Perhaps it was because Caine offered a kind smile, but Vanessa, realizing she had failed to restrain her feelings for her mother in front of him, immediately restored her usual cold expression.
Because it was a forced coldness, it seemed somewhat unnatural.
Unlike Corellia’s pure frost, there was a visible sense of dissatisfaction mixed within the chill.
“…What? I admire Mother. Is there a problem with that?”
It wasn’t just her expression; her words carried a few sparks of hostility, feeling even more prickly than they had at the start.
“I have no problem with it. Why do you ask such a question?”
However, regardless of how cold she acted, Caine remained his usual self. No matter what he felt inside, he maintained the calm, unruffled appearance of a gentleman on the surface.
Faced with the girl’s rebellion and hostility, Caine, as an adult, merely smiled and did not offer a heated response.
“…Obviously, it is because your smile makes me uncomfortable. I feel as though you are looking down on me.”
It had to be said that even though Vanessa was still a young girl, her intuition was quite sharp. She did not retract her hostility. Instead, she narrowed her eyes slightly, her gaze becoming sharp as if she intended to see right through Caine’s secrets.
“I see. If that is the case, please allow me to apologize. I did not mean it that way.”
Vanessa was already trying very hard to appear imposing and majestic. An ordinary person would have felt the pressure long ago.
However, Caine remained unaffected.
When it came to pressure and presence, Vanessa was truly just a green recruit compared to Corellia.
In front of Corellia, Caine might still feel a bit constrained, but Vanessa could not affect his mindset.
He maintained his usual polite smile that kept people at a distance, giving off the vibe of a harmless “nice guy” who posed no threat.
“…”
Since she truly couldn’t find any fault with him, and Vanessa wasn’t the type to be unreasonably troublesome, she couldn’t do anything to him directly — even if she vaguely felt that the man before her was as unreadable and dangerous as if he were shrouded in mist.
“…Fine, I will let it go for now. In any case, you had better keep up your disguise. Do not let me catch you slipping up, or I will certainly expose your true face to everyone.”
But letting Caine off the hook entirely felt wrong, so the earnest Vanessa eventually chose to be direct.
To call it a threat seemed slightly off, and calling it “trash talk” wasn’t quite right either. It was more like a warning and a declaration of war. In short, this serious princess with long, white twin-tails expressed her distrust of Caine once again.
“I know it is hard to believe, but I truly am a prince from the Kingdom of Leonas in another world. Technically, that makes us relatives.”
As the saying goes, if she was going to lay her cards on the table, Caine would too.
Since Caine didn’t see any need to hide his identity from her, he once again stated his background with a calm smile.
“…Stop trying to act familiar with me. There is a limit to your nonsense. ‘Another world’? That is completely illogical. I will be watching you, so you had better be prepared.”
As expected, Vanessa did not believe a word of it.
One couldn’t blame her. If one sat down and thought about it calmly, it was indeed hard to believe. If people hadn’t previously assumed Caine was related to Corellia, he would have had absolutely no evidence to prove he was from another world.
Even Caine felt that a “fraud in strange clothes” was more convincing than a “person from another world.”
In the end, Vanessa simply glared at Caine with what she believed to be a cold and sharp gaze before warning him once more.
Left with no other choice, Caine could do nothing but offer a helpless, bitter smile.
He had realized that this girl was the type to be a bit too serious. If the world were a Japanese school setting, Vanessa would be that earnest member of the disciplinary committee.
Seeing that Caine was unwilling to say more, Vanessa had nothing else to say to him.
She turned to leave.
Caine assumed she would walk straight out.
To his surprise, when she reached the door, her armored boots — which she wore over white stockings — stopped once again.
She turned back to look at Caine and spoke in a very serious tone:
“…Although I do not trust you, basic etiquette must still be maintained. Thank you for your unpleasant hospitality. I shall take my leave now. I hope you have a not-so-wonderful dream, Mr. Liar.”
