episode_0299

“I clearly remember. The words ‘Please never abandon me,’ I grew up with a great curiosity about those words.”

When conversing with Jeanne in the goblin cave maze of the Dark Forest, Eugene Schneider clearly heard it.

Jeanne expressed great inferiority and anxiety towards Eugene Schneider, who had risen to Sword User Alpha at once.

This was because she was worried that even Eugene Schneider would surpass her, and the relationship between the two would become distant, unlike before.

As she did so, Jeanne conveyed her heartfelt sincerity to Eugene with a wistful look, which was none other than asking him not to abandon her.

“……”

Then, after Eugene and Jeanne frantically enjoyed their storm-like first sex,

during the process of Jeanne inducing Eugene to become a harem man, Eugene set a condition.

He said that if he asked an important question at some point, she must answer it, whatever the question was.

Jeanne had been slowly forgetting about that promise for over half a year, and upon hearing the reason why Eugene mentioned the promise, she fell silent.

“Why do you remember such a thing? It’s not a new thing that I feel competitive with you for no reason. It’s nothing.”

Afterwards, her reaction was to treat it as if it were nothing, in a blunt manner.

However, while showing such a reaction, Jeanne couldn’t properly look Eugene Schneider in the eye.

Because her mental state was greatly shaken by Antoine just before,

unlike her words, she couldn’t properly hide her inner self.

“Whether it’s nothing or not is for me to judge. You just have to keep the promise you made back then.”

Eugene Schneider, who knew the cowardly Jeanne’s tendencies too well, couldn’t have missed that side of her.

Therefore, he tightened the reins even more firmly.

“Tell me. What is it? What are you curious about?”

Indeed, a Jeanne d’Arc de Selle Oblean expert, Eugene Schneider,

As he gently poked at her pride, Jeanne, in a fit of pique, immediately took on an attitude of asking him to ask questions to his heart’s content.

“Who were you abandoned by? Is the target Grand Duke Antoine? Even if I interpret those words in various ways, it seems like you were severely abandoned by someone to the point of saying such things to me. Also, in my opinion, it seems like that person is the Grand Duke.”

Then, Eugene asked very directly.

Jeanne clearly fears being abandoned and betrayed by someone she is giving her heart to.

And the reason for that must be because she had a similar experience when she was young.

Previously, Eugene had been wondering who had made Jeanne experience such mental trauma, but no one came to mind.

However, seeing Jeanne’s reaction to Grand Duke Antoine, it seems that she is ultimately pointing to her father.

“…..”

Jeanne fell silent again.

However, that silence felt more like taking a breath before revealing something.

“Eugene, what kind of person is our father, Antoine de Selle Oblean, in your eyes?”

Jeanne asked for Eugene’s thoughts on her father, Antoine, in an open-hearted tone.

“The Grand Duke is, well, first of all, a grateful person who accepted me into the family, and a person of principle. And um… a perfect person who doesn’t seem to bleed a drop even if you stab him?”

Since Jeanne came out like that, Eugene also judged that there was no need to rack his brains any further and honestly agreed.

Eugene’s first impression of Antoine was naturally Ulysses’ friend, Antoine.

Having experienced him a few times, Antoine was etched in Eugene’s mind,

If Ulysses felt like a freely blowing wind, Antoine felt as disciplined as the uniform he usually wore.

He had a stiff feeling, and the impression that he was a grateful person who had lent a helping hand during difficult times was added, but what he had consistently felt while living in the Oblean family for over 10 years was perfection.

“Haha… That’s right. When I was young, I felt that way about our father too. He was so perfect. Unlike me.”

At Eugene’s words, Jeanne nodded with a subtle smile.

‘Huh? Does that mean she doesn’t feel that way now?’

Eugene felt a subtle nuance in Jeanne’s subtle smile.

“But that wasn’t the case. Our father was a very imperfect person. Just someone with a certain level of talent with the sword among the nobles? And because of that, he had a very severe inferiority complex? That’s who he was.”

Grand Duke Antoine, secretly known by the second young lady of the Oblean family, Jeanne d’Arc de Selle Oblean, was, by some standards, an extremely ordinary human being.

“What are you talking about?”

It was too unexpected a story for Eugene Schneider.

Of course, most people know that the path Antoine has taken to develop has been built up from the bottom.

Even so, it seems far from the Antoine that Jeanne is talking about now.

“Among our three sisters, I was told from a young age that I resembled my father the most in appearance. I secretly liked those words. Because I thought to myself that I didn’t resemble my father the most. Because my father is someone who has climbed to such a high place, but I was just an ordinary child among the nobles.”

During the time when her ego was gradually forming, what approached Jeanne was the appearance of her overly genius family members.

Her older sister Charlotte was already a famous genius in the Empire, and her younger sister Elizabeth surpassed Jeanne despite their age difference.

