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Chapter : 16
“Shall I try selling this treasure to the two of you~?”
At my words, the duke and duchess just stared blankly, blinking in silence.
Watching them, I lightly folded my arms.
Hmm~. They’re completely stunned.
It seemed they needed some time to process the situation.
Well, I suppose it must have been quite a shock.
I lowered my gaze slightly.
There, scattered on the floor, lay the “treasure” I had found in the vault a few days ago.
A treasure that hadn’t gained a single scratch even when Duke Seind had stomped on it like a madman.
It was none other than a “magic stone,” said to be excavated only in the northern part of the Empire.
Magic stones can never be destroyed by ordinary physical force.
Magic stones are extremely convenient minerals that can permanently store magic, allowing them to be used as substitutes for recording devices or cameras.
However, they weren’t widely used due to several fatal drawbacks.
For one thing, they’re quite rare—and non-mages can’t use them.
Above all, magic stones can only be destroyed through magic.
And it has to be a very specific, difficult kind of magic.
Because of that double-edged nature, even the Mage Tower rarely used them.
And now, their greatest weakness has been recorded inside one.
So then, who was the person who recorded the duke and duchess’s secret conversation onto a magic stone?
Having read the original story, I knew exactly who the culprit was.
The Second Prince.
A character whose name and appearance never appeared in the original work.
Yet traces of his existence lingered faintly throughout the Empire.
Originally, the strongest candidate for crown prince wasn’t the First Prince, but the Second Prince.
He was the son of a concubine, not the empress, and his maternal family wasn’t particularly powerful.
Even so, many nobles supported the Second Prince for one simple reason.
The Second Prince was an exceptionally talented mage.
In an age where mages were becoming increasingly rare, the fact that a young, healthy prince was a gifted mage was an enormous advantage in the battle for succession.
That’s why the nobles had to rack their brains.
The First Prince, son of the empress.
Ordinary, but the legitimate eldest son, with talent for governance and politics—good enough to become a decent emperor.
The Second Prince, son of a concubine.
Lacking in maternal lineage, but a mage—and filled with ambition to become emperor himself.
Each had clear strengths and weaknesses, and countless internal conflicts erupted among the nobles.
Naturally, competition between the princes intensified.
Then one day, after long silence, the emperor finally made his decision.
He chose the First Prince as crown prince.
The emperor judged that the ability to encompass the whole outweighed individual talent as the most important virtue of an emperor.
The Second Prince’s faction fiercely opposed the decision.
And their reasoning was understandable.
Right around that time, the Second Prince had achieved a major accomplishment that couldn’t be ignored.
He had solidified his position through diplomacy with the Mage Tower.
The aloof Mage Tower had never allied itself with any ruler.
They simply accepted commissions and acted in exchange for exorbitant compensation.
Yet despite that, the Second Prince persistently approached the Mage Tower—and eventually succeeded in forming a cooperative relationship.
As a result, many believed the Second Prince, not the First, was closer to the position of crown prince.
But in the end, the emperor sided with the First Prince.
Many nobles rebelled, and the Second Prince seized the moment.
Working actively behind the scenes, he extracted oaths of loyalty from numerous nobles.
The recording of the Duke and Duchess Seind was probably made during that time.
Incidentally, it wasn’t only the Seinds whose conversations were recorded.
Didn’t he say he recorded all the conversations of the high-ranking nobles who chose to follow him?
It was likely a final insurance policy, prepared in case something went wrong.
What a truly devious man.
Pretending to be righteous and benevolent on the surface, while plotting such schemes underneath.
Part of me wanted to see his face at least once… but alas.
The Second Prince is already dead.
The Second Prince, who had prepared everything to cut off his brother’s head, died suddenly from an unexplained illness.
People whispered that the First Prince must have killed him—but that wasn’t true.
The First Prince, now the crown prince, is innocent.
The Second Prince really did die of illness.
There might have been other hidden circumstances not mentioned in the original story, but at the very least, the First Prince didn’t lay a hand on him.
Seen that way, the First Prince was incredibly lucky.
If even one of my half-brothers had died of illness, I wouldn’t have suffered so much.
I was lost in thought when the duke, finally regaining his senses, spoke.
“You’re saying you’ll sell that magic stone?”
I looked at him and answered cheerfully.
“It’s a treasure you won’t find anywhere else in the world. I thought the two of you would surely covet it~.”
“Ha! How absurd!”
Duke Seind shouted, twitching his mustache.
“You people are always the same! Blinded by filthy money, fooling around without any fear of heaven!”
The duchess chimed in with a venomous voice.
“Utterly vulgar! You seduced Harten just to gnaw away at the Seind family fortune, didn’t you!”
I let their nonsense go in one ear and out the other.
What ridiculous people.
Why do they think money is vulgar?
They’re among those who enjoy its benefits the most in the entire Empire.
Is it because they’ve never lacked money even once?
The duke and duchess weren’t self-made.
Like most nobles, they simply inherited wealth built by their ancestors.
Living their entire lives without ever fearing poverty, they probably never learned its value.
In that case… I’ll just have to teach them.
Financial education is important for everyone, regardless of age~.
I lightly tapped my foot and said in a sing-song voice,
“Hmmm~. So you don’t care what happens to this treasure now?”
At my words, the two flinched.
“That’s a shame. Since this is our first meeting, I made the offer to you first, out of goodwill.”
“Wait!”
The duke sprang to his feet and stopped me.
“…Exactly how much do you want?”
“Dear!”
It seemed the duke had finally realized how serious the situation was.
As his voice softened, the duchess, who had been watching, grew angry and tried to stop him.
“Have you lost your mind?! You’re really going to dance to such a crude threat?!”
“Be quiet!”
“Ha! So this is why you came all the way down to this Tadivna Island?! You bragged that I’d never find out, that I could rest easy forever! And all you did was leave a magic stone lying around on this godforsaken deserted island?!”
“I said, be quiet!”
“You be quiet!”
The duchess stood up and roughly shoved the duke’s shoulder.
“In the first place, I’m far better than you at dealing with Eani Nasel!”
I know that wretched creature’s weaknesses inside and out!
Her eyes, as she said that, were filled with contempt toward me.
Faced with her confidence, the duke fell silent for a moment, then stroked his mustache.
“Well… I suppose you do know that woman better than I do.”
Her confidence made me curious.
What exactly was the duchess relying on to be so sure of herself?
“And just what is my weakness, I wonder~?”
Perhaps my utterly unbothered tone annoyed her, because the duchess deeply furrowed her brow.
Still, a noble was a noble—she quickly regained her poker face and looked down at me haughtily.
“Eani Nasel. You don’t seem worried about your family at all.”
“…What?”
“You were a devoted daughter who cherished her family dearly. Especially your widowed father.”
“…….”
“But with just a single word from me, your family will be dragged through the mud. They’ll lose all noble dignity and live worse than commoners. For the rest of their lives!”
“…….”
“All because of you! Only because of you! You alone will ruin your family’s entire lives!”
I stared at the duchess with wide eyes.
Seeing my expression, she lifted the corner of her lips arrogantly, as if victory were already hers.
“If you don’t want to see that happen, kneel immediately and beg for forgiveness. You were always so good at that, after all.”
