I Became the Teacher of the Imperial Family’s Bastard

Chapter 23

023. Fiancé (2)

Where should I begin?

…Yes, to explain this relationship, one must understand the concept of ‘Pharos’ Marriage.’

As mentioned earlier, Pharos is a family that stands in a unique position, different from other nobles.

Despite being greater and more honorable than any other family, they cannot participate in politics.

Moreover, the achievements of the family are entirely attributed to the royal family.

In other words, a marriage with Pharos cannot be used as a weapon in the political arena. For this reason, Pharos has faced many difficulties in marriage throughout generations.

However, this did not mean that they could bring just anyone and make them the mistress.

It is a great family, even if it means death.

The partner must be a noble and must possess outstanding abilities.

At the same time, the family must not be greedy for political power.

At this point, you might wonder.

Then who on earth would marry Pharos?

What is the benefit?

There is only one.

An honor that can never be replaced.

Legitimacy.

The kind of name value that can speak of stock and companions in the imperial family.

There have always been nobles who needed such things, and it was the same in my generation.

There were many candidates, and the one considered the best among them was Beatrice of the Baron Gilfur family.

The Baron Gilfur family was a family that had only existed for a mere 100 years and lacked legitimacy.

They had always been under attack for their lack of legitimacy and needed a strong marriage alliance to resolve it.

In the midst of that, Beatrice von Gilfur was born into that family.

She was born with such astonishing magical talent that it was said to be a gift from the heavens.

She joined the Magic Tower at the age of just six.

She broke through the third rank, known as the wall of the commoners, and reached the fourth rank at the age of just sixteen.

The world said.

She would be the next master of the Magic Tower, and the era she would lead would be the most brilliant era of magic.

So Beatrice was a woman who suited Pharos very well.

The advantages of the marriage were clear.

Pharos would benefit from passing on the talent to be the master of the Magic Tower to his heirs.

Gilfur would gain legitimacy through Pharos’s power, and the Magic Tower, as their patron, would escape the pressure of the imperial family.

It was such a calculated engagement.

Giving each other appropriate benefits while bearing only small losses.

It was so perfectly matched that it could be said the heavens had ordained it.

Since noble marriages are not the affairs of the parties involved, neither I nor this woman particularly objected.

That is how I would describe my relationship with Beatrice in a word.

‘A mere alliance.’

A relationship forged for mutual benefit.

A relationship devoid of personal feelings, focused solely on profit.

The dinner meeting was no different.

It was a kind of ritual to remind each other that our betrothal was still an ongoing matter.

The reason such a betrothal fell apart… yes, it was because I slapped that commoner girl.

Attacked by the prince who was mad over the incident, we were both sent to prison, so how could the marriage alliance be maintained?

But now I say,

“Won’t you answer?”

“What if I am right?”

“What makes you so confident…?”

“Is it confident to skip a promised dinner meeting to meet that girl?”

I answered crookedly, with my hands shoved into my pockets.

I could see her flinch, but so what?

Honestly, I couldn’t speak kindly because I didn’t have good feelings towards this woman.

Why did I slap that girl?

It was because this woman skipped our dinner meeting without a word to meet that girl.

Thanks to that, I had to stare at the cooling meal on the table for over three hours that day.

Was it sad?

Was it heartbreaking?

Hell, it was just damn annoying.

From the beginning, there was no rational affection for that woman, and we both knew it was a relationship maintained for mutual benefit.

I was just thinking of finishing my meal quickly and getting drunk, and when that didn’t happen, I got really angry.

To add to that, my pride was hurt by the fact that I was pushed aside by a commoner woman.

That’s how it was back then.

Of course, it was wrong to slap a woman.

I don’t want to explain or be understood for such a thing now.

I think I’ve paid more than enough for my crime, having rotted in prison for a lifetime for a single slap.

Moreover, I ended up in prison because of that woman who abandoned me, because of the prince who imprisoned me for a single slap, because of that woman who was the root cause.

Such childish and victimized thoughts ended in the first year of my imprisonment.

So now that time has turned back.

I know how to handle things a bit more wisely, so I just follow him.

“Let’s not do this here. Neither of us did anything right… No, at least between the two of us, what the wizard did was more of a mistake. It’s not something I should apologize to you for, hitting a commoner woman.”

I turned my back.

“Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

Seeing her face makes me angry.

