So I Was the Persecuted Grand Duchess Destined to Die? Chapter 45

Grrrrrrrroooowl.

“!”

At the thunderous growl of her stomach, I ducked my head in a panic.

This was an underground dungeon, of all places. Sound carried like crazy. If I exaggerated just a little, it was loud enough for everyone in here to hear.

How can a human stomach even make a noise that big?

“…Pfft, kh, khm.”

I couldn’t stop the laugh that kept leaking out.

No. I shouldn’t laugh. Oh my god.

She’d just stubbornly refused to eat, and now this. Could she be any less honest with herself?

And of course, I couldn’t even cover my mouth, because I had a bowl of soup in one hand and a spoon in the other.

“Y-You’re laughing?! It wasn’t me, okay?!”

Katharina’s excuse came out in a rush.

When I glanced up, her face was so red it was visible even in the dark.

The moment our eyes met, those trembling pupils, I lost it even harder.

“Ah, pfft, no, I’m, sniff, not laughing. I’m not.”

“You are laughing!”

Sad thoughts. Sad thoughts…

“Sniff, sniff… I’m crying.”

“Who’s going to believe that? Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Gasp. Aren’t you?”

“Renée!”

“HAHAHA!”

I was dying. Why was this so funny?

In the end, I set the soup down and laughed for a long time, outright cackling.

No, but she was so cute, pretending it wasn’t her when it obviously was.

Katharina stared at me, and then, like she was starting to find it funny too, she whipped her head away as if to hold back her own laughter.

That made it even funnier, so of course I had to poke at her.

“Puhaha! What, why are you laughing? You think you’re not funny too? Hah!”

“I-I’m not laughing! You’re the one laughing in that ridiculous way, Your Grace!”

“Laughing ridiculously? What does that even mean, hahaha! I can’t, this is insane!”

In the end, we both clutched our stomachs and rolled around in the dungeon laughing for ages, like teenage girls who laugh at falling leaves.

The sudden commotion must have been unexpected, because a torchlight swept over us from the corridor beyond.

The guards who’d stepped away probably came to check what on earth we were laughing about.

After who knew how long…

When I finally managed to collect myself, I sat up and offered the soup to Katharina again.

“Haa. Done laughing? Now eat.”

Skipping meals in front of a K-romance webnovel protagonist?
Absolutely not.

I brandished the spoon with solemn determination. Katharina pouted like she couldn’t be bothered, but in the end she gave in.

“Hmph. Fine. I’ll taste it.”

She answered primly, yet this time she accepted it without a fight.

I crouched in front of her and smiled as she hurriedly shoved soup into her mouth.

“Be honest. You were hungry, right?”

“Up until now I really didn’t have an appetite,” Katharina muttered, even as she took a decisive bite out of the bread on the tray. “In this situation, isn’t it weirder to be able to eat…?”

I just watched her and smiled.

Her face was a little thinner.
Her golden hair, once so immaculate, was a complete mess.

And she must’ve cried a lot. Her swollen eyelids made her huge eyes look half their usual size.

She’d clearly been through it.

When she’d emptied the bowl a bit, I set it back on the tray and spoke again.

“Hey, Katharina. When I came to, everyone kept saying you pushed me. Did you… really do it?”

Clink.

Even though my question was calm, Katharina jolted so hard the spoon slipped from her hand and hit the floor.

Her face went pale again, and her whole body started shaking.

This had obviously been a shock to her, too.

To steady her, I gripped her shoulder firmly through the iron bars.

Her eyes, unfocused like she was trapped in a nightmare, wavered helplessly.

“Katharina. Katharina!”

“…Y-Yes?”

She swallowed hard and finally met my gaze.

I looked at her even more seriously.

“Listen. I’m not here to punish you.”

“!”

Her blue eyes widened in shock.

“…W-Why?”

The question that followed carried a sharp edge of wariness.

I just flashed her a grin.

“Why? Do you want to be punished?”

“N-No, but… it’s weird. I… I tried to… kill you.”

Her voice shrank smaller and smaller as she spoke.

Tears pooled in her eyes again.

Katharina curled up, burying her face into her knees, shoulders trembling as sobs escaped.

“So yeah. That’s what’s weird.”

I dropped down into a squat in front of her, too.

It took me some time after waking up to understand everything,
but no matter how I looked at it, nothing made sense.

“There’s no way you pushed me.”

At my words, Katharina lifted her head slightly, confusion flashing across her face.

“…You really think that?”

She was so shaken her voice trembled in a way that didn’t feel like her at all.

I nodded quietly and added,

“But if so many people are saying the same thing, maybe there’s a reason. So tell me honestly.”

“……”

“Katharina. Did you really push me?”

Katharina didn’t answer.

It was probably less that she wouldn’t, and more that she couldn’t.

I could see her whole body trembling, clear as day.

So I chose every word carefully and kept asking.

“What did you feel in that moment? What did you think? What did you do, exactly. Tell me everything. And if you don’t remember, you can say you don’t remember.”

After I woke up,
setting everything else aside,
there was only one reason I’d come down to this dungeon to see her.

There’s no way our tsundere Katharina would do that.

Katharina Hugo.

In The Grand Duchess of the North Doesn’t Know Spring, she looked like a villain at first, but in the end she became someone who understood the heroine and helped her.

At first she was furious, convinced her place had been stolen. But little by little, she grew sympathetic toward Renée, who was so kind she was almost painfully naïve.

Eventually she admitted her jealousy and greed, returned to her family, and lived a quietly happy married life with an “appropriate” nobleman, just a supporting character’s ending.

And after the original Renée died of illness, Katharina was the one who cried the hardest at the funeral.

More than anything, if I remember correctly…

She’d actually tried to save me.

Sure, my actions had already thrown the plot so far off-course that maybe this Katharina wasn’t exactly the same as the original.

But Katharina Hugo wasn’t a true villain.

Even if circumstances changed, a person’s core doesn’t change that easily.

On the rocking boat,
in that moment, Katharina had definitely reached out toward me.

Her intention was obvious.

She was trying to grab my hand.

Right before I fell.

The image was vivid. Her throwing herself forward to catch me, her face white as a sheet like I’d never seen before.

So of course.

“I believe you,” I said softly. “That you wouldn’t do something like that.”