Chapter 38
“Everything is ready.”
Raymon nodded slightly at his adjutant’s words.
“The location of the traps?”
“Optimal.”
“The Imperial Consort’s movements?”
“It seems she hasn’t noticed a thing. Sir…”
“Is there something you wish to say?”
“To be honest, I don’t understand this situation.”
Cassian spoke with a face that looked somewhat unconvinced.
“Shall I be blunt? I have no idea what Her Highness Princess Titania is thinking. No matter how much of a life debt we owe her… and I don’t understand why Lady Bibi is being so friendly with her, either.”
Cassian was the only son of the current head of the Castline family, Duke Ortho’s right-hand man. Their loyalty was so absolute that the Duke had even granted the request to name the son ‘Cassian’ after the Duke’s own middle name.
“Yes, well, the terms of the previous contract itself… up until now, it wasn’t something we’d lose out on. Even if she tried to play tricks, we were in a position to prepare immediately. But this is a completely different matter! If things go wrong, there is a high possibility that we will be framed for unleashing demonic beasts into the Imperial Palace. In fact, strictly speaking about this specific incident, that wouldn’t even be a lie.”
“Do you think I haven’t considered what you’ve thought of?”
“I’m saying this because I know you have.”
Cassian let out a shallow sigh.
“As for the investigation, I’ve continued it. I’ve scraped up everything as you ordered. ……It seems her circumstances were far more pitiful than we imagined.”
Because she had always looked ‘presentable’ on the outside, almost no one could have predicted that Titania’s situation was truly that dire. Titania’s actual circumstances, once properly looked into, were like a rotten egg.
But even if they had come to know her situation in earnest, what of it?
From Cassian’s perspective, the lives of the people in the northernmost territories—who lived lives worse than death because demonic beasts swarmed them every time the Duchy tried to provide relief—were far more tragic.
And the members of the Ducal family, who frequently threw themselves into danger, covered themselves in the blood of beasts, and spent countless nights outdoors just to look after those people even a little better, were certainly not in a position to offer sympathy.
“So what if she is?”
“…….”
Regrettably, from any perspective, it would have been better if the Princess had never been born.
That she was born a daughter, sparking the Imperial Family’s greed to use her to play tricks on the House of Castline.
That Imperial Consort Elaine’s life ended in such vanity.
And especially since he served Raymon as his lord—the man who was forced by these circumstances to take her as his fiancée and become entangled in this mess.
“Just recently, didn’t she throw plates at the Rose Palace maids and cause a scene? Think of how much she has insulted and harassed you, Young Duke, using her status as a shield until now. She is still a member of the Imperial family. She ate her meals on time, lived in a warm place, and stayed safe.”
“So I have no need to feel guilty?”
“Think of what the Imperial Family has done to the House of Castline all this time.”
A deep-seated distrust and anger flickered in Cassian’s words.
“If only the core of the barrier weren’t tied to the ‘blood of the current Imperial Family,’ I would have begged the Duke to end this damn Imperial line long ago.”
A breakwater that holds back the demonic beasts.
That was the karma the current House of Castline bore.
The magic stone mines were not natural.
Magic stones were things that began to be mined one day from the places where the corpses of demonic beasts—slaughtered by the House of Castline throughout the Empire’s history—had accumulated.
The House of Castline itself was wealthy thanks to the magic stones, but it was not enough to make every citizen in the territory wealthy and safe.
The Imperial Family neglected its duties and treated the House of Castline’s affairs as someone else’s problem. Rather, they were wary of the House of Castline because they held a massive military force to fight the beasts.
Instead of helping, they were itching to interfere. Because the House of Castline had clenched their teeth and repelled the beasts for so long, preventing the swarms from reaching the interior, the Imperial Family had begun to take peace for granted.
However, the number of demonic beasts increased every year.
The House of Castline had tried every method imaginable to strengthen the barrier that separated the human and beast territories.
And they realized once again that, as a barrier established by the First Emperor, the blood of a ‘member of the Imperial family’ was essential.
If not a single living Imperial family member remained, the barrier would naturally vanish.
“…What if an Imperial family member who could help our situation appeared?”
“I’m telling you not to place that kind of trust in Princess Titania. What if all of this is part of a grand scheme to force you to stay by her side, Young Duke?”
