Your Majesty, Please Don’t Kill Me Again - Chapter 16

Chapter 16 – To be Swallowed Up

It seemed like Tori had a hard time understanding what I meant. When I stopped and really thought about it, she and Rupert look so much alike… It’s strange.

When looking at them – at face value – they don’t have the same hair. Tori has dull blonde hair, and Rupert has his golden threads. But their shiny green eyes looked so much alike.

Blonde hair and green eyes aren’t very rare, but they’re also not very common.

“Come to think about it, Her Highness and Tori have the same eye color.”

“Oh… that just happened—”

She became flustered. I decided not to pry further because it seemed like I had stepped on a landmine.

It just happened?

How can their eyes ‘just happen’ to have the same color?

“How can you say that? Her Highness is much prettier than me.”

“Tori is also pretty.”

I thought Tori was much cuter and prettier than Rupert, who was mean-spirited. But I have to admit that Rupert’s appearance is unrivaled, at the very least. She has a certain charm that can’t be seen in Rupert’s sculpturesque face. Of course, I’m looking at this objectively, so the result is bound to be different.

I wasn’t blessed with such a great appearance from birth, so Tori’s humbleness made me shake my head. She was visibly startled and immediately looked down with a red-hot face. She bent down and crouched, covering her face, but her ears also turned red, so she couldn’t hide it. I laughed out loud because it felt like I was playing with a younger sister I never had.

“I’ll help you serve Her Highness, so please look after me as well.”

“That… I’m not qualified to—”

“Hmm? Not qualified? But Her Highness said that we’re both maids.”

“But you’re Bellua’s Young Lady.”

Right now, Rupert seemed to trust and care more about Tori than he did for me, so here in the Imperial Palace, she would be of higher rank than me. After a while, I opened my mouth as I looked at Tori’s face, which was bright red that looked as if it would burst from being so red.

I think I can get an answer now.

“You came to my birthday party instead of Her Highness, right?”

“Oh yes.”

“I don’t remember sending Her Highness an invitation, so how were you able to come?”

“It was an invitation for Princess Nigelle, but I secretly got it and gave it to Her Highness.”

She stole someone else’s invitation.

I was a little surprised, but I didn’t ask her why because she hesitated and didn’t say anything yet.

“I’m sorry.”

“No… anyone can go to my birthday party… but can you tell me why?”

“It seemed like Her Highness needed to tell Count Bellua something.”

“My father?”

“She went to the last meeting of the nobility, but the Count wasn’t there, so she couldn’t meet him.”

What does he want from my father?

It wasn’t known by everyone that he was a man yet, but what could Princess Lapertte want from my father?

I wasn’t thrilled at the feeling of being thrown into a maze again and again. I wanted to ask Tori more about it, but I changed the subject because I figured that her actions were purely just to help Rupert, and she didn’t really know anything.

“Alright. But do you know why she sent you instead?”

“She was sick that day.”

“Is Her Highness that weak?”

“No… it’s just that… she gets sick often.”

It doesn’t make sense to say that he often gets sick even though his body isn’t weak. After hearing Tori’s vague answers, my blood pressure rose up again, and I spoke,

“Then what was the reason Tori went to my party? Did you really want to help me celebrate?”

“There was someone there who piqued her curiosity, and she wanted to see what they looked like.” 1

“Who?”

“Sorry, I can’t say that.”

Her eyes watered after she said that. If I kept prying, she might give me an answer, but I decided to wait and be patient for now. She seems to like me, but she doesn’t trust me yet.

“It’s alright… let’s go.”

Tori and I went out into the hallway, but Rupert wasn’t there anymore. Lord Baden went out today, so he won’t be back until later.

Tori took me to my room. She was nice and wanted to help me and tried to enter the room with me, but I shooed her away, saying she did not need to do so. After she left, I pulled the diary out from underneath a corner of the bed and wrote a rough summary of what had happened.

First, Rupert and Tori seem to get along better than I thought they would.

She was very shy, but it was hard to think the reason was because of Rupert’s verbal abuse. She didn’t look like she was afraid of him. He wasn’t old enough to be swept up in a strange and sweet-flowing current of love, but he might adore her and have some sort of affection between them. Whether it was a bond between friends or because he loved Tori as a family member, by the time she became Empress, it was clear there had been a lot of twists and turns in their relationship. A major change must have happened.

It’s also clear that the Emperor was interested in Bellua. I don’t know why he wanted to meet my father, but it’s clear that he’s been watching Bellua for a while now.

Father never mentioned Princess Lapertte’s existence to me.

What kind of conversation would they have?

Did my father somehow meet Rupert at some point?

Maybe his most recent attempt was the last one.

I am biting my nails, a form of fidgeting because I am so nervous. I thought meeting him would help me figure out how to act in the future, but it didn’t.