It wasn’t because she abandoned me.

After shaking off such feelings, more fundamentally.

‘If only that woman had been alive…’

The empire during the war wouldn’t have collapsed so miserably.

There is only one reason I hate that woman.

Because she is the one who brought down the Empire’s Tower of Magic.

* * *

Most of the events I knew in my previous life were told to me by my sister while I was in prison.

For that reason, I didn’t know the detailed internal affairs, only the clear causes and effects formed the basis of my judgment.

It was that kind of story.

The story after I was imprisoned and my engagement was broken.

―The lady attempted to summon a demon.

In the near future, that woman will attempt to summon a demon.

In the heart of the Tower of Magic, sacrificing numerous wizards.

Of course, it was not an easy task.

In the history of the Empire, a successful demon summoning had only occurred once, 300 years ago.

It was bound to fail.

The summoning itself ended in failure.

It wasn’t because Beatrice lacked talent.

It was because the wizards of the Tower of Magic gritted their teeth to stop the demon from being summoned.

They succeeded in stopping it, but there were sacrifices.

The price of protecting the Tower of Magic was the massacre of the highest-ranking wizards.

The mid-ranking wizards were no different.

They were contaminated by the demon’s power and all died within a year.

Only Beatrice knows the exact reason why she did such a thing.

Whether she truly intended to sacrifice the wizards or not.

However, it was later revealed that the demon she tried to summon was one that enforced some kind of ‘favor.’

Because of this, her actions were brought back into the spotlight.

The prevailing theory was that the commoner girl might have been the target of the favor she tried to enforce.

In the end, her true intentions remained unknown.

There was only one reason.

―The lady has committed suicide.

That woman caused such an incident and then took her own life.

It happened about two weeks after she was imprisoned.

―It is said that when the lady was found, her body was covered in self-inflicted wounds. She seemed to be mentally distressed. Was it guilt? Or perhaps…

Even my sister did not know Beatrice’s true feelings.

I had no interest in it.

Just a simple “I see…”

And it was during the Imperial War that it came back to haunt me.

‘If only we had the magic division, we wouldn’t have been so thoroughly defeated.’

In other words, the incident caused by that woman resulted in the deaths of all mid- and high-ranking wizards.

And that void was not filled even during the war.

Magic, more than swordsmanship, is greatly influenced by talent.

How could the Magic Tower, which had its promising sprouts and already blossomed talents uprooted, recover in an instant?

One of the reasons the empire was prosperous was their knowledge and power.

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Losing that made the empire no different from a soldier who had lost an arm, causing the empire to lose numerous strategic means.

In the early stages of the war with the barbarians, there was no way to stop their ‘sorcery,’ leading to a one-sided disadvantage.

It was the same even after I came out of the prison.

Neither I nor the crown prince were affected by our own powerlessness, but what troubled our army the most was not the barbarian king, but his sorcery.

Mental defense magic.

If there had been a magic corps that could handle just that one thing properly, we wouldn’t have been defeated so miserably.

The more desperate the need became, the more I felt my resentment towards this woman growing day by day.

That was the reason.

‘At least the crown prince took responsibility and protected the empire until the moment he died.’

This woman escaped comfortably through suicide.

It hasn’t happened yet.

If it were to happen, it must be prevented at all costs.

But, aside from such public matters, I disliked this woman.

That feeling was growing even now as I continued my meal.

“······.”

I feel a gaze.

There is not a single grain of goodwill.

It’s a relief that we share the same sentiment.

I also wish this woman would finish her meal and leave.

“Please, eat. Our chef has been bustling around since dawn to prepare this for your visit.”

“······.”

“If you’re not going to eat, give it to me. It’s not right to show others that you leave food uneaten.”

Our chef is quite emotional.

If there’s a meal left untouched, he gets melancholic, wondering if it wasn’t tasty.

Could I make him melancholic because of this woman?

My stomach needs to make more effort.

Just as I was thinking this and reaching out my hand,

“···Really, is there nothing more you want to say to me?”

Such a question was posed.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

I could instantly tell from her eyes that what lingered there was hostility.

“Aren’t we engaged? Even if we came together for mutual benefit, I believe there should be no lingering resentment between us.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the dinner appointment. But I also······.”

Ah, I can’t listen to this.

“Hey.”

“···Hey?”

“Yes, you.”

In fact, I’ve been pondering for the past three days.

