Chapter 173: 173

Before returning to Count Ged’s castle after the uproar. 

“Thank you for moving accordingly and helping me back there.” 

I bowed my head, speaking with sincerity. 

“Uh…” 

“Hm…” 

Even after waiting for a long time, the only thing that came back in return was a vague response. When I looked up, everyone who received my words looked flustered. 

“Did we do something to deserve such a greeting?”  

Merril, who stroked the back of her head frowned and looked at the other Kraidens as if to ask for their opinion. 

“What do you all think?” 

“What do you mean by ‘moving accordingly’ Levy?”  

Even Lidan couldn’t hide his awkward expression as he spoke. The corners of his mouth were up, but the smile looked fiddly. 

“You even used your abilities for me.” 

When I said this, Elizabeth, the very person who used their ability, flinched. I passed my gaze past her and looked up at the other Kraidens, concluding. 

“You helped me in many ways.”  

“How does that entail to the ‘moving accordingly’ part you mentioned?” 

Lidan seemed to care a lot about the expression I’d said while talking. What was wrong with it? I speculated a little but quieted down my thoughts. My next words were spoken calmly; they were the truth. 

“What you did wasn’t required of you.” 

“So you’re saying what we did to him was unnecessary?”  

“Rather than unnecessary…how should I put it? You had no reason to do that except for me. It all ended up happening because of me.” 

“But sister, I was really upset.”  

Lidan nodded at Siaphyl’s words. 

“Yes, my anger was justified, Levy.”  

Why is everyone doing this? I don’t think you’re all acting like this because you don’t know what I mean. 

I said after alternating between Siaphyl and Ridan. 

“Because I took advantage of you all.” 

“You mean to say, Levisia, that you intended for us to act like that, and we fit in right within your expectation?”  

Merril’s theorem was correct, so I nodded. 

“You probably didn’t realize it, but I said what I did back there to provoke you all into acting that way. Of course, I knew and took for granted that you’d take my side.” 

“Of course, that’s how-”  

Lidan spoke up as if he was falsely accused and took a deep breath. Then, surprisingly calm, he continued, 

“Regardless of what you meant to do, Levisia, I was already angry by then. I think I should be praised for not drawing blood on the spot and letting that imbecile go back alive.”  

I recalled Lidan wielding his sword before Roman. At that moment, he truly resembled a ball that didn’t know or care where it is supposed to bounce. 

As he said, it was good that I didn’t need to see blood back there, but is it really something to be praised for? I don’t know about that… 

“You might have paved a path for us, but it was solely our decision to follow that path. But it does bother me a little that we’ve only acted within your expectations, Levisia.”  

It wasn’t until I heard Merril’s words that I realized why they were all so obsessed with the phrase “moving accordingly.” 

They continued speaking to me while I was left speechless. 

“I thought my sister had finally started to believe in us…”  

“It was the first time you spoke up for yourself like that, so I was glad, but now I feel like I’m getting suffocated by my outfit.” 

“Do we look like people you have to strategize into standing up for you?”  

“I’d been wondering when you’d make room for us in your heart, Levy.”  

I didn’t know what to answer to those who spoke in a sad or frustrated tone. 

It was time to just scratch my cheek in embarrassment. Behind them, Cassian, who was feeding Harrol a little distance away, said without looking at this side. 

“You’re the ones who provided the cause, why are you the ones shouting at her?”  

“…….” 

“……?” 

A question seemed to pop up at the top of the Kraidens’ heads all at once. Likewise, I also looked at Cassian with the question mark hanging over my head. 

“What does that mean, brother?”  

Lidan asked with a smile, but no laughter leaked out of his voice.  

As if he’d felt it too, Cassian moved his eyes to Lidan. Their eyes met for a long time in the air. 

Lidan, who was smiling, but not actually smiling, and Cassian, who’d been expressionless from start to finish. It was Aurora who suddenly appeared from behind that broke off the strange confrontation between the two. 

“I think I get what brother Cassian means.”  

“Aurora.”  

There was a strange sense of vigilance in Merril’s call. Feeling the changed atmosphere with Aurora’s appearance, I could soon guess the reason.  

‘Everyone seems to be keeping Aurora in check.’  

It’s the middle of a casual conversation, but no one has forgotten. Aurora is the only one who’s found a way to restore Count Ged’s black land. 

However, whether she felt the atmosphere or whether she did not care about it one bit, Aurora smiled peculiarly with her unique eyes. The deep-set colorful eyes were facing Cassian with clarity. 

“Does brother Cassian also not understand why the 15th princess is so favored?”  

“…….” 

Cassian did not answer and looked down at Aurora. His gaze was silent, but everyone here knew it meant affirmation.  

“I don’t know why yet, so sometimes I wonder…”  

Aurora’s eyes reached mine. At that moment, the scene where she handed me a withered flower in the garden passed through my memory. It was Aurora who was unusually kind to me from our very first meeting; so naturally, she left a good impression on me. 

She’d smiled, saying there was a good reason for everything, and there must surely be a reason why I was here. But now, she looked at me with a measuring look. 

As expected, a Kraiden is a Kraiden.  

It wasn’t a big deal. Because sometimes, I thought that way too. 

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This relationship with them was suspicious from the very start. ‘Why on earth do they want me?’ and ‘Why me?’ There have been countless times when I’ve had these thoughts. The number of times I don’t think about it, I can count on my hands.  

“I kept observing because I thought there’d be something special, but I still haven’t…”  

Aurora frowned as she spoke. As if she was sorry to say these words. 

