NOVPUBErendir’s hands trembled.
Her face had gone pale—like someone who’d just stumbled upon a forbidden truth.
“S-Senior, are you alright?”
“Huh? Oh—yeah. I guess... I might look a little off.”
Erendir barely managed to respond.
Even as she spoke, she could feel something dark and twisting rising up inside her.
To be honest, Erendir was in the throes of a massive (and arguably irrational) sense of betrayal.
You were supposed to be my kindred spirit!
The unspoken cry echoed in her chest, loud and raw.
Rine was sweet, kind... and even pretty.
It wouldn’t be strange for her to have a friend to eat with.
If Erendir couldn’t accept that, it only meant she herself was lacking. That’s what she told herself.
Still... I was planning to tell her about what happened at the Kunst Auction over lunch!
She’d already drafted the whole thing in her head—how to start, what tone to take, where to pause for emphasis.
All she needed now was someone to listen, and yet here she was, foiled before she even got the chance.
Staring at this cruel reality, Erendir looked like she was about to cry.
“S-So, um... Rine?”
“Yes?”
“Th-the person you’re eating with... who is it?”
“Uh, um... well...”
Rine hesitated.
The person she’d made plans with was Freuden Ulburk. But meeting him was supposed to be a secret.
Freuden was a reserved man who tended his private garden in secret, away from prying eyes—and Rine was the only one he’d trusted with that secret.
I’d prefer if you kept this place between us.
That was what Freuden had said the last time they parted.
If she mentioned his name now, she’d be turning into the kind of person who carelessly spread around someone else’s secret.
So Rine clamped her mouth shut.
Erendir, seeing her silence, reeled again.
That sweet, innocent Rine... keeping the identity of her lunch companion a secret?
It’s a guy. It has to be a guy!
Erendir was now absolutely convinced Rine was meeting a man.
It was a snap judgment made in a fit of frustration—but ironically, she was right.
Erendir’s eyes went wide, then she hurriedly composed her expression.
“O-Oh, really? Well, if you're busy, there’s nothing I can do. Hohoho...”
“I’m sorry, Senior. Let’s definitely eat together tomorrow!”
“Of course. And hey, I’m not the kind of petty person who gets upset over something like this, okay? You know that, right? I’m totally fine. Not upset at all.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Just saying~. That’s all.”
“Oh... okay.”
Rine nodded, relieved by Erendir’s cheerful tone.
Thank goodness. She took it well. Must be that royal temperament—so gracious and understanding.
She’d expected a bit of sulking, but Erendir had let it go with surprising ease. As expected of a princess.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Take care.”
Rine gave a polite bow and hurried down the hall, disappearing from view.
The moment Rine was out of sight, Erendir, still waving after her, froze in place as if time had stopped.
Rine is going to have lunch with a guy?
Erendir’s mind raced.
Knowing Rine’s personality, there was no way she had invited someone first. That meant... the guy had approached her.
A scenario instantly formed in her mind.
A wolf-like bastard seduced our innocent little Rine!
Rine had no shortage of admirers.
As a commoner, she was often underestimated by ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) the noble boys—many of whom saw her as easy prey.
Even if Rine tried to keep her distance, she couldn’t possibly deflect all the advances that came her way.
I can’t let this go! I have to step in and protect her!
Justice aside—Rine was Erendir’s first friend at Seorn.
If her friend was about to be led astray, she couldn’t just sit by and watch.
Moving silently, Erendir began to tail Rine.
There!
Rine had just left the main building and was heading toward the park.
The park? That place students always use for secret, scandalous rendezvous!
Erendir had ears, after all—she’d heard the rumors about where couples went to whisper sweet nothings.
Her worst fears seemed to be coming true.
I need to see which shameless bastard it is that dares to touch my junior!
But then Rine veered off, heading into the secluded woods beyond the park.
Erendir panicked. Should she intervene right now and drag Rine back?
No—I can’t!
While she hesitated, Rine disappeared into the trees.
Erendir rushed to follow her trail.
After some time, she stumbled into a small clearing deep in the woods and stopped in her tracks.
There’s a clearing here?
It looked man-made. One corner even had a flowerbed, clearly maintained by someone.
