I Became A Genius Of The French Royal Family [EN]: Chapter 3

Hellfire Difficulty Regression (2)

Terrible pain coursed through my entire body.

Even if my whole body were slashed with knives, it wouldn’t be as painful as this.

Even when I was hit by a car, struck in the back of the head, or stabbed in the back, it didn’t hurt this much.

I didn’t even know why I had to experience such severe pain.

It just hurt.

But even though it hurt like crazy, I couldn’t even scream.

Is this the kind of pain everyone experiences when they die?

To be honest, I felt so wronged I was going crazy.

Frankly, what did I do wrong to deserve this?

It just feels like all I did was live harder than anyone else, and in return, I got two deaths.

A sudden, violent death, literally.

And both times, I lost my life unfairly without even uttering a word.

The hit-and-run driver, and those nameless assassin bastards who hit me in the back of the head.

If I had at least cursed those bastards out before closing my eyes, I wouldn’t feel so frustrated.

“Tsk, are you daydreaming again? With such poor concentration…”

To make matters worse, just when I’m about to die from the pain, some ghostly nonsense is murmuring in my ear.

I already feel like I’m going insane, and if I could, I’d curse them out with all my might.

“You son of a bitch!”

Yeah. Just like that…

“……?”

After spitting out the curse with great gusto, I realized something was wrong.

I should be dead, so how can I shout so vigorously?

“Young Master, even if you dislike the lesson, you shouldn’t shout so ungracefully. What are those incomprehensible words?”

“Huh…?”

A stern-looking, middle-aged man was looking at me with a dumbfounded expression.

As he began to lecture, a blank reaction unconsciously escaped my lips.

“Are my words so displeasing to you? But you’re already twelve years old, and you still can’t read Latin properly. That’s a problem. Others are already looking forward to entering the Collège [prestigious secondary school in France], but you’re so far behind…”

“Huh?”

I vaguely remember hearing similar words before.

That’s because the man in front of me was the tutor I first saw yesterday, right after I was reincarnated.

He definitely complained last time about how slow my progress was at twelve years old before leaving.

“It seems difficult to continue the lesson today, so I’ll take my leave. And instead of playing every day, please put some effort into your studies.”

“Huh? Wait, hold on. What’s going on?”

It wasn’t a question directed at anyone.

It was purely a soliloquy filled with doubt and bewilderment.

The tutor left as abruptly as before.

Left alone, I stood blankly in the room, looking around.

“I’m going crazy. What’s going on?”

Just a moment ago, it was definitely a dim evening.

Reflexively, I checked the back of my head and my back, but they were clean, without a single stitch mark.

“Well… if I had wounds that were bleeding profusely, the tutor wouldn’t have acted like that.”

At the very least, he should have asked if I was okay.

Before that, there’s no way I could be walking around perfectly fine after suffering such severe injuries.

The plan I wrote in Korean yesterday was also gone.

“Is it a dream?”

For now, that’s the only possibility I can think of.

First of all, I can’t deny the fact that I was reincarnated.

In that state, I was taking a lesson and dozed off because I was too bored, and had a ridiculous pipe dream.

If I think of it that way, I can at least accept it… but no way.

It’s not a joke, and if it was just a simple pipe dream, there’s no way I would have felt such vivid pain, right?

I still feel like the sensation from that time remains clearly in my head and back.

Besides, what was that terrible pain I felt just before opening my eyes?

No matter how much I was having a nightmare, it doesn’t make sense to feel such pain in my sleep.

“Right, the snack.”

If I remember correctly, the maid will bring a snack soon.

I even remember the menu.

It was definitely brioche, a traditional French bread.

Specifically, it was a rectangular brioche Nanterre topped with cheese.

Brioche is common, but it’s a different story if it’s this specific.

As expected, following a cautious knock, the maid came in with the snack and hot milk.

“Young Master, I’ll leave the snack here.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you for your hard work.”

I nodded and took a deep breath.

After calming myself for a few minutes, I slowly turned my gaze to check the snack the maid had left.

I’m going crazy. It’s the exact same menu as I remembered.

Not only the type of food but even the shape of the plate and cup are exactly the same.

How am I supposed to accept this absurd situation?

I almost panicked for a moment, but I calmed down and retraced the situation.

Even though it might not seem like it, I’ve been pioneering my own life alone from before I even came to my senses until the moment I died.

To make a living, I’ve done all sorts of part-time jobs, tutoring, and even worked as a student assistant.

It’s a bit sad to say it’s thanks to that, but anyway, I’m more confident than anyone else in my adaptability and survival instincts.

First of all, the most important thing right now is to objectively analyze the situation I’m in.

Fortunately, it was a subject I had seen indirectly a lot, so I was able to come up with an answer before long.

If I had to guess, it’s either a precognitive dream… or it’s that.

Regression.

In the current state, I had to consider both of those possibilities.

The sensations I felt were too vivid to be a precognitive dream, but I couldn’t jump to conclusions since there might be that kind of precognitive dream.

My theory is that it’s always right to consider the worst-case scenario rather than the best, so I decided to keep the possibility of a precognitive dream open for now.

The reason why a precognitive dream is worse for me than regression is simple.

If it’s just that I saw my death today in advance, then there’s no next chance.

In other words, if I actually die afterward, there’s a high chance my life will end there.

No, considering the worst-case scenario, regression isn’t much different either.

Even if I died and regressed, there was no guarantee that I could do it again in the future.

Maybe regressing once from yesterday’s death was the end.

Frankly speaking, starting with two lives is already an unbelievable cheat key, isn’t it?

I won’t know if I have two, three, or infinite lives unless I die.

But I don’t have the slightest intention of experimenting while dying.

It’s my life on the line, not someone else’s.

