Before He Breaks

Regita twisted her pretty mouth into an ugly sneer and mocked me outright.

"Don't tell me, Arabella. You didn't put on this pathetic display because you're terrified of being passed over for Crown Princess, did you? And here I thought the noble daughter of the great House Miona had fallen about as low as one could go. No, surely not. Right?"

Flinging about mockery disguised as innocent questions, she raised her lace-trimmed fan to half-hide her lips. Above its edge, her amber eyes arched like crescent moons, glittering with cruelty.

The young ladies around her followed her lead, hiding their mouths behind their own fans and tittering.

How childish. Being royalty, I suppose even their mockery is antique as a museum piece.

To someone like me—a transplant from South Korea, paradise of keyboard warriors—it was a one-dimensional attack that barely registered as a joke. And yet, strange thing: even as I sneered at it in my head, my body kept flinching, cowering, my heart pounding fit to burst.

...It's the automatic reflex carved into the real Arabella's unconscious. She must have been bullied terribly—or she was simply spineless to begin with. Poor Arabella.

Strangely enough, most of Arabella's recent memories that had come back with me were erased, so I had no way of knowing exactly what had happened to her. A shame, truly—but they were my problems now, and I couldn't just sit here and take the abuse.

I was calmly composing a counterattack to lob back at Regita when it happened. A tall, strikingly handsome man began walking toward us, and every eye—Regita's, the young ladies'—swung to him, throwing my timing off in the most awkward way possible.

"Your Highness."

At the syrupy warmth of Regita's greeting, my stomach dropped through the floor.

Regita's older brother... Crown Prince Sota? Don't tell me—the sub-male lead?

Sota Gamition Groheim. The man who formed a love triangle with Dorothea and Eusilif in A Blue Rose for the Apocalypse, and the pillar of evil accelerating this world's end. He was approaching me now, his gaze locked on me, step by measured step.

Towering height, a sturdy inverted-triangle build, an overwhelming presence radiating from his entire body—from far away, you could already feel the gravity befitting one of only two Swordmasters on the entire continent.

"Are you quite recovered now, Lady Miona?"

A bone-dry greeting, a listless stare. There was no doubt about it: despite my being a Crown Princess candidate, he hadn't a shred of interest in Arabella.

No—on closer look, the Crown Prince's brown eyes were, in fact, examining me meticulously. I read a flicker of doubt in those lightless depths.

Is he wondering how I managed not to die?

The moment I registered that look, a line from the original novel surfaced—the words he'd whispered while pinning Dorothea to his bed against her will.

'If that woman—Arabella Miona—hadn't been poisoned, things might have gotten rather complicated for me.'

'Could it be you? Are you the one who tried to kill me—no, Arabella?'

I couldn't condemn him as the culprit on the strength of one line from the original story alone. But at the very least, the odds were more than sufficient that he was an accomplice or abettor.

And besides, this bastard—later, when Dorothea chooses Eusilif, he loses his temper and goes berserk, cracks open the Labyrinth, and hastens the apocalypse itself.

Conclusion: Crown Prince Sota was, right now, a man I needed to avoid above all others. Staying far from his attention was the only way my odds of survival would climb.

Judgment rendered, I deliberately bowed my head deep and answered in a frightened little voice.

"Y-yes, Your Highness the Crown Prince. I'm quite well."

I didn't dare look at his face. Whether my performance—of a girl too humiliated to show her disfigured face—worked or not, the man who had been scrutinizing me soon lost interest and tossed out a perfunctory word of encouragement.

"Good. I trust you'll make a full recovery."

The predator's gaze—like something eyeing a mangy beast—finally slid away from me. I was exhaling a sigh of relief inside when Regita latched onto her brother's arm and whined.

"Brother, since the Crown Princess selection has already fallen through anyway, why don't we head straight to the gladiatorial arena and watch the matches?"

"Ah. Was that today?"

"Yes. My slave is fighting today."

"Well. Suit yourself."

When Sota dipped his chin in easy agreement, Regita put on an extravagantly delighted show.

"Wonderful. May I ride in your carriage with you, then, Brother?"

"If you like."

"You won't mind if two of my close friends join us, will you?"

