Free Web NovelChapter 22: She wasn’t a fool...¹
She wasn’t a fool...
As for Eve, who, in the eyes of others, was nothing more than a delicate fourteen-year-old girl
she looked coldly at the newspaper whose front page was covered with her picture and her full name in elegant type
Evelyne Rheya Corin July von Askelund
where it seemed they had used her picture once again to sell the paper, claiming to have news about her, yet this so-called news spoke of nothing but her taste in clothes and her favourite colour
which, naturally, like most girls, her taste in colours wasn’t really distinctive; it was simply feminine and suited a young girl like her who had been raised to be a pretty girl... her defining feature was that she was pretty.
But whereas she used to love the colour pink, she now suddenly hated it to the point of revulsion.
She threw the newspaper into the fire in the fireplace and ordered her personal maid in a tone of disgust
"Get rid of anything in that filthy colour from my room."
"Yes, young miss, I shall give the orders at once."
"Oh... and lock up in the dungeon the dog who leaked my information this time."
"Shall I inform the Punishment Hall, young miss, or will you take matters into your own hands again this time?"
"...."
"Please forgive my incompetence, young miss, but His Grace the Duke has sent word that you are to join the Academy. You are to travel tomorrow morning, accompanied by the third young master, Julian."
"... I see... Then inform the Punishment Hall of this. I want them to gouge out his eyes, cut off his tongue and ears, and feed them to him, then banish him to the land of the barbarians... Oh, and don’t forget to tell the Shadows Hall to send someone to sever every finger of whoever dared to write this article... but do not kill him."
"Yes, my young miss."
After bowing to her young miss, she left, leaving her alone in her gloomy room
She was about to give orders to burn down the building of that filthy newspaper, just as she had done with others who had dared to speak of her—such as publishing statistics about her and describing her as a flower and other repulsive terms from those parasitic creatures
But she was not that ignorant, for this newspaper belonged to the Empress’s family; if she acted rashly, it might cause trouble for the family should an investigation take place and Askelund’s involvement be exposed.
She rose calmly from the sofa and made her way to the bathroom in her suite, then leaned over the washbasin and began to vomit.
Evelyne Askelund was a beautiful girl, delicate in appearance, with a sweet voice... even when she gave hideous orders or swore and cursed in anger, or even if she was covered in filth or blood from head to toe, for some reason she always seemed beautiful in a special way, as if the world itself refused to accept the idea of her being ugly
But what many didn’t really know, or perhaps simply couldn’t understand or grasp... or perhaps simply thought was part of her charm and ignored it... was that she wasn’t really an innocent, naive girl.
So... she hated this attention and felt disgusted by it.
She was suffocated by this feeling because she always felt she was merely a prisoner in the beast’s cage.
At some point, after she began to truly realise how terrifying her abilities were and understood why her sister and brothers and father feared for her and had completely excluded men from among her guards and servants, she tried to act in a manner contrary to reason and culture: she cut her hair, behaved like a boy, carried a sword, and practised the sword arts reserved for male knights. But because of this, a fashion trend spread amongst young girls throughout the empire, where instead of beautiful dresses, girls wore repulsive boy’s clothing.
You should know that even female knights do not wear trousers exactly like men, but rather short dresses reaching just above the knee, paired with elegant feminine’s trousers. And even when they carry swords, there are combat skills specific to them, far removed from the brutality and savagery of men’s swordplay.
And aside from the crazy appearance, suddenly hunting and learning the rough, barbaric swordplay of the male knights became the most popular thing among young girls, and what was most disgusting was that the boys liked it and looked at her as if she were a nice girl who had invented the funniest thing in the world
So she was horrified and then gave it up, allowing herself to wear what she liked and behave as she pleased... Although, on her elder sister’s advice, she did not stop practising swordplay even though she did not like it, at least she stopped practising the male knight sword art, which had already begun to have a slight effect on her muscles, and began practising the female knight sword art.
For a while, everything was quiet, and with her elder sister’s help, she made sure no news of her activities leaked out of the ducal castle. However, it seems that some parasites noticed her frequent wearing of pink and sold the story to the newspapers. freeweɓnovel.cøm
In truth, she didn’t really mind influencing girls her own age or showing off her beauty or what she loved; after all, what’s the point of a beautiful dress or a gorgeous pair of shoes if you can’t even show them off to the other girls?!
And one could say that girls wearing strange clothes like trousers and carrying swords, even risking disfiguring their bodies by practising sword arts intended for men, all this simply because of her doing so made her feel a sense of pride and self-satisfaction. But the problem is that they imitated her in something she herself knew was wrong and appalling!!!
But what disgusts her is the boys’ infatuation with her.
It isn’t a major issue within the castle, as none of the knights or servants living here would dare to look at her, let alone harbour impure thoughts. Also, everyone who works in the northern part of the castle in particular, where all members of the main family reside, possesses a degree of resistance to charm and enchantment; all the knights here in the northern part of the castle are Requiemknights– and even the servants are thoroughly trained.
