Her father was still inside the shop paying. Only her mother was with her.

“Mother, I want that boy!”

“What is it?”

When her mother looked in the direction Clarissa pointed, she was shocked.

There was a familiar girl next to the handsome boy.

Her cousin—Bertina—with golden hair that turned blue at the tips and large, deep amethyst eyes.

Clarissa disliked her cousin Bertina. Whenever she visited the Annaloro ducal house where her mother’s brother lived, her uncle, aunt, and male cousins all doted on her, only Bertina did not.

She had often seen Bertina trying to attract the attention of her uncle and aunt, who only focused on Clarissa, but they were so engrossed in doting on Clarissa that Bertina was treated harshly and even her male cousins treated her as a nuisance, prioritizing the cute Clarissa. Lately, Bertina had stopped speaking and doing things altogether, and when Clarissa visited, she would shut herself in her room.

Curious about what she was doing, Clarissa peeked into the room and saw Bertina happily playing with dolls with her maid. Wanting to join, Clarissa entered the room but was chased out by Bertina.

Clarissa, who was always treated kindly by others, was bewildered by this first-time experience and gradually became so sad that she couldn’t stop crying. Weeping, she complained to her parents.

Seeing Bertina being scolded and hit by her uncle made Clarissa a little scared. It was because she had cried that Bertina was being reprimanded.

When their eyes met, Bertina whose cheek had been slapped, face contorted as if about to cry, but biting her lip to hold back tears—flinched and trembled, and because of that, Bertina was hit by her aunt too, who thought she was glaring at Clarissa.

Telling herself it wasn’t her fault, that Bertina was the one at fault, Clarissa forced herself not to look at Bertina as she was dragged back to her room.

“I saw him first…!”

After exchanging a few words with the handsome boy, Bertina held out her hand, and he took it without hesitation, letting her lead him away.

Even though her mother comforted her, Clarissa wasn’t happy at all. She had found him first, and she should have been the one to take him home.

When she learned that the boy who became Bertina’s attendant was named Argent, she kept waiting for a chance to call his name, but that day never came. Her feelings for Argent, who was always at Bertina’s side, grew stronger, and she came to hate Bertina for having him serve her.

Thinking that Bertina, now the Crown Prince’s fiancée, didn’t need Argent, Clarissa told her mother she wanted him.

“I can’t make someone of unknown origins your attendant. Since I’m like this, it would be useless to ask your uncle too,” her mother flatly refused. Still, Clarissa kept begging without giving up, and her relenting mother spoke to her uncle. But he shared the same opinion as her mother initially and rejected the request.

“I thought I could finally be with Argent.”

Even after her engagement was broken off and her family abandoned her, Argent wouldn’t leave Bertina. He wouldn’t come to Clarissa.

After all, the Crown Prince’s affection truly lay with Bertina, and she had to make him realize he didn’t need Argent.

“…That’s right.”

Riet surely hadn’t told anyone.

It was known that the girl who saved him from drowning in the lake was his first love. But aside from Clarissa, whom he had confided in, no one knew that person was Bertina.

It was unclear how she had saved the drowning Riet from the lake, but Bertina was the only girl with golden hair that turned blue at the tips.

If Bertina knew she was Riet’s first love, she would surely let go of Argent. No matter if she called him a pet or whatever, if she were loved by Riet, she wouldn’t need a pet anymore.

“Bertina, dear sister… Since you have His Highness the Crown Prince, I’ll take Argent for myself.”

—A chilling sensation ran down the backs of Argent and Bertina as they arrived at the cathedral, and both shuddered simultaneously.

“What’s wrong?” Inanna asked.

“No! I just had a very unpleasant feeling.”

“…I hope nothing too bad happens.”

Even when she asked if the immortal High Priest, who could use the same magic as the demon Argent, was actually a demon, he denied it. Using Inanna’s teleportation magic, they instantly moved to the cathedral and were shown to the High Priest’s room. Healing Bertina’s red, swollen cheek was the priority, so Argent healed it with magic. He seemed quite bothered by his delayed reaction that led to her being hit, but Bertina’s reaction had been delayed too. She couldn’t bring herself to blame Argent.

Once her cheek returned to normal, she felt grateful for the greatness of magic, but also wondered about the “charm” Inanna had mentioned when they left the ducal mansion.

“Earlier, you said it was Auntie, not Clarissa, who has the charm?”

“That’s right! I was absolutely sure Clarissa-chan was using a power of charm to manipulate everyone around her.”

Charm, as the word implied, was the power to charm others. How was it different from Maria’s Beloved? With Maria’s Beloved, even if charmed, others wouldn’t harbor malice. They would simply love the Beloved and protect them from anything that stood in their way. In simple terms, it was ultra-overprotective. Countries loved by the Beloved would prosper, and people would become happy.

