Spoilers pls ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶
What kind of spoilers do you want? (●'◡'●)ノ
There's so much that could be spoiled; be more specific!
Like, what was "missing" from the room in the beginning of the latest chapter?
What is the message concealed in the Vestian code?
Does Rayburn remember Angela from childhood, and if he does how much?
What happened during Rayburn and Angela's childhood? Why did they know each other? Why did she make *that* face?
What's the deal with Hoya, anyway?
When will we see developments between Angela and Rayburn? What sorts?
ya know. that kind of stuff. :)
lmao ( ̄∇ ̄")
I'm pressed for time at the moment, but here's a quick run down...
Obviously, nothing but SPOILERS ahead:
(1) What was missing from the room is the Vestian coded "message" that the scholars are working on. That was the future crown princess' room, and she's wondering where the hell her "message" went.
(2) The so-called message is in fact...another fanfic. (≧∀≦) The future crown princess, feeling lonely and snubbed by both princes read Angela's book since it was so popular. She enjoyed it so much that she thought it would be fun to try writing one too. But she was embarrassed about it, so she wrote it in a language she knew nobody could read. (Best part of this is that she confesses this truth to Rayburn before the code has been deciphered, and she rapidly assures him she didn't include any unsavory scenes of him and his knight or the like). (⌒▽⌒)
(3) Rayburn definitely remembers her from their childhood.
In the next chapter or two he'll basically "Kabe-don" Angela (by pinning her between him and his horse ^-^) when she tries to tell him that he doesn't need to keep a close eye on her.
Then he'll say something like "shouldn't I keep a close eye on you, though? After all, things close to me have a history of disappearing from my side without a word." -- Thanks to this, Angela recognizes that he is acknowledging for the first time that he does remember her. Though she doesn't know how much he remembers.
He's actually very resentful of her in the story as we read it because he believed as a child that she was his friend and ally, but she let him down. -- You see, on the day she met him she asked for his help and he hid her from the slave traders that were looking for her. Because she is a slave girl. Over time, they became sort-of friends that would meet up by that tree, feed the bird Shuran, and generally pass time together. However, on the day that the crown prince is stripped of his title and cast out of the palace he goes to find her at the tree one more time. He believes that, even if nobody else will, she will surely listen to his side of how things happened. But when he arrives he sees that her "face that always wore a smile" is contorted, and she then runs away without a word. He thinks that she has already heard the rumors about him being a merciless killer and has believed them. He feels deeply betrayed by her actions, and he hasn't ever forgotten her or what happened that day. In fact, even after growing up, he recognized her the moment he saw her when he went to go save the "author" from the people who abducted her early in the story. If you look at the earlier chapter where he looks down at her about to jump out from the back of the carriage in which she had been locked, you can see recognition in his eyes. (total "squee" moment) since they both recognize each other at first sight after years apart. -- Of course, with him feeling so betrayed, he thinks her behavior after coming back around him is totally flippant and it angers him.
In a few chapters he will finally sit down and talk with her about their past together as kids. He will tell her how things happened from his perspective, and that since he was a child at the time, it was very painful for him.
She will be totally shocked and wind up bawling, of course. Naturally, that's not how it happened from her point of view.
-- For her, she says, she had no idea during the time they spent together that he was a prince, since she was "just a little slave girl". She thought he was probably just some kid from a rich family. And she had been trying to escape her enslavers since the day she was brought there. All she knew was that she showed up to their meeting spot one day and there were a bunch of grown men there for some reason. This fact alone put her on edge. After hearing part of their conversation, she panicked and believed that if she stayed a "nice boy that played with her would get into trouble". So she ran away, without knowing anything else.
It turns out those men were there to find her on behalf of the crown prince, who had paid to free her from slavery. And he was going to recommend she be brought into the palace once she was a free girl. [she ran away knowing none of this, but figured out later that a rich boy had bought her freedom. And even later, she deduces that it was the prince who had done so].
She bawls and says there's no way she could have thought poorly of him even if she had known the rumors about him. He was, after all, the "first person to offer her a hand in her first 4 years of life" and he was someone that she held the utmost admiration for as his fan.
After they resolve their misunderstanding, they part ways for a bit. When they meet up again, they seem to be much closer. Rayburn, especially, seems much closer to her. (but I haven't properly read all that yet)
(4) Hoya will propose an alliance with the General, where she will offer him Rayburn's head in exchange for allowing her to take on the title of Duke. The proposal is laughed off because she can't inherit that title as a woman. She cuts off most of her hair and says the one who will actually "die" will be "Hoya", and she will live her life in power as Duke Rayburn. (Ya know, since they look identical and all). -- Angela hears this exchange and Hoya knows about it. They sort-of talk about it, but not really, while Hoya gets drunk. Whether this is a ploy or truly what Hoya wants remains to be seen.
That's all I got for now. That spoils at least a few chapters for ya, though.
( ̄∇ ̄")
I've wondered that too, since she was a child slave who was captured from "another country". Not only that, but even as a child slave she was already educated enough to write. In fact, at the time that Angela is asking Rayburn to hide her on the day they first met, the slave trader is telling her "purchaser" that she can be very useful because she is skilled at writing.
--- I figure she must at least have had some sort of noble background to have been educated at all by such a young age. Also, when you consider that Rayburn's country has been at war for all that time, it isn't impossible to think that she was a foreign aristocrat turned prisoner-of-war turned slave girl.
There's nothing but bits and pieces of elements that could count as possible foreshadowing to support the theory though, so far. And it would be a bit of a cliche development if it turned out to be true...but I don't think that I would dislike it.
(teehee. ^-^)
╮( ̄▽ ̄)╭
My pleasure!
(I read ahead for spoilers myself, after all).
Thinking on it now, I should have included a disclaimer that Korean is pretty new to me, though. Japanese is my second language.
But as far as MTL ("machine translation", if you're unfamiliar with the acronym) can be relied on, what I said should be pretty accurate. The dialogue matched the pictures and developments, so I'm pretty confident that I got it correct.
(=・ω・=)
I'm guessing you meant "start liking the author"...?
My thoughts:
Judging by [how attached to her he had been as a child] + [the fact he recognized her at first sight as adults] + [he keeps wanting to keep her close even though he feels hurt/bitter/angry by (what he believes) she did when they were kids and what he's going through thanks to her fanfic] + [his possessiveness of her as seen when the current crown prince asked her to dance at the ball and also when he asked her to go for a walk to the hunting grounds] + [how much closer and touchy-feely he looks in the latest chapters that I haven't quite tried translating yet (basically, how they appear to interact after they clear up their misunderstanding about the past)]...
I'mma guess "yes", he starts liking her.
Or probably more accurately, he probably always liked her.
Also, there's the fact that when he finally chooses to discuss their childhood past together:
(1) they do it at the palace in the bedroom provided to the "Scholar".
(2) While he's shirtless.. [because he got wet and Angela is forcing him to dry his clothes by the fire]
(3) After she cries herself to sleep on the couch from their "reconciliation", he stands by the fireplace and looks at her. He looks irritated and thinks something along the lines of "Exactly who are you trusting so much that you feel comfortable enough to fall asleep?"
( ̄ε(# ̄)Σ
(≧∀≦)
Spoiler pls