Episode 42

To Make a Crown Princess

Anyway, even in the original story, Helena does not begin to receive formal education until after becoming empress. It was only natural for her to know nothing now. Since she is a commoner, she wouldn’t have been educated like the royal family. I asked a maid to bring Helena a wad of paper and ink pen and she nodded. Grammar books and children’s books that children of this world usually use when they first learn to read were placed side by side.

“Take these home.”

“Wait, the reason…! I want to hear the reason! Why does Her Majesty the Empress want to educate me?”

“Ask that after training. Lady Antebellum is taking my time. Any more questions?”

When I responded by looking at the clock bluntly on purpose, Helena was unable to push any more and withdrew her body. From what I see, she needs to fix that first. Her posture was very poor for a lady who grew up only hearing that she was pretty. I hit the desk and yelled.

“Straighten your back! Straighten your shoulders!”

“Eek, yes, yes!”

“One of the most important things in a person’s first impression is their posture. An upright posture rather than a bent posture is not only good externally, but also beneficial to one’s health. And the gaze!”

I held out my index finger in front of her. Helena’s eyes reflexively focused on it. I leaned forward and directly met Helene’s eyes. I stopped her from trying to look down at her hands and then added.

“From now on, don’t look away from their eyes. Look directly at anyone. Even when you are looking at His Highness or Her Majesty.”

“How dare …”

“In the Imperial Palace, the servants are more like furniture. You have to pretend you didn’t hear it, you have to pretend they didn’t see it. Up until now, it was okay for Lady Antebellum to stay away from the nobles because they didn’t have to talk to you, because no one’s trying to talk to the furniture.”

In other words, if you want to be treated like a person in the imperial family and aristocratic society, you shouldn’t cower like that. Humans possess the bad habit of intimidating or pressuring down those they deem weaker or smaller than them.

No matter how much the crown prince protects her, wanted her to know at least this one thing.

“If you want to be treated as a human being, impress upon the other person that you are both equal. To do that, the first thing you need to fix is your gaze and posture.”

At that, Helena blinked her eyes a little, then slowly came out and met my gaze. Seeing Helena with her waist and shoulders straight, I could see her cuteness

flowing. Her walking posture wasn’t too bad, so for now this was enough.

“Very well, let’s start the class.”

Thankfully Helena was smarter than I thought.

I wasn’t an experienced teacher so I had to start her with the basics, but honestly, she seemed to be learning quicker than me.

At first it seemed this female lead’s head was all stuck. The girl who could barely read children’s books was now able to read even the most difficult collections of classical poems without interruption.

The same was true of manners. There were so many trivial etiquettes that she had to memorize. Which fork and knife should be used for what food, guests should always arrive about fifteen minutes late and have to learn new personnel priorities.

In my case, it was easy for me to adapt because came from a world where everyone believes that all people are equal, whereas she was born and raised in a society where the class system was taken for granted. I came into a position where I often received people’s attention, and I was almost in a worldchanging shock. As I educated Helena, most of her words she spit out consisted of ‘how can I’, Tdare, and ‘however’.

I even had to cultivate Helena’s world view. Because this is a world that I had never seen before so I had a bad perception that everything would be good if it was unconditionally flashy and shiny.

Eris was even taught which of her jewels are expensive, which color combinations to match, and how to choose her outfits according to weather or location. She didn’t know that she wouldn’t even have ten pieces of clothes in her closet.

Damn, I think I should teach Helena how to ride horses, but I’ve only gone horseback riding a few times on Jeju Island.

I believed that the crown prince or Jason would later invite her for horse-back riding as a love event, sol decided to teach ballroom dancing first.

To this, I threw off the cumbersome skirt and put on pants for the first time since I came to this world. Ugh, it’s been so long, I couldn’t get used to it.

After I tied my hair up, I proceeded to greet her in her manly manner and extended my hand towards her, and Helena carefully raised her hand over mine.

I taught her exactly what I was taught, but I changed the order a bit. The difficulty is there anyway and if she learns the difficult things first, she will learn the rest more easily and quickly.

I taught Mazurka, Cotillon, Polonaise, and Waltz in that order, and Helena, who was almost struggling at first, showed a dramatic improvement. To be honest, in the case of Cotillon, it was a sort of dance that changes partners, so it didn’t matter what happened when it’s just the two of us dancing.