And her father was the most powerful man in the Empire and a Sword Master, and her mother was someone who almost became a saint.

As a result, she felt a lot of alienation, and what subtly soothed that alienation was the fact that Jeanne herself, the second daughter, resembled her father Antoine the most in appearance.

The commonality with the parents she relied on, would be a truly reliable and comforting factor at a young age.

“Then, I came to believe that my father and I were even more alike. By chance, I happened to see my father’s diary from his younger days. As you know, I really wandered around every nook and cranny of our house. I rummaged through everything. That’s how I saw it.”

It was Jeanne who learned about Antoine that she did not know at that time, or rather, Antoine that people did not know after he became the most powerful man in the Empire.

There was a time when the Grand Duke was busy reorganizing the entire Grand Ducal family after rising to the position of Grand Duke,

Antoine’s underground museum-style armory was also created at that time.

In other words, during the period when Antoine’s belongings were scattered here and there, the curious child Jeanne satisfied her desire to learn about her father by rummaging through them. That’s how she got her hands on Antoine’s diary from his younger days.

“It wasn’t anything too great, but it was my father’s training log. It was a log that recorded his training to become stronger every day. But for me at the time, it was full of surprising content in many ways.”

It was a training log that Antoine had written when he was desperately struggling to become stronger.

[I am trash.]

And in Antoine’s training log, as Jeanne said, there were things written that did not match the current Antoine.

[My talent is terrible. What geniuses achieve in a single attempt, I have to repeat hundreds, no, thousands of times. I am nothing more than a flashy dogwood with only the title of a prestigious swordsmanship family. That’s who I am. I, Antoine de Selle Oblean, am trash.]

The Oblean family, which had been classified as a Got Hand family since before it became a Grand Ducal family, was a family that had produced many influential figures in the Imperial Knights.

However, unlike that signboard, Antoine’s talent was only at the middle or upper-middle level among the nobles. For Antoine, who had an extraordinary desire for growth, his abilities were frustrating and a reality in which self-deprecation surged.

[I am afraid of the opponent’s sword coming and going around my neck. I pretend not to be and act coldly on the outside, but it is no different from a scared dog barking. I hate myself so much for trembling on the battlefield and in duels.]

What gnawed at Antoine himself was not simply because of his poor awakening ability.

His inner self was also weak. His usual perfect appearance was a struggle to cover up that weakness and strengthen himself.

[Because I am such a piece of trash, I ended up not being able to protect what was mine. If I could become stronger, if I could become a Sword Expert, a Seeker, and a Sword Master, I would sell my soul to the devil.]

The last thing Jeanne found in Antoine’s diary was Antoine’s endless self-blame, curse, and mad craving for strength.

‘No way! Our father was no different from me! He was lacking and didn’t have genius talent like me, but he became who he is now!’

It was Antoine in his deficient days that would have made other people’s eyes widen.

But for his second daughter Jeanne, it came with a different meaning.

Rather, it made her recognize her father, who had only seemed perfect, as a more approachable person.

‘I won’t complain anymore and I’ll work even harder! Then my father will acknowledge that side of me! Because my father walked that path too! He will sympathize with me and embrace me warmly more than anyone else!’

Little Jeanne, who had low self-esteem, became full of enthusiasm.

She felt alienated in a family full of geniuses, but she learned that her father had lived a similar life to her.

‘Father! I’m working so hard like this! It’s hard and painful, but I’m doing my best to overcome it like you! Please look at me! Please look at me, who is lacking but working hard like you!’

She wanted to be loved.

That was little Jeanne’s wish.

And it seemed possible. Because her father, Antoine, and herself had similarities and a connection.

So, in order to appeal to her father, who was trying to raise her as a knight and made her go through difficult training, little Jeanne sweated and trained more fiercely than before.

But the result that Jeanne received after such effort was the opposite of what she had hoped for and thought.

“You really are a useless fellow.”

Jeanne waited for Antoine’s warm praise for enduring the difficult training.

But what flew to her was her father’s contemptuous gaze and harsh words that made her doubt her ears.

“Pardon…?”

It was a gaze she had never received even when he was training her coldly, and words she had never imagined.

Jeanne, who had a face full of anticipation, expecting praise,

froze with that face.

“Looking at you reminds me of memories I want to forget. There was trash, a trash-like human. You are hopeless, never hold a sword in front of me again, you hopeless thing.”

Clenching!!!

Antoine’s face, looking down at the frozen Jeanne, was full of anger and hostility.

Antoine, who had struggled and climbed to the top, did not see the history of his past struggles as a history of pride.

He was simply full of contempt for incompetence and weakness.

Therefore, Jeanne’s efforts were not admirable to Antoine, but an ugly struggle and a mirror that made him draw out his own image that he wanted to cut out.

“F, F, Father…”

Jeanne, who had been craving a little love from her father, was abandoned with her mentality shattered.