"Your Highness! Your Highness! Open up! Come play a tense and exciting card duel with me! The kind with only a thousand Life Points!"
Outside the dormitory door, Rena, her lively high ponytail swaying as she wore her black-and-white maid dress, was thumping on Lilith's tightly shut door. Her voice was brimming with eager energy.
"No! What's exciting about that? You're just making the match end faster!"
Lilith's voice drifted from inside the room, laced with obvious impatience and embarrassment.
Rena blinked and tilted her head in thought. "Since Your Highness thinks a normal card duel is boring, then... how about we play a legendary Shadow Duel? If I lose, I'll continue being your maid. But if you lose, then from now on, you have to be my maid! How's that? Stimulating enough, right?"
The room fell silent for two seconds before Lilith's voice exploded in even greater exasperation:
"You really are just a pure idiot, aren't you?! Stop standing at my door saying such stupid things! I'm going to sleep!"
"Eh—how can you say that..."
Rena looked like a wilted eggplant as she lost her spirit. Drooping her shoulders, she sluggishly walked back to her two older sisters, who had been waiting quietly a short distance away in the hallway.
"It didn't work..."
Rena looked at her sisters with a dejected expression and muttered softly, "My perfect scheme couldn't fool the clever princess after all. She still won't come out of her room."
Layla: "..."
Renee: "..."
What 'scheme' are you talking about? Trying to use a card game to overthrow your master?
Renee, who had a chin-length bob, sighed helplessly. She was more concerned with practical matters and looked at the closed door with worry. "Ever since Her Highness came back from outside this morning, she's locked herself in her room. She hasn't eaten or drunk anything, and she won't let anyone in. It's been almost a whole day. I wonder how she's doing..."
Layla pushed up the glasses on the bridge of her nose. Her gaze behind the lenses was thoughtful as she spoke slowly, "It's not entirely Her Highness's fault. I didn't expect that someone besides us would actually notice her feelings—and of all people, for it to be Greg Sass. It truly was unexpected. It's no wonder Her Highness just wants to hide herself away right now."
As Lilith's exclusive personal maids who had served her since childhood, the three sisters had naturally seen the former fiancé of the First Princess, Vivian—Greg Sass.
They remembered a formal banquet at the royal palace years ago. When they first saw the blonde boy brought by Duke Sass, even they, who were used to seeing noble prodigies, couldn't help but be secretly amazed by his dazzling appearance.
At that time, Greg Sass still had some youthful boyishness, but his manners were impeccable, his speech polite, and his eyes clear. Standing beside the already radiant Princess Vivian, they looked like a perfect couple straight out of a fairy tale. Anyone who saw them would have praised it as a match made in heaven.
Even the young Princess Lilith, upon seeing her future brother-in-law for the first time, rarely showed any rejection of a stranger. Instead, she had stared at him for a long time with her round, red eyes.
Back then, almost everyone believed this would be a beautiful marriage and a symbol of the kingdom's future stability.
However, the good times did not last.
At some point, the rumors about Greg Sass began to take a sharp turn for the worse.
It was as if he had changed overnight, becoming arrogant, stupid, and crude. Relying on his family's status, he ran rampant everywhere, repeatedly doing things that brought shame to the royal family and embarrassed Princess Vivian.
Those beautiful first impressions were quickly shattered. Eventually, the royal family took the initiative to dissolve the once-enviable engagement.
Since then, the three sisters, along with Princess Lilith, had almost never seen Greg Sass in person at any formal occasion.
The only news about him came through negative rumors—magic failure, shame of the academy, profligate young master...
They thought that the blonde boy they had once glimpsed had long since fallen into total ruin, becoming a name that would never cross paths with their world again.
But recently, the rumors about Greg Sass in the academy seemed to have taken a subtle turn.
First, there were the dubious heroic deeds of defeating a Demon King Cult executive and rescuing kidnapped freshmen.
Then came the absurd news of him joining the Student Council as a Disciplinary Committee member.
And then there was this morning—the public confession incident that had rapidly fermented throughout the academy.
What surprised them even more was that Greg Sass had not only seen through the feelings Princess Lilith hid deep in her heart, but... he had even admitted in public that he himself had always admired Princess Vivian.
All these twists and revelations were too sudden and too dramatic, completely exceeding their previous understanding.
Therefore, they currently had no idea how to comfort Princess Lilith.
Rena, who was several beats behind, finally seemed to catch up with her sisters' conversation. She tilted her head with an innocent look of confusion. "What are you talking about? Are you referring to the fact that Princess Lilith secretly admires Princess Vivian? Haven't we known that for a long time?"
"I DO NOT ADMIRE MY SISTER!!!"
As soon as Rena finished speaking, an embarrassed and indignant rebuttal immediately rang out from inside the room.
Rena was startled by the sudden shout, her round face filled with even greater confusion. "Eh?! So... you don't? But Your Highness, every time you..."
"Shut up! Stupid Rena!" Lilith's voice sounded even more exasperated.
Layla and Renee simultaneously raised their hands to cover Rena's mouth to prevent her from further provoking the princess. At the same time, deep expressions of helplessness appeared on both their faces.
Sigh... looking after someone with a tsundere personality is truly... exceptionally troublesome.
The two of them sighed in unison in their hearts.
Meanwhile, inside the room.
Lilith was wrapping herself tightly in her soft velvet bedding, revealing only a few strands of flame-like red hair.
The space under the covers was dim and warm, isolating the light and sound from the outside world. It felt as though it could temporarily shield her from the gazes and gossip that made her want to die of shame.
But it couldn't block out the blonde boy's clear and soulful voice echoing in her mind, nor the words that had accurately pierced through her secrets and left her with nowhere to hide.
"I don't... it's not like what that guy said. I don't admire Sister!"
She stubbornly denied it in her heart over and over again.
"I just... I just think Sister is very impressive and excellent. She can do everything well. She's the pride of the kingdom and the academy representative... so, so I just..."
"I just respect her! Yes, respect! It's the respect a younger sister and a citizen of the kingdom should have for the First Princess and the academy representative!"
"It's definitely not something as strange as 'adoration'! That guy was completely talking nonsense! Yes, that's it!"
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