I Have Become The Heroes’ Rival

Chapter 17

TL: gaeulriri

Editor: Daed

Lucas thought Claudia would give him another chance.

I tried to give up on Claudia, but thanks to her, the situation took an unpredicted turn.

Lucas stared at me with an expressionless face after Claudia turned down his offer.

I had explained it well to the Prince of Antisocial Personality Disorder, who cannot sympathize with the other people’s feelings. What should I do to make him understand?

Well, the only way left was shock therapy.

“Oh my god… So scary…”

I hid behind Claudia’s back and trembled, pretending to be intimidated.

“I deserve to die, Your Majesty. How could someone unworthy like me dare to stand in front of you. Please forgive me.”

Claudia was surprised. She hugged my shoulder and glared at Lucas.

Lucas muttered a curse under his breath, feeling falsely accused because he felt like he didn’t do anything wrong.

Now, look. Look at the significant difference in atmosphere and attitude between when Claudia was dealing with you and with me. Wasn’t it really a joke?

Even if Lucas rose from the dead and repented of his sins, there would still be no room for him between me and Claudia.

‘So, please just give up.’

If you didn’t give up now, everything you do in the future would be a waste.

No matter how hard you tried to separate us, our strong bond and friendship wouldn’t break. Wasn’t it exhausting for you?

I glanced over Claudia’s shoulder to look at Lucas.

Before, only his face was hardened. But at this moment, I could see the veins popping out from his forehead, neck, and the back of his hand. It seemed like his blood pressure had increased.

With a cold stiff look, Claudia said,

“If you’re done with your business, can you let us leave now?”

Claudia’s words seemed to ask for understanding, but her tone was closer to a notice. She guided me past the Crown Prince.

At that very moment, Lucas’s bright red eyes stared at me as if he wanted to eliminate me from this world.

His gaze seemed to say ‘No matter what happens, I will definitely kill you with my own hands.’

What did we do when someone we loved didn’t love us back?

Normally, we would try to make that person fall for us, or simply wished for that person’s happiness when we had to give up.

However, the heroes of this story didn’t seem to think that way.

If I got rid of everyone around her and locked her up alone, no one would be able to see her. And she could only look at me.

Dude, I was really sorry for three of you who didn’t know the beauty of love.

I clicked my tongue.

***

In the end, the Crown Prince was ignored by Claudia.

Shortly afterwards, an invitation came from the Imperial family.

“Damn, it’s the celebration of National Day.”

It was an annual event that could not be missed.

The ceremony was to be attended as an obligation, not an option, especially by the nobles who held influence with the Emperor. Of course, the organizers chose carefully which families to be invited.

So, there was no reason for the Chamberlains, who wielded the finances of the Roxitant Empire, to not be invited.

The Chamberlains were a family that the royal family kept a close eye on.

But what was odd was…

“Our family was also invited to the ball?”

When I asked because I couldn’t believe it, Liam over the call replied, as if he understood my feelings.

[I also wondered if it was a prank, so I looked again and found that the imperial seal was properly stamped. I don’t think it was counterfeit.]

The poor Ambers had never been invited by the imperial family before.

Except the fact that I was always following Claudia around in every event held by the imperial family.

But, wasn’t it very suspicious to send an invitation to my family suddenly at this time?

This must be a trap.

It was obvious whose responsibility it was that the Amber family was invited.

‘What on earth is that bastard planning….’

Lucas, of course. I wasn’t even surprised.

In fact, based on the momentum of that day, I had assumed that he wouldn’t dare to bother us again. But, it seemed like he wasn’t that stupid anymore.

‘Maybe at that time, he was just shocked after being treated like that by a supporting character like me.’

Wasn’t Lucas the prince and the male protagonist of this novel? The world must have revolved around him in his whole life, so he lost his mind for a while because something didn’t go as he wanted.

Well, he was a prince. He would have been sincerely worried about the future of the empire, so he went this far.

