“Big Sister, let’s go,” said my escort as he offered me his hand.
“Thank you, Keith,” I replied, taking it. Riding in a carriage in my best dress, holding hands with a handsome boy, I really felt like a princess.
Being a duke’s daughter, maybe, I am a kind of princess? But the people around me don’t usually treat me like one, which was in part because Mother ordered the servants to be very strict with me.
As soon as the carriage started moving, Keith gave me a stern warning. “Big Sister, make sure that you don’t drink any alcohol!”
“Don’t worry, Keith. Mother has already nagged me enough about that.”
...Or rather, about that and a million other things. Don’t drink alcohol! Don’t flutter your dress about! Don’t eat too much! Don’t laugh too loudly! Don’t forget to smile! Don’t speak with your mouth full! Don’t run! Don’t wander away from your brother! Don’t eat things off the ground! (Seriously? Off the ground? Mother... What am I to you?)
“I made a mistake and learned from it! I never make the same mistake twice!” I said, only for Keith to give me a blank stare.
“...Yes, you never make the same mistake only twice... I don’t think I’ve ever seen you learn anything from your mistakes...”
“...”
Possibly rude, probably right. I just shut up. Keith kept piling warnings on me, and instead of a princess, I now felt more like a student being scolded by a teacher.
We finally reached our destination, where we met our host.
“Thank you for coming to my ball. Enjoy yourselves!”
After exchanging greetings and some words of gratitude with him, we entered the mansion to join the ball. Now we had to greet all of our acquaintances. Personally I didn’t have that many since I’d only been to three balls so far, but Keith had people calling out to him left and right.
Unlike me, he was never forbidden to attend balls, and he often joined Father when he met with other nobles. Still, surely he didn’t know this many people? He couldn’t take a step without an acquaintance greeting him. And most of these “acquaintances” were young girls...
No surprise there, though. He’s a duke’s heir and he still doesn’t have a fiancée. Plus he’s handsome and kind to top it off, so of course he’d have a lot of girls after him. I had no problem with that... What I did have a problem with was the way all of these girls looked at me.
It turned out that Keith had never escorted a girl to a ball before, so all these girls were suspic... curious about who I was. Explaining to them that I was Keith’s sister was enough to stop them from staring at me, but now they were saying that if he was only there with his sister, he might as well escort them.
Before I knew it, Keith had disappeared into the flock of girls. Mother told me not to leave his side for the whole evening, but she couldn’t expect me to go through... that. Anyway, I’m an adult now, and I’ve also taken all those lessons on manners! What’s there to worry about? I’ll just grab a quick snack before going back to Keith. I’m starving!
I approached the buffet with its impressive selection of dishes. Balls really are on another level when it comes to food! This meat looks so tender! And the salad! Oh, the seafood! I was almost drooling.
Where should I start? Go with the meat first, or warm up with something lighter? Hmm... There are so many dishes... I’d really like to try them all out... Okay! No point in keeping the best for last! I’ll take that meat!
“Are you Katarina Claes?”
“...Mhfg?” Hearing my name called right after I had taken my first bite, I was surprised and ended up letting out a weird noise in response. I’m sure I looked terribly dumb, since the meat was still in my mouth.
The question had been asked by a beautiful girl of around my age with flaxen hair and green eyes. She looked really surprised when I turned around, which is reasonable since she probably wasn’t expecting me to have my mouth full of meat. Then again, I didn’t think I knew this girl. She was beautiful enough to be in the same league as Mary and Sophia.
Wait, do I actually know her? I would remember a girl this pretty, I thought to myself while swallowing the meat.
She waited for me to finish eating, and then said, “It is a pleasure to meet you again after all this time. I am Marsha Catley.” It was the proper, elegant greeting typical of a noble lady.
Did she just say “meet you again”? Oh no, am I supposed to know her? Um anyway, I’d better return the greeting...
“Lady Catley, the pleasure is mine,” I said with my mouth finally free.
“By the way, Lady Katarina, are you still engaged to Prince Jeord?” asked Marsha, the beautiful girl who I had apparently already met before.
“Oh... Y-Yes, I am,” I stuttered, surprised by her question, and Marsha’s beautiful face turned red with anger.
“Renounce that engagement forthwith!”
“...Huh?” Noblewoman speech is always so hard to understand. Renounce the engagement for sweets? What?
“We only have the main courses here, but I’m sure we’ll also get desserts... I don’t think that’d be necessary...”
“What are you talking about?!”
What is she mad about? What’s going on?
“Look at you, pretending not to understand! Pretense! Lies! This is what your engagement with Jeord is built upon!”
Ohhhh, so it’s about Jeord! Jeord was really popular, so I was used to girls hating me for being his fiancée. “She’s not worthy,” “She’s not fit for a prince”... I’d heard it all. Well, to be honest I also agreed with those sentiments.
“Leave the poor prince alone! You have held him in shackles for seven years now! Are you not satisfied?!”
