CHAPTER 45……
“It’s unexpected that she’s Princess Obel. Does Her Majesty the Empress know about this?”
“Yes. She actually wants this union.”
It was a strange matter.
Eva, who was born and raised in Leviathan, knew better than anyone the atmosphere of a family full of a sense of superiority.
If I were Her Majesty the Empress, I wouldn’t have matched Princess Obel, who wasn’t chosen by the Divine Beast.
She was a person of Leviathan before being the Empress. Someone who valued bloodline more than anyone else.
Although the Empress was from a collateral branch rather than the direct line of Leviathan, Eva had known since childhood that she was adopted into the direct lineage.
So she must be Leviathan to the bone.
“Is this counseling session over?”
“The quality of your answers isn’t great, but I’ll let it slide.”
After hearing such an arrogantly dismissive reply, Eva stood up.
“Well then, I have work to do, so I’ll be leaving first. May the light of radiance always follow Crown Prince.”
She wanted to end her social activity with the future emperor at that point.
Eva gave a vague excuse and went to where her father, Duke Leviathan, was.
It was the Empress’s glass greenhouse.
“Where is Father?”
“He’s having a conversation with Her Majesty the Empress.”
“Let’s wait here.”
Enough time had passed, so it wouldn’t be long.
“Even coming here after a while, there’s a corner that makes a person feel intimidated.”
Eva glanced at the exterior of the glass greenhouse, which was famously decorated by the Empress herself, and murmured as if appalled.
The Empress’s glass greenhouse was famous not only for its size but also its luxury.
Contrary to Eva’s expectations, the conversation between the Empress and Duke Leviathan showed no sign of ending.
“Brimstone should have died then.”
Duke Leviathan muttered as if chewing and swallowing his words.
“But you pushed him into a battlefield with no hope of survival.”
“……”
“When he was broken by the grief of losing his son, you should have swallowed Brimstone completely. If you had, Brimstone would now be ours, part of Leviathan.”
“But he returned as a hero.”
At the Empress’s words, Duke Leviathan seemed to wake up from a sweet dream.
“You speak as if it’s someone else’s problem, Lilian. Now is not the time to leisurely collect jewels or pretend to be a magician.”
No matter what Duke Leviathan said, the Empress continued feeding a small carved ivory bird, one pearl grain at a time.
The bird feed was tiny pearls.
“We must create the foundation so Maximilian can seize strong imperial authority when the Emperor is not of sound mind!”
“Brother is surely following Leviathan’s radiance, not Maximilian’s.”
“Lilian.”
Ivory-carved birds.
Pearl bird feed.
And flowers made by cutting all sorts of jewels, never to wither.
The inside of the glass greenhouse was dazzlingly beautiful, but the only living beings were Empress Lilian and Duke Leviathan.
“Yes. The long-standing plan to subordinate Brimstone to Leviathan has become a failure. The Duke of Brimstone now doubts Leviathan, and some group called Luna Guild has appeared, running a business that drains the royal treasury.”
“……”
“You want to talk about that?”
“…The Luna Guild leader seems to have started the business deliberately. We tracked them but couldn’t find out their identity.”
This made it impossible to assassinate the guild leader to disrupt the guild.
Leviathan had become like a dog chasing a chicken.
“Even so, Brimstone isn’t the only family crippled now.”
“Brimstone’s asset is the mines, the mines!”
“Brother.”
Lilian gave Duke Leviathan a sharp look as he vented his frustration.
“If you really care for Maximilian, stop wasting your efforts on pointless things. You’re just reducing the number of assassins we’ve trained.”
There had been a steady string of disappearances for a long time.
Behind them was Duke Leviathan.
He kidnapped people unlikely to be searched for and provided some to Lilian for her experiments.
The rest were raised as assassins.
Lilian was pointing out the loss of many assassins just to snatch a recently enslaved illegitimate child of the Emperor.
“We can’t just stand by. We must retrieve them quickly. If that bastard illegitimate child leaks any useless information outside…!”
“What kind of useless information?”
“He was treated like livestock for half his life just because he’s illegitimate. Can you handle it if such rumors spread?”
Duke Leviathan frowned, troubled.
But Lilian’s expression did not change.
“It’s not only me who’s done shady things. But look, have the world’s accusations ever punished me or you?”
No insect sounds in the greenhouse where flowers naturally exist.
Only Lilian’s voice echoed in the deathly silence.
“No. We’ve risen to the pinnacle of power.”
Lilian plucked a flower nearby. It was a ruby-crafted flower.
She rolled the transparently shining flower in her hand and dropped it as if by accident.
“Such trivial noise won’t shake me or the family. Because power is the force that can turn truth into lies.”
The ruby flower cracked—something some could never afford even after a lifetime.
But no one dared to blame the Empress. Nor would they in the future.
“Duke, I am no longer the child I was then.”
A worthless collateral branch child.
No Divine Beast’s power or backing, but lucky enough to be adopted into Leviathan.
Because of that, treated as a parasite clinging to the family. But that girl was now sitting on the throne of Empress.
“Then let me ask. How many of the assassins you sent have returned alive?”
None.
Not a single one.
“Not even a single hair on that vermin, let alone Princess Obel. All died despite the number of assassins sent. Don’t you realize this?”
Duke Leviathan closed his mouth.
“If you really didn’t know, I would have worried about your sanity first, but it seems you’re not in that state.”
In this matter, Lilian was right.
They had only lost competent assassins.
Trying to kill Princess Obel seemed less suspicious than desperately trying to snatch a slave.
Nothing gained, only losses.
“Don’t do anything conspicuous. Especially if you accidentally kill Princess Obel, I won’t forgive you.”
“You seem to care unusually much about Princess Obel. Now that I think about it, you tried to match her with Maximilian. I oppose it.”
“She’s special.”
“Special? She’s unique because she has good blood but wasn’t chosen by the Divine Beast. But such a bastard can never be Empress…”
“Who is the mother of the current Crown Prince?”
Lilian cut off Duke Leviathan.
“And who is the woman favored by the Emperor now? And who helped Leviathan enjoy its current glory?”
“…Indeed. The ruler often has many women by his side.”
Duke Leviathan pretended to agree with Lilian.
Lilian smiled twistedly at the sound, but Duke Leviathan did not see it.
“Now that you mention it, that seems to be the case.”
Linaria nodded at the question Anna posed.
“I’ve never heard anyone say they tidied his bed. He’s always been neat.”
Linaria’s doubt was this:
Does Kaas use a bed?
Recalling how awkward he was on the first day made it quite possible.
“He wakes up earlier than me. Since he goes to the training ground at dawn, I assumed he tidied up during that time.”
Linaria got up immediately and went to look for Kaas.
He was in the middle of training at the practice ground.
Approaching him, Linaria was surprised at once.
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
His left arm was roughly bandaged. If it had only been wrapped once or twice, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
“How did this happen?”
“I got hurt during training.”
He said it casually, but only a few could push Kaas that hard to cause such a wound.
My father wouldn’t have done that, would he?
“Liri, it hurts.”
“Ah, sorry.”
She had been holding Kaas’s arm too tightly while thinking.
As she was about to let go, Linaria froze.
He just called me by a pet name.
She had allowed pet names but he never used one before—not even her real name.
She thought he might not remember, but this was a noticeable change. He seemed to be improving after leaving the palace.
“Why did you stubbornly keep going even though it hurt?”
“Because I have to become stronger to protect you.”
