Who Could Have Loved the Monster Princess? - Chapter 31 - The Invisible Enemy

4. The Invisible Enemy

Apparently, my father thinks I’m a lady. He’s forbidden me from any gatherings where many young noblemen are expected to attend. By order of the Duke.

‘Why on earth?’

Meeting with nobles my age was, to a certain extent, a form of entertainment, but it was also what I was supposed to do.

I didn’t usually recognize myself as a ‘lady’. I was a representative of the Staedt Duchy and was usually treated as such.

However, as spring arrived with all its social activities, I couldn’t help but become aware of it. I can’t attend young gentlemen’s gatherings where ladies are not invited by custom. Or even invited at all.

And let’s not even discuss organizing events for these gentlemen. My parents were never keen on inviting nobles over.

‘So, the opportunities are quite limited…’

Before I came of age, I was supposed to get acquainted with men and women at social gatherings, but this year, my father consistently kept disrupting those opportunities.

So I had to take advantage of national events to make friends with my fellow nobles, and there was one that was perfect for the season. The Flag Hunt.

In this competition, each family submitted a flag symbolizing their house to the palace administrator organizing the event. The palace administrator then hid the flags in the contest venue. When participants found a flag and returned with it, the family that submitted the flag must fulfill the desires of the one who found it. The palace can intervene if unreasonable demands are made, but so far there have been no problems.

The flag hunters were usually aspiring knights wishing to enlist themselves in the service of the house of the flag they sought out.

‘If a noble wants to participate, they have to submit a flag.’

That was the catch. To qualify for the chance to find a wishing ticket, one must stake their own ticket.

As someone of the Staedt Ducal House, most things were of little use to me. Even if I didn’t particularly desire for anything, the ability to negotiate whatever terms I wanted could prove valuable.

‘Still, I have no choice but to participate.’

All I wanted was the Imperial flag. If I could find that, I could request anything from the Emperor, the ruler of the empire.

‘Well, no one has found the Emperor’s Flag since the first tournament.’

I was the one who found it during the first contest. With that, I secured Ken’s freedom.

‘Harboring a traitor is a capital offense.’

If discovered, the Imperial Court would have reason to accuse the Staedts of treason. There were rumors circulating that one of the heroes was secretly involved in Ken’s disappearance from the dungeons, and the most likely suspect was my mother.

The princess of the fallen kingdom, Arina Amortan, master of illusions had escaped alone from the Demon King’s castle. While Ken could escape detection even if pursued by imperial soldiers, we didn’t want them to trouble my mother. And it was Crown Prince Carnelian who came to my aid.

‘If it weren’t for him, I don’t know how I would have found the flag.’

Since then, for three years straight, no one else had found the Emperor’s flag. But there were people who found the Staedt Duchy’s flag every year, so I had to fulfill various requests.

Last year, after the contest ended, I asked Carnelian if the Emperor’s flag was truly hidden.

‘He didn’t answer.’

He just gave me a knowing smile.

‘Either it exists or it doesn’t.’

I considered not attending this year, but without it, I wouldn’t have the chance to interact with the noble families. If I found the flag, not only could I make requests to other families, but I could also capture House Staedt’s own flag. So, it was a contest that piqued the interest of nobles in various ways.

The venue for this contest was the territory of the Lord Bittern. I arrived at the Lord Bittern’s mansion, where the contest was being held early in the morning.

Along with my maids Rose, Lily, and Daisy, I waited under the shade of a carriage assigned to the Staedt House.

Since the venue for the contest was quite a distance from the capital, for safety reasons, the heads of households did not come here in person. Besides, finding the flag wasn’t something that the heads of households had to do personally. It was recognized if a member of the family or even a hired hand found it.

Daisy looked around and sighed.

“Ah, there’s no separate contest grounds.”

“It hasn’t been fully restored yet, so there’s nothing we can do.”

I didn’t just mean it was crowded and complicated. I sipped the iced tea Rose had brewed and surveyed the situation.

The garden of the manor house was in ruins. Imperial soldiers had been sent out a week ago to clean up the mess, I was told, but they couldn’t hide the bases of the broken statues, or the debris of dead wood and grass that had been haphazardly piled up beside the mansion.

The ruined windows and doors of the mansion visible from the garden were covered with flower decorations and banners, blocking the entrance of the house and making it feel like a siege.

‘Mir said she wasn’t coming.’

Mir attended last year, wandering through the deserted plains of the uninhabited territory for seven hours with participants looking for flags. After that, she refused to attend again.

For Mir, who was guaranteed by the imperial court and had unlimited access to the nobles for the information she needed in her quest for knowledge, the flags were nothing more than garbage.

‘Mir aside… Carnelian would’ve come, right?’

Just as I was in charge of all the events in the Staedt Duchy, Carnelian has been overseeing all the imperial events since last year. But it seems he hasn’t arrived yet.