Rewriting the Trash Ending - Chapter 6

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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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6.

“……”
Axid brought his lips lightly to the back of Lumiere’s hand.
The gesture was so perfectly courteous it threw into sharp relief the Duke’s discourtesy moments before.
The already frozen air grew colder still, sinking deeper into the hall.
The Grand Duke had dismissed the Emperor as though he did not exist, yet extended flawless ceremony to the Princess—and everyone felt it.
The Grand Duke straightened his massive frame and turned his gaze away.
His eyes were disturbingly serene.
“I—did I misspeak? Surely one kneels before His Imperial Majesty and shows proper respect first. How dare a mere king of some duchy presume to—!”
A terrified noble flushed crimson and cried out. The Emperor, feigning magnanimity, laughed and spoke.
“A civilized man knows proper etiquette and law. Why should he be called barbarous?”
“How strange. I have never bound myself to you in a lord-and-vassal relationship, yet you speak of etiquette and law.”
His voice was flat and heavy as it carried through the hall, and displeasure flickered across the Emperor’s eyes.
“How dare you speak so brazenly before me. Exiled to the borderlands so long, you have forgotten your place.”
At the Emperor’s words, Killing Intent from the Grand Duchy Knights surged forth, terrible and sharp.
The Imperial Guard, little more than decorative ceremonial troops, stood no chance against warriors who crossed the line of death daily.
In the mounting tension,
the Imperial Knights’ faces went white as they placed their hands on sword hilts.
“Your Majesty, I confess myself hurt. Were you so eager to be rid of me from this palace?”
A clear voice cut through the razor-sharp atmosphere.
“What?”
“You omitted the State Guest Protocol.”
The guard that should have received the delegation stood assembled in full armor within the Grand Hall?
This meant no State Guest reception was prepared, nor even proper escort for an honored visitor.
It said plainly: conduct your business and leave.
Yet the ruler of a friendly power had come in person for a State Marriage, and been treated with the contempt one reserves for an enemy’s envoy.
No wonder, then, that the Emperor now lectured about etiquette and propriety.
“Ha! And here I thought you were already acting as Grand Duchess. As my dear sister’s only brother, it is touching—though amusing.
The Emperor struck his knee in hearty laughter, then his expression hardened.
“You demand I treat a petty backwater king as a state guest?”
Killing Intent flickered in her eyes, a cold greenish gleam.
He was a man who had walked a hard road with purpose in his heart.
He was not someone to be insulted so.
When the realm itself owed its peace to the Grand Duchy, how dared these fools dishonor him?
“The North is humanity’s frontmost line. Without the Grand Duchy, the Empire would have been consumed by war—state guest consideration is only fitting.”
And this was an official visit for a State Marriage, no less.
“Bah, dress it up in grand words though you like—is it not merely defending your own lands? Hearing this, anyone would think I commanded it.”
“Your Majesty seems confident the front can be held even if Winterheim’s armies withdraw.”
Winterheim was recognized across the continent as a military power.
That Monsters could not breach the North’s barrier was because the Grand Duchy held the line.
Did the Emperor not know this?
“Are you saying my armies are weaker than the Grand Duchy’s?”
At the Emperor’s chilling question, Lumiere smiled faintly and answered.
“Surely not. I merely offer a final word of counsel to Your Imperial Majesty as the Princess of Wijezer.”
“You cannot manage yourself, yet you presume to instruct me? You are mad—thoroughly, hopelessly mad.”
The Emperor gripped the armrest of his throne, his face flushed with rage, and the hall fell into breathless silence.
Yet her violet eyes remained perfectly steady.
“You may dismiss it as the ravings of a mad princess. However……”
She paused, then her gaze rested quietly upon the half-brother who had tormented and trampled her throughout her life.
In a few years, that fool would fall to the rebellion of those who could bear his tyranny no longer.
He was destined for ruin anyway, and hardly worth her concern—but those gathered here needed to understand clearly.
That the peace they enjoyed was not freely given.
“Sire, even now, at the front lines of the North, countless souls bleed as they face down Monsters. I beg you, do not forget the long labor of our ally.”
When she finished, she glanced up at Axid, who stood guard beside her.
A faint shadow of doubt dwelt in his dark eyes.
Indeed, when had she ever heard an Imperial subject speak of the Grand Duchy’s sacrifice with such conviction?
He watched her quietly, as if reading her thoughts, and asked in a low voice.
“Are the farewells finished?”
“Yes, I’ll take my leave now.”
Lumiere took hold of the Grand Duke’s arm and turned to face the exit.
Rather than being driven out, she carried herself with such composure—as though departing of her own accord—that the Imperial Knights reflexively stepped forward to block her path.
In that instant, an invisible force descended upon the Grand Hall.
A presence far too heavy and savage to be human.
The Imperial Knights froze at that overwhelming, ominous aura, as though standing before a natural predator.
“Stand aside.”
At the Grand Duke’s quiet word, the knights instinctively faltered, and the two slipped from the Grand Hall without further obstruction.
‘Useless creatures.’
The Emperor gripped the armrest with trembling fingers, squeezing until his knuckles went white.
Undone by a single barbarian.
He wanted to order their heads struck from their shoulders at once, but he swallowed the impulse.
The moment he punished the knights, it would become fact that the Empire had been outmatched by barbarians.
His face twisted with rising fury, and then a bitter laugh escaped him.
The Princess—destined to die after being used as a breeding tool.
The Grand Duke—to perish miserably in the Monster lands.
They were a pair meant to die together anyway.
He wiped the smile from his face and spoke with cold precision.
“Have all the Princess Palace’s attendants beheaded.”
The Princess’s improved complexion, which should have become a laughingstock in her wretched state, must have been their doing.
Then those who destroyed the portrait I desired deserved to answer for their crime.
…Far away.
In the Palace emptied by its mistress’s departure, a sharp scream pierced the silence.