‘Did you really think about starting to deal with me now?’

Now, he would start to show the true face of the obsessed prince.

I would protect Claudia even if I had to die. With that resolution in mind, I prepared to head to the Imperial Palace.

Even if you entered the tiger’s den, you would stay alive as long as you stayed cautious and wary.

And I would think of this as an opportunity to survive.

For the happy ending!

The war had been declared, so I decided to make the Crown Prince my first target.

There were a lot of things that I would have to prepare from now on in order to deal with him.

***

I waited for the night to come.

Because if Claudia knew that I was going to go out, she would have insisted on coming with me.

Fortunately, Claudia was deep in slumber.

I played with Claudia until she got tired and fell asleep. After that, I took out the hood that I hid under the bed and put it on.

But, since I was so focused on Claudia, I overlooked the fact that Felix was a sleepless person. He spotted me before I even left the playroom.

“……”

“……”

Felix studied me as I froze in place and broke out into cold sweat. He tilted his head and folded his arms.

“You have to sleep earlier to grow taller, Irene.”

But I had already stopped growing……

I felt attacked by his innocuous remark.

Do you know how much shock and pain I experienced when I opened my eyes and woke up in this short body?

When I hesitated and tried to find an excuse, Felix poured hot chocolate from a chocolate fountain into a cup and served it.

Stunned, I blankly accepted the chocolate from his hand.

“Is there anything wrong?”

Felix asked as he sat across the fountain. His blue eyes stared at me.

From his gaze, it seemed that he would listen to whatever I said.

“Uhmm, it’s….”

I drank the chocolate unconsciously and almost confessed everything to him, but then I burned my tongue on the hot chocolate.

The sugar contained in the chocolate seemed to make my mouth become dry.

‘Did you already know that eating sweets makes me feel abnormally better?’

I eyed Felix suspiciously, but he merely returned a innocent smile. It was a pure smile that I felt my soul had been purified.

I was embarrassed for harboring such a thought. Felix sat in front of me and seemed really harmless. Eventually, I asked with a sigh.

“Can you lend me a teleportation artifact?”

I couldn’t think of the terminology right now, so I waved my arm to explain it. With a chuckle, he replied,

“The teleport magic should never be engraved on artifacts. It will be a big problem if the general public uses it.”

“What kind of big problem?”

When I asked a weird question, he kindly explained to me.

“If you don’t set the coordinates properly, you may fall freely in the air. But that’s not the big problem. When teleporting, there are times where some parts of our body don’t follow the teleportation magic. There are quite a few wizards living with separate body parts like that.”

It was indeed a big problem.

‘Ah, I imagined it…….’

Did it mean that if your hands and feet might not move while teleporting, there was a possibility that your head might not move as well?

What kind of horror story was that?

“But even if the coordinate setting is subtly misaligned and your body gets stuck in the wall…….”

“E…enough.”

I thought the explanation was enough. I didn’t want to know much about the harshness of the magical world like the gory movies.

I shook my head and said,

“I think it would be better to ride a carriage. The analog sensitivity is the best.”

“If you have somewhere you need to go, I can take you anywhere.”

Felix kindly offered, but I had to shake my head again.

I didn’t refuse because I couldn’t trust the skills of the best sorcerer in this world, and I did want to teleport to relax my body. But…

“Uhmm, that person won’t meet me if anyone follows along. That person also doesn’t like the location being discovered. Such a sensitive person…”

When he heard my words, Felix’s eyes turned strange. After a moment’s silence, he asked in a slightly lowered voice.

“……..Is that person a man?”

“She’s a woman.”

I answered without any hesitation because there was nothing to hide about that. Someone like me who was born under a solo star, did you think I would sneak out to meet a man at night?

To be honest, Felix and that person were the only ones who were able to communicate properly with me for a year.

Why were my eyes getting teary…..

When Felix found out that the person I was going to see was a woman, his expression seemed to become more complicated.

“Then…..”