You Must Be Very Shy (1)

"I'm finally free!"

Aristine barely stopped herself from cheering out loud. She had finally escaped her sickening country and even more repulsive father.

"He is absolutely insane."

Her father, the emperor, had tortured her in every conceivable way, all in the name of turning her into a 'success.'

"I really thought I died in that fire."

The first sensation she remembered was not the heat but the burning air. Aristine had woken up to something scraping at her lungs and throat. Had she awoken just moments later, she would have suffocated in her sleep.

When she opened her eyes, flames surrounded her, and the windows were blocked.

At the time, Aristine was only six years old. A normal person would have perished. But Aristine survived—if you could call it survival.

Charred black like a piece of meat, her father looked at her young self and asked, "How did it go? Did you awaken?"

Aristine, staring blankly at her father in confusion, realized: "Ah, Father was the one who set the fire and blocked the windows."

That realization hurt more than her scorched lungs and the blisters forming on her arms and legs. It hurt so much that she wished everything would just burn away.

"I don't think it will hurt anymore once my heart turns to ashes."

More than ten years later, Aristine's heart had indeed turned to ash.

After the incident with her half-sister, Aristine had been confined. Having lived on her own since childhood, it felt strange to feel her heart racing with excitement now.

"Then again, I was able to see my past life thanks to the confinement, so maybe there was one good thing about it."

Aristine's mind had unlocked its potential as a defense mechanism. She began to 'see' her past life; otherwise, she might have gone mad.

"...It's nice to finally leave, but it will be a little annoying later."

Aristine gave a faint sigh as she thought of her older full-brother, who wasn't in the palace right now. Either way, now wasn't the time to dwell on the place she was leaving; she should focus on where she was headed.

"I wonder what kind of place Irugo is."

The land of barbarians. A place ruled by fire and iron. An isolated plain surrounded by demonic beasts.

"The Irugo barbarians mate with both beasts and humans; you can't even call them human." "You'll be in bed with a bastard who rolls around with demonic beasts." "Who knows, he might prefer the beast to your stiff self."

Her father's words echoed in her ears again.

Certainly, part of it was his attempt to curse Aristine's marriage, but the emperor had always despised Irugo.

Silvanus and Irugo had never had a good relationship for generations.

Silvanus prided itself on the nations it had conquered, but there was one place it couldn't invade—Irugo.

Aristine's father, the current Emperor, devised a grand plan to bring Irugo to its knees. However, the war took a strange turn, and Irugo began to reclaim Silvanus' territory instead.

The person who contributed most to Irugo's success was none other than—

"Tarkan. My future husband."

Aristine recalled the target of her arranged marriage.

The emperor proposed a ceasefire when the court realized that continuing the war would only result in further losses. In response, Irugo's king demanded enormous war reparations and one additional condition:

"The emperor's direct bloodline must marry Tarkan."

This arranged marriage was meant to symbolize the end of a century of hostility and the birth of a new alliance.

The King of Irugo genuinely wanted the war to end because Irugo was surrounded by demonic beasts, making the continuation of the war a significant burden.

This was a story that should have ended with the phrase—and there was peace between the two nations.

"But my father never intended to let the war end."

The only reason the emperor negotiated a ceasefire was to buy time. For now, he aimed to break Irugo's winning streak, then secretly prepare for another invasion.

"And that's why he sent me. I'm a discarded pawn."

A pawn to provide justification for declaring war on a nation they had entered a marriage alliance with. There were many ways to fabricate such a pretext, but only one suited the emperor's taste:

"Killing me and blaming Irugo for it."

Aristine laughed quietly inside the shaking carriage.

Did the emperor know that the discarded pawn he sent to die would send back a colossal 'fuck you'?

But to achieve that, she needed one person's cooperation first.

"Tarkan."

Aristine whispered the name of the man who would become her husband.