Raymon smiled bitterly upon hearing that.
“There is truly no need to worry about that.”
‘Find someone you love and get married.’
Because there wasn’t a single flutter of hesitation in Titania’s eyes as she looked at him while saying those words.
People everywhere love a good story.
An entertaining story. My parents in my past life loved makjang dramas, too. I never once won the right to the TV remote.
The stepmother and the ex-husband were actually dating, and they had a child they adopted and then dissolved the adoption for, and that child turns out to be the current husband’s mistress, and the current husband has a child with that mistress, but actually the current husband is sterile, so that child was a secret child the mistress had with her own biological father….
When you watch a drama with that kind of plot, you curse at the lack of logic while still finding yourself watching it.
In other words, people are suckers for a plausible story.
Especially in the Imperial Palace, where nothing can be done without those damn things called justification and face.
Even more so because the man called the Emperor is a thick-skinned human being devoid of any sense of justice or fairness.
The story Imperial Consort Cleo cooked up was plausible, entertaining, turned the entire palace upside down, and suited the Emperor’s tastes perfectly.
My prediction that Imperial Consort Cleo would be cautious for a while because my life was on the line and the House of Castline was involved was wrong.
Regardless, Imperial Consort Cleo was a person who had held the initiative within this palace, even overshadowing the Empress.
She didn’t name the House of Castline as the source of the curse, and she framed me—lying in bed—as an innocent victim of said curse.
Even if I were to say the sword Imperial Consort Cleo gave me was cursed, she could just brush it off by saying, ‘Poor thing. Having nearly died, her mind must be unstable from the effects of the curse!’
She had sent the sword to me through a maid, but those maids would have been silenced already.
Once you’ve already fallen into an opponent’s trap, you can’t act according to their intentions.
So, I decided to redraw the board entirely.
Snippets from books I’d borrowed from the library—specifically the one only accessible to the Imperial family—were very helpful. I didn’t think they would survive the chaos, but Raymon brought them to me later. Having nothing else to do in my room, I read those books bit by bit whenever I had time.
Because the Imperial Family was hell-bent on concealing past history, even the Emperor didn’t know much about the state of the early Empire.
Only someone like me, who had read the original novel, had it all memorized.
Of course, even I still don’t know exactly why the <Insignia of Gloriana> is in an abandoned mine, but at any rate, even the Maze Garden inside the palace was a legacy of the past.
The sub-functions of my Emoticon Sword are a demonic beast encyclopedia and a navigation system.
Before I ran into Bibi, while I was killing time at the Rose Palace, I had asked the Emoticon Sword about the demonic beasts within the Imperial Palace just to test its functions.
And I found out that there were other places in the palace where demonic beasts slept, besides the Maze Garden.
I found out by turning on the navigation function as a test. I almost fainted from shock the moment I saw it.
It wasn’t just anywhere; it was in the ‘Hall of Glory.’
Apparently, this one was a creature that prioritized hunting down and killing any blood relatives other than the legitimate Emperor and Empress of the current era.
The Hall of Glory is a place where no one can enter except the Emperor and Empress who have officially performed the succession ceremony.
So, I felt a chill down my spine wondering if it was meant to be used in case a rebellion broke out and lives were at risk—you’d go into the hall, release the beast outside, and slaughter your siblings.
Ancestors, what on earth did you install so many of these things in the palace for? This is why the palace gets trashed when the civil war breaks out later….
Why did the people who built the initial system to suppress demonic beasts hide a beast like this here?
“How very audacious of you, thinking to use me.”
What do you do when you learn a fact that even the current Emperor and Empress don’t know?
You use it well.
Especially since it’s a wolf-shaped beast with a beautiful golden mane that could pass for a very elegant pet predator at first glance. Wouldn’t it be a magnificent bait to hook a fool filled with vanity for the hunt?
I shrugged my shoulders.
“At least regarding this matter, I thought we were in the same boat, Your Majesty the Empress?”
The Empress’s cold eyes swept over me.
She looked remarkably composed for someone who had just slipped into the Hall of Glory behind her husband’s back and released a demonic beast by ringing the blue bell beneath the portrait of the First Emperor three times.