Chapter 11

A middle-aged man wearing the imperial crown and a young man dressed similarly entered the banquet hall together.

Heide Axel Vesseris. With lemon-colored blond hair and deep green eyes, he looked like an idol.

He was the crown prince of the Dioretta Empire and the male lead of this world.

And the woman following right behind the emperor and the crown prince was clearly the female lead, Larienne Toned.

Her silver hair sparkled as if brightening the surroundings, and her clear blue eyes were exactly as described in the novel.

Wow, I’m actually seeing these people in real life.

Because of those two, I’d cried on the street like some woman with a tragic backstory more than once.

A strange sense of familiarity surged up inside me, making me want to run over and say hello.

Whether I gazed at them with wistful eyes or not, the emperor stepped onto the platform and opened his mouth to address the gathered crowd.

“Everyone likely knows already, but today I’ve prepared this gathering to share good news. Crown Prince Heide is to be engaged to the young lady of Duke Toned’s family.”

The emperor finished speaking and let out a hearty laugh.

He must be pleased, now that the long-awaited alliance between the imperial family and Duke Toned, who had been leading the anti-imperial nobles and threatening imperial authority, had finally succeeded.

Once the imperial family and House Toned were joined through marriage, the precarious political situation would surely stabilize.

Voices congratulating the crown prince’s engagement echoed here and there, and Duke Toned also received congratulations from the nobles around him.

Everyone looked pleased except for the two who had become sacrifices of a political marriage.

Ah, no. There was one more person who showed displeasure at Heide and Larienne’s engagement.

A woman pushed through the nobles and walked to the front of the platform, raising her pointed voice as she looked straight up at the emperor.

“Your Majesty, have you forgotten your promise to me?”

Red hair and black eyes. A sharp-featured beauty resembling a burning flame.

Hold on, that would make her Cheryl, wouldn’t it?

The emperor looked down at her with a sullen expression before replying indifferently.

“Count Sidonia. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

If she was Count Sidonia, then she was definitely Cheryl.

Why is she appearing already?

The scene where the villainess Cheryl Sidonia argues with the emperor should be much later in The Butterfly Garden’s Secret Affair.

Ever since the gate appeared a week ago, the opening scene had been disrupted, and now the progression of events was picking up speed.

To preserve the original flow for the stability of this world, I watched Cheryl’s sudden appearance with tension.

Cheryl lifted the corners of her eyes and demanded from the emperor as if pressing him.

“Did you not promise to make me the crown princess?”

“When did I promise that? I said I would think about it.”

The emperor’s response was disinterested again.

While the surrounding nobles simply watched the two in silence, Cheryl, glaring at the emperor as if she would shoot arrows from her eyes, spoke once more.

“Very well. I will give up on marrying His Highness the Crown Prince, so please just return that to me.”

“Count Sidonia, how dare you covet something belonging to the emperor. Abandon your lingering attachment.”

“That does not belong to Your Majesty. It belongs to Sidonia.”

“It used to. Before your father offered it to me.”

The emperor smirked crookedly, his tone mocking.

When I read the novel, he was just the annoying father of the male lead, but seeing him in person, he was a much bigger villain.

He must be making that annoying face on purpose, right?

At his age, why was he acting like that toward someone young enough to be his daughter?

The ‘thing’ Cheryl demanded was an heirloom and treasure passed down in the Sidonia family, which had been a ducal house until about ten years ago.

And Sidonia had been one of the heroes who founded the Dioretta Empire in ancient times.

The sword-wielding Vesseris, the healer Toned, the mage Sidonia, and the prophet Ampsparrow.

The four united their strength to establish the Dioretta Empire. Vesseris became the emperor, and the others became dukes.

Things would have been better if the four of them had stayed united and lived happily ever after, but at some point, the imperial family of Vesseris began to keep the others in check.

House Ampsparrow had already been eradicated and no longer existed, and Cheryl’s father escaped annihilation only by offering up their heirloom and ducal title.

Thanks to that, Cheryl became Count Sidonia, and she was staking her life on marrying the crown prince to reclaim the stolen heirloom.

