[V7C19] If I Could Hate Him From The Bottom of My Heart
Translated by Jodas 7: To the North“I don’t think you have to go to Darwock, Wren.”
Tia said that the day after Wren saw Kevin off at the gates.
All three students of Hütter’s class, including Wren, had gone off to do their own things during their afternoon individual lesson block.
Tia went to the Management Office to practice with the Magical Flying Device and learn choral magic. Sevil trained with her magic sword at the Protection Office as usual.
Wren studied and did research at the Library and Management Offices. He’d been getting along nicely with his inscription magic practice, and lately he was interested in looking into an offshoot of that: learning how to make grimoires.
Thus, they spent their afternoons doing different things until evening came. Then, before it was time for dinner, they gathered each day in the gazebo in the garden.
It was there that Tia brought up that statement.
Without chirping ‘piyo-piyo’ as she normally did, in a quiet voice, she stated that Wren did not have to go to Darwock.
Wren tried to decipher the intent behind Tia’s words.
He doubted that she was trying to say ‘Wren, you’ll drag us down, so I don’t think you should come.’
“Are you saying that I have no reason to go to Darwock?”
“Yeah. I want to meet my sister, and Sevil, um…”
Sevil finished Tia’s sentence.
“I am going so that I can put the Wedge Tower and Prince Axel in my debt.”
“Yeah, that. Me and Sevil have reasons to go, but you don’t, right Wren?”
“Hm…” Wren grunted.
Tia was right. Especially considering that the Darwock Royal Palace was currently occupied by Monsters. In such an extremely dangerous situation, was there really any benefit to Wren going to Darwock?
Nevertheless, Wren already knew his answer.
“I’m going to Darwock.”
Tia made a confused expression. ‘Why?’ Her face asked.
Sevil said nothing. She only folded her arms and stared at Wren as if testing him.
Wren tried to voice the feelings he had yet to get a handle on himself one-by-one.
“I feel like I want to help you guys. But, it’s not just that… How do I put it? In the end, it’s for my own sake. In order to be the best pretty boy I can be, I need to go to Darwock.”
Piyo? Tia cocked her head to the side.
“Aren’t you already a pretty boy?”
“To continue aiming ever higher is the essence of a pretty boy, you know.”
Staying behind at the Wedge Tower and getting in more studying wasn’t a bad choice at all.
But Wren wanted to take another step forward.
He’d started his whole pretty boy act because he wanted to tell his Mom ‘I’m so happy because I was born with good looks just like you!’ But now he felt like he wanted to refine himself even more.
He wanted to be beautiful in a way that looks alone could not achieve. The kind of beauty that emerged only when he was overflowing with life. Or something like that, it was hard to put into words.
‘What the hell does overflowing with life mean?’ Wren asked himself snidely before he continued to speak.
“Basically, in order for me to become the Best Most Awesomest Strongest Pretty Boy out there, I’m going to Darwock! Got it?”
Tia’s mouth made a diamond shape and she chirped “Piroron?”
Then, with a childish expression, she echoed.
“The-best-most-awesomest-strongest-pretty-boy-out-there.”
“Don’t repeat that! I was just thinking to myself ‘Wow, that was a crap way to say that!’ you know!”
All of a sudden, Sevil broke her silence and laughed. Not to make fun of him, but in genuine enjoyment.
“Excellent, Wren! With that spirit, you’ll become the ideal pretty boy you seek for certain!”
“You don’t have to tell me; of course I will! By the way, Sevil…”
Wren narrowed his eyes and voiced a concern that had been bothering him for some time.
“When we do this operation to retake Darwock… You aren’t planning anything, are you?”
“Oh? What is this ‘anything’ of which you speak? Please, tell me.”
“You know, like killing the King of Darwock and taking over the country or something…”
Sevil blinked a couple times, then pretended to take the idea into serious consideration.
“Hm… That wouldn’t be such a bad Idea… But, I refuse. Darwock is far too cold for me.”
Sevil had claimed that her reasoning for going to Darwock was to put the Wedge Tower and Prince Axel in her debt. However, Wren wondered if that was all there was to it.
Even though Sevil preferred things to be as simple and clear as possible, every once in a while she her thoughts would be incredibly hard to follow.
That was most likely because Sevil was the Emperor’s sister, and she had to consider a world of power struggles that Wren had no way of figuring out.
