Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 16

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Fortunately, I was no ordinary eight-year-old, and I was accustomed to such piercing gazes, so I forced an awkward smile in an attempt to ease the tension, however slightly.
But my reaction seemed only to provoke Allen further.
“Why are you sitting there?”
“Allen.”
“I don’t want to eat with her!”
Despite the Duchess Elrad’s soothing voice, Allen rose from his seat with unmistakable disdain etched across his face.
‘I thought he wouldn’t spit on a smiling face.’
For a moment, I regretted not playing along with feigned obliviousness, but Diana’s sudden cry of “Big brother, stop bothering her!” turned my head completely white.
Allen appeared deeply wounded by Diana’s repeated defense of me.
Yet that hurt expression lasted only a moment before his face twisted into a scowl, and he fixed me with a terrifying glare.
Without giving anyone time to stop him, he kicked back his chair and stormed away.
“I’m sorry. He’s quite shy around strangers. He’s still so young, after all.”
Feeling as though Allen’s departure was somehow my fault, I sat dejected until the Duchess Elrad spoke gently in an attempt to console me.
And then I found myself hearing, without filter, details about Allen’s vegetable aversion and his attachment doll that he still slept with despite being ten years old—aspects of the future Sword Master that would one day astonish the Empire, things he would never wish known.
‘If I’d only held my tongue, none of this would have come out.’
He left the table because he didn’t want to eat with me, and now his secrets were exposed.
I offered silent condolences to Allen in my heart.
* * *
“Damn it, why does my mood feel so foul?”
Allen stormed out of the Greenhouse as though he wouldn’t look back, and now he wandered nearby, his brow furrowed in frustration.
And he gazed back toward the Greenhouse with eyes dripping with reluctance.
He had expected that if he left in anger like this, his adorable youngest sister would surely chase after him, crying “Big brother!”
Whoosh.
But all that followed him was the bitter winter wind.
A fresh wave of injustice and disappointment washed over him.
‘After all the anxiety I’ve endured waiting for her this past week.’
Allen bitterly regretted stepping outside, unable to refuse his sister’s plea to see the festival.
Was it arrogance born from the praise the Knight Order lavished upon his skills?
Or was it trust in the secret escort?
While his father, Duke Elrad, rushed about with the Lexion Knights searching for Diana, he too wished to search for her, yet there was nothing a child could do.
He even envied his older brother, who couldn’t come because he attended the Academy in the Capital City.
Trapped in the Duke’s Castle with nothing to do, he had tormented himself with guilt and prayed only for Diana’s safe return, unable to eat or sleep properly, continuously.
So Diana was a sister he had barely managed to reunite with.
A single week felt longer to him than ten years.
Suppressing the fear that she might resent him for losing her, he had checked Diana’s face, but fortunately, there was no such sentiment in his youngest sister’s eyes.
Only….
“What kind of wretched thing is clinging to her?”
The child Diana adorably followed around calling “big sister” was, in his eyes, utterly beneath contempt.
According to his father, that child had cared for Diana at the Orphanage, so while his mind insisted he should be grateful, he found himself inexplicably angry and unable to accept it.
‘Diana doesn’t give her heart away so easily.’
How much hardship must I have endured in those years to cling so desperately to a moment of kindness?
The thought of it—of releasing Diana’s hand and losing her—tormented me beyond measure.
And I resented that child for constantly reminding me of my guilt, for constantly reopening that wound.
I despised how she monopolized Diana’s attention and affection.
Growwwwl.
At that moment, Allen’s stomach released a thunderous rumble, betraying his hostility toward Lia as his fists clenched.
“…Damn it.”
Before finding Diana, he had eaten half-heartedly, but after discovering her, he had been postponing meals, insisting they eat together.
Allen’s face flushed with embarrassment as he glanced back toward the Greenhouse.
“….”
In the midst of his growth spurt, his hunger was acute.
* * *
Steam rose from an appetizing array of dishes arranged on a pristine white tablecloth, adorned with radiant flowers and set with golden candelabras and golden cutlery.
I gaped in astonishment at a steak that appeared larger than five of my small palms combined.
“Meat!”
As Diana clapped and cried out, the Duchess Elrad smiled softly and carved the meat into manageable pieces, placing them on Diana’s plate and mine.
Unaccustomed to such consideration, my hands fumbled—and suddenly a generous piece of meat found its way into my mouth.
Diana had fed it to me from beside me.
I reflexively chewed the substantial morsel, and the tender meat and its succulent juices flooded my palate.
‘Oh heavens. Celestial flavor!’
It rivaled the restaurant in the Capital City that Master had taken me to after I completed my first assignment successfully. My expression melted into bliss.