And the novel began with the setup that Duke Toned, sensing danger, gathered anti-imperial nobles to oppose the emperor, then reconciled with him through Heide and Larienne’s engagement.

This was the background of The Butterfly Garden’s Secret Affair as I remembered it.

Cheryl glared at the emperor with a pale face before turning around and storming out of the banquet hall.

The emperor scoffed at her retreating figure, then shouted toward the orchestra loudly enough for her to hear.

“Play the music! Let the banquet begin!”

Soon, a lively dance tune filled the hall, and the nobles, watching the emperor’s mood, paired off and stepped onto the floor.

Cheryl’s relentless effort to break off Heide and Larienne’s engagement and claim the crown princess’s seat had always been extreme, so she wasn’t a character I particularly liked.

But maybe it was because I knew her pitiful end.

Seeing Cheryl mocked by the emperor felt less hateful and more somewhat pitiful.

I stared at the banquet hall entrance where Cheryl had disappeared, then shook my head and let out a sigh.

“Worrying about a villainess… look at me.”

There was something else I needed to worry about.

Things were drifting from the original plot bit by bit. Was this okay?

Himong said that as long as the major events followed the original, it would be fine, so it should not be a big problem.

Either way, the two most important events in the novel’s opening had ended simultaneously.

As a background character, there wasn’t anything I could do anyway, so all I could do was hope everything continued smoothly until the end.

I looked around the banquet hall for Linus among the nobles dancing and singing.

I had seen him standing there like a statue a moment ago, but he had disappeared before I knew it.

Neither Larienne nor Heide were anywhere to be seen, so I quietly stepped out of the banquet hall.

I was planning to go to the Butterfly Garden to look for Linus.

* * *

The sunset was settling over the lush flower bushes.

The Butterfly Garden at dusk was even more beautiful than during the day, and I could understand why Larienne and Heide had secretly met here.

I walked toward the inner part of the garden where I had first bumped into Linus.

We hadn’t agreed to meet there, but somehow I felt he would be there.

“Ayrbet.”

Of course.

Linus had been standing there like a dog waiting for its master, and when he spotted me, he approached.

He smiled so brightly, as if he might even wag his tail, and I found myself smiling back without meaning to.

“So you were here.”

“I was waiting.”

Facing his sweet smile that looked like it could melt snow, Rene’s frightening words came to mind.

Rumors that he had killed someone.

Wasn’t that just a ridiculous rumor people made up to fill in the gaps of his missing memories?

They said face reading was science, and there was no way a man who smiled that gently could be a murderer.

As I narrowed my eyes and examined Linus’s face, the corners of his eyes drooped slightly.

Then he suddenly looked gloomy and said something strange.

“I must have made a mistake after all.”

“What? What mistake?”

“Ayrbet only spoke to me out of courtesy, and I behaved without realizing it.”

“What? What are you talking about, Linus?”

I widened my eyes as I asked, but Linus bit his lower lip and looked at me with sorrowful eyes before finally apologizing.

“I’m sorry for troubling you, Ayrbet, especially when you rejected my confession.”

“No, wait. I have no idea what you’ve been saying since earlier. And I didn’t reject you.”

“…What?”

Linus blinked blankly.

No wonder he hadn’t contacted me at all since that day. He must have thought I rejected him.

Let me be clear: I didn’t reject him.

He said, “I like you,” and I just redirected the conversation by saying, “It seems like the weather will be nice tomorrow.”

I didn’t have anything in particular to say.

It’s not like he said, Since I like you, let’s date, so there was nothing for me to accept or reject.

What was I supposed to do about his feelings anyway? Bow and say, Oh wow, thank you so much?

Sure, I would’ve loved to bow until my stomach touched my legs, but right now the fate of this world and the future of my ambitious beekeeping business were weighing heavily on my shoulders.

What romance could I possibly afford in this situation?

Ha. The life of a transmigrator.

While I was busy resenting my heartless destiny, Linus slowly mulled over my words, and the corners of his mouth began rising.

“So it wasn’t a rejection?”

Even before hearing my full answer, a bright, innocent smile bloomed across his face.