Villain Princess.

Aurora pushed the thought away and continued to talk about other things with her classmates for a while. Once it was done, she came out of the hall.

Before she came to the dormitory, she looked at the knight who stand on the road and the corner of her lips curled up.

"Why did you come here, William?"

Her personal knight, William Aster.

Even though Aurora wanted to take William as early as three years ago, William was not a knight at that time. He had to take the examination first and only managed to pass it around a year ago.

But it was not easy for him to follow Aurora all the time because she was at the academy.

"Miss, I was told to come here to protect your safety," William replied while kneeling on one knee.

Protect her?

Aurora thought about Les.

There was no one else who could inform William about what happened here but Les. Besides, she did need someone to protect her.

"I’ll be going to the Red Kingdom soon," Aurora said.

Since the war would break out, the negotiation might be hastened compared to before. Because of this, Aurora might need to pay a visit to the Red Kingdom earlier this year.

Not that she minded it, though.

After all, Aurora didn’t really care when she needed to go to the Red Kingdom. The agreements for the trades have been made and prepared beforehand.

But she might need to reread them all to make sure she didn’t miss anything.

"Yes, Miss." William was a bit surprised, but he didn’t ask any question. As the knight responsible for protecting Aurora’s safety, he didn’t have to understand Aurora’s needs. All he had to do was to stand behind her and protect her silently.

This is his duty.

Aurora looked at William in front of her and slowly asked, "Have you ever thought of becoming the successor instead of your brother?"

No matter what, William Aster was also a noble son. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

After turning 18 years old, he came out of his residence and made his own living as a knight. But it was undeniable that he used to have a chance to inherit his father’s title instead of having to come out.

"...Yes," William answered after some hesitation.

He didn’t want to lie to Aurora, whom he had sworn to protect, but it was not a very good thing for him to say.

After all, there was only two ways for the second child to become the successor instead of the first child. One was when the first child die because of unforeseen circumstances before he inherit the title. Second was to prove that he was more capable than his brother and challenged his brother.

Neither could be said to be a good method.

Because once either one of the two happened, it was inevitable for the relationship in the family to turn sour.

Besides, William didn’t want to kill his brother.

As for challenging his brother?

He did think about that when he was young. But later on, he decided to become a knight and paved his way up.

"Now that you become a personal knight instead of making contribution to get merit, would you regret it?" Aurora asked.

"No," William replied without hesitation. "To be able to serve a future princess is every knight’s dream."

It might not be every knight’s dream, but many of them did dream of it.

Because they knew that having the status of the princess’ knight would be something very honorable. And these knights didn’t only really care too much about money but prefer honor and reputation quite a lot.

Besides, not everyone would have the chance to serve someone of high ranking.

Aurora looked at William carefully.

She could tell that he was telling the truth.

"It’s like taking a bet," Aurora said slowly. "But it’s enviable in a sense because you don’t have to face the noble society on your own."

The noble society looked like it was full of glory and all, but it was actually such a dirty place. Such a place was truly far from worthy to be called ’noble.’

With each generation, Aurora felt that the state of Yellow Kingdom’s nobility only got worse.

Even her father... was not an exception.

She had heard about her grandfather and saw his policy. Looking at the way he was doing things, Aurora was amazed by her grandfather and great grandfather. At the very least, these two people were indeed really capable.

But when it came to her father...

Aurora didn’t know how to describe it.

And this not only happened to her father as many other nobles were simply abusing their title without working properly as they should have been.

If Aurora had to say, it was disgusting.

But she herself was also part of the nobility and Aurora knew very well how high the temptation of power and all. It was just that Aurora always remembered that these powers didn’t really belong to herself.

"There’s someone I would like you to arrange for people to watch," Aurora said slowly. "Be careful not to let anyone know."

"Yes, Miss." William still knelt on the ground.

Aurora didn’t come any closer and instead looked into the distance. She sighed deeply. "Noble society is all about face and act. But there are things that should have been better off not getting involved rather than being burned by mistake."

William listened to Aurora’s words, but he didn’t understand. But he also didn’t ask because he knew that it was not his place to do so.

He simply listened.

Aurora turned her head and then said, "Go."

"Yes, Miss."

As William left, Aurora sighed in her heart.

It was really tiring.

But she couldn’t stop. Because if she dared to stop even for a single moment, there was a chance that she would not be able to stand up anymore.

Rubbing her hand, Aurora made her way to her dormitory.

For the next few days, she would have to wait for the notification from the Royal Family or Duke White Family.