Flirting With the Villain’s Dad

Chapter 2

A line from the first page of Brigitte Wants to Be Happy crossed my mind.

“The thin rays of sunlight made his silver hair shine sharply. Her heart dropped. Theresia stared in stunned silence. The amaranthine eyes glowing with a reddish light pierced through her with a powerful aura.”

I shuddered as the scene came to mind as vividly as if it had been painted before me. How scary…!

The Empire of Bellecourt ruled over the eastern region of the Rhyger continent. They could crush my teeny-tiny kingdom of Livovny out of existence without a second thought. And the emperor of that great empire was the man who kidnapped my pregnant sister and bound her to Bellecourt for an entire decade.

Of course, he also had his own hardships and ultimately met a tragic end at the hands of his own son.

I may have clutched my phone and bawled my eyes out when he died!

“But he’s still scary…!”

For some reason, when I thought of him as the ruler of that powerful empire, it was scary. Maybe that stemmed from him not being properly explained in the original novel? Or was it because he was now a person who was part of my new, sudden reality…?

Anyway, the emperor of Bellecourt kidnapping my sister, Theresia, was the start of the original background plot. It was also the trigger that set into motion the tragedy that befell the generation of the characters’ parents, including the emperor and Theresia.

Tragedy.

Yes, I said tragedy.

The story of Brigitte Wants to Be Happy started out as a refreshing, healing coming-of-age story with a sweet and sometimes spicy romance. However, once you realize that the main characters' happiness was built on the sacrifices their parents’ generation made, the story didn’t come across lightly.

The main plot of Brigitte Wants to Be Happy revolved around the main characters healing from the tragedies and traumas of their childhoods through each other. In other words, not a single one of the characters’ parents had an easy life.

No, it wasn’t just that their lives weren’t easy.

Most of them died at an early age. Even if they survived, they became disabled or fell ill, and one character even suffered after death by becoming a zombie.

To be unhappy even after dying? Author, don’t you think that’s too far?!

The sigh I’d been repressing escaped. The biggest problem was that I was now part of that generation, a whole twenty-one years before the original story took place.

If it had been just a novel, I could have found it sad and pitiful, but now that the novel was my reality, I couldn’t just ignore a tragedy on this scale. What should I do as the one person who knew everything about how this generation ended?

The answer was obvious. I had to stop the event that triggered the whole tragedy in the first place!

I clenched my fists. Even if I was just an insignificant extra, I was still the only person who knew the contents of Brigitte Wants to Be Happy from start to finish. Who else could do this but me?!

With my spirit burning, I made my decision.

I’ll stop the first page of the novel from turning, no matter what it takes!

And so, I came up with Plan A: Stop Bellecourt from invading Livovny.

Well, formulating a plan was good and all… but there was a slight stumbling block in putting my plans into action. The original story was ultimately about Brigitte’s generation, so I had no details about what happened before the start of the novel.

I rolled the pen around and thought hard. If I wanted to stop an event from happening, I had to know what caused that event in the first place. Therefore, I had to find out why Bellecourt invaded Livovny in the first place.

That reason wasn’t explored in detail in the novel because Brigitte Wants to Be Happy ultimately centered around Brigitte’s generation. The situation regarding their parents’ generation only briefly appeared in book one, and it wasn’t exactly detailed.

I knew that the cooperation between Livovny and Bellecourt had fallen apart because of an incident, and because of that same incident, Bellecourt had invaded Livovny and taken a member of the royal family hostage.

There was no way for me to know more. Why?

Because it wasn’t in the novel!

How was I supposed to know something that wasn’t in the book?!

No matter how hard I racked my brain, only one sentence came to mind: “It was Livovny that refused to follow through on the agreement, so the emperor of Bellecourt’s anger was a natural consequence.”

“So what was that agreement…?!”

My blazing determination was instantly halved. I slumped back in my seat just like that.

I was a reader, not the writer. Wah.

