SILHCN 38

“Preparation is complete.”

Raymond gave a slight nod at his adjutant’s words.

“What about the trap’s location?”

“It’s good.”

“What’s the empress’s side doing?”

“They don’t seem to have noticed anything. Sir…”

“You have something to say?”

“To be honest, I don’t understand this whole thing.”

Casian spoke with a look of dissatisfaction.

“To be frank, I don’t know what Her Highness Princess Titania is thinking. No matter how much she owes you her life… I also don’t understand why Miss Bibi is so friendly to her.”

Casian was the only son of the current Head of the Castraine family, Duke Orto, and was like his right-hand man. The Duke had even allowed him to name his son after his middle name, ‘Casian,’ so the two’s loyalty was unquestionable.

“Yes, well, the terms of the previous contract… there was no loss for us so far. And even if she tried something funny, we could prepare for it immediately. But this matter is completely different! If something goes wrong, there’s a high possibility that we will be blamed for releasing magical beasts into the palace. In fact, if we only look at this incident, it’s not entirely wrong to say that.”

“Do you think I didn’t think of what you’re thinking?”

“I’m saying this because you know it.”

Casian let out a faint sigh.

“As for the investigation, we continued it, of course. We looked into everything as you commanded. …It seems her situation was much more pitiful than we thought.”

Because she always appeared to be doing well on the “outside,” there were very few people who would have guessed that Titania’s situation was so dire. The truth about Titania’s situation, when they looked into it, was like a rotten egg on the inside. But what could they do even if they knew?

From Casian’s perspective, the lives of the northernmost territory’s residents, who lived lives worse than death with magical beasts constantly swarming in, were more tragic, even though the Ducal family tried everything to save them. And it was even less of a reason for the members of the Ducal family, who were constantly putting their lives on the line and spending nights out in the open, covered in the blood of magical beasts, to feel sympathy.

“So what are we going to do?”

“…”

Sadly, no matter how one looked at it, it would have been better if the princess had never been born. The fact that she was born a daughter led to the imperial family’s greed to try something funny with the Castraine Ducal family. And so was the Empress Elaine’s vain life. It was even more so because he served Raymond as his lord, who was inevitably entangled in this situation after being forced to take her as his fiancée.

“Even last time, she threw plates at the maids in the Rose Palace and caused a scene. How many times has she humiliated and harassed the young Duke, hiding behind her title as a princess? She’s still a member of the imperial family. She ate on time and lived in a warm, safe place.”

“So I don’t need to feel guilty?”

“Think about what the imperial family has done to the Castraine Ducal family so far.”

Casian’s words revealed deep-seated distrust and anger.

“If only the barrier’s source wasn’t ‘the blood of the current imperial family,’ I would have begged the Duke to end this cursed imperial family long ago.”

A breakwater that blocked magical beasts. That was the burden the current Castraine Ducal family was carrying. The mana stone mine wasn’t a natural formation. Mana stones were discovered in a place where the bodies of magical beasts, which the Castraine Ducal family had been killing throughout the Empire’s history, had accumulated. Thanks to the mana stones, the Castraine Ducal family was wealthy, but it wasn’t enough to make all the residents of the territory rich and safe. The imperial family neglected its duties and treated the Castraine Ducal family’s problems as someone else’s. Instead, they were wary of the Castraine Ducal family, who held a massive military force from fighting magical beasts. Instead of helping, they were itching to get in the way. It had been a long time since the Castraine Ducal family had grit their teeth and fought off the magical beasts, preventing the swarms from reaching the inner lands, so they took the peace for granted.

However, the number of magical beasts increased every year. To strengthen the barrier that divided the magical beast and human territories, the Castraine Ducal family had tried everything. And they realized once again that ‘the blood of the imperial family’ was essential for the barrier, just as it had been established by the first emperor. If there was no living member of the imperial family, the barrier would naturally disappear.

“…So what if a member of the imperial family appears to help our situation?”

