I Was Happy to Be Dumped by My Fiancé, But Something Seems Off - Episode 9

“I was just curious and called out to you. Did something happen?”

“Well, actually…”

I told Inanna about what happened after returning to the mansion. After listening with interest until the end, Inanna posed a question.

“I’ve been wondering since hearing Bertina’s story. Isn’t it that your cousin doesn’t actually intend to become the Crown Princess?”

From Clarissa’s behavior, Bertina agreed with this view. If becoming Crown Princess wasn’t the goal, then what was? Even if it was just to harass Bertina, would she go so far as to team up with Riet?

“The Crown Prince boy woke up a little while ago and went home. When he heard that Bertina had left with the Demon Prince.”

“Is there any meaning in His Highness leaving just because he heard I went home with Argent?”

“He’s desperate! The Crown Prince boy. He’s worried Bertina might be taken by the Demon Prince.”

“?”

Putting aside Inanna’s unclear explanation, I urged her to continue.

“Your cousin is the daughter of the Moldio ducal family, right? Her mother is the sister of Bertina’s father Crow-kun~?”

“That’s correct. They’re still very close siblings even now.”

While it might be acceptable for children, I wondered about fully grown adults being so physically affectionate in front of children. In a way, it was unnatural that Mother said nothing about it. Since long ago, even when Mother Moldio was all over Father, Mother would just watch with an amused smile without saying anything. Even knowing they were close siblings, shouldn’t she question if it was going too far?

“Not just Clarissa’s motives, but His Highness’s intentions are unclear too. Even though he hates lies, is there really a need to tell lies like talking about breaking off the engagement?”

“The Crown Prince boy is desperate. I’m just concerned about another matter, so you should investigate the Crown Prince boy’s true intentions yourself, Bertina.”

“That’s my plan.”

I wouldn’t be satisfied until I properly confirmed it with my own ears.

“Bertina’s cousin, she’s strangely popular with everyone in the Annaloro ducal family except Bertina~ That’s what concerns me.”

“His Highness is one of those people.”

“The Crown Prince boy is just a spoiled brat on the verge of being beyond help~. What’s important to me is Clarissa-chan.”

The Riet that Inanna described was incomprehensible to Bertina, making me worry if she wasn’t mistaking him for someone else. Bertina also agreed to set aside the topic of Riet. Inanna pointed out that the way Clarissa was liked was abnormal.

“The Great Priest mentioned something about Maria’s beloved child?” said Argent.

“That probably isn’t it? Children born to the kingdom’s nobility are without exception examined at the Grand Cathedral. If she were Maria’s beloved child, I would have noticed.”

“Then… hmm… I suppose we have no choice but to investigate.”

“That’s right. Either way, we won’t understand anything unless we investigate.”

Inanna decided to conduct her own investigation and disappeared from the mirror. It was a flashy, somewhat tacky-looking but mysterious mirror. Argent said it was one of the treasures possessed by the Grand Cathedral, mainly by the Great Priest. He said it was similar to the magic demons use.

“For a holy place, it’s similar to magic used by demons, huh.”

“The power used is holy. In fact, when I touched the mirror, my hand burned, remember?”

“That surprised me.”

I wouldn’t let Argent touch it again.

I asked Argent for some tea, and when he left, I sat down in a soft-material chair. We had been standing while talking until then, so my legs were a bit tired.

If it was Argent, he would bring cookies along with the tea even without me specifically asking.

I had bitter memories associated with cookies.

After the queen education ended, the Queen, concerned about Bertina being depressed over Riet’s stubborn attitude, taught her about Riet’s favorite cookies and helped her make freshly baked cookies together with the castle chefs.

Mustering her courage, Bertina offered the cookies to Riet but without even turning around, he just gestured with his hand saying he didn’t need them and went to the training grounds.

“From that moment on, I realized that no matter how much the Queen tried to be considerate or how much I tried to reach out, His Highness would never open his heart.”

Bertina gave up. Even if they couldn’t love each other, she resolved to become a couple who would respect and trust one another.

After that, no matter how much the Queen tried to be considerate or others tried to read the situation, she completely cut off anything related to Riet. After queen education ended, she stopped going to see Riet and went straight home with Argent. Even when the Queen gave her delicious cookies, she would eat them with Argent instead of Riet. When she read popular novels heard about from friendly maids, she would share her impressions with Argent instead of Riet. To have topics to talk about and spend even a little time together with Riet, she had read many books without regard to genre. Even during tea days where Bertina did all the talking, she used to often share impressions of books she finished reading, but she stopped saying anything.

They would drink tea in silence and continue reading books they brought. Even when receiving piercing stares from ahead, Bertina, who by then expected nothing from Riet, simply waited for time to pass.

