Chapter 102: 1:1 Inquiry
Chapter 102: 1:1 Inquiry
Chapter 102 – 1:1 Inquiry
“I never said I thought of Rosanne that way.”
Bella blankly met the amber eyes.
“That… is actually true.'
She didn't want to see those eyes turn to Rosanne, she didn’t want to hear that mouth say that he loved Rosanne, so it was Bella herself who had been avoiding it.
“Didn’t you meet Rosanne… every night? Before the first context…”
Kiehl slightly lowered his eyes and asked back.
“How does Bella know that?”
He would love to hear the story of the novel from Bella's mouth, but he knew well he couldn't.
She'd been cheating on him for fourteen years.
* * *
The first time Rosanne came to the Imperial Palace, she had to take on a mission he had never heard of.
There was no other reason Kiehl chose Rosanne.
Although he found her a little frustrating, he was not a bad-tempered person and she was also bad at lying.
Besides, she also traveled with him, so she deserved to be entrusted with the heavy duty. He knew, of course, that Rosanne had a crush on him, though he thought that she would not betray him because of that feeling.
It was because Kiehl kept wanting to check Bella’s black object.
Apparently, she kept on looking at what was in it while writing notes and organizing them. So, taking advantage of the free time, he called Rosanne to open Bella’s sleeping hand and bring it. The time he had with him was short, though difficult as he did not know how to operate it.
‘…This is a novel.’
It was enough time for him to realize the truth.
Of course, he looked at Bella's notes and had expected something. However, he didn't really think that his life would be just a novel made up of sentences… because this feeling, the pain, was too realistic for that.
And in the novel, he found something while pressing this and that.
‘…Customer service center?’
There were dozens of questions and answers listed one after the other.
He read it all through.
Nonetheless, even after reading everything, he still couldn't figure out why Bella wanted things to go the way the novel went. He thought they didn't have to necessary to go along with the story, but he knew that, too, that realizing the truth and dealing with it were two different things.
He thought it would be the same for Bella… that it would take her quite a bit of time to accept that this novel was different from what she thought.
* * *
Bella asked again, moistening her dry lips with tea.
“It’s just that sometimes when I wake up at dawn, Rosanne isn’t there…”
“Why do you think she went to see me?”
“That, that’s…”
“I saw Rosanne from time to time, but not every day.”
“…Huh?”
“Rosanne is the person I planted. Of course, there are reports, but they might be different from the actual report.”
Bella calmly put the teacup down.
‘It won't be…’
Her hand trembled as if she was going to drop it if she continued to hold it. At the same time, she kept hearing a voice from the side of her heart saying that this was what she had actually wanted.
Looking at her trembling hands, Kiehl calmly changed the subject.
“Bella, about the nursery you talked about during the contest.”
“Huh? What nursery?”
“When I was young… it was hard, so I got a little bit interested.”
“Ah…”
“So I did some research this morning, and it wasn’t like there weren’t any nurseries in every region.”
“Uh…”
“However, since the children who usually go to nurseries are commoners, I don’t think they actually care. What would you like me to do?”
Now wasn't the time to think about that.
Still, Bella replied with a slight frown. She had some thoughts about it for quite some time, so the answer came fluently.
“It will cost a little bit, but I think it would be better to manage the nursery school separately by the Empire.”
“Hmm, really?”
“In the short term, although it may seem fruitless, in the long run, I think it’s rather beneficial.”
“Hmm.”
“It doesn’t mean that commoners don’t have talent. I also believe that we can nurture talents needed by the empire from an early age.”
Bella returned to reality and pondered.
‘Shall I just say I’m withdrawing here? I need to get my heart back quickly…’
She glanced at Kiehl's slightly open shirt as if to take it away. As she had felt before, her intuition that she would cross a river of no return surrounded her. The ship drifting in the sea of emotions might break.
“Bella seems to see the Empire more objectively than most of the other ladies.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I think that if Bella becomes the Crown Princess, it will be fine.”
Bella looked at Kiehl with wide-open eyes.
‘…What was he saying now?’
“Then, I’ll get going.”
Before facing the consequences of her greed, she jumped up and turned into a cat.
“…Bella?”
As she always did, she tried to lunge through the window, but Kiehl grabbed her with a snap.
“Bella, when you leave, you have to go through that door.”
* * *
The place she headed was the garden in the imperial palace.
‘There is no place to be alone and quiet in this neighborhood. Really.'
Wherever he went, there were always demons or people attached to her. Although she was out of the crowd, Bella, who hated even that, climbed up a tree in the garden and sat down. If someone were to look up from below, she would be caught at any moment, but no one knew as they were not looking up at the sky.
