Chapter 1
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Chapter 1: I Must Become a Troublemaker (1)
Inside the terrace overlooking a snow-covered garden, a woman with glossy black hair and captivating, beautiful violet eyes sat at a small table.
Having just finished a satisfying meal, she was draped in warm fur and sat before a portable fireplace, savoring a sip of perfectly blended black tea, thoroughly enjoying the winter.
Standing at the boundary between girl and woman, she exuded elegance simply by sitting there.
The maids standing behind her, ready to serve, watched her every move—from lifting the teacup to inhale its scent, to delicately parting her lips to take in and swallow the tea—and quietly marveled at her grace.
However, that tranquility didn’t last long.
A sudden noise interrupted her repose.
Legina’s brows furrowed slightly at the sound of something breaking and shattering.
“It’s noisy.”
“I will investigate.”
It didn’t take long for the maid who had been serving to leave and return, having investigated the source of the commotion.
Princess Legina, who had been enjoying the tea’s aroma and admiring the snow in the garden, put down her teacup and looked at the maid, who wore a troubled expression.
“Una?”
“Well, that is…”
“Did Theore cause trouble again?”
“…I apologize.”
Legina sighed softly at the maid’s bowed head and apology, then rose from her seat. She seemed to believe that since her brother had caused trouble, it was naturally her responsibility to resolve it.
“Bring it.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Stepping out of the terrace, Legina handed the fur she was wearing to another maid and took hold of the object the woman called Una politely offered with both hands.
The handle fit perfectly in her grasp, always bringing a sense of calm whenever she held it.
“I suppose I must go see my brother.”
“…I will follow.”
Selma, the head maid, who had been quietly standing and observing everything, replied, glancing sideways at the object in Legina’s hand.
It was slightly longer than a full-grown adult woman’s forearm. Made from the precious Dacon wood, used only for crafting furniture in the Imperial Palace, it was an item Legina had personally commissioned from the imperial artisans, with her name ‘Legina B. Alpere’ engraved in gold upon it.
“Theore is working so hard, so I must be more diligent too, right?”
Holding that object in her hand—a crudely shaped club that utterly unfitted the beautiful princess—and with a red hand-strap made of Oltan leather, used only for crafting the reins of imperial steeds, around her wrist, Legina smiled brightly. Selma thought to herself:
What a truly beautiful, yet truly chilling smile…
Princess Legina had regressed.
As the Ellias Empire’s proverb—”God does not grant opportunities to peaceful humans”—suggests, her life before regression was far from peaceful.
Born as the first child of the empire, Legina’s life, which had been peaceful, began to unravel when her mother passed away.
The Empress had never been in robust health. After conceiving her second child, her strength rapidly declined even further, and after giving birth, the bleeding wouldn’t stop.
According to imperial law, the Emperor could not enter a birthing chamber where blood had not dried. Because of this, only Legina was by her dying mother’s side.
After the Empress died, leaving a will asking her to take good care of her newborn brother, and only after all the blood in the birthing chamber had been cleaned, did the Emperor finally come to see his deceased wife. Overwhelmed by guilt for not being by his beloved wife’s side in her final moments, he committed an act he absolutely should not have, an utterly incomprehensible one.
[“Why was it someone like you who was by Sylvia’s side?!”]
While not ideal, if one were to make an excuse for the Emperor, had he resented himself instead of another, he might have hanged himself, leaving behind his young children. So, the Emperor chose an easy and cowardly method: he decided to resent his daughter.
It was a petty act, but it was a desperate struggle to protect himself, so the Emperor decided to be lenient with himself. It was fortunate, at least, that he didn’t resent the newborn baby.
The problem was Legina. As a mere five-year-old child, she was exposed to her father’s outpouring of fury before she could even recover from the shock of witnessing her mother’s death. There was no one to stand in the Emperor’s way, maddened by grief and rage, and save Legina.
The more his anger towards Legina grew, the more the Emperor’s love for her younger brother, Theore, intensified. Perhaps the guilt he felt for neglecting Legina caused this, or perhaps the fact that Theore was his deceased wife’s last child left in the world evoked an even greater affection. In any case, under such imperial love, Theore was able to grow into a splendid troublemaker.
It must have been nothing short of a miracle, truly an act of divine care, that the young Legina could grow into such a beautiful and elegant princess despite such an unjust environment. At least, the servants and nobles who witnessed her growth all thought so, often pitying her.