***

Silence settled within the carriage.
Axid gazed out the window, yet his attention was wholly fixed on the figure across from him.
White hair flowing soft as sand.
A frame so slender it seemed to weigh nothing at all.
He could not fathom why the Princess bore such rumors about herself, given how beautiful she was.
But stranger still—
‘Why doesn’t she fear me?’
She, whom he had believed would despair at the sight of him, had smiled brightly instead.
Grasping his hand without hesitation, even growing angry on his behalf at the Empire’s rudeness.
‘Did she perhaps hear nothing about me?’
Or was she pretending not to know?
He tried to read the Princess’s thoughts, but her gently smiling face revealed nothing.
“I…”
A soft sound.
Had he been staring too intently?
As the Princess gently opened her lips, he awkwardly averted his gaze.
“You must have found it all quite unpleasant?”
“It was acceptable.”
He had harbored no expectations of the Empire’s hospitality in the first place.
Being spared the tiresome formalities of State Guest Protocol meant he could leave at once—which suited him better.
“I apologize on his behalf. My brother is simply that sort of man.”
She smiled ruefully.
It was a smile steeped in long resignation.
“By the way, your manner of speech has changed since just now.”
“In the Grand Hall, being an official setting, I adhered to formal decorum, but I have no intention of using half-hearted honorifics with you.”
“You needn’t go to such lengths…”
“It is only proper courtesy.”
Axid glanced at her briefly.
He had spoken curtly, as he always did with his men, only to feel a pang of regret afterward.
He might have chosen softer words.
Yet she seemed not to mind at all, laughing instead.
“I understand. I look forward to working with you, Grand Duke.”
That smile again.
That carefree smile he’d worn the first time they met.
Words that had circled endlessly in his mind suddenly tumbled out unbidden.
“Are you not afraid?”
“Of what?”
“…Of this marriage.”
Light, buoyant footsteps—the gait of someone setting out on a journey—and an expression that seemed, somehow, genuinely pleased.
This was a reaction he hadn’t anticipated at all.
Every woman he’d encountered thus far had trembled at the mere possibility of becoming the Grand Duchess, inventing excuses to slip away from his presence.
Having seen only such women, he’d resigned himself to the thought that she might faint the moment she laid eyes on him; yet here she was, welcoming him instead. He couldn’t help but be bewildered.
She fell silent for a moment, then spoke in a soft voice tinged with laughter, as though confiding a secret.
“…I’ve actually been waiting for this.”
He looked at her, searching for meaning in those words, but she merely turned her gaze toward the window, a faint smile lingering on her lips.
He had originally intended to propose a Contract Marriage at this very moment.
But how could he broach such a thing to someone who claimed to have been waiting for this marriage?
“…….”
Axid found himself at a loss for words—a sensation entirely new to him.

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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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