I am Loved, You See (Pre-Serialization)

I am Loved, You See (Pre-Serialization)

Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n5485la/

In a certain country there was a foolish marquis’s daughter.

The fiancée of the Crown Prince, first in the line of succession. The future Queen Mother, Leticia Obert.

One would think that the person who ought to occupy that position would be a wise and highly capable paragon of a lady.

However, Leticia was haughty and arrogant. On top of that, she was bad at magic, which is also a mark of nobility.

She let her platinum-blond curled hair flutter and strode through the academy corridors flanked by young ladies of lower rank than herself. In the academy attended by nobles there were no uniforms; needlessly gaudy dresses caught people’s eyes, but once those red eyes fixed upon you, it was over, so ordinary students averted their gazes.

…Among them, there was an existence that did not care about Leticia.

At the end-of-term ball, a male student raised his voice. The music stopped, and people froze in their movements.

“Your Highness, please hear me! Lady Leticia Obert mistreats Annette and causes divisions within the academy. Such a person is not fit to be the Queen Mother!”

A transfer student out of season. The secret child of an earl’s family and a former commoner suddenly elevated to nobility, Annette Francois. She was very pretty and kind and diligent. She even scored a perfect mark on the transfer exam and was promptly summoned to the student council. The student council is an elite group composed of only particularly excellent students, with the Crown Prince at the top and those who would later bear the nation’s core among its members.
They claimed that the promising new star Annette was being bullied by Leticia.
Under the Crown Prince’s cool gaze the male student continued.

“Lady Leticia, out of jealousy toward that capable, lovely, and popular girl, would not invite her to tea parties and would scold her in public.”

Everyone looked at Leticia. Indeed, there were reasons for Leticia to be jealous of Annette. She was by no means clever, and for that reason, despite being a marquis’s daughter, she had not been admitted to the student council. In fact, she had been seen scolding Annette during magic practicals more than once or twice.

“That is not all. Furthermore, Lady Leticia set a ruffian on Annette. Seeing Your Highness speaking alone with Annette, she must have suspected him and intended to erase Annette. It is a vile act done because one is not loved.”

At this, Leticia blinked her long eyelashes. She tilted her head with a little thunk. At the sight of that, everyone fell silent.

“I would never doubt Your Highness. I am loved, after all.”

Bang!

As if some sound effect rang out. The serious atmosphere was reduced to powder ash, and everyone pursed their lips as if they could no longer bear it. The start of a condemnation play in which one must not laugh.

Only the Crown Prince laughed freely and drew Leticia—Leti—close.

“Hahaha… that’s right, cute Leti. I love you very much.”

“I know. That does not mean you must report to me each time where you go, what time you will return, and what you talked about.”

“I tell you because I want to tell you. I’d actually like you to watch the recording from the chronicle crystal.”

The Crown Prince shook his lustrous black hair and pressed his forehead to Leti’s. In his amethyst-like eyes there was only Leti with her puckered mouth reflected. A handsome prince and a lady with golden-threaded attire. Completely a world for just the two of them. Some students covered their eyes at the intimacy of the distance.

“I was not bullied!”

With the lovey-dovey display dissolving the nobles’ heavy atmosphere, Annette seized the moment to speak up. Apart from a few boys who were in love with Annette, ordinary students nodded in agreement.
That Leti bullying someone out of jealousy—never.

“Lady Leti pointed out things to me because I wasn’t used to aristocratic society and even sent a recommendation letter for a private tutor to my family…!”

“The tea-party matter was for her sake. Lady Leti listened to our complaints about her.”

“If we had invited her back then, the criticism toward her would have been worse. There is a world that the gentlemen cannot understand, but it exists among women.”

“Indeed, you airhead types should be aware that because of you it came to be that Leti had to intervene!”

Annette, at the head, and her entourages provided support. The boys, who had tried to stand up, were roughed up by the girls they liked and looked on with teary eyes.

…The tea party that did not invite Annette was a hate-management meeting. The “scolding” was done after seeing the reactions of other students. Leti was foolish, but not ignorant. She understood that the distance between men and women differs between commoners and nobles.

As the marquis’s daughter and the future Queen Mother, Leti had an obligation to manage society. And she knew, even she who is foolish, that one could not invite the target of the hate-management meeting in person.

Leti listened to the gripes of those around her, soothed them, and together they came up with solutions. As a result, Leti wrote a note of recommendation to the skilled teacher who had taken care of her during queen training, and everyone grudgingly felt appeased by Leti’s magnanimity. Annette, not foolish, was greatly grateful for this and has now become one of Leti’s followers.

“Guh. B-but, she was almost attacked…!”

The male student spat out his words like a mustelid’s final gasp. But he was cut down again.