“I’m telling you not to put your faith in Her Highness Princess Titania. What if all this is part of a bigger plan to make you the young Duke sit beside her?”

Raymond heard those words and smiled bitterly.

“You really don’t have to worry about that.”

‘Find someone you love and get married.’

When Titania said that and looked at Raymond, there was not a single trace of hesitation in her eyes.

People love stories anywhere. Fun stories. My parents loved melodramatic dramas. I never got to have priority over the TV channel in my past life.

When you see a drama with a plot like: the stepmother and the ex-husband were actually dating, and they had a child they adopted and then gave away, and that child is the current husband’s mistress, and the current husband had a child with the mistress but is actually infertile, so the child is a product of the mistress and her biological father’s secret affair… you would swear at the plausibility but still watch it.

In other words, people are intrigued by plausible stories. This is especially true in the imperial palace, where they can’t do anything without some kind of justification or honor. It’s even more so because the emperor is a cynical human being without any pretense of impartiality.

The story the Empress created was plausible, interesting, and it turned the entire palace upside down and fit the Emperor’s taste perfectly. My guess that Empress Cleo would be a little cautious because my life was on the line and the Castraine family was involved was wrong. After all, Empress Cleo was the one who had held the reins of power in the palace, even over the empress, until now.

She didn’t point the finger at the Castraine Ducal family as the source of the curse, and she portrayed me, who was lying down, as an innocent victim of the curse. Even if I were to say that the sword Empress Cleo gave me was a cursed sword, Empress Cleo would simply brush it off, saying, ‘Oh, how pitiful. She survived, but her mind isn’t sound due to the effects of the curse!’ Although she sent the sword to me through a maid, those maids must have already been silenced.

Once you’ve fallen into the opponent’s trap, you can’t act according to their intentions. So I decided to completely change the game. The snippets of information from the books I had borrowed from the library, especially those that only the imperial family could access, were very helpful. I thought they wouldn’t have survived the commotion, but Raymond brought them to me later. I had nothing else to do in my room, so I read the book little by little when I had time.

The imperial family was hell-bent on concealing past history, so even the emperor didn’t know much about the early days of the Empire. Only I, who had read the original story, knew all about it. Of course, I still don’t know why the <Gloriana’s Insignia> is in the abandoned mine, but anyway, even the maze garden in the palace was a legacy of the past.

The sub-function of my emoticon sword is a magical beast encyclopedia and a navigation system. Before I ran into Bibi, I had asked the emoticon sword about the magical beasts in the palace to test its functions while I was killing time in the Rose Palace. And I found out that there were other places where magical beasts were sleeping besides the maze garden. I found out when I tried turning on the navigation function as a test. I almost fell over from shock when I saw it. It was nowhere else but in the ‘Hall of Glory.’

Apparently, it was a creature that would first kill off all other blood relatives except for the appropriate emperor and empress of the time. The Hall of Glory is a place that no one can enter except the emperor and empress who have been officially crowned. So I got a chill down my neck, thinking it meant that if a rebellion broke out and your life was in danger, you could go into the hall, unleash the magical beast, and let it take care of your siblings.

Ancestors, why did you have to hide so much in the palace? This is why a civil war would break out and the palace would be destroyed later… Why would the people who built the initial system to kill magical beasts hide them like this?

“You’re so audacious, thinking you can use me.”

If I found out something that even the emperor and empress of the time didn’t know? I’d have to put it to good use. And it’s a magical beast in the shape of a wolf with a beautiful golden mane that could be mistaken for an elegant pet. It would be a great bait to catch a foolish glory-seeker, wouldn’t it?

I shrugged my shoulders.

“At least on this matter, I thought we were in the same boat, Your Majesty the Empress?”

The empress’s cold eyes scanned me. She was surprisingly calm for someone who had secretly entered the Hall of Glory and rang the blue bell under the first emperor’s portrait three times to unleash the magical beast.