In contrast, charm also made others love the user, but the difference lay in manipulation. It didn’t just prevent malice, it could intentionally direct malice and make others scheme against targets.

“If Auntie has charm, then the users are Father and Mother, and also Duke Moldio. Who else?”

“If anyone else, maybe the royal family? Like that Crown Prince, for instance.”

“The twisted boy doesn’t seem to be under charm. Then maybe His Majesty around there.”

She couldn’t say for sure about the Queen, but the King knew about and permitted both the matter of making Clarissa the Annaloro family’s adopted daughter and sending Bertina to the convent.

“What does Auntie want to do using charm? Is her goal to make Clarissa her adopted daughter? Or…”

“Or?” Inanna prompted.

“Or the royal family’s plans and Auntie’s schemes align.”

Ever since the King, back when he was Crown Prince, abruptly broke off his engagement with his ducal fiancée, her family had been watching intently, aiming to seize the royal family’s power. Bertina of the Annaloro ducal house was chosen as Crown Prince Riet’s fiancée to keep that family in check.

But if Clarissa of the Moldio ducal house became the Annaloro family’s adopted daughter and became Riet’s new fiancée, the royal family could gain the support of both the Moldio and Annaloro ducal houses. Riet’s position would become unshakable, and the noble factions supporting the Second Prince would be unable to oppose.

No one cared about Bertina, who had worked hard for years to become Crown Princess. Riet’s strange fixation was only because he doubted whether Clarissa could handle the role of Crown Princess. The thought that he wanted to keep Bertina around just as a replacement made her blood boil. He rejected Bertina when she tried to reach out, and now that he needed her, he was trying to catch her as she tried to escape. He was selfish beyond reason.

“Wasn’t that Crown Prince supposed to have a first love?”

“He does. A noble young lady who saved His Highness when he went incognito to play at the lake and nearly drowned. It seems they still haven’t figured out which young lady it was.”

Bertina had heard the story many times and wasn’t particularly interested. From their first meeting, Riet had disliked Bertina for being unable to be with his first love and being forced into a political marriage with him, so there was no way he would share the details with her.

“Back then, you and I pretended to be twins and played a lot, right?”

“Those were nostalgic times. Argent, you got so into it, becoming a girl who looked just like me. Weren’t you resistant to wearing dresses?”

“We weren’t that different in height, and you looked so happy, so I went along with it.”

Since they were pretending to be twins, Argent was instructed to match his hair color to Bertina’s, so he changed his own hair to golden with blue-tipped ends like hers. He didn’t change his eye color, but with just the hair, he looked similar to Bertina, and the two of them frolicked about.

“Oh, Argent, why don’t you try cross-dressing in front of Clarissa? She’d probably be disillusioned and stop obsessing over you.”

“Let’s think of another way, without the cross-dressing. Besides, there aren’t any girls this tall.”

“You are tall, but you’re the slender type, so I think you could actually pull it off.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Oh well.”

“Yeah, give up.”

If he didn’t want to, she wouldn’t force him.

Returning to the topic, even though they understood the royal family’s and her father’s goals, another mystery had arisen.

“I wonder if Duke Moldio is really okay with this. That man dotes on Clarissa so much.”

“It’s possible Duke Moldio is also under the wife’s charm. If she told him it was for the royal family, for the country, he might accept it.”

Argent’s words made some sense, so she asked Inanna if there was any way to break Agnes’s charm. Inanna, who had been listening to their conversation with interest, shook her head gently and said that if it was for the country’s sake, she couldn’t recommend breaking it.

“Probably, Agnes-chan’s charm has penetrated deep into their subconscious~ If you try to remove it, terrible side effects would occur—at best, they’d become disabled, at worst, they’d die. Crow-kun, aside from being a parent, is competent as a duke, so we need him to remain mentally intact. Luigi-kun too.”

“…”

Told that it was better to just avoid involvement rather than try to break the charm, Bertina bit her lower lip in frustration. She wanted revenge, to make Agnes and Clarissa who had done as they pleased all this time—cry in regret. But if it would greatly affect their mental state, then for the country’s sake, the choice disappeared.

“Then, let’s think about what benefits Auntie would get from making Clarissa the Annaloro family’s adopted daughter.”

“I think my guess is right? Clarissa-chan is the child of Crow-kun and Agnes-chan, siblings, and maybe she wants Clarissa-chan to call Crow-kun ‘Father.'”

“That’s abnormal, absolutely abnormal.”

“In this world, there are all kinds of forms of love that Bertina-chan doesn’t know about.”

It was a kind of love she didn’t want to know.

Just as Bertina let out a sigh, a priest hurried over, whispered to Inanna with a troubled laugh, and informed Bertina that Riet had arrived. How did he even know Bertina was here? The only possibility was that there was a spy in the Annaloro ducal house.

“He probably won’t leave even if we send him away. I’ll meet him. Where is His Highness?”

“Fine, show him in here.”