Please Vote for Your Knight! Chapter 2

‘Of course, even if I were one of the citizens, I wouldn’t be able to trust it so easily.’

Still, the criticism from the citizens was understandable.

The nobles, on the other hand, were being completely unreasonable.

Especially Count Mongcho, who was around my age. He openly mocked me.

“The people of this country are simply too lacking in national spirit to unite. Why don’t I donate to cover the cost of the Princess’s little make-believe game instead? You should just give up on Cartamen.”

He had always been competitive with me for no reason, simply because we were around the same age.

I could tolerate him insulting me.

‘But how dare he insult our people along with me!’

I was furious, but I held it in and simply gave him a light jab.

“I don’t think that’s something someone who’s desperate to exploit those very people should be saying. And…”

“?”

“Someone drowning in debt because of his extravagant spending has no business talking about donations.”

I made a vow.

‘I’ll make Cartamen a success just to prove them wrong.’

I would make those nobles who looked down on the people regret ever underestimating them!

—But contrary to my ambitious plans, Cartamen ran into trouble right from the beginning.

“My dear daughter, I have one piece of sad news and another piece of even sadder news. Which one would you like to hear first?”

“They’re both sad news. Just tell me whichever one first.”

“First, the sad news is that we sent people to the ‘useful candidates’ you named and invited them to participate in Cartamen, but not a single one of them budged.”

“And the next piece of sad news?”

“They wouldn’t even meet with us. They turned my poor subjects away at the door.”

“Hm. You said they turned them away at the door?”

I thought about it carefully.

My father’s shoulders twitched, as if he had suddenly sensed something ominous.

“Daughter, you aren’t thinking of…”

“I wonder if they could turn away the Princess herself.”

I smiled sweetly as I looked up at my father.

‘I’m used to personally running around and recruiting people. I did enough of that in my previous life to last a lifetime!’

As I had already mentioned, in my previous life, I had been an assistant producer who planned the survival program Idol Paradise.

Idol Paradise had also struggled to find contestants in its early stages.

‘There was already a successful idol survival show scheduled for Season 2 in the same time slot.’

So I worked myself to the bone.

I personally went out and scouted hidden gems.

I made the story melodramatic and the editing provocative enough to appeal to Korean viewers.

At the same time, I never forgot to showcase the contestants’ skills and charms.

I tried my best to respect their efforts and dreams.

Thanks to that, Idol Paradise recorded the highest ratings of the year.

It swept everything from the Producer Award to the Program Award at various broadcasting award ceremonies.

Of course, someone else took those awards away from me.

‘I thought it was a memory I never wanted to think about again, but I guess it can actually be useful like this.’

The reason I had suddenly decided to launch Cartamen was also because of my experience planning Idol Paradise.

In my previous life, the Idol Paradise craze had been almost comparable to a religion.

There had even been a popular meme about how complete strangers would become friends by talking about which contestant they supported.

So if I applied that concept here, it would also be effective for bringing people together.

After all, everyone would develop common ground around a single topic.

Besides, there wasn’t much entertainment in the empire for ordinary people to enjoy.

‘At most, there are a few festivals each year.’

In a situation like this, holding Cartamen would capture the people’s attention, both visually and emotionally.

I wanted to use it to comfort, even if only a little, the people who had grown exhausted under the tyrant’s oppression.

‘A competition planned by pouring in all the memories and know-how from my previous life. I’ve practically carved out my soul to put this thing together.’

This time, I would make the competition a success under my own name.

For my father, for the people, and for myself.

‘I do have one little problem, though!’

The problem was that there were still only a few dozen applicants.

And most of them were nowhere near qualified to become knights.

At this rate, even if the god of broadcasting himself descended, it would still be a failure.

With slightly damaged ingredients, you can cover them with spices and still make a decent-looking dish.

But if the ingredients are rotten, no matter how hard you try to cook them, they’ll only make people sick.

In other words, I needed good contestants.

People who might be lacking a little, but had the potential to grow.

‘Of course, someone who was already fully formed would be even better.’

Naturally, if someone like that wanted to participate in a knight competition, they would have already signed up.

‘I have several candidates I’ve been keeping an eye on, but most of them haven’t applied.’

They said participation was voluntary, and apparently they had taken that very seriously.

They were nowhere to be seen.

They were people absolutely essential to the success of the competition.

Whether they made it into the final five, however, was up to them.

“By the way, surely Dimitri Cassel isn’t going to participate in the competition too, is he?”

Just then, a hostile voice came from among the crowd.

Dimitri Cassel.

It was a familiar name.

So familiar, in fact, that he was currently walking right beside me, his face concealed.

He was an imperial palace knight, but today he had come along as my escort.

My father had tried to stop me, but I insisted.

“I absolutely have to go with him.”

I intended to move around quietly.

That meant keeping my escort to a minimum.

Dimitri Cassel was perfect for the job.

He was skilled enough to protect me all by himself.

Of course, there was some merit to my father’s objections.

Dimitri was the empire’s officially designated punching bag.

Among the final victors of the tyrant’s bloody tournament, he was the only one who accepted becoming the tyrant’s knight.

That man was Dimitri Cassel.

‘The people curse him as a demon who trampled over blood to enjoy wealth and glory.’

But after becoming a Princess and seeing him for myself, I had never once seen him enjoy either wealth or glory.

He had no savings and devoted himself entirely to his duties as a knight.

‘More importantly, Dimitri was the one who opened the gates of the imperial palace during the revolution.’

Of course, most people claimed he had simply switched sides like a bat once it became clear that victory was ours.

I tugged on Dimitri’s cloak.

“Let’s hurry. We’re running out of time.”

If we delay any longer, Dimitri might have to listen to even worse insults…

“Surely they wouldn’t let that mad bastard, that traitor who’s lower than a worm, participate in the competition?”

…And then I heard it.

I glanced up at Dimitri.

His skin was pale and cold, like a silent land buried beneath snow, while jewel-like red eyes glowed indifferently.

Even though the rest of his face was hidden beneath the robe, it was easy to imagine what he looked like.

Cold silver hair, like a frozen river.

A sharply defined, high bridge of the nose.

Yes.

He might have been the empire’s designated punching bag, but he was a breathtakingly beautiful man who was difficult to look away from.

With a face like that, surely he wouldn’t care about a few insults.

“Did you bring me here so I could be insulted and repent?”

—That assumption of mine was completely wrong.

I shrugged.

“You’re not the type to repent.”

“I have no regrets about my decision. So even now…”

“Sir Dimitri. I didn’t bring you along as my escort because I thought you were someone who needed to repent, or because I believed you were secretly a good person.”

Dimitri’s eyes widened.

I smiled sweetly.

“I brought you because you’re the best fighter in the imperial palace. And I argued against executing you after the revolution for the exact same reason.”

“……”

“Now that you understand, stop saying pointless things and just protect me.”

“…Yes.”

Dimitri lowered his head.

I watched him closely.

‘Even just lowering his eyes makes him look so tragic.’

I had caught a glimpse of him during practice, and even when he swung his sword, there was something sorrowful about him.

If this were a romantic fantasy novel, he’d be the wounded male lead—or at the very least, a character who could never rank lower than the first secondary male lead.

It would be amazing if Dimitri participated in the knight competition.

‘Of course, public opinion would also explode—but in a completely different way.’

Back when I was a PD, I would have loved that kind of attention-grabbing controversy.

But now was a time when I had to keep a close eye on public sentiment and move carefully.