CHAPTER 82……………………….
A week had passed since mining development began.
I was sitting in Lloyd’s office, listening to the progress report on the mine’s development.
“As your Highness said, there really is an ore vein. The ground is relatively stable too, so development is proceeding smoothly.”
“That’s good.”
I sipped my tea nonchalantly, though inwardly I felt a huge relief. The information I had relied on came from the original story, not from any firsthand confirmation, so I’d been secretly worried—what if it wasn’t true?
“If not, I might’ve been sued for a sham marriage.”
Well, Lloyd would have a hard time annulling the marriage later since I’d already lied to Priscilla.
Come to think of it, the man had been rather quiet lately.
“How is Countess Priscilla doing?” I asked.
“She’s still unwell. She hasn’t left her bedroom.”
Priscilla had collapsed after the shock of learning her son was illegitimate; she’d even rushed to the duchy in a state, and the fallout left her bedridden.
‘I’m grateful for that,’ I thought.
Because Priscilla was lying ill, there was no one around to interfere with Lloyd’s affairs at the moment.
Perhaps feeling slightly guilty about his smooth progress, Lloyd asked cautiously about my situation.
“By the way, I heard His Majesty is ordering a reinvestigation. How is that going on your side?”
“I don’t have high hopes. The evidence and witnesses are probably gone; a reinvestigation would be a waste of time.”
I considered sending Mars’s ring back to Theodora, but as I’d said before, the ring wasn’t decisive proof.
So I decided to wait.
“Someone will come to collect that ring soon. When they do, I plan to catch them and make them confess that Mars hired Kahel.”
Most likely it would be Archibald Bright who came back.
It was about time he poked his head into the duchy again.
‘They say talk becomes reality—so why won’t he make a move?’
But you only need to say a thing for the tiger to appear; many people don’t have a gentleman’s restraint, and even spirits show interest when you mention them.
No sooner had I thought that than there was the sound of frantic running in the corridor, and Pablo burst in without knocking.
“Your Highness! There’s a disaster!”
“Pablo. Please don’t fling the door open—Princess is here, too…” Lloyd frowned, scolding Pablo’s rudeness—an expression rarely seen on his face.
I was slightly put off as well.
“There’s been an explosion at the Cats Eye Mine. You must come at once!”
At those words even Lloyd and I sprang from our seats.
Even before the mine collapsed, work in the Thousand-Year Tree forest was busy as ever.
“Hey, watch out there!”
A brown-haired miner looked up reflexively, startled by a sudden cascade of falling rocks, and tumbled over.
“Yaaah!”
“Hey, I told you to be careful! That’s a rockfall zone!”
An experienced-looking miner barked at him, but the younger man only giggled in a dazed way.
“You almost killed me.”
“Tsk, no matter how urgent the development, you can’t have amateurs like this…”
Because they’d recruited miners en masse, work progressed quickly.
But that also meant many recruits were complete novices.
One newcomer in particular was very poor at the job.
He kept choosing spots prone to collapse and hacked away with the pick as if half-hearted. It looked like he was slacking off.
“How do you keep making everything collapse with those pathetic swings? Ugh, you’re gonna make me lose my mind.”
“Heh, pickaxe work’s harder than it looks.”
Trying to shirk work a bit, the new miner pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.
“Are you crazy? Where do you think you’re smoking? Didn’t they tell you smoking’s strictly forbidden in this forest?!”
“Yaaah! Right, sorry!”
Startled, the newcomer tossed the lit cigarette over his shoulder. Luckily, the mine was all rock heaps; if it had been grass, that careless act would’ve turned the place into an inferno.
So the middle-aged miner clicked his tongue but didn’t make more of a fuss about the flicked ember.
“Why are you doing miner’s work anyway? You look better suited for something else.”
“I thought the same. I expected it, but pickaxe work really doesn’t fit me. There’s an easier way.”
The newcomer’s carefree grin disappeared and was replaced by a bitter, self-mocking laugh.