I have to mobilize all my capabilities as tightly as possible so that I never experience that again.

Still, I should say it’s fortunate that there aren’t any positive elements at all.

Perhaps because of the shock I felt when I died, or because of the pain I felt a little while ago, the fog that had settled in my head felt thinner.

Thanks to that, a considerable amount of memory came back, though not all of it.

For example, the maid who just gave me the snack is named Melissa.

And I was able to recall the fact that my background is a miserable situation that I can’t even call good with empty words.

Why haven’t I ever heard of the name Louis Christian de France in my previous life?

It was simple.

The name Louis Christian de France is not a name formally received from the Bourbon royal family.

I was the son of Louis Ferdinand, the eldest son of the current King Louis XV and the crown prince.

The problem is that I’m not from the legitimate line.

In fact, it wasn’t strange for royals to have mistresses or concubines in the Bourbon royal family.

Rather, it would be strange for a Bourbon man, the embodiment of promiscuity, not to have a mistress.

However, my father, Louis Ferdinand, was a man with unusually strong moral values for a royal.

Naturally, he had a tremendous aversion to the private life of his father, the epitome of promiscuity.

Because Louis XV’s popularity among the people was at rock bottom, the crown prince appealed to the people with his morality, which was the opposite of his father’s.

The strategy worked perfectly.

The people of France, unlike criticizing King Louis, sent unwavering love and expectations to the crown prince.

But it’s almost impossible for a man, especially the crown prince of a country, to completely suppress his youthful ardor.

One day, after finishing a hunt and being moderately excited, Louis Ferdinand dragged an ordinary village girl into his bed.

It would have been good if it had ended as just a one-night happening, but the woman became pregnant with the crown prince’s child.

For the crown prince, who had been gaining popularity with a completely opposite path from his father’s private life, it was bound to be embarrassing.

It was a situation where he couldn’t avoid hearing, “I thought you were so great, but you’re no different!”

“No, rather, because he gained popularity with his moral image, there was a high possibility that he would be criticized even more severely.”

Even if the crown prince didn’t step forward himself, many nobles on his side couldn’t tolerate the existence of the child.

In the end, the girl, feeling her life was threatened, fled with the child in her womb, and after wandering aimlessly, drifted all the way to Austria.

The woman gave birth to the child there and died, but the child barely survived, wandering through the slums.

In the meantime, by a miracle, he was discovered by French legal nobles and returned to Paris.

They brought me not out of pity or sympathy.

Crown Prince Louis Ferdinand, who was scheduled to succeed Louis XV, died of tuberculosis two years ago.

The next king is the ill-fated figure later known as Louis XVI.

Although it was decided that Louis Auguste, the crown prince’s eldest son, would be the next king, they didn’t know what variables my existence might cause.

Of course, at best, I, an illegitimate child, would not be eligible for the throne under normal circumstances.

There was a higher possibility that I wouldn’t play any role, but they must have calculated that there was nothing to lose by keeping me around anyway.

If a sudden epidemic broke out and all the legitimate heirs to the throne died, the story would be different.

Who knows what extraordinary excuses they might make to put me forward as a candidate?

Just a few years ago, no one imagined that the crown prince would die of tuberculosis.

It was only natural for those who witnessed his death to consider various possibilities.

In the end, the owner of the body I entered was destined to never have a life of his own from the moment he was conceived until the end.

“How can my situation, being swept around here and there, be so similar to my life in my previous life?”

Even the pathetic ending of losing my life in vain before I could even see the light of day was just like me.

“Maybe that’s why I was reincarnated into this body.”

Thanks to that, I was able to clearly establish the goal that I had to prioritize.

To somehow escape the future that is destined for destruction and successfully face tomorrow.

But it’s easier said than done. If this were a game, even a shitty game wouldn’t be this shitty.

Objectively speaking, I am a person whose very existence is a death flag.

There is a 99% chance of taking the express train to the afterlife no matter which option I choose.

Like some glass cannon, it wouldn’t be strange if I died a violent death without doing anything special.

That’s why being cocky is the root of disaster.

I want to tell the guy who said it was easy mode to please stop acting up from now on.

He seems like the type who won’t come to his senses until he’s beaten to death.

Anyway, the ambitious plan I wrote last time is all scrapped as of this moment.

Because making money and approaching the core of power are luxuries that I can only dream of after I’ve secured my safety.

Even if I make money with this unstable identity, it will only add one more reason to die, which is already overflowing.

The moment my existence is known, people who want to kill me will rush in like a zombie horde.

Maybe I’ve already been found out.

“No, wait. Isn’t it certain that I’ve already been found out, not just maybe?”

Those bastards who hit me in the back of the head yesterday.

They must be assassins hired by some nobles.

The nobles of this era are people who will mercilessly get rid of children for the sake of their own interests and status.

The fact that they don’t spare a twelve-year-old child has already been proven by my previous experience.

“Like crazy ghosts of power… That’s why their heads were all cut off at the guillotine.”

I didn’t know who the mastermind was yet, but if I stayed in this house, I was sure to die before tonight.

I’m not stupid, and I can’t just let myself be killed knowing that an assassin is coming.

There’s no time to hesitate.

I have to move right now.

I hurriedly packed my bags and finished preparing to leave the room.

Of course, I didn’t forget to stuff the brioche and cheese into my mouth before that.

Even if I’m running away, I can’t throw away free food.

“Melissa! Prepare a carriage for me right now!”

I didn’t care that my pronunciation was muffled because my mouth was full of bread, and I hurried as much as possible.

Objectively speaking, I can’t deny that the situation is so hopeless that I can’t see what’s ahead.

But it’s also a clear fact that I have knowledge that no one else in this world can touch.

So it won’t end like this.

No, I will never let it end like that.