It struck me as odd that today, too, food seemed to accumulate only before me….
But the cuisine was too exquisite to sustain prolonged thought.
As I continued to accept without hesitation what Diana and the Duchess Elrad offered, eagerly swallowing each morsel, my stomach soon felt dangerously distended.
From my days at the Orphanage through my years as a street beggar, I had never once eaten my fill, always starving; consequently, my stomach had never been robust.
Even as an adult, eating slightly too much would upset it easily, so I had never indulged my appetite.
But inhabiting a child’s body seemed to strip away my appetite control before such delectable fare.
Worried about developing stomach pain on my first day here, I set down my fork, and the Duchess Elrad—who had been attending to Diana’s meal—regarded me with a puzzled expression.
“Why stop already?”
“My stomach is full.”
“My. You haven’t even eaten half of what Diana has.”
At that, I looked toward Diana.
A chicken leg as large as her own face was clasped in her hands, and she gnawed and savored it enthusiastically, her lips glistening with grease.
I had sensed it even at the Orphanage, but Diana was an extraordinarily voracious eater for her age.
“Eat more!”
“That’s right. Eating so little, you’ll fall behind. What if Diana catches up to you?”
The Duchess Elrad’s teasing made me flinch.
The memory of my previous life was too vivid to dismiss as mere jest.
‘Even at fourteen, I was tall and slender like my older brothers.’
The last time I had seen Diana, she had grown taller than me, who remained smaller even in adulthood.
‘If I eat well from now on, could I grow a bit taller?’
The thought crossed my mind briefly, but I doubted I could manage another bite at the moment.
After deliberating, I carefully set down my fork, and the Duchess Elrad expressed her disappointment with a gentle smile.
“But surely you can still have dessert?”
“Pardon?”
“The stomach for dessert is always separate, after all!”
Watching her laugh with such mischievous delight, I found myself nodding before I could think better of it.
Soon, a fruit tart arrived—so enormous that even spreading both arms wide wouldn’t encompass it.
Atop the beautifully golden tart lay an assortment of fruits, impossibly fresh despite the winter season.
‘I thought I’d seen my share of desserts during my time at the Guild.’
Yet the sheer scale and visual splendor of this creation left my mouth agape in astonishment.
“Our head chef prepared his masterpiece. I do hope it suits your palate.”
The Duchess Elrad set a plate of sliced tart before me as she spoke.
Though my stomach felt utterly full with no room for another morsel, I found myself swallowing involuntarily.
As if drawn by some unconscious compulsion, I took a bite—the exterior crisp, the interior yielding, and the bright tartness of the fruit flooding my mouth.
My tongue tingled at how impossibly soft and sweet it was.
Yet sweeter still was the warmth in the gazes of the Duchess Elrad and Diana as they watched me.
‘I’m happy.’
It felt as though someone were tickling my very heart.
Embarrassed by the realization, I lowered my eyes and thought to myself:
Could I truly deserve such happiness on my very first day following Diana?
In my past life, by this point I would have been trembling in fear at the crumbling Orphanage, unable to scrounge for food, preparing to descend into town with the other children.
So now, in this moment, everything felt like a dream.
More than returning to the past, it was a dream I never wished to wake from.
* * *
Several days had passed since Lia entered Duke’s Castle.
During that time, Lia fell gravely ill.
The tension that had built up from meeting Diana immediately after her regression, and then waiting anxiously for Duke Elrad, finally released all at once.
Everything she had eaten so delightfully that night came back up, and fever burned through her small frame.
The Duchess Elrad worried desperately that something might happen to the child who had cared for her newly found daughter.
Diana, too, refused to leave Lia’s side for even a moment.
Thanks to the devoted care of the Duchess Elrad and Diana, every servant in Duke’s Castle prayed for Lia’s swift recovery.
Whether moved by their collective devotion or not, the morning finally came when Lia opened her eyes.
“…!”
Lia luxuriated in the sensation of the plush bed and soft blankets, tossing restlessly before her mind suddenly cleared.
Seeing the unfamiliar ceiling and wallpaper, Lia’s eyes widened, and she soon realized this was the guest room she had been assigned on her first day at Duke’s Castle.
A servant’s quarters would have been more than sufficient.
After finishing dessert that first evening, the Duchess Elrad had personally taken her hand and guided her to this guest room.
My bewilderment lasted only briefly before drowsiness overtook me—whether from fullness or exhaustion, I lay down intending to rest just a moment, only to be seized by sudden pain that twisted my body.
Recalling how I had vomited up everything, Lia’s face drained of all color.
“Oh, oh no!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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