And there was Rine, standing quietly in the center—waiting.
Which meant the person she’d planned to eat with must be nearby.
Where is he?
As Erendir hid behind a tree, scanning the area, a voice came from right behind her.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Startled, Erendir spun around.
When she saw who had spoken, her eyes went wide.
“You’re... Freuden Ulburk?”
“...Third Princess Erendir?”
Freuden Ulburk.
With his cold gaze, he narrowed his eyes at her.
“So it was you sneaking around like a rat. What exactly are you doing here?”
“I should be asking you that. Why are you here?”
“Well...”
Freuden paused, then shook his head.
“I don’t see why I should explain that to you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ah! Senior!”
Apparently hearing their conversation, Rine approached from the clearing.
She stopped when she saw Freuden—then froze again when she spotted Erendir.
“Wait, why is Senior Erendir here?”
She looked back and forth between Freuden and Erendir, visibly confused.
An awkward silence descended over the trio.
* * *
“So, let me get this straight.”
Sitting on a mat spread out in the clearing, Erendir gave Freuden a narrowed stare full of suspicion.
“You’re saying you made this clearing and flowerbed, and Rine is here to have lunch with you?”
“What’s strange about that?”
Freuden replied curtly, picking at the food in his lunchbox.
Stuck between their standoff, Rine didn’t know where to put herself.
As the tension simmered, she cautiously spoke up.
“Um... Senior Erendir, what brings you here, anyway?”
Erendir flinched at the direct question.
She looked away, her voice faltering.
“W-Well, you said you were going to eat... and then you headed to the park, so I got worried...”
“Oh. I see.”
Rine immediately understood why Erendir had followed her.
If someone she knew suddenly went off into the woods for lunch, she probably would’ve done the same.
Just then, Freuden scoffed and replied before Erendir could say anything else.
“What a pathetic excuse. No wonder you have no friends.”
“Wh-What did you say?! Hey! I do have friends! I just... don’t make them on purpose!”
Freuden’s jab hit her where it hurt most. Erendir slammed her palm against the ground in frustration.
That wound hadn’t healed yet—and he’d just torn it wide open.
“Hmph. And what about you, Mr. Ulburk? You—tending some cutesy flowerbed out here? That’s so unlike your usual image, isn’t it?”
Freuden’s face twisted into a deep scowl at her retort.
“...Don’t judge other people’s hobbies.”
“I never would’ve imagined that the cold-blooded wolf had such a girlish hobby.”
“And you, Princess, could stand to acquire at least some feminine interests.”
“What did you just say?!”
The two of them snarled at each other like natural enemies. No matter how you looked at it, they were oil and water.
Freuden shook his head in disbelief.
“This conversation is going nowhere. All we’re doing is exhausting each other.”
“Hmph. Couldn’t agree more. Let’s just go our separate ways.”
“...Then why are you eating the lunch I brought?”
Erendir, who had been helping herself to Freuden’s food for a while now, froze mid-bite.
But instead of retreating, she decided to double down.
“If Rine’s going to eat something, what if it turns out to be awful? As her senior, I was simply testing it for safety.”
Freuden looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
What was she, some kind of royal food taster?
And worse yet, it wasn’t even for a noble. Here was a princess offering to eat on behalf of a commoner student.
Wasn’t that dynamic completely backward?
“This level of obsession is exactly why you don’t have any friends.”
“Wha—!”
Erendir was about to yell, but then caught Rine watching her curiously from the side—and quickly clamped her mouth shut.
“Um... Senior Erendir... is it true you don’t have any other friends?”
“W-What are you saying, Rine?! I—I don’t have friends?!”
“Don’t you?”
“No, you’re right, Rine,” Freuden interjected mercilessly. “Unfortunately, this hopeless Third Princess is indeed someone who’s never managed to make a single friend.”
“You bastard...!”
Erendir glared daggers at him, but Freuden just shrugged indifferently.
Rine, meanwhile, couldn’t quite wrap her head around the situation. Why would someone like Erendir—an imperial princess—not be popular?
Didn’t people normally flock to someone with status?