However, I couldn’t understand her apology, and I had no reason to accept it.  

Siaphyl, Lidan, Elizabeth, and Merril. They found ‘something’ in me and approached me, and they’ve stayed with me since. 

I’m wary because I do not know what they’re up to, these days, that… my vigilance has been somewhat lifted, but that does not mean that I am completely relieved of worry. I know they’ve taken a liking to me, but I still do not know the exact reason they approached me for in the first place.  

And I’d been trying to search for the reason within myself, instead of some external force. However, no matter how much I try, how much I think about it, I can’t understand it, so I keep thinking about it. 

I’m not worth their attention. 

I’d been trying to find a reason for their inexplicable favor, but without my knowledge, I’d been undermining my own existence. 

Was Cassian aware of that? 

I stared at Cassian. He glanced over my face and then spoke to the four Kraidens surrounding me.  

“If you’re going to say such ridiculous stuff, first start telling her exactly why you approached her in the first place.”  

“…….” 

“One of the best things to happen in the world is when another person expresses what they feel good about for no reason. All the more if the good feeling is about you.”  

Before long, Cassian left his position after saying those last words. 

“All this is very ugly to watch from the sidelines.”  

* * * 

Aurora, who said she had found the solution to the problem at the County of Count Ged, said she needed a few days to bring the land back. His majesty gladly gave her the time, and the inspection team stayed a few more days at the count’s castle.  

Everyone wondered how Aurora had found it. But she didn’t tell anyone about her method except for her close confidante.  

Therefore, everyone waited for her with patience. 

Except for one person, Elizabeth. 

She hasn’t said anything to me since Cassian’s advice. About why she’d come to me, what she planned to do in the future – things like that.  

Instead, every day, when she went to the black field, she knocked on the door of my room. It was the same today.  

As soon as Elizabeth knocked, she saw me come out of the room all ready and pursed her lips.  

“You…”  

“Pardon?” 

“No, it’s nothing.”  

Elizabeth’s face seemed a little flushed as she hurriedly turned her head away. I tilted my head in confusion because I couldn’t figure out why. 

I found the reason only after I’d been following after her as she brisk-walked.  

“Why are you just following me without complaining?” 

“……?” 

After a moment of silence, I came up with a perfectly obvious answer. 

“Who can dare to defy your highness’ orders?” 

“What, order?” 

Elizabeth, who stuttered, turned around and looked at me. Her pupils were shaking, which was very uncharacteristic of her. 

“Then, have you been following me all this time because you thought I ordered you to?”  

“…isn’t that so?”  

“You’re not even my servant. Why would I order you-”  

Elizabeth bit her lips and stopped talking for a moment. Then, she said something very contradictory to what she’d said just now. 

“Alright. You can think of it as an official order now, so follow me.”  

She might even have sounded solemn. 

‘Today is strange as well.’  

What Cassian had said before seemed to have affected many people possibly without him realizing it. Unlike Elizabeth, whose face I see every day, it has been three days since Lidan, Siaphyl or Merril have appeared in front of me. 

Maybe they’re also thinking about it in their own way. What they are to me. 

‘So, what is Elizabeth thinking?’ 

I thought as I looked at Elizabeth’s back as she stepped out of the wagon upon our arrival at the field.  

“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to get off?”  

I got up at her urging and got out of the carriage. As soon as she saw me get off, she turned around and started walking. 

Elizabeth was not accompanied by her maid Helga like usual today. 

So in this desolate land, there was only a carriage and a coachman who drove it, Elizabeth and me. Maybe that’s why the blowing wind feels lonelier today. 

“Levisia.”  

I stopped at the sudden call. 

“Yes, your highness.”  

Standing a little further away, Elizabeth looked back at me. Her stare persisted as she tied her fluttering hair with a string she’d brought in advance. 

Her purple eyes seemed to be filled with determination for some reason. When I dared not even guess why, she said, 

“I’ll help you awaken your abilities.”  

“…what?” 

While the dust blowing in the wind was reminding me of a western movie, Elizabeth spoke again,  

“It means I will lead the expression of your ability myself.” 

 

Translator’s note: 

This chapter took me so long mainly because I was stuck with the first conversation. See, Levisia does not simply thank the Kraidens for being nice to her or helping her, she thanks them for “acting according to her will.” basically, for those who got confused, Levisia had directed the uproar and mostly said what she did to Roman because she knew that if the Kraidens knew that she got hurt by his remarks, they would stand up to her. She admits that to the kraidens and they’re like who cares, we would’ve done that anyway. I figured this out and confirmed my doubts after I realised the original sentences had ‘mal’ in them and that’s translated into horse by mtl lol but no, in reality it is a move in korean chess and Levisia was kinda playing chess in that scene by moving people according to her will like pieces of the chessboard (my little schemer ♡)…anyhow. 

CASSIAN MVP OF THE CHAPTER, HE REALLY SAID ‘oh you’re one to talk’ TO THE KRAIDENS AHAHA 

Honestly I’ve been waiting for this moment to come for some time and I hope the pov change didn’t take too much of Levisia away from the readers or anything (but this is how the original iss although I felt a bit strange translating this because you know not what I’d originally expected ashsjd) I know how much Levisia had been hurting all this time inside over the unimportance she felt in herself. How she considered her to be useless and the kraidens are a burden for the most part to her really, hopeful in future chapters we get to see how the Kraidens explain everything to her and stop being shady mfs for once. 

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