Seeing me laid out in my chair like laundry, Fernando, my personal guard, asked with concern in his voice, “Is something on your mind, Your Highness? You don’t look well.”

“Yeees~” I looked up at him glumly. “I’m worried about your right leg and left eye.”

Fernando made a strange expression. “Pardon?”

I waved my hand glumly. You wouldn’t understand.

How could he? Fernando didn’t even know he would get married this year and have a son in the winter. He also had no way of knowing that he would follow my brother-in-law, Duke Levan, to rescue Theresia, only to become crippled.

There was an obvious reason why this man’s future would be tragic.

Fernando Cardona. This man was the father of the male protagonist of Brigitte Wants to Be Happy, Alexio Cardona.

If I grabbed Fernando and told him to stay home and not think about heading out, even if it meant Theresia and Duke Levan were in danger, what good would it do?

I shook my head and fell back into my thoughts.

The agreement between Bellecourt and Livovny.

Just what kind of agreement was it that led Bellecourt to invade Livovny to teach them a lesson?

I opened my eyes just a slit and looked up at Fernando. “Ferdi.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Do we have some kind of agreement with Bellecourt?”

“An agreement with the empire… Do you mean the Glückmahn Treaty?”

“The Glückmahn Treaty…?”

Glückmahn? Where have I heard that region's name before?

Eyes flashing, I sat up straight.

“Yes. In return for opening the Glückmahn Road that runs through West Azekian, Bellecourt has offered a portion of the mana ore from Azekian.”

“Oh!”

The Glückmahn Treaty. It was an agreement briefly touched on when the protagonists discussed state affairs in the novel.

I sat forward. Instinctively, I knew that was it.

Yeah, what else could a tiny kingdom like Livovny offer the grand Bellecourt Empire?

One of Livovny’s few advantages was its location, situated geographically between the eastern and western parts of the continent.

So Livovny broke the terms of the Glückmahn Treaty first? I furrowed my brows.

How could this pea-sized kingdom dare to break an agreement with the empire? Did the king of Livovny—that is, my father—have a reinforced spine or something?!

Anyway, now that I knew this, that was enough.

I clenched my fists and jumped up from my seat. All I have to do is fix the broken agreement!

I whirled around.

“Your Highness? Where are you g— Your Highness!” Fernando urgently called after me, but I ignored his desperate cries and energetically dashed away, huffing.

I did apologize to Fernando in my head. Sorry, Ferdi. I’m afraid I have to be the unexpected hero who rescues this kingdom…!

And with that, I ran straight to the King’s study.

“Father!”

“Oh, Yerenika.”

Yerenika’s father—and now my own—the king of Livovny, greeted me with a wide smile.

“My daughter, what brings you here in such a hurr—?”

The words tumbled out of my mouth in my rush. “Father, the Glückmahn Treaty!”

Father’s eyes grew wide. For being a king, he had always had an overly small, round face, but he looked even cuter when surprised. I didn’t plan to leave the king behind, but…

I had already made up my mind.

I clung to my father’s arm. I knew very well from past experiences that the king of Livovny was very weak in the face of his youngest daughter’s cuteness.

“Father~ Father.”

“Mhm, my daughter.”

“About the Glückmahn Treaty with Bellecourt.”

“Mhmmm.”

Father’s avoiding eye contact. Huh?

“You don’t need to know, my dear.”

“Pardon?”

“You don’t need to know about complex matters like state affairs, my dear youngest. You’ll only get a headache.”

What kind of crap was that?! I barely resisted reacting.

There were only three months until Brigitte was due to be born. On top of that, the novel mentioned that Brigitte was born a few weeks early, so there were barely two months left.

What if the imperial troops invaded Livovny before that?! I tugged at Father’s arm in my desperation.

“Father, you can’t possibly be thinking of something troublesome, right?”

“Mm...? ‘Troublesome’? Yerenika.”

I saw it. I definitely saw it. I saw cold sweat running down my father’s brow.

I inhaled slowly and then let out a loud yell. “Fatheeer!!!”