“You’re wondering why, right? It’s simple. Third Princess Erendir’s situation is entirely because of First Princess Aileen.”
“First Princess...?”
Aileen von Exilion.
Rine recalled how Erendir had warned her before—about how dangerous and terrifying Aileen was.
“What about her?”
“Because her claim to the throne is absolutely unshakable.”
“Let’s stop with the pointless commentary, shall we?” Erendir cut in sharply.
But Freuden had no intention of holding back.
After all, she was an uninvited guest in his private sanctuary—and he wasn’t thrilled about it.
“In most noble households, fights for succession are common. Sometimes they even escalate into full-blown national conflicts.”
Take the northern Yuta Kingdom, for example.
The civil war between the prince and princess factions had torn the entire kingdom apart, leaving countless casualties in its wake.
“But on rare occasions, those disputes don’t happen at all.”
“And when’s that?”
“When there’s an undisputed successor.”
Erendir let out a quiet sigh through her nose.
But she didn’t refute him. Everything he’d said so far was the truth.
“First Princess Aileen is someone whose right to the throne is unquestioned. She possesses everything a ruler should have—arguably too much.”
Freuden remembered the time he had crossed paths with Aileen at a banquet in the imperial palace.
What he’d felt back then was like staring into a vast, bottomless ocean.
Eyes so hollow and unreadable that they felt less human and more like... something else entirely.
“Because of that, everyone else is left in an awkward position.”
Normally, royal succession battles led to the formation of noble factions supporting different heirs.
But when one individual stood so far above the rest, there were no factions—because no one dared bet on anyone but the winner.
With Aileen receiving overwhelming support, the rest of the potential heirs were left in limbo.
Nobles saw no reason to risk backing anyone else.
Pledging loyalty to Aileen was safer, simpler, and more rewarding.
“Of course, even so, being the Third Princess still holds some appeal to ambitious noble families. Marrying into royalty, after all, brings them closer to power.”
“That makes sense.”
“But even that was shut down by the First Princess. For reasons nobody fully understands, she decided not to eliminate her siblings—instead, she embraced them.”
Not only did she refuse to destroy potential rivals—she welcomed them.
If anyone else had done this, it would’ve been called madness.
But since it was Aileen, no one questioned it.
“She’s not embracing anyone,” Erendir said bitterly. “She just needs toys she can play with.”
Freuden didn’t argue.
“In any case, she’s practically the de facto next Empress. There isn’t a single noble bold enough to get on her bad side.”
That was also why Erendir wasn’t treated like royalty at Seorn Academy.
Getting close to the Third Princess might be seen as defiance toward the First Princess—so nobles avoided her completely.
Meanwhile, commoners were too intimidated by her status to approach her.
“Not that she noticed any of this. Back in her first year, she ran all over the place—trying to join clubs, volunteer for things—desperate to make friends.”
“Ugh...”
“I can’t even imagine how awkward that must’ve been for the other students.”
“Grrrgh...”
The more Freuden spoke, the lower Erendir’s head sank.
In the end, the past she’d worked so hard to hide from her junior was being spilled in front of everyone.
The noble Third Princess... was, in truth, a lonely girl with no friends.
She couldn’t even lift her head out of sheer embarrassment.
Seeing her like that, Rine couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy—and tried to redirect the conversation.
“Um, so... was the First Princess always so impressive, even when she was young?”
“Surprisingly, no. There was a time when she stood completely alone—without any support.”
In those days, a few nobles had openly opposed her.
They saw her growing talent as dangerous and plotted to have her removed.
“But all of them disappeared—quietly, without a trace.”
“Disappeared?”
“I don’t know the details myself. It was a long time ago, and it’s been kept tightly under wraps. But among the nobility, there’s an old warning.”
It was then that Erendir, who’d been quietly listening, spoke up.
“Beware the shadow of the First Princess. There’s no place it cannot reach.”
Freuden and Rine turned toward her.
Her expression was faintly clouded with fear.
“If you ever come face-to-face with that shadow... you will not survive.”
“What... is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a taboo among the nobles.”
It might sound ridiculous to outsiders, but among the Empire’s elite, it was treated as undeniable truth.
“It’s why no one dares to oppose my sister.”