It was the first day I entered the Palace, but I was full of all sorts of anxieties and worries and couldn’t sleep. This uneasiness went on for quite a long time.

#2 To Be Swallowed Up

Time went by without any problems. It’s already been four months since I’ve been in Rupert’s Palace. He didn’t ask me any specific questions and wasn’t mean to me anymore after the button incident.

So, each day went by very quietly and peacefully.

In a short time, winter was over, and springtime is here. In Imperial Year 286, I’ll turn thirteen, and Rupert is already fourteen. 2

In contrast to what I thought, Rupert was a very calm, well-behaved child. He spent most of his time idly; even when angry, he never bothered the maids.

With his wild nature, I thought he would like hunting and martial arts, but he didn’t do anything special except go for a walk or read a book at the library.

He doesn’t hunt, so why does he buy so many guns? Except for his living expenses, all his allowance goes towards his excessive collection of firearms.

He didn’t like it when any of the other maids followed him except for Tori. So he only called for me occasionally during dinner to taste-test his food. The food was safe enough that I didn’t even need a silver spoon to check it. Having to manually check whether or not his food was poisoned or not was just a long-term prank to ridicule me.

He’s the son of the Empress, but nobody knew about him. He couldn’t be recognized as the Emperor’s son and would be just a bother to kill him. If I accidentally touched the Emperor’s ‘daughter’ and tried to kill her, they would blame me anyways. I’m not a dumb person who would risk that.

But it’s okay because he would never know all the wicked ways I killed him off in my head.

I ate the food, but I sneaked in a look at Rupert to see if he was watching me die or not.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I did? I would never do that, Your Highness.”

When Rupert asked me a direct question, I quickly shook my head and covered my food-filled cheeks.

He reads the room fast. 3

“Did you lose weight? Those clothes look like a big potato sack on you.”

I didn’t lose weight; they’re just a bigger size, you bastard. I grunted inside and smiled.

The day after my clothes blew up in front of him, Tori brought me a new maid uniform. It was bigger than the one I had received before, but I didn’t say anything when I put it on. I never ever want to have to go through something so embarrassing again.

“No…”

“It’s impossible that you would lose weight because you’re eating all my food.”

I wanted to talk back to Rupert’s murmuring, but there was nothing I could say. I really did eat a lot of his food because I had to. At the table of the royal family, there is more food than one person can eat. It’s a way to show off how extravagantly rich they are by serving delicious food in such large amounts that they can’t eat it all.

It would’ve been better if he had told me what he wanted to eat so I could test them out individually. But no, instead, he forces me to try everything, even though he won’t eat it himself.

Even though I was so full after every meal, I still needed to gossip to obtain information from the other servants, so I also joined them for meals. I was afraid that if I kept eating like this, I would continue to get fatter, but I was sure I would lose weight just like I did when I was fifteen. I don’t want to be as skinny as I was in the past, but it’s better than it was before.

No matter how full I was, I always ate with the other maids so that I could hear the latest rumors and get information from them.

“Your Highness, is it good?”

“You already ate your dumplings. Do you want more?”

This little boy treats me like a pig all the time. Because he couldn’t even remember my sweet name, he sometimes called me Dumplings. 4 He wasn’t doing it to tease me, but I was still offended. That’s just the way he was, so I just smiled and internally scoffed at his joke.

“No… just watching Her Highness eat like that also fills me.”

“After you ate like that earlier? Are you sure that you’re full just watching me eat?”

This guy with no manners…

I put my shaking hands behind my back and watched as Rupert’s words made Tori laugh out loud.

“I’m glad you two are getting along just fine.”

Does Tori think that we’re being friendly?

I swallowed the disgust in my mouth along with the food that was still there, and I backed away slowly.

On Wednesday afternoon, after Rupert eats lunch, his music teacher Alberto will stop by.

I had to meet him because Tori didn’t know how to speak the court language. He was a strict and bossy man.

“I’ll greet Sir Alberto.”

He isn’t a knight, and he doesn’t have an inherited title, so he doesn’t have a noble lineage.

Rupert thought it was funny that I called Alberto ‘Sir’, but the title seemed to suit him.

Was he aware of Lari from day one …? Who was he looking for at Lari’s birthday party, her or her father…? ↩️

This is an inconsistency in the timeline. Lari regressed back to January 285, her 12th birthday, and the day after, ran away to become Rupert’s maid. It’s been 4 months since then, and she should still be 12 and him 13. (Angel/PR: I think the birthday system of Korean was applied to this one. All of them celebrate their bday on new year’s day–Jan 1. So they celebrate their bday like 2 times.) ↩️

Alt translation: He’s sharp. ↩️

Mandu ↩️