When the end time came, she would just take Argent and return early to the Annaloro ducal mansion.

Come to think of it, that was around the time when even Riet began doting on Clarissa. Not that Bertina did anything about it – her expectation that the engagement would eventually be canceled or dissolved greatly increased, and she had long been waiting for that day to come.

Even though she had been waiting, the possibility of Riet and Clarissa’s lie emerged. A very significant possibility.

“Exhausting people.”

“Then, let’s drink tea and take a break.”

Argent returned with a tea set on a cart. As the gorgeous aroma wafted from the teapot, I relaxed my cheeks when there was a hesitant knock. When I allowed entry, it was my brother Bianco. He was holding a cookie tin.

“Something?”

“Ah, yes! It’s a souvenir for Bertina that we all bought at the sweets shop we went to today. You like cookies, right?”

Huh? I tilted my head slightly internally. I had no memory of ever telling my brother that I liked cookies. Accepting the offered cookie tin, I stared at the familiar-looking tin for a while. Then Bertina smoothly handed the cookie tin to Argent.

“You can have it.”

“Wh-what, Bertina!”

“I don’t know who told you I like cookies, but it’s not like I like everything. It seems the cookies you gave me have blueberries mixed in, but I absolutely won’t eat them because I hate blueberries.”

“Eh…!”

It seemed he knew I liked cookies but didn’t know I hated blueberries. Even when I spoke to the frozen Bianco, he didn’t move, probably from shock. When I signaled to Argent to kick him out while he wasn’t moving, Bianco regained consciousness and fled from Argent.

Without hiding my annoyance, I glared at him, and though he started making flustered excuses, it didn’t matter to Bertina.

“You’re noisy, please leave.”

“I went through the trouble of buying these because I was thinking of you!”

“I don’t need gifts from my brother. Why don’t you give them to Clarissa, who’s scheduled to become your new sister?”

“Th-that’s exactly why Father and His Highness say you’re not cute!!”

“Then why don’t you tattle to Father and His Highness? Just like the old days.”

“……”

The comment about wishing the Platinum Count’s son was my brother, or when I was made to cry and Father coldly dismissed me. If he had even apologized to Bertina for just one of those things, there might have remained a grain of wheat’s worth of feeling that Bianco was my brother. But reality wasn’t like that. I didn’t consider Bianco my brother. If he wanted to get along with a sister, he could do so with Clarissa.

“Come on, hurry up. Bertina this, Bertina that—”

“Are you… do you hate me that much, Bertina? I…”

“If you ask whether I hate or like you, I hate you. I detest you. I hate it so much it makes me sick to call you brother. So, if you have even a grain of sand’s worth of feeling for me, please leave.”

“…Why… I…”

Was he even listening to what people said? Bianco, despairing at Bertina’s unyielding rejection, began to cry. If this were childhood, he would have gone crying to Mother with a red face and gotten slapped by our parents after they heard what happened. Even as an adult, he remained a pathetic brother who needed our parents to scold him for making his sister cry, which only added to my disgust toward Bianco.

I signaled to Argent to forcibly eject him. Though Argent approached Bianco, when Bianco started speaking while sobbing, Argent refrained from touching him.

“I… I always wanted to get along with Bertina!”

“If you want to get along with a sister, you have Clarissa, don’t you?”

“Clarissa has nothing to do with this, I wanted to get along with my own sister!”

Had there ever been any memory of Bianco reaching out? I thought about it but couldn’t recall any matching memories.

“Ever since I can remember, Father and Mother kept saying Bertina isn’t cute while Clarissa is very cute, how nice it would be if Clarissa were our sister. Because I kept hearing their words, I—”

“Argent, throw him out.”

I had hoped he might say something useful, but it seemed less important than I thought, so I had Argent make him leave. Just as Argent was pushing him out, he put the cookie tin in Bianco’s jacket pocket, locked the door, and turned back.

“Was it okay not to listen to the end?”

“Even if I had listened, he would have just blindly believed their words and continued making fun of me. It’s ridiculous.”

Even though the root cause was our parents, Bianco had been infatuated with Clarissa from the start – with her platinum blonde hair, light blue eyes that evoked protective instincts. Whatever he said now would only sound like excuses, and from Bertina’s perspective, if it wasn’t important information, it wasn’t worth listening to.

“Is Father abnormally fond of Clarissa because she’s the daughter of the Moldio Duchess?”

“His beloved sister’s daughter. That doesn’t seem entirely wrong.”

“Hmm… First, should we investigate the reason for Father’s abnormal fondness of Clarissa? It seems we need to look more closely into the relationship between Father and the Moldio Duchess.”

Even though I couldn’t tell blood-related siblings not to get along, the closeness between those two was abnormal. Especially the Duchess – she was always physically clinging to Father.