She quietly opened her cell phone.
She was going to write an inquiry that she had wanted to write many times but could not.
[ For 1:1 inquiries, your phone will turn off after receiving a response, so please do so only in an emergency. ]
She really only wanted to write in the worst of circumstances.
“I want to finish it like the original story, but it doesn’t work. I messed with the male lead setting from the beginning, so I raised him instead. And this was because I thought the male lead would die if I didn't raise him. I really like the origina—”
The next moment, Bella opened her eyes a little wide and stared blankly at her phone.
[ 250/250 characters ]
Bella just smiled dejectedly.
“No, this can’t be.”
She had so much to say after she was possessed by this novel, yet she could only write it in two hundred and fifty characters? She could write more than two hundred and fifty characters for delivery app reviews and novel reviews.
Bella repeated writing and erasing several times until she finally came up with two hundred and fifty characters.
[ I possessed a human being. But it’s difficult to protect human dignity when you possessed a demon. I struggled to finish the story as it was in the original, but it’s not working. After the male lead dies, take me away, I can't live for 5000 years here. ]
She wanted to write all of those long stories, but there was a limit, so Bella had no choice but to press the send button.
“Ha… I never thought I would really use it.”
After a while, a welcome pop-up window appeared on the screen.
[ Received. ]
If this inquiry were really accepted, and if she could just end it together when Kiehl died. It was okay to live with a little greed.
However…
“…What. Why is it off?”
Why did the phone turn into a black screen without an answer after receiving the inquiry?
“Hey. Hey. HEY…?!”
Shouldn't it stay on until she got an answer?!
* * *
Bella stayed there until the moon rose and set.
When the tears stopped, she tried to go down but they just couldn't stop.
“Huhuu…”
Her brother-in-law said it was dizzying when he had dreams of going back to the army for two years, but she had to go through four years of hell again, and it was not a dream.
“What did I do so wrong…”
Where the hell did it go wrong? What did she do so wrong?!
When the dreadful, terrifying reality came right in front of her nose, she could only think of a hole to get out of somehow.
“Yes… Maybe Kiehl isn’t at the stage where he likes Rosanne yet.”
She decided to take this dramatic situation to the extreme.
The summoning circle opened beneath her feet, and Iwer, dressed in too erotic clothes to be her pajamas, was summoned.
“Miss, why are your eyes so swollen? Did you cry?”
“Shut up. Let me drain some of your blood.”
“Oh, did you get in touch with that Fire Kingdom merchant? It's fast.”
Iwer held out her arm to Bella without saying anything.
“Is there any way to make this more effective?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to dilute it less?”
“How to make it more effective without diluting it?”
Iwer looked at Bella blankly.
“Well, wouldn’t it be okay to mix with Miss’ blood as well?”
The method seemed easier than she thought because dilution was more difficult.
“Still, humans wouldn’t be able to come to their senses if you use it like that?”
“Why?”
“It’s usually for one night, but then they’ll be enchanted for the rest of their life.”
Bella smiled bitterly.
* * *
Rosanne smiled at the cactus in bloom.
“That’s a relief. I can still remain in the Imperial Palace.”
Seeing her like that, Myu sighed.
“Uh, Miss. Is being a lady-in-waiting a good thing? Even if it's the Duke's daughter…”
Unlike the easy-going Rosanne, Myu only had worries ahead. She was sure, of course, that Bella would be the next Crown Princess.
It was a fascinating story that would captivate anyone who heard it.
A princess who came from another world for a prince without magic… it was like the story of the first Emperor. Obviously, it was a little different. The Emperor was a person from another world who was good at swordsmanship, and Ordi, the Empress, was a great wizard.
“I thought she would be a bit vicious…”
Myu let out the words that were inside her.
Ordi, the first Empress, was also famous for being very bad-tempered. Maybe that was why Bella looked like her now.
“She’s not really vicious.”
However, Rosanne never looked at the bad side of people.
In the morning, when the sun rose, Myu was surprised to see someone knocking on the door in the room where no one usually came, so she opened the door.
“Who….”
And as soon as she saw the vicious person standing beyond the door, a chill went down her spine.
“Mi-Miss. Miss Be, be, be—”
“Could you leave? Miss Rosanne and I have something to talk about."
“Yes…!”
The door slammed shut, and Rosanne waited and showed Bella the cactus.
“Lady Bella, look at this. The cactus has blossomed.”
“…Really. Good for you."
Bella laughed heartily. How many years should this novel be? Those few years of pain, she thought, would be better than having this novel twisted, these people dying, and having to live the rest of her life.
“The time has come for Miss Rosanne’s wish to come true.”
__
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