As Legina’s time passed, when she turned twelve, the Emperor summoned her to his study. It was the first time the Emperor, who had kept his distance from his daughter, not even receiving morning greetings, had called for her first. Legina went to the Emperor’s study with a mix of joy and fear.
And there, a second misfortune greeted Legina.
[“You are to be betrothed.”]
[“Pardon?”]
[“Your intended is the next heir of the Slyveig Ducal House.”]
[“Ah, Father…”]
[“This is the Emperor and the Princess, not father and child. If you understand, leave.”]
It was a pronouncement. Legina could only bow to the Emperor, who didn’t even look at her, and leave.
The Ducal House of Slyveig was not a low-ranking match. It was one of the two ducal houses in the empire. However, the Slyveig Ducal House had traditionally been the head of the pro-noble faction, and unlike the pro-emperor Vestain Ducal House, it was a noble family that sharply opposed the Emperor. It was obvious what hardships Legina, as a member of the imperial family, would face by marrying into that house, but the Emperor indifferently commanded the betrothal, and Legina had no choice but to accept.
[“I am Hermann Slyveig, Your Highness.”]
[“It’s a pleasure, my lord.”]
Her fiancé, whom she met at the engagement ceremony, was a beautiful young man one year her senior, with midnight-blue hair and clear sky-blue eyes. The dreamlike situation of falling in love at first sight with her fiancé did not occur. After all, it was merely a political arrangement. Love was not needed in their relationship.
Perhaps that was why. She didn’t press him for marriage even after a long time had passed since her coming-of-age ceremony…
When she heard rumors that he had another woman, she was slightly displeased, but her troublemaker brother’s condition was too severe for her to pay him any mind.
Then came the third misfortune.
Theore was involved in an accident while returning to the capital after graduating from the academy. His carriage overturned and plunged into a lake. When Legina first heard the news, she felt her heart drop. He was a troublemaker, but he was her beloved younger brother. Even if it hadn’t been her mother’s dying wish, she loved her brother. So, when she heard the news that Theore had been rescued safely, she was able to offer a prayer of thanks to God.
The problem came after the carriage accident.
Before the accident, her brother, who was known throughout the empire as a troublemaker, suddenly reformed.
[“I apologize, Noona. I’ve caused you so much pain until now.”]
That day, Legina once again offered a prayer of thanks to God. She even shed tears of emotion, believing that all her efforts had finally borne fruit.
If you only heard up to this point, you might wonder why this was a misfortune.
Surprisingly, the greatest misfortune of this incident was precisely Theore’s reformation. The troublemaker, who previously knew no moderation in his antics, changed his personality without moderation once again, becoming the empire’s greatest pushover.
[“Theore! Did you open the imperial vault again?!”]
[“I’m sorry, Noona. There were pitiful people, I couldn’t help it.”]
If he had actually helped truly pitiful people, it wouldn’t have been so exasperating. But he was lavishing the imperial treasury on individuals who were clearly swindlers to anyone’s eye. And he wasn’t just giving it out; he was absolutely pouring it out.
Even with the Emperor coaxing him and Legina scolding him, Theore’s spending only grew. It reached its peak on his seventeenth birthday. The budget for the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet was so tight that, to briefly describe Legina’s feelings at the time, she almost longed for her brother’s troublemaker days.
How wonderful it would have been if her misfortune had ended there?
On the night of Theore’s seventeenth birthday, the Emperor died. His death was sudden. And Legina, without even time to grieve her father’s death, wore the crown of regent in place of her brother, who was not yet an adult.
She was exhausted, barely sleeping, buried under a mountain of daily documents, all while cleaning up after her brother’s increasingly severe pushover acts… Legina truly gritted her teeth and endured until Theore’s coming-of-age ceremony.
And what was her fiancé doing during all this? Wasn’t Legina’s fiancé supposed to be doing something for her?
Well, he was doing something. He was preparing something so grand that it was enough to make Legina momentarily lose her mind.
[“From this moment forth, the Ellias Empire shall cease to exist.”]
On the day Theore turned eighteen and had his coming-of-age ceremony, Hermann Slyveig, Princess Legina’s fiancé and the young Duke of Slyveig, staged a rebellion.
[“No! Theore!”]
And he beheaded her brother, who was chosen as the first sacrifice.
Would Legina’s misfortune have been less if it had been her own neck that was severed at that moment?
Legina’s misfortune was not over yet.
