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Chapter 94 – Could It Be That I Have To Play The Villain?
“…What do you mean? You just need to grow one more. Here, take another one.”
“….”
Contrary to how she had been trading confidently a moment ago, when Bella looked sullen, the merchant felt a little sorry.
‘Don’t say it’s really withered…’
“I will raise it until my original wish comes true.”
She sighed and laughed at those words. It was not like buying a lottery ticket until she won the lottery.
‘Yes, a cactus is not a god.’
* * *
Leaving behind the momentary uneasiness, Bella thought about how to present the cactus to Kiehl.
‘…I’m sure he’ll like it a lot, right?’
Ever since he was little, the bet had always been to ‘grant wishes.’ She used to say, ‘If you do this, your wish will come true.’ If you lay down right after eating, you would become a cow. It was so cute that he tried to not lie down.
She was on her way back to her room, imagining Kiehl’s favorite face.
Several of the ladies who followed Bella were walking and laughing among themselves. Even though she normally ignored them or turned around a bit and tried not to run into them, the excited Bella even greeted them first.
“Oh, I guess everyone is doing well?”
“Ah… oh! Lady, Lady Bella.”
And it wasn’t just Bella that she was different from usual. Usually, they approached her before Bella even greeted them before pouring out all sorts of mouth-watering rhetoric. However, somehow they were tense and stiff today.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“The first round of context is about the Fire Kingdom.”
“Ah… I see.”
What kind of answer was that that had nothing to do with the question? Bella walked past them without asking more.
“Does it look like there’s something wrong with her?”
“I know, right? She looks like someone caught doing something bad.”
“Did she curse at me?”
However, when she turned around the end of the hallway, she immediately knew what the ladies were up to.
“Oh my. Miss Rosanne, are you okay?”
Rosanne sat on the floor and glanced up at Bella as she touched her bruised leg.
“Ah…”
Not only that her clothes and hair were tousled, but tears were visible on her white cheeks. Anyone could see that she was bullied.
“I’m sorry, Lady Bella.”
…What was she sorry about?
Rosanne hurriedly rose to her feet and tried to step aside but tripped again, perhaps twisting her ankle.
‘Since Shuria is not here, the small fry villains must be harassing her.’
Bella hated Rosanne.
Even when she read the novel, she was frustrated, and when she first met Rosanne as a cat, she attacked Rosanne for no reason… why didn’t this uncomfortable feeling go away when she saw the child like this?
‘…She’s someone Kiehl likes, so I should be nice to her.’
She held out the cactus from her hand to Rosanne.
“Take this.”
“…Yes?”
As Rosanne accidentally accepted the cactus, Bella walked past her.
‘My wish won’t come true anyway.’
So, let’s just give the cactuses to the two main characters. Meanwhile, Jenkins asked in surprise as Bella walked along in silence.
“Why does Miss do good?”
“What did you say again?”
Bella didn’t even glare at Jenkins, she simply responded by slamming the door.
“Anyway, the temper…”
* * *
No one knew, but there was a rat in the imperial palace.
Juan Cruelle, under the name ‘Ian,’ said he would live as Rosanne’s escort.
He was looking for an opportunity to meet Bella separately, moving as little as possible from her party. Then, suddenly, as before, when he saw Rosanne being bullied by someone, even as he was chasing after Bella, he had to stop.
“Mi… Miss, are you hurt again?”
“Is Mister Ian frustrated with me, too?”
Juan flinched for a moment.
If he said he wasn’t frustrated, he would be lying. As for Rosanne, she had no greed for a County’s daughter, and she couldn’t even refute it. His own cousin even threw her brother into a pit in the mountain.
He asked questions instead of answers.
“What is that in your hand?”
“Lady Bellatrice gave it to me.”
Rosanne laughed bashfully like a puppy.
“I guess the Lady doesn’t hate me.”
Every time she secretly met Kiehl at night, he would ask about Bella.
— “So you didn’t even talk to Bella?”
— “Huh?”
— “…Ugh. I see.”
Perhaps he hadn’t expected it, Kiehl sighed and his heart skipped a beat every time. Rosanne wondered if she would have something to say to him now that she had got to know him a little better. She smiled hopefully as she thought about that.
On the other hand, Juan was puzzled.
The people who bullied Rosanne belonged to Bella’s faction. In a way, could she receive and like what the person who bullied her gave her without any doubt?
‘…Is she nice or stupid?’
For him, of course, it didn’t matter if she was nice or stupid. In the first place, thanks to that, he was able to get into the imperial palace.
“It’s fortunate, I didn’t want to be hated by Lady Bella.”
“Is that so?”
“Even though I wanted to become friends, I rarely had a chance.”
Rosanne was his lifesaver. Juan wanted to help the innocent young lady a little, so he gave some hints.
“If you want to get close, talk about things you have in common.”
“Things we have in common…?”