"Do as you please."

Despite his dismissive responses, the cluster of young ladies who had been eavesdropping on the exchange between Princess Regita and her brother lit up and squealed like a pod of dolphins.

Soon after, Sota slipped away as if pressed for time, and a vicious silent war broke out over who would get to ride in his carriage with Regita.

At some point I had been pushed entirely out of everyone's attention. Ignoring the pitying look the maid cast my way, I turned my ears to their chatter instead.

"Now that you mention it, today's the semifinals, isn't it? I heard Her Highness the Princess's slave made it to the semis."

"That slave's the talk of the arena these days, isn't he? Undefeated even through the preliminaries, they say. Whatever else you can say, Her Highness certainly has an eye for picking a slave."

"And gorgeous, to boot. That body—and those eyes, with that erotic tilt to them... there aren't just a few young ladies losing sleep over him lately. Hee hee."

"Please let me borrow him for just one night sometime, Your Highness. I'll use him discreetly and return him in perfect condition!"

"We shall see. Hee hee. Well then, shall we be off? Brother is waiting."

Regita led the pack of young ladies sweeping out, and before I knew it the banquet hall had gone quiet.

The maid, who had been hovering at a nervous distance, timidly approached where I stood lost in thought.

"My lady. Shall we return to the estate now? You must get home quickly and have your treatment."

She glanced at me so obsequiously even as she spoke that I almost felt embarrassed watching her. In all likelihood, Arabella had always been treated this coldly at the palace, and each time, she'd vented the accumulating fury on whoever was nearest—which was, presumably, this very maid.

Pathetic, Arabella.

I let out a sigh and turned to face the maid.

"You. What was your name again?"

"...I'm sorry? My name? It's... Becky, my lady."

The maid eyed me warily, clearly worried that my collapse had addled my brain along with everything else.

"Right. Becky. Thank you for worrying about me. Let's get going."

The moment I said it and started off at a brisk pace, Becky startled and grabbed hold of me.

"Wh-where are you going?"

"To the gladiatorial arena. You lead the way."

"My lady? You mean to go there looking like... this?"

The maid asked, flustered. I turned my head and checked my reflection in an ornamental cabinet. Certainly, for a noble young lady, I looked positively criminal.

My face was puffed up with swelling, my hair hung loose and tangled, and I must have knocked over a teacup when I fainted, because the bodice of my dress was soaked through with stains.

It bothered me, yes—but there were far more urgent matters than dignity or decorum.

"There's someone I have to save right this minute. Well—someone I have to meet, anyway."

None other than Eusilif Natayel Mohan. The male lead of the original novel, the sole hope of this world teetering on the edge of the apocalypse—and right now, that man was staring down the greatest crisis of his entire life.

Judging from the conversation among Regita's crowd, today was without a doubt the day.

I had to get to that arena immediately and save him—before he was broken completely, trampled into the dirt, and remade into a human being filled to the brim with trauma and hatred.

And if saving him happened to lighten the grudge he held against me, even a little—well, what could be better?

The instant my mind was made up, I hiked up my skirts entirely, gathered them in one fist, and broke into a run—which Becky hastily scrambled to block.

"My lady! You're really going like this? Th-then what about your treatment? What if you collapse again?"

I shot Becky a look that said stand aside and gave my order, firm and final.

"I'll handle that myself, so just lead the way. Oh, and one more thing."

When I lifted my chin, Becky wilted instantly and began studying my face for cues.

Just like a frightened puppy.

I put on the gentlest expression I could manage, the way one coaxes a child, and asked.

"Do you happen to have any money on you? There's something I need it for."

At the same moment.

WaaaAAA—

In a chamber buried deep beneath the gladiatorial arena, the roar of thousands of cheering spectators drifted down, thin and distant.

In a mold-stained cell deep in that darkness, a man who had been crouched like a corpse slowly opened his eyes.

In blackness too thick to see a hand's breadth ahead, dark crimson eyes glinted like some ominous omen.

Then, at last, he murmured in a voice thick with revulsion.

"Insufferable human filth. If the end of the world would only come and wipe every last one of them out, I'd ask for nothing more."