Setting aside this woman’s strategic value, from a broader perspective, whether she is necessary for my ultimate goal of ‘the revival of Pharos.’

Whether this woman is suitable to be the mistress of Pharos.

‘Damn it.’

No matter how much I think about it, it just doesn’t make sense.

This woman? She’s necessary.

Regardless of personal feelings, her talent is so great that even the current Tower Master can’t handle it.

Her talent is indispensable not just for defense, but for counterattack.

But that’s only in the context of war.

‘I still don’t understand what’s so great about her…’

Rebecca or whatever her name is, I still don’t get why all these so-called great men are panting after her.

The one thing I do know is that a woman who loses her mind over such a girl and hangs herself is not fit to be the mistress of Pharos.

So,

“Let’s just break off the engagement. You don’t want to marry me either, do you?”

I don’t feel the need to use formal language anymore.

* * *

Beatrice had to put in quite a bit of effort to compose her expression.

Ever since she entered the mansion of Pharos, and even now.

The strongest emotion she felt was bewilderment.

‘…Was he always like this?’

The crude speech, the indifferent and inconsiderate actions remained unchanged, but something was different.

It was depth.

Even he was puzzled as to why he felt this way, but Yuren was clearly different from the scoundrel Beatrice knew.

She knew that Yuren had risen to the position of Grand Duke.

Did the position make the man?

Or was he always like that, and she just didn’t know?

It was something she could no longer know.

Beatrice had never taken an interest in Yuren.

However, those words scratched at her insides.

For some reason, Beatrice found herself thinking she had done something terribly wrong.

But she had no intention of admitting it.

“Do you mean that?”

Beatrice’s expression grew colder.

The icy aura subtly spread into the air.

But Yuren was surprisingly unaffected.

Rather, his indifference pressured Beatrice.

“Do I look so stupid that I would say such things without thinking? Or do you just want to think that?”

As if he had lost interest, or as if it was no longer worth talking about, he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.

Beatrice’s fingertips trembled.

His eyes held a distant indifference, or perhaps a hint of contempt, as if implying something.

“Not all wizards are smart, it seems. Or have you lost your mind to the point where you can’t make a normal judgment?”

“Take that back…”

“I can’t do it.”

Whoosh―!

In an instant, Yuren’s prayer was revealed.

Beatrice’s body stiffened.

‘…?!’

The innate blessing of communion with mana.

That ability was telling her.

His mana was truly sharp and vicious in form.

‘Why?’

Why now?

Just until the last meeting, his prayer was insignificant, suddenly?

The curiosity passed quickly but did not last long.

His words shook Beatrice’s mind.

“Listen carefully. That commoner girl? I don’t care. The same goes for you. There’s only one answer I want to hear from you. Yes, let’s break off the engagement. Do you know why?”

“……”

“Because you are not qualified. You, who put personal feelings before the affairs of Pharos, are not qualified to be the mistress.”

Language inherently varies in weight depending on the speaker.

Beatrice could not forget the prayer that had just been revealed.

Even at this moment, she felt as if she was being scolded by the nervous prayer.

Those words were trying to overturn and destroy one of the truths that made up Beatrice.

A sense of crisis.

It arose.

So, I tried to get up from my seat, but…

“Sit down. I’m not done talking.”

There was an irresistible force in his words.

It wasn’t something physical.

The overwhelming mana affinity made Beatrice feel compelled to obey his words.

“…I don’t want to listen.”

“I need to vent too. I tried to give you a chance once. I wanted to see how you’d make excuses. But what is this? Do you think you’re the boss? How arrogant.”

Yuren leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs.

“Isn’t the answer obvious with a little calculation? A meal was more important to you than that girl. Thanks to your foolish judgment, the Magic Tower, your family, and I are all in trouble. Can’t you see that? Or do you enjoy being that girl’s doormat so much?”

A surge of flames rose within.

Beatrice’s eyes turned fierce.

Yuren clicked his tongue and said,

“I don’t care if you enjoy women, but you should have had some sense.”

“Take back those words.”

It wasn’t about women.

The feelings Beatrice had for Rebecca were distinctly different from rational love or lust.

It was an emotion with a different, unchanging value.

That’s right.

She had put everything public aside, and thus caused a disaster.

But for Rebecca, it was worth it.

The fullness she could give was of a kind that no gold, honor, or power could provide.