Let the Whales Fight, This Shrimp is Leaving! - Chapter 48

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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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Episode 48
Chapter 5. A Farce
Joaquin Perez’s adjutant stared at me with reddened, bulging eyes.
He seemed to be protesting wordlessly, insisting I look at this situation—though protest was what I wanted to lodge instead.
“Escort the 3rd Prince back to the Annex. I’ll hear your explanation directly at another time.”
“Explanation? Did you just say explanation? You mean to demand an explanation from His Highness the Prince?”
“Don’t be presumptuous.”
I narrowed my eyes in warning.
Joaquin’s adjutant seemed utterly intoxicated by the fact that his master was a prince of Cordi, carrying himself as though he were someone of consequence—even now, in this situation.
Especially now.
Joaquin had stepped into forbidden space the moment I left my post.
Even a petty noble house would have invited censure for such rudeness; yet he’d committed this offense within the Grand Ducal Castle itself, and still had the audacity to stand like this.
I was so inclined to crack open those heads and see what logic resided within them.
And after watching Deyan beat him until he couldn’t make a sound, he still held that expression.
‘Does he think a prince can be struck but he himself cannot?’
Clearly the man hadn’t grasped his position, so I decided to kindly instruct him in the proper course of action.
“Giselle.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Giselle replied.
“Make him kneel.”
At my command, Giselle moved without hesitation.
In one fluid motion, she seized the adjutant by the collar and dragged him before me.
She swept his legs, brought him to his knees, then brutally shoved his head down until his forehead struck the ground.
“The only words you should address to me now are words of apology.”
I pressed my foot lightly against his crown, grinding it into the stone.
“Do you understand?”
“His Highness will not overlook this!”
“I certainly hope not. I have no intention of overlooking it either.”
I removed my foot, and Joaquin’s adjutant lifted his head again, glaring at me defiantly.
I let out a short laugh and glanced at Giselle’s face.
I saw dried blood beneath her nose and her cheeks swollen scarlet.
The blow must have been vicious—even the flesh beneath her eyes had begun to swell.
Seeing her like that kindled my rage anew.
“That man is Deyan Boislav Nemanic, Margrave of the Adorif Empire. Does Plene intend to harbor him? Once you know that tyrant will trample Plene’s soil—”
“Really? I had no idea.”
I smiled blandly, playing ignorant while my mind raced ahead.
Initially, I’d only meant to hint that a man I found attractive had come into my life.
I’d planned merely to let his existence be known, not to reveal who Deyan was—but since matters had escalated thus, my strategy required adjustment.
“How can the Ducal Princess fail to recognize Lord Nemanic? Surely you’ve been secretly courting the Adorif Empire to secure Plene’s safety?”
“That’s quite an assumption.”
The adjutant continued to grate on my nerves with his brazenness.
‘Perhaps I should cut out his tongue and hands.’
My mind spun rapidly.
Joaquin would certainly make an issue of this.
If I silenced that presumptuous adjutant and quickly shaped public opinion before he could act, I might yet weather the immediate crisis.
I had just reached this calculation when—
Deyan extended a blood-stained hand toward Giselle.
“May I borrow this?”
What he requested was a sword.
And then something extraordinary happened.
Giselle, who had never once acted against my wishes, gave him the hilt without even looking at me.
“Wait—”
“Thank you.”
There was no hesitation in his movements as he took the blade.
His sword cleaved through the air in a single arc.
Time seemed to pause, then the adjutant’s body collapsed sideways.
From his severed neck, blood erupted in a fountain. The Corridor was awash in crimson within moments.
It recalled the knight in the center of the Banquet Hall, calmly unveiling his own cruelty.
He confirmed the adjutant’s death with eyes devoid of warmth, then turned to regard me quietly.
“I killed him because he was attempting to attack the Ducal Princess.”
Deyan’s measured voice filled the space with composure.
“I was deeply grateful for the Ducal Princess’s kindness to a stranger whose identity she did not know, and I took the liberty of removing a person who would trouble my benefactor.”
“……”
“As for my method, I merely chose the most familiar way—the one my body was trained to execute.”
Deyan slowly approached me.
He extended his hand to where I sat, frozen.
“The Ducal Princess is entirely blameless in this matter.”
So place all responsibility upon him, he was saying.
He alone would shoulder the consequences. I need only pretend ignorance.
That is what this man was telling me.
“It’s not something that can be resolved so easily.”
Rather than taking his offered hand, I rejected his plan outright.
The first problem that came to mind was the objection that would be raised about why I’d continued to shelter him, knowing who he was.
Joaquin would seize on this fact and claim I’d made contact with Deyan deliberately, strategically.
He would drag my father’s secret—the one I’d fought to conceal—into the light across the entire continent. He would expose my weakness and dig into it, strangling me with it.
For his own security, he would use me as a stepping stone, clawing his way upward.
And I would stand at his feet again, weighing the same paralyzing helplessness and rising sorrow.
“Joaquin Perez is not an opponent to be taken lightly. If he makes an issue of this, he’ll strike at whichever part of me seems most vulnerable.”
That vulnerable part was me, and this kingdom.
To him, I was nothing but a frog that might die at the careless throw of a stone.
A frog whose pond someone cares for—which is why he merely watches his step.
I rose to my feet on my own strength, refusing his hand.
“We’ll consider how to handle this situation in due course. First, let’s address the immediate matter at hand—”
I began speaking without thought, but the gruesome sight before me silenced me.
An enormous, suffocating darkness crashed down at tremendous speed, and I felt certain it would crush my bones to powder.
“—address, and—”
I tried to finish my thought, but failed.
My throat felt constricted, as if someone were choking me, and no sound would come.
Even breathing had become an ordeal.
‘This cannot happen.’
The stairs I stood upon crumbled. The earth collapsed beneath me and dragged me downward.
And of course, the bottom was Hell.
The ornate Chandelier above receded into distance.
Hanging there was something black and shapeless.
My past, unredeemable even if I died and were reborn.
My deepest wound, which I could not release though I was meant to let it go.
My brilliant, warm memories, which I could never grasp again, hung there.
Faded to black.
‘If only I had strength.’
I’ve wondered if things would have been different had I been born male.
Standing alone with nothing to lean on, my thin legs were far too weak.
Even after learning swordplay and training rigorously, I always appeared frail—and truly was.
Yet I had to be fine.
I swallowed the feeling of being overwhelmed and feigned composure somehow.
I used tears as a shield to dissolve hostility, and smiles as a weapon to expose weakness.
Whether grieved, angry, or troubled by another’s actions,
I buried every emotion that seized and shook me beneath a smile. In the end, I even turned away from them myself.
Forcing them down until they seemed never to have existed.
As if I had always been fine.
As if I were born strong.
‘Better to smile.’
Show that you’re fine.
Say that nothing is wrong.
All the hours and feelings I’d tried to correct and erase with a pen descended upon me at once.
“Ducal Princess.”
My weakest part, laid bare before the enemy I resented most.
‘If only you hadn’t been angry in my stead.’
If only you hadn’t rushed so readily to shed blood for me, things would have been easier.
I would have felt less wretched.
For the first time in a very long while, I wept.

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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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