“…I don’t know what you are misunderstanding, but the one who was attacked by a ruffian was me.”

“Huh?”

“You know, that time.”

At the Crown Prince’s words, empty-headed Leti gaped. After a few seconds her eyes shone as if she remembered.

“Ah, that ruffian from that time. You surely saw my brave figure, slashing and cutting him down in a flurry!”

By the way, Leti did not understand the meaning of “in a flurry.” She used it because it sounded cool.

The rumor that ‘a student was apparently attacked by a ruffian’ spread through the academy and stopped there. In reality, this was an incident orchestrated by certain nobles for whom the Crown Prince being first in the line of succession was inconvenient. The nobility is not monolithic, and malice is widespread. However, this matter was also resolved because Leti was beside him.

True, Leti’s grades are poor. Even in magic lessons she was often scolded by the teacher.

…but she was not weak. She simply could not understand magic theory and was poor at output. She used beginner magic and body-enhancement magic by feel and with enormous magical power… in other words, she was a musclebrain.

The ruffian who targeted the Crown Prince was beaten to a pulp by Leti’s overwhelming violence, and because he had soiled the Crown Prince’s fist for the unreasonable reason of having tried to take his life, he was then roughed up by His Highness.”

Because it was a story involving the royal family and removed from reality, the rumor had to remain abstract.

“Eh, ah…”

The boy, blinded by love and convinced he was Annette’s hero, finally collapsed on the spot. The other several who had been acting out also turned pale, thinking that if things had gone slightly differently it might have been them.

“Leti is not fit to be Queen Mother… is she?”

The Crown Prince’s cold gaze had been directed at him from the start.

“How utterly disrespectful.”

Drawing her still closer, the Crown Prince held her as Leti tried like a displeased cat to take some distance. Showing a fond pair was part of the duty of the future Queen Mother, but she whispered that the distance was too close, which was not a whisper at all.

“…Daniel Tomine. As punishment for you—”

“—it will be a hundred laps around the schoolyard!!”

The Crown Prince’s punishment was drowned out by Leti’s bright voice. At that moment the male student’s neck skin remained by a hair. Leti’s followers were enthralled by her manner, and the other students felt relief. The Crown Prince, who had been about to socially destroy the one who harmed Leti, put his hand to his brow.

“…Leti. That is—”

“I will not be told it is too lenient. I am the future Queen Mother. If so, then he is the child of the future. To suspect people and decide on one’s own is a bad thing. If one does a bad thing, one must receive punishment!”

“Hey, Leti.”

“Daniel, don’t look so pale. It’s fine. I will run with you. A hundred laps is quick.”

In what world is there a marquis’s daughter running the schoolyard with the criminal… the fiancée of the Crown Prince, the future Queen Mother? Also, the schoolyard includes the magic training ground and is quite vast. A hundred laps is not quick. Ordinary people are not explosively fast like Leti.

The Crown Prince gave up, thinking there was no reasoning with her.

“Sigh… you should be grateful for Leti’s magnanimous heart.”

Thus the male student was saved by Leti. He escaped a demotion near death for a noble. Later, though, he puked on the hundredth lap, but it was a cheap price.

The Crown Prince, superior in everything and handsome to boot. He was excellent at winning hearts and could do anything. The reason young ladies and princesses from other countries did not flock to him was not simply because he had a fiancée.
This man had been cold-hearted, merciless and inhuman from birth. The sort of person with defects. Reliable if he were an ally, but someone you would not want as an enemy. …The one thing that moved him and to which he clung was Leti.

Innocent, ungovernable and unpredictable. A dazzlingly bright, adorable being who acted out of goodwill had fried his brain. The marquis’s daughter’s life was sometimes assaulted by the shadowy side of noble society. Even if someone tried to take her life, she did not get discouraged. Somehow, the next day she would start mysterious training, and though she could not study, she never belittled herself. She continued the effort to learn, proclaiming “It is a divine message that I should become a Queen who understands the hearts of commoners.” She would fall and cry but get up, and his love for her, who never gives up, increased with each passing year.

The Crown Prince sits in the position of the next supreme ruler solely for the desire to not be disliked by Leti and to protect Leti. This is common knowledge, and because of the fearsome obsession and restraint of His Highness, ordinary male students cannot even meet Leti’s gaze.

“Now, everyone. Let us resume the end-of-term party.”

“Leti, will you dance one more song?”

“Um, well, I have makeup catch-up classes for my failing marks…”

In short, it is not an exaggeration to say that this foolish Leti held the fate of the country in her hands.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading.
Bookmarks and ratings would delight the author. Comments are also welcome.

P.S. Due to requests asking for this to be a series, I have started a serialized version. You can jump to it from the link below.

TL Note

Here's the link on the raws of the serialized version: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3492lb/

I might translate this one too.