I never heard someone say such a thing straight to my face. And also, she was basically saying that I had forced Jeord into the engagement...
Her voice was so loud that the people around us, one by one, started noticing.
This is bad. If Mother catches wind of me standing out so much during the ball, she’ll probably give me a good scolding... How can I reason with this girl?
“Big Sister? What happened?”
“Keith!” My brother, as always, had come to save me from trouble, followed by a legion of girls. I tried to explain to him that this beautiful girl had just gotten angry at me for something related to Jeord, but she spoke first.
“Are you Keith Claes?” she asked him.
“Indeed. And who are you?”
“I am Marsha Catley. I have heard much about you. Seven years ago you became heir to the Claes family, did you not?”
“Yes, I did... And what of it?”
“You poor soul...” she said burying her face in her hands.
Huh? What? We just stood there, confused, then Marsha started shouting again.
“What a cruel thing to force upon you! And all because she knew that, being adopted, you were in no position to refuse! And on top of that, to even force you to escort her!” She then looked Keith in the eyes, and tenderly told him, “I shall save you too, Keith! Do not worry!”
Marsha then went back to staring at me and much less tenderly declared “Prepare yourself!” before turning her heels and leaving with an Until then! like some sort of movie villain.
Keith and I stared in silence, appalled, until he asked me, “Who in the world was that?”
“I have no idea...” She was probably one of the many girls who hoped to marry Jeord, but she was a bit more... enthusiastic than all the others. I thought that she was someone I was supposed to know but had forgotten, but Keith didn’t know her either. And she sure had some wild ideas about me.
I wasn’t the original Katarina from the game, and I would never force Jeord into becoming my fiancé. And forcing Keith to escort me? How could I ever do that?
It’s true that, having been adopted from a distant relative, some could consider him as lower-ranking than the rest of the family. But Father had always treated us equally, and Mother... Well, if anything, she like
d Keith better...
But I’d never actually asked Keith himself how he felt about that. Whatever I ask of him he always nods and smiles, be it helping me with the fields, going to the city together, escorting me to the ball... I had never considered it, but maybe he really was doing all of that because he thought that, as an adopted member of the family, he couldn’t refuse. Had I forced my poor brother to suffer, being too oblivious to realize his real feelings? Did he actually hate me?! Why had I not realized?! Ahh, Katarina, you fool!
“Keith! I’m so sorry! Do you already hate me? I promise I’ll be careful from now on!”
I tried to apologize to Keith, but he only got even more confused. “Huh? Why would I hate you? What are you even apologizing for?”
I explained that I was worried I had been asking too much of him and that he only accepted because, being adopted, he couldn’t stand up to me.
“Big Sister, once you get a crazy idea in that head of yours there’s no stopping you, is there?” he said with a wry laugh, before tapping me gently on the forehead. “I may only be an adoptive member of the Claes family, but nobody has ever used that fact against me. I only follow you because I want to. I could never hate you,” he continued with a smile.
Phew! He doesn’t hate me!
I was so relieved that I forgot that I was in the middle of a ball and hugged him. “Thank you, Keith! My beloved brother!” He would usually scold me for not behaving like a proper lady whenever I did something like this, but for some reason, this time he just stood there, motionless...
Our hug was long enough that it became the subject gossip and eventually reached Mother, who jumped at the opportunity to scold me for my most unladylike behavior.
Father later told me that I had met Marsha the year before I got engaged to Jeord. “It was just once, and a long time ago at that! I’m not surprised you forgot it,” said Father, laughing.
I had to admit that he was right. I had forgotten her, and, knowing myself, I’d probably forget about her again in just a few days...
★★★★★★
My name is Marsha Catley, and my mission is to free my beautiful Prince Jeord from the clutches of Katarina Claes.
When my father was stripped of his power and forced to live in the country, I lost all of my useful connections as well as access to the capital. I could no longer follow my plan to force Katarina to renounce the engagement by spreading word of her wrongdoings.
I had to come up with something else. She was the daughter of a duke, placing her above me in the hierarchy of noble society. Complaining that she was not fit to be a princess would hardly do anything.
Unable to formulate a new plan on my own, I sought out other noble young ladies who, like me, used to be bride candidates for Jeord. They were able to provide me with information about Katarina. It turned out that she had not changed much in these seven years, and she still was not particularly beautiful, intelligent, or versed in magic.
All the other ladies shared my indignation in seeing such an undeserving girl engaged to the Prince. But as soon as I suggested that we band together to take down Katarina, their expressions of anger turned into ones of defeat.
“We should just give up,” said one of them.
Was Katarina threatening them into submission? Unforgivable!
Now armed with even more anger, but still no plan, I decided that my best option would be to confront her directly. I needed to see for myself what kind of harpy she had grown into over the past seven years.
With the help of one of my old connections, I found out about a ball that Katarina was going to attend — and made sure to go there myself.
It was a rather large ball in a rather large manor. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but there were a fair number of young ladies in attendance.
