Chapter 50: Bad Ending

[Fiore's Castle, Garden]

Just when they thought things were going well. A guard rushed into the garden and interrupted their breakfast. Sweat droplets dotted his forehead as he walked briskly to the king, "Your Majesty, my apologies. But, there seems to be a riot happening at the main entrance of the castle."

Emily could tell that he was trying his best to sound professional, but the hint of urgency in his voice seemed to suggest otherwise.

Without saying a word, the king stood up and followed the guard. Everyone at the table overheard the guard and decided to follow as well.

[Fiore's Castle, Main entrance]

They walked as quickly as they could and true enough, there was a large group of civilians gathered at the main entrance.

They had pitchforks, bats and wooden planks held in their hands. Some of them were screaming at the top of their lungs while others while resisting the guards, that were trying to stop them from entering the castle.

Despite the insanity of this situation, the king still kept his cool. In his usual monotonous voice, he asked, "What's going on here?"

One of the guards, who was in the middle of fighting off the crowd, replied, "We don't know, Sir! They just marched in asking for you and the prin—."

Before he could finish, a civilian, who was holding a news article up, yelled from the crowd, "KING ANDERSON! CARE TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS THIS?!"

The guard grabbed the article and passed it to the king.

Curious, Emily tiptoed and peek over her father's shoulder to take a look at that article.

Her heart stopped beating for a while when she caught a glimpse of the article. In that article, the headline was printed in capital letters. These letters were large and bold, like how they should be.

However, it read:

"FIORE'S PRINCESS BROKE ONE THE EVILEST CRIMINALS OUT!"

Below the headline was a picture that was in black and white, it was a picture taken in the cell when Emily gave Erik a hug.

"...How? How did they know about this? Scratch that, how the hell did they get the picture? Who told them? And where did they get this?" Emily's thoughts started to yell at her as many questions filled her mind. She did not know why things were turned out that way. She just wanted to make things right.

All of the sudden, the crowd started chanting, disturbing her train of thought, "Dethrone the princess! Dethrone the princess! Dethrone the princess! Dethrone the princess! Dethrone the princess! ..."

Amongst the chant, she could hear a couple of civilians shouting among themselves.

"...She doesn't deserve to have the throne!"

"I can't believe their Daughter is betraying us..."

"We don't need this sort of princess... She disgusts me!"

Those words really hurt her heart. She was used to being hated, but this was too much. She wanted to just curl up into a ball and cry, but she knew that she could not show her weak side to the civilians.

She mustered up her courage and justified herself, "I KNOW! I KNOW! This looked really bad on my part, but I promise the guy that I saved has changed and he's on our side now. I saved him because he's part of the well known Jackson clan. So—"

Her words died in her lip when she felt something hard hit her face before she knew it. Sticky and gooey substance ran down her face. From the disgusting yet familiar smell of it, she could tell that it was an egg.

Okay, this time she REALLY wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

Seeing what had just happened, Yukiko could not hold her anger any longer. She marched forward with her face showing nothing but anger (similar to her usual face, but it's not), "Alright, that's it!"

She wanted to look for the person who threw the egg at Emily, but Ethan beat her to him.

He crumbled the man's collar and lifted him slightly above the ground. "Hey, buddy. That's too much. You know that right? If you might, please apologised to her." His tone was rather casual, yet there was a little pinch of anger hidden in those words.

With his feet dangling a few centimetres off the ground, he decided to give in and began to apologise.

Emily wiped the raw egg off her face and blinked a few times so her vision was clearer. Even though she was upset with the person who threw a damn egg at her, she felt that what Ethan did was a little too much.

She pushed through the crowd and clumped towards him. She then asked him to let go of the man.

Ethan was hesitant, but he knew should listen to Emily's orders.

After all, she was his leader.

Just then, a rotten tomato cut across the crowd, heading in Emily's direction.

Lavi immediately jumped into the crowd and caught the squishy tomato with one hand. "Look, we were having breakfast. But, that does mean that our princess would want to become breakfast." His arm then made a swift movement and before she knew it he threw the rotten vegetable back the culprit.

Unfortunately, the lady did not catch it on time and it landed square on her forehead.

Emily jaw dropped so far down that she wondered if she could ever get her mouth to shut again.

Ben, who came up behind her, gave Lavi a smirk, "Nice shot."

Wriggling his eyebrows, Lavi responded with "I know."

After that stunt, it was as if all hell broke loose. Things were being thrown all around and Emily was no longer the only target. Emily's members were supposed to be professional in this situation, but they weren't.

Besides Anna, Jai, Emily, the queen and the king, all of them were engaged in a 'dodgeball' game.

It was clear that the civilians were not going to win.

They were humans and Emily's members were not.

So, the victor was pretty clear.

One upset man started yelling, "Look at all her members, they are all barbaric! Standing alongside their unlawful leader! King Anderson, if you want us to stay here, you better dethrone her and discipline these mad hounds!"

Hearing that, the crowd agreed and began pushing harder and yelling louder.

"Silence!"

The king's voice boomed throughout loudly and clearly, silencing everyone. The crowd, Ben, Lavi, Ethan and all other members.

He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath and spoke, "Now, I understand where you all are coming from, but I'm sad to say that I would not be dethroning my Daughter. Whatever she did went through me, I gave her my consent. I gave it to her because what she did was the right thing. This man who was relieved of his charges is someone that could build up the Jackson clan once more. It's understandable if you all don't believe what I said, so if you want to leave, it's fine by me."

The crowd did not say anything at first. But, they return to their uproar once someone decided to say, "How cocky! Fine, I'll be leaving this filthy land! Never thought that our ruler is that corrupted!"

Many agreed and the crowd began to disband. They did not seem to be baiting or anything. They were seriously deciding to leave the land. Even though Emily was not a ruler, she knew that having many civilians leaving his or her land is something considered shameful.

Yet, her father was willing to take that shame for her sake.

That was no way she was going to let things happen like that.

It did not feel right.

It was just... straight-up wrong.

She walked forward and raised her voice, hoping that every single civilian present at the entrance could hear her, "D-DON'T LEAVE! I'm... I'M RESIGNING MYSELF."

She took a deep breath and continued, "I, EMILIA VON FIORENTINA, WILL...

"NO LONGER BE THE FOURTEENTH PRINCESS OF FIORENTINA!"