When the waltz came, I and Helena were both nervous. Helena’s close proximity to me seemed very burdensome as I estimated her weight to lift her.

If I can’t lift her, I’ll just pretend to roughly hold her. It was clear that the crown prince or Jason who would

lift Helena in the actual scene could fly her again and again without any difficulty.

I put my hand on Helena’s back, and she was touching my shoulder. Unfortunately, Helena distanced her hips to avoid contacting me as much as possible,

It bothered me so I put strength in my arms and pulled her closer to me. Helena, who was close to me, gasped, and the sound of swallowing her breath resounded in my ears.

“Relax. The harder you resist, the harder it is to dance to the rhythm.”

“It is clo-close!”

“The waltz is such a dance. Come on, one and two

and….”

As I counted, Helena froze. Perhaps it was thanks to that, for the long-awaited lifting part, I trembled a bit with a little difficulty, but I was able to lift her safely. It was fortunate that Helena was as light as a feather,

Helena gazed down at me and her silver hair fell like a waterfall. Her surprised purple eyes were beautiful.

She always had a pretty face. She’s so pretty even when she’s dazed like this. With this face, if she falls in love, how pretty will she be then?

It is said that beauty can make fish sink, flying birds drop, obscure the moon, and make flowers bloom. Looking at Helena, the definition was almost understandable. Again, I twirled, leading her feet to the ground. Helena soon dropped her head on my shoulder and whispered softly.

“…I’m dizzy.”

“Then let’s take a break.”

My feet hurt from dancing in my high heels. Helena asked as she sat in her chair and drank her tea, wiping her sweat with a handkerchief.

“Lady Misérian… Do you intend to make me the Crown Princess?”

I was quite surprised that Helena realized my intentions.

Indeed, since I am teaching her to be a noblewoman, no matter how dull she is, I thought Helena deserved to know.

To be precise, the part that surprised me was not that she ‘noticed’ it, it was that she overcame the wall of pressure to get it out of her mouth.

“….To put it bluntly, the Empress wants it. Well, agreed.”

“Why? You loved His Highness.”

“I’m surprised you would ask why. Haven’t you realized that His Highness is behaving the way he does because he hates me and loves you?”

Helena responded with a breathless expression, and voice that looked like she was about to cry.

“To me …”

“You haven’t asked me. Do I love His Highness……”

I started to laugh. Helena, who was whimpering silently, raised her head and stared at me with a shocked expression. She was brave enough to say those words but it seemed she felt ignored because I laughed.

She blushed, biting her lips, unable to say anything. Maybe she was holding back her tears as usual. I gently reached out and brushed her eyes with my index finger, replying softly.

“Because I don’t need his feelings.”

I didn’t want to tell a lie. Because I’m not good enough to tell a white lie, and she’s not young enough to need to hear a white lie.

Now, Helena too needed to get out of her damn protected shell and hear the truth.

“This is a political battle between me and the Marquis, Her Majesty and His Majesty, and you are nothing but a chess piece. Do you think I became his fiancée because I loved him?”

“…No, really?”

“So naive. Life isn’t a fairy tale book. Because the Crown Prince was the best fit for me. Even if I had loved someone other than His Highness, I would still have been engaged to His Highness.

Curious, I asked Helena.

“Does Lady Antebellum dislike His Highness?”

“I don’t dislike it, it’s just different from what I wanted in a marriage! Marriage… I want to be with someone that I like.”

Theld back my laughter at Helena’s pure twinkling eyes.

If I laughed, Helena might really be angry with me this

time.

So she wanted to be with someone she likes. Does Helena like someone other than Alecto?

“Is there anyone else whom you like?”

“Oh no, not yet…”

“Then let’s try to like His Highness. No matter who you like anyway, it will be difficult to survive unless it’s His Highness…”

‘If it was the crown prince, he would eliminate the enemy without anyone knowing. I think it’s a reasonable conclusion, but Helena refuted it.

“You mean Alecto would kill someone? Alecto isn’t cruel and brutal enough to do that!”

“Oh, well, you may think that way.”

If she regretted it later, it wasn’t any of my business. In the first place, what reason could there be for why the male candidates for Helena were all so prominent?

I think it’s because the crown prince needs to be in a position where he can’t execute people recklessly, so that he can survive and show that he likes Helena…

Helena looked at me for a moment and then asked.

“Why do you want me and His Highness to get married?”