Despite her deep distrust and the dissatisfaction and hostility in her voice, this Princess still bid Caine farewell of her own accord. Then, without waiting for his response, she left his room.
Shortly after her long twin-tails swayed before Caine for the last time today, Vanessa finally vanished from his sight. She had even politely closed the door behind her.
“…What a serious child. She is the complete opposite of a flighty character like Vita.”
Looking at the room that had returned to its quiet state, Caine murmured with a hint of emotion, a gratified smile touching the corners of his mouth.
Even though Vanessa viewed him as a liar and treated him with hostility, Caine actually quite liked her.
This sense of distance was wonderful. This was exactly the kind of distance Caine wanted.
A personality like Vita’s, which lacked any sense of boundaries and acted as if she were already close to him, felt a bit too overwhelming for Caine.
Having some distance was better. After all, they weren’t actually that familiar with each other.
It would have been fine if he were the Prince William from the original story; Caine would have at least known her. But having a black-haired beauty like Vita act so close to him shortly after meeting for the first time made Caine feel somewhat uncomfortable — like he was being set up for a scam.
Regardless, Vanessa’s arrival had stirred some emotion in Caine, but it didn’t really affect him.
Based on how much of a “mother-con” Vanessa appeared to be, she was even more devoted than Edwina.
Therefore, it was impossible for Vanessa to do anything to harm her mother’s reputation; she was a staunch supporter of the Queen.
After Vanessa left, Caine followed his original plan. Before long, he took off his jacket, changed into a white shirt and trousers that served as pajamas, and lay in bed reading books from the shelf.
Forty minutes later, Caine closed his book, turned off all the lights in the room, and began to sleep.
Of course, it looked like he was sleeping, but he was actually faking it. Caine had not forgotten the disastrous state he had seen in the mirror this morning.
Even if the other party didn’t necessarily come tonight, Caine couldn’t just casually go to sleep as if nothing had happened.
At the very least, he would hold out until the first half of the night was over.
And so, pretending to be asleep, Caine lay quietly for a long time.
To be honest, faking sleep was harder than he had imagined. He couldn’t actually drift off, so he had to keep thinking about things to keep the drowsiness at bay.
Eventually, feeling like it was around 3:00 AM, Caine crawled out of bed. He checked the clock and found it was only just past 1:30 AM.
Truly exhausted, Caine figured the other party most likely wouldn’t come today, so he finally went to bed for real.
…Then, waking up at 7:00 AM, Caine once again found the same ice-blue lip prints on his body in the mirror. It might have been a trick of his mind, but it felt like there were even more marks than yesterday.
‘Dammit, they really did come in the second half of the night. Also, they definitely used some kind of special magic. Why didn’t I feel anything? I didn’t even have a dream.’
Caine frowned in the mirror, his expression dead serious.
Rather than being annoyed or troubled by being attacked at night again, Caine was more concerned about why he hadn’t felt a thing.
After all, if the other party could sneak in like this, they could also quietly slit his throat while he slept.
He didn’t want to get killed right after crossing over. It looked like he would have to pull an all-nighter tonight.
He really wanted to see exactly who was doing this — something that went beyond ignoring boundaries and moved straight into negative distance.
To ensure he could catch the culprit tonight, perhaps he should double-check the strength of his “Tragic Prince” role.
***
No, I haven’t dropped it. In fact, dropping it wouldn’t help. This is how male-lead stories are on this platform now; even if I started a new one, the results wouldn’t be much better. Not everyone can be a top-tier author. The lack of updates was mainly due to laziness. I’m an old-timer on this site, and seeing that no matter how hard I write a male-lead story, the results are just average, it’s hard to find the motivation.
But posting once a day is also boring, so I might as well commit. I will try to do two updates a day to give myself some pressure and motivation. From now on, for every ten monthly tickets, I’ll add one extra chapter. So, tomorrow is guaranteed to be two chapters, and I’ll strive for three. If I fail, may I always hit the pity rate on every gacha pull.
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