I Became the Hero’s Bride! - Chapter 18

IBHB 18 – But that’s actually a thing

TL: Eevee
Ed: Hungry Panda

Even in this first moment of peace in a while, Minwoo couldn’t help but be antsy. The royal couple that had been constantly pestering him about when to hold the wedding had up and left the castle saying they were touring the nation. Normally, one would think that was cause for celebration, but the problem was that this was a secret trip that none of the other princes or their advisors knew about.

As if they were sneaking away in the night.

At the time, Minwoo was uneasy as to just what the two of them were plotting this time. So through the king’s servants he found that the royal couple had left on a journey unknown to all. According to their testimony, the pair had made a giant fuss and bother as they packed their travel gear.

As if they were sneaking away in the night.

“Hero-nim! Hero-nim! Are you in?!”

An urgent voice shook Minwoo from his thoughts. As Minwoo opened the door, Karina was gasping for breath. It seemed that she’d sprinted over hurriedly.

“Miss Karina? What’s the matter?”
“That’s, big trouble! Riot!! A riot has broken out!!!”

Minwoo facepalmed right then and there and soundlessly groaned.

For f’…. They really were running away in the night. He thought.

***

As he followed Karina to the castle gates, he was greeted by a shocking sight.

“Urk! Waak! W, wait! Just listen to…!! Womb Power, is really… Kuk!!!”

The crowd were all universally throwing garbage at Ericia. Accompanied by all sorts curses and insults. Ericia’s gradual burial in trash cleanly cut Minwoo’s tension, and at the same time Clarice rushed over.

“You’re here, Hero-nim!”

Clarice’s face brightened in welcome.

“What on earth is happening right now?”
“That’s…”

Clarice turned back to the captain that accompanied her. The captain came forward and explained. The protest that came about as a result of rejecting womanised Clarice and Minwoo’s marriage, plus Ericia’s stupidity added fuel to the fire.

Minwoo’s reaction was the obvious one.

“So you’re telling me that… They’re pulling this because they object to our marriage? Seriously??”
“……But that’s actually a thing.”

Clarice looked at the protestors with sorrowful eyes. It was all the more shocking that their, the CLC’s, revolt was because of her. Although it wasn’t her fault that things became like this, she couldn’t hide her sorry feelings for the people.

Minwoo looked at Ericia who was gradually becoming one with the trash heap and asked the captain.

“Shouldn’t we stop those people? If we just leave her like that Eri might be crushed under the garbage??”
“Won’t it be fine since she was trash to begin with?”

Clarice innocently replied. Pfft! Minwoo clenched his teeth(1) and turned his head. He couldn’t rebute that. This was the first time he’d heard something so convincing.

The captain folded his arms and asked.

“In this case, you could call it collateral damage. This was an unavoidable sacrifice for the sake of the troops.”

Put it simply, Ericia pulled all the aggro of the ticking time bomb that were the protestors and was currently acting as an outlet to vent their anger. Clarice clapped her hands and said.

“Indeed they say that even dog poop has it’s uses.”

Minwoo scolded Clarice with a stern face.

“Don’t be like that, Clarice.”
“Ah…. I’m sorry. Was I too harsh with my words?”
“Comparing Ericia to dog poop. Don’t you feel sorry for the dog poop?”

Having realised her wrongs, Clarice sincerely apologised to the dog poop deep in her heart.

“Um…. That’s not what we’re here for though, are we?”

Karina looked at them with dumbfounded eyes. To think that the day would come that Karina would be the straight man, Clarice fell into thought. This was all that dog p… No, tra….. No, Eri’s fault.

Minwoo was looking over the protesters, when he noticed something odd. He’d thought it was a headscarf at first. A woman that seemed to be the leader of the protest was wearing a distinctive headscarf and so his gaze was drawn to it. But he noticed that that headscarf wasn’t actually a headscarf.

“Hey, that. Isn’t that panties?”
“Eh?”

Everyone’s eyes turned in that direction. And everyone had something to say.

“Those’re panties.”
“They seem to be panties.”
“Those panties….”

Clarice trailed off and her face reddened. Surely not. But she couldn’t help her hand trailing unconsciously to her lower body. Because those were…

At Clarice’s odd reaction, the captain, worried, sent the three of them back to the palace. Minwoo offered to stay and help pacify the situation, but the captain shook his head. If the hero, one of the chief sources of anger of the protesters, made his appearance now, the situation might deteriorate.

In the end, Minwoo left it to the knight order, whereupon Clarice asked him for a private talk.

“What’s wrong?”

Minwoo asked, taking a sip of the tea Karina had prepared. Clarice fidgeted this way and that and said.

“That’s, the panties that that woman was wearing just now…”
“?”

Minwoo had been slowly admiring the taste of the tea, when his eyebrows twitched as if asking her to keep talking. Clarice scrunched her eyes and confessed.

“I think those are my panties.”
“Pffffft!”(2)

A cliché among cliché reactions. Minwoo spouted out the tea in his mouth. Minwoo wiped his mouth, coughing all the while and Karina handed him a towel. Minwoo gratefully accepted it before he asked.

“Is, is that true?”

Clarice was so embarrassed she couldn’t even answer, but only nod her head. As shameful as it was, they were her panties. Clarice was quite certain about that. As for why she remembered all her panties, one would need to look back in time a little bit.

Before she became a woman, one particular day when Father came to ask her about marriage to the hero. For some reason, her underwear had been stolen en masse. Even before that, odd cases that items she had used or clothes she had worn had occurred often enough that Clarice had kept her eyes peeled open to catch the thieves.

At the time she found nothing, but just in case the thief ever professed ignorance, Clarice decided to learn of every single one of her possessions. Naturally, her panties were no exception.

Moreover, the panties that that woman was wearing were unforgettable even if she wanted to. Because-

“Senyun had stolen them??”
“Yes. I’m certain. That, the day of the imprisonment incident. Senyun, she…. Stole my panties…”

What. How. Why. Oh my god. Minwoo covered his face and hunched over the table. Just how on earth was he meant to face Clarice now. Senyun or Eri, he was ashamed to mention that he had left his backs to those idiots in his past adventures.

“Then that must mean that Senyun must have something to do with this protest.”

Minwoo nodded to Karina’s opinion. When he thought about it, that was very much possible. According to Karina, lately Senyun had been out of her office and roaming around. She was a fervent member of the cause of this protest, the CLC, and decisively the panties she had stolen were with the protest leader.

“I’m going to have to look for Senyun.”

There was definitely a connection. That was what Minwoo concluded.

Author’s Note

IBHB which runs the limits of dumbass developments (drumroll)

Thanks to all the readers that’re reading this ridiculous novel ㅜㅜ;

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