Chapter 13

The day Leticia left her homeland and headed for the Silver Wolf King Glenreed, Ilius, the third son of the Illegar Duke and son of the kingdom’s prime minister, narrowed his eyes behind his glasses with a look of melancholy.

"Hey, are you listening?! I want to go to His Highness right away?!"

In front of him, the one shouting was Smia, whose chestnut hair had been cut short. On the night when she and Leticia had a minor altercation at the ruins, the part that had been cut off couldn’t be concealed, so she had to cut it all off below her chin.

"Hehe, don’t worry. It’s like a change of mood, you know? Do you think it suits me?"

Smia, who was being charming to her fiancé Fritz, seemed to be quite bothered by her short hair. In front of Ilius, who knew her true nature, she made no effort to hide her displeasure. With a frustrated cry, Smia let out a sigh for the umpteenth time that day.

"It’s your turn to listen, Smia. If you want to meet His Highness, you should remember my teachings and get to work on your assignments."

"I’m already doing it!! Isn’t this enough?!"

"No, it’s not. This answer is too lenient. You need to refine your argument and do it again."

Ilius dismissed Smia’s plea with a single stroke.

Smia’s performance on the assignments he had given her was far from satisfactory. The tasks were about the rituals and education related to the royal family. Although Smia should be able to arrive at the correct answers with careful thought, her lack of concentration meant that her work was completely lacking in form.

"Why has it come to this?" Ilius sighed as he looked at Smia in front of him.

Ilius liked intelligent people and those who tried to become intelligent. That’s why he didn’t dislike Smia when they first met. About three years ago, his father, the Duke of Illegar, introduced him to Smia. He said that they had found a valuable light mage and decided to raise her as the daughter of a baron under the duke’s jurisdiction. Ilius was secretly asked by his father to educate her and turn her into a useful pawn.

Smia was a girl who couldn’t bear the poor life of a commoner and accepted the role of a baron’s daughter. Because of this, she was full of ambition and a desire to learn, making her an excellent student. From a state where she couldn’t even read or write, she managed to become a proper noble lady in about two years, thanks to her efforts and talent.

(But, why is she like this now...?)

With a bittersweet feeling, Ilius looked at the current Smia. He had intended to teach her the basic etiquette and education of a noble, but it seemed he had only taught her the surface level. The deeper aspects of a noble’s mindset and pride were never imparted to her.

The turning point for Smia was probably when she began to gain the favor of Crown Prince Fritz. A former commoner girl had transformed into a noble and even captured the heart of the crown prince. It was the perfect situation to inflate her self-esteem. Smia became increasingly arrogant, and the ambition and diligence she once had were lost.

As she grew arrogant, her anxiety about Leticia, who could threaten her position, also increased. This led to her lying to Fritz that "Leticia pushed her down the stairs" and the scandalous annulment of their engagement. It also led to her summoning Leticia in the middle of the night and making unreasonable demands.

These two major blunders, which far exceeded the norms of a noble and disrupted the national politics, earned Smia and her supervisor Ilius the severe wrath of Duke Illegar. Ilius’s role was to secure Smia’s position as the crown princess and ensure she didn’t make any mistakes afterward. Therefore, he was ordered to re-teach Smia the manners of a noble, and that’s why he was conducting these lessons.

While watching Smia struggle with her assignments and grumble, Ilius’s heart was conflicted.

Leticia, who was leaving the capital today. They met two years ago when she entered the academy.

In the entrance exam of the academy, Leticia had scored one point higher than Ilius, becoming the top student. Ilius, who had never expected to be outperformed by a female peer, was shocked.

After that, they often competed academically, and naturally, they saw each other more frequently. Leticia, with her overwhelming smile and the status of a duke’s daughter, and her beautiful but cold and hard eyes, which were compared to amethyst, was kept at a distance by the other students.

However, Ilius knew. He knew that her eyes would brighten like violets when she solved a difficult problem or when something pleased her.

Leticia, who possessed the intelligence to match a prodigy like himself and had a gentle side hidden in her eyes. It was a waste, he thought, for her to be Fritz’s fiancée.

Fritz, as the crown prince and the duke’s son, had been a companion at the academy. Ilius respected him as the crown prince, but that was all. Fritz’s character, which lacked the ambition to face his weaknesses and only harbored jealousy, lacked the charm of a ruler.

It was a waste for Leticia to marry an ordinary Fritz who had only become the crown prince by chance. Perhaps that’s why, when his father asked him a year ago to help Smia get close to Fritz and become his fiancée, he accepted it with some hesitation.

The original plan was to gradually make Smia and Fritz’s relationship known to the public, gain allies, and gently persuade Leticia to give up her position as the crown prince’s fiancée over a few years.

What would happen to Leticia after she was no longer the crown prince’s fiancée? Who would she marry next, and whether there was anyone in the country who matched her status. He didn’t think too deeply about these matters.

--- Perhaps, the possibility that Leticia’s new fiancé could be himself, the third son of the Illegar Duke, was a part of his thoughts. Ilius couldn’t deny this now.

"Maybe I’m being punished for such sinister thoughts."

As he muttered, Smia looked at him suspiciously. Ignoring her, Ilius gazed in the direction of the Kingdom of Volvart, where Leticia had gone.

Due to Smia’s reckless actions, the plan had failed, and as a result, he and his father were now at the mercy of the Gramwell Duke. Leticia had been sent far away to a foreign country.

What remained for him was the task of supervising Smia, who had lost her ambition and was now shouting, and protecting the foolish Crown Prince Fritz.

Even though it was his own doing, Ilius pressed his glasses to hide his expression, feeling the loss of Leticia and the burden of the troublesome people left behind.

---

This was a side story about Ilius, known as the "sinister glasses," and the process of Smia’s identity fraud. The main story, which I plan to post today, will return to Leticia’s perspective.