Seemingly catching on to Wren’s concerns, Sevil smiled faintly.
“The Krewing name is far more of a burden than you might realize. This entire incident occurred in part because I hold the Krewing name. Therefore, I cannot overlook it.”
Tia chirped “Piroro?” as she looked at the sky, trying to recall the contents of their lesson.
“The Krewing name is that thing you get from the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy… right? Piroro… If you don’t have that name, you can’t be Emperor…”
“Indeed. For a child to bear this name is proof that they have been acknowledged by the Emperor.”
A thought struck Wren that he just had to ask about.
It wasn’t an enjoyable thing to talk about, but he reckoned it would be better to ask it sooner rather than later.
“By the way, when a member of the Imperial Family has the Krewing name, that means they have political value, right? … I know that’s not a nice way of putting it, but…”
“No need to fret. I am aware myself that I possess more than just political value.”
“Then, why were you always sent to the frontlines in the South, Sevil? It kinda feels like the Black Lion Emperor doesn’t treat you with a lot of respect…”
“It was not my brother who gave me the Krewing name. It was the previous Emperor, which is to say: my father. My father adored me.”
So Sevil had been acknowledged by her father, the previous Emperor.
That sort of information on the Imperial Family was incredibly complicated and, even though Wren had tried to look some of it up on his own, he had trouble wrapping his head around it all.
Mostly because the previous Emperor couldn’t stop himself from laying hands on any woman he saw.
“Tia, I’ve spoken of this to you before, yes? That you have the right to refuse love that’s offered to you.”
Wren had never heard of that. That said, he had a rough idea of when that conversation must have taken place.
Tia had once been captured by that girl by the name of Fiene.
Fiene most likely held an innocent, carefree love for Tia, but Tia hated Fiene.
Therefore, Tia came to despise the word ‘friends’ that often came out of Fiene’s mouth. A while ago, when Julius offered to be her ‘friend,’ she flew into a rage and jumped at him.
In a quiet voice, Sevil addressed both Wren and Tia.
“A princess who has earned the love of the Emperor — Would you suppose such a person is happy?”
Wren thought for a moment.
To be a princess, beloved by the Emperor’s most powerful man. Just about anyone would want such a position.
However, laying beneath the title of favored princess was a fierce battle for power.
“I’m sure she would appear happy to everyone around her. Some may say that it was the greatest joy a woman could possibly possess… But my mother and I were not happy.”
Sevil’s mother was the princess of a tribe from the Northern part of the grassland nation of Torgai that had been subjugated by the Empire. In a sense, she was a hostage to keep the peace. She must have been in a difficult position, not even mentioning the fact that she had to compete with all of the established, domestic nobility.
“Without a doubt, my mother was beloved. However, unable to ride a horse across the plains nor to swing her sword freely ever again, she was trapped in the gilded cage they call the Palace and forced to comfort my father every day.”
Suddenly, Wren noticed something. Sevil’s fist, resting on her lap, was clenched to the point her knuckles had turned white.
Veins bulged out of the back of her hand.
“When I was young, someone who envied my mother’s position as favored consort poisoned her to death. However…”
Her whispering voice dropped lower.
“My mother knew that there was poison in the glass to begin with. She knew, and yet she drank the whole thing regardless.”
Rage emanated from Sevil’s voice.
Rage towards an unreasonable situation and feeling of helplessness that she was powerless to change.
“My mother was not even allowed to die on the battlefield.”
Wren could not understand that way of thinking.
After all, Wren hated fighting. He did not think there was any honor in dying on the battlefield.
But Sevil must have seen it as the greatest way of life.
“My father loved me. That was why he granted me the Krewing name; but that love did not make me happy.”
He knew nothing of the honor of dying on a battlefield. But, Wren knew very well that a deep love had the potential to hurt someone.
Such was the case with Wren’s parents. His father had once loved his mother.
As such, his mother’s freedom was stolen away from him, and she suffered under the envy and violence of the legal wife. At the same time, while he had not even the slightest bit of sympathy for the legal wife, he understood that she too suffered.
As Wren fell silent, Tia softly asked:
“…Sevil, do you love your dad? Do you hate him?”
Sevil smiled.
Not her usual, energetic smile, but more of a conflicted smile with her brows drawn closer.
“If only I could hate him from the bottom of my heart, things would have been a lot easier.”