Chapter 22: Princess Mia used Verbal Assault! Tiona... Regained Health?!

"Excuse me, but what exactly are you girls doing?"

Her strides quick and steady, Mia waded into the crowd. There were three girls surrounding Tiona. She recognized them from the previous timeline to be the daughters of moderately prominent nobles from a number of moderately notable countries. The emphasis here is on "moderately."

"Huh? And who," said the leader of the trio irritatedly, "do you think you are, barging in—"

"Y-Your Highness...?"

Upon hearing Tiona's surprised voice, the girl fell silent and the color drained from her face.

"Wh-What? Your Highness? You mean..."

"I do believe introductions are in order. As you may have suspected, I am indeed Mia Luna Tearmoon, Princess of the Tearmoon Empire. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Mia gave her skirt a small tug and performed an elegant curtsy. Just then, sunlight streamed down onto her, imbuing her with a resplendent corona that dazzled the onlookers. It was as if she glowed with the glory of the Empire itself, and the girls almost prostrated themselves on the spot.

"Now, allow me to repeat myself... What exactly are you girls doing?"

"Um, well, we're..."

Their faces grew paler by the second. As the princess of the mighty Tearmoon Empire, Mia was the one person they couldn't afford to offend... And right now, she looked absolutely furious.

Indeed, Mia was on the verge of blowing her lid. The last thing she wanted to do was help her archenemy, and yet these girls had put her in a situation where she had no choice but to do just that. She glared at them with burning hatred.

"It seemed to me that you were behaving rather rudely toward one of my subjects."

"N-Not at all. We were just thinking that, um, while she is imperial nobility, she comes from a noble house in the Outlands, so we were reminding her that any uncouth habits would not be tolerated in polite society—"

"Need I repeat myself once more?"

Seeing that she had no choice, Mia had accepted that she was going to have to play the savior. However, it was a reluctant acceptance, and Mia was an extremely sore loser. After all, she'd hated losing — her life to the guillotine, that is — so much that she was literally replaying the whole game. In an attempt to make herself feel a little better about this infuriating turn of events, she kept talking.

"You see, I love all my subjects, and I love them equally. Even the child of the poorest beggar shall not be denied my affection. No matter who they are, so long as they belong to the Empire, I will not condone any discourtesy toward them."

What she meant was, I'm not helping Tiona because she's special or anything, 'kay? Even if they'd been bullying some miserable beggar kid, she'd still have stepped in to help. In essence, she was really saying, Listen here, you twit! I don't give three hoots about you! To me, you're no different from some miserable pauper, got it?

Now, all of this might seem supremely counterintuitive. Considering she was stepping in to help anyway, it'd be far more productive for her to just commit to the effort wholeheartedly. However, that would require her to be a good sport. And being a good sport simply wasn't what Mia was about. Therefore, she turned to Tiona and smiled at her in triumph.

Hah! I just helped you. Can't say anything bad about me anymore, can you?

Alas, Mia's smile was destined to be gravely misinterpreted.

Tiona did not come from a particularly long line of nobles. Her grandfather was originally a leader of sorts among his fellow farmers. After successfully fighting off a group of bandits, he was awarded land and a title. He was therefore not born but inducted into the nobility — a nouveau riche of sorts. Worsening matters was the fact that the region where Tiona lived was incorporated into the Empire much later than the other regions. As a result, discrimination was rampant. Oftentimes, they weren't even considered subjects of the Empire, never mind nobility. "Second-class citizens" was hardly the worst insult they'd ever heard. On bad days, they'd been called everything from "descendants of serfs" to "colony peasants."

That was why she'd come to Saint-Noel. She'd studied her heart out, learned all the rules of polite society, and even taken up court fencing. Day in and day out, she pushed herself to improve, all so that she could outshine those noble girls who'd made fun of her. Or, at the very least, so she wouldn't be a target of ridicule anymore. She wanted to be acknowledged as an equal — to look into their eyes and know that they saw someone whose blood ran just as red as theirs.

And yet, it'd barely been half a day since she'd arrived, and she was already staring at the shattered fragments of her hopes. Voices, their spiteful tone all too familiar, stabbed at her ears and at her soul.

Her world darkened. She bit her lip and lowered her gaze.

After coming all the way here, she had her answer; it didn't matter how hard she tried. Nothing was going to change. Not for her, not for the Rudolvons, not for the people of her county. They'd never be seen as full citizens of Tearmoon.

Just as despair began to grip her heart, she appeared.

Like the flash of light that splits the darkness, Her Imperial Highness Mia Luna Tearmoon, noblest of nobles and Princess of the Tearmoon Empire, strode in and declared with resounding conviction that Tiona was "one of my subjects," and that "No matter who they are, so long as they belong to the Empire, I will not condone any discourtesy toward them."

...Huh?

For a long while, Tiona's mind was blank. Mia's words kept echoing in her mind, but their meaning eluded her. She wasn't expecting any help, and never in her wildest dreams did she think she'd be acknowledged as a subject of the Empire as well. Then she blinked, and the figure of the girl before her came into focus.

Your Highness...

The girl's smile was gentler and more tender than any she'd ever seen.

"...Ah."

Something fell past Tiona's cheek. She knew it was a tear. It wasn't because all her hard work had paid off. It wasn't because she got back at her offenders. It was because of a promise — the assurance that no matter how powerless or insignificant a person she might be, the young princess before her would love and protect her as one of her own. After spending her whole life hounded by the urge to keep proving herself, for the first time ever, she felt... secure. Relief poured out of her in a stream of tears that, despite her best attempts to stem, simply refused to stop flowing.