I was not so sure that I could recognize the grown-up Katarina amongst them. I had almost completely forgotten her face. But one face that I could never forget was that of the handsome Prince Jeord, so I thought that I could just look for him, since he would certainly be escorting his fiancée.
And, of course, I was also looking forward to seeing Jeord himself after all these years... which made it all the more shocking when I could not find him at the ball.
I started fearing that my connection had given me some unreliable information, and that Katarina was not actually attending this ball. I asked some of the other attendees and found out that while Katarina was indeed present, Jeord could not make it because of some official affairs, and her adopted brother was escorting her instead.
Poor Jeord, who could not stand Katarina’s company any longer, surely made something up to avoid escorting her to the ball... And I also feel bad for Keith Claes, who is forced to act as substitute for the Prince.
I had heard that since the duke’s only child had been engaged to the Prince, he had adopted Keith from a low-ranking branch of the family to succeed him. Katarina was probably bossing her brother around by leveraging her position as the duke’s natural child.
Forcing a helpless boy to escort her... What a monster. Unforgivable!
But oh, she will hear from me. Very soon.
I asked around to find Katarina, and I was directed to a brown-haired girl standing alone in a corner of the hall. I walked up to that corner, and, standing behind her, I gathered my breath and finally confronted her.
“Are you Katarina Claes?”
This was the first time I had seen her in seven years... Wait, what is this? I was so shocked that I froze. The girl who turned around to reply had the familiar sharp eyes of a villainess... but what caught my attention was how she had something... in her mouth.
Katarina, still chewing, stared at me with a dumbfounded expression. I waited, confused, while she finished eating.
What is going on? Did the rules of etiquette change while I was away from the capital? Why is she still eating nonchalantly? Am I just hallucinating, tired from attending my first ball in such a long time?
...Finally, she finished eating and I came out of my trance. She smiled at me inquisitively. That just now was nothing but a hallucination. I am positive. I shall just forget about it.
I was the one to call out to her first, so I had to at least greet her properly. “It is a pleasure to see you again after all this time. I am Marsha Catley.”
“Lady Catley, the pleasure is mine,” she replied. It seemed that she had at least learned how to greet her peers like a lady. I wasted no time and asked her whether she was still engaged to Jeord.
“Oh... Y-Yes, I am,” she replied with a nod.
I could not contain my anger at how impudent her matter-of-fact reply sounded.
“Renounce that engagement forthwith!” I screamed at her, raising my voice more than I had intended to. When I thought about my poor Jeord, the pain was so unbearable that I could not stay collected.
Unconcerned, she just muttered some nonsense about desserts.
What a detestable girl, I thought, becoming even more angry.
“Look at you, pretending not to understand! Pretense! Lies! This is what your engagement with Jeord is built upon!”
She had been using a tiny scar to maintain an engagement that, with her less than excellent qualities, she could normally only dream of.
“Leave the poor prince alone! You have held him in shackles for seven years now! Are you not satisfied?!” Angered beyond my predictions, I kept shouting in Katarina’s face.
She just looked at me in silence, unruffled. She probably thought that someone of lower rank than her was not worth arguing with. After all these years, she was still just as arrogant!
As I bit my lips in anger, we were approached by a young man.
“Big Sister? What happened?”
“Keith!” Katarina greeted him.
I realized that this could be the rumored brother, and he confirmed it as I asked him whether he actually was Keith Claes.
He was very handsome, but his flaxen hair and blue eyes gave off a different, more se
nsual impression than that of Prince Jeord.
“I am Marsha Catley. I have heard much about you. Seven years ago you became heir to the Claes family, did you not?”
“Yes, I did... And what of it?”
Yet another victim of Katarina... She must not be forgiven!
“What a cruel thing to force upon you! And all because she knew that, being adopted, you were in no position to refuse! And on top of that, to even force you to escort her!” I looked him in the eyes, then added, “I shall save you too, Keith! Do not worry!”
I looked at Katarina once more, and, with my chest throbbing but my will unfaltering, I gave her my final warning before leaving the hall.
“Prepare yourself!”
★★★★★★
I always did my best to avoid interacting with him, but this time I just had to tell him. After all, if she went to another ball, he would likely be the one to escort her... unfortunately.
I was planning on sending a letter, but since Father had to go to the castle for his own reasons, I decided to go with him and meet Jeord in person.
When I reluctantly entered his room, the Prince greeted me with a smile. “Keith, rare for you to come visit me.”
His smile was unnatural; his mouth was curled but his eyes looked cold and unwelcoming. However, I was probably the only one to notice that his smile was fake. His servants waiting inside the room seemed none the wiser, but that was because they had never seen Jeord’s real smile, the one he only ever showed, as far as I knew, in the presence of Katarina.
Katarina must have been special to him. Which was why he strived for her as he did.
But she was also special to me, and I did not want anyone else to have her. This meant that Jeord and I were not friends, but rivals. Today, too, I was planning to leave as soon as I had told him about the ball.
“Jeord, there is something you should know about the ball the other day.”
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Volume 5 Page 2