Then, Juan pondered.
‘Come to think of it, that lady really liked Shuria.’
If he looked for Bella at the Cruelle Family, she was either sparring with Shuria or taking classes where Kiehl was.
“By any chance, lady, do you know how to use a sword?”
“Sw-sw, sword?”
Rosanne was a completely different person from Shuria from top to bottom.
Ian had been watching this contest from afar. The reason why he wanted to talk to Bella but couldn’t was because there were too many ladies around her. Seeing that she was also rumored to be a ‘dating coach,’ it seemed better to take advantage of it.
“Looking at it, it seems that that lady is so good at counseling.”
“Counseling?”
“Yes. Love counseling.”
Unaware that it was all advice from Iwer, Juan confidently held out the card to Rosanne.
* * *
Bella thought of an excuse to meet Kiehl after a long absence. Since he seemed to meet Rosanne at night, how could she confidently enter the Prince’s room during the day?
‘Hmm… There is none.’
Although she could sneak as a cat, it was difficult to carry a cactus.
‘Should I tell Pur to take it?’
Since she was a pet bear, perhaps she could walk around a bit.
At that time, Rosanne, who shared a room with her, opened the door carefully and came in. In fact, the simplest method was right in front of her eyes. If she told Rosanne to hand it over, she would.
‘…I don’t like that for some reason.’
As usual, she just wanted to sleep without saying anything. After receiving the cactus, Rosanne mustered up the courage to talk to Bella.
“Thank you for the gift.”
“There are instructions on how to grow it under the pot. They said that wishes come true when flowers bloom, so grow them well.”
Bella was going to end the conversation like this.
“A wish… Lady, I actually have a problem.”
If possible, she just didn’t want to run into Rosanne since she didn’t like to mix things up. Still, she asked, holding back from being annoyed for no reason.
“What is it?”
Maybe it was because people were bothering her. Like those ladies earlier, there must be many people who did tricks without Bella’s knowledge.
However, the words that came out of Rosanne’s mouth…
“I-I have someone I like…”
…It kept pissing off Bella.
‘Ah. You need love counseling, too.’
Rosanne cautiously spoke to Bella.
“Because there is so little chance of it going well…”
‘Shut up.’
Bella got these words up to the brim of her throat.
“…It would be better to give up for such a person, right?”
“Miss Rosanne will be fine.”
Annoying voice…
Bella’s attitude of not wanting to hear more made it even more awkward between the two.
“I’m a little tired today, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
The morning that day, Bella also woke up last night having strange dreams.
‘This is driving me crazy…’
She wasn’t even a pervert.
‘Why do you keep dreaming like this?’
Lately, she kept dreaming of kissing Kiehl. It was always the same dream… a dream in which Kiehl approached her in the dark.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see Kiehl’s face if I keep doing this.’
Not that she could control her dreams.
As she sighed to herself, Bella turned her head slightly. Like always, Rosanne’s bed was empty every night.
‘What is it. What does she mean there’s no chance of things going well?’
Even when she said that, every night, she would go out to enjoy a love affair with Kiehl. If not teasing, what was it?
‘…I’m embarrassed, really.’
Bella knew, too, how nasty was this heart.
‘Stop thinking, I don’t have to be the villain.’
With a sigh of relief, Bella put her hand under her pillow to look for her cell phone in habit.
‘If I hate Rosanne, Kiehl will hate me…’
When her phone was out of reach, she just buried her face in the pillow.
‘…I won’t have to play the role of Shuria.’
* * *
Kiehl glanced out of his window and didn’t take his eyes off the little movements.
‘She said she’s coming for revenge.’
Even though he had been waiting since the first day of the banquet, somehow, Bella never came. Since there were about a hundred young ladies invited to the imperial palace to contest, so while he wanted to go see her, he couldn’t because he was afraid that if Rohan found out, he might mess things up.
Although he saw Rosanne at dawn, he rarely heard about Bella from her.
“Your Highness Kiehl.”
He then heard Rio’s voice. However, his report was not quite satisfactory.
“There seems to be a group of people harassing Rosanne lately.”
“….”
Why was he bringing up Rosanne first?
“She didn’t tell me anything?”
“Of course, she can’t tell you because she’s scared.”
“So, she doesn’t want to do anything?”
“No, I didn’t say anything like that…”
“It’s fine then.”
Rio felt like seeing Kiehl on the holy relic trip after a long time.
“Aren’t you curious who bullied her?”
“Well, it must be Marianne Merken. It must be the ladies who I don’t know their name or something.”
“I think you should be curious.”
Saying so, Rio turned the paper over and showed Kiehl the side written in bold letters.
“Bellatrice Cruelle.”
Kiehl blinked and looked at Rio.
‘My cat is wayward, but not a bad cat.’
‘Don’t tell me she was going to replace Shuria Cruelle as per the note.’