At once the middle-aged miner visibly recoiled.
But the new miner suddenly shouted in his usual vacant expression, “Ah— I need to go to the bathroom! It’s urgent!”
“What? Hey—!”
You can’t run like that inside a narrow mine!
There was no time to stop him, and trying to would’ve led to an unpleasant scene.
So the miner scratched his head and muttered, “Well, I’ll ask him later.”
Maybe it was better not to ask. There was always a reason someone chose this rough work at a young age.
Thinking that, the anti-heroic newbie looked a little foolish but fundamentally decent, and the older miner felt a twinge of remorse for pushing him so hard. He himself had been just as inexperienced once.
His aged parents to support, a wife to feed, and a young son who refused to do manual labor—those were what had made him a veteran miner.
‘They pay well here; if you’re going to be a miner, this place’s the least bad option.’
He resolved to teach the newcomer properly when he returned, lifted his pick, and resumed work.
Meanwhile, a pair of sturdy work boots were pounding through the cramped mine tunnel.
The recruit who’d claimed to need the bathroom had burst out of the long tunnel, ignored a patch of good cover, and kept running for quite a while.
When he finally stopped—at a distance that made one suspect he was fleeing—he panted heavily.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead with a towel, he breathed out in relief.
“Hah, shouldn’t’ve answered that for no reason. I almost got buried with them.”
As if vowing never to return to the mine, he tossed off his safety helmet and strolled casually toward the edge of the forest. He pulled a pocket watch from his pocket, flipped the lid, and peered at it.
“Let’s see… five seconds.”
The brown-haired miner looked back at the mine with a sly grin.
5, 4, 3, 2…
KOO-BAHM!
No sooner had the countdown ended than a tremendous sound and a flash filled the air and the mine collapsed inward.
“Explosives beat pickaxe any day.”
The newcomer—no, Archibald—smiled with satisfaction, rummaged through nearby underbrush, and pulled out a fine-looking set of clothes. He shrugged them over his sweat- and dust-coated body, lit the cigarette he’d almost smoked earlier, and casually tossed it into the brush.
Whoosh. The flame took hold of the grass as fuel and spread rapidly.
Even the Thousand-Year Trees couldn’t resist the blaze—they burned just like ordinary trees.
Turning his back on the spreading fire, Archibald walked away along a side path with an excited stride.
‘Soon the duchy will be empty, and I’ll only get one chance. I won’t disappoint Gabriel this time.’
He absolutely would recover Mars’s ring.
Grinning, Archibald left the scene at a leisurely pace.
When Lloyd heard the news that the mine had exploded and a forest fire had started, his face went white.
“What about casualties and the injured? How big is the damage?”
“It was a simultaneous series of explosions deep inside, so it’s completely caved in. The miners who were inside are probably—”
Pablo reported with his eyes squeezed shut as if he couldn’t bear to say it, but continued perseveringly.
“—most likely dead. Also, fires of unknown origin have started. If we don’t get this under control quickly, it could spread into a greater disaster.”
Lloyd’s fists trembled.
Explosives are sometimes used to speed up work during mine development, but not in amounts that would cause such large-scale detonations.
Besides, the mine is inside the Thousand-Year Tree forest, so they were instructed to use only minimal charges.
If the explosion was large enough to collapse the mine and there was an inexplicable fire as well…
“It was deliberate.”
The duke had many enemies.
Though he’d been living quietly, as Priscilla’s son he couldn’t be without foes. Still, the original story never had such a direct attack on the duke.
Because of the ducal family’s position.
And I thought I knew who the culprit was.
Bang! I slammed my hand on the table so hard that Lloyd and Pablo, mid-conversation, turned toward me.
“Princess—Your Highness?” Lloyd asked, flustered; he didn’t yet understand why I was angry, and at that moment the words didn’t register in my ears.
To think someone would aim directly for me and wait—then slaughter commoners to draw my attention away? It was a method he’d never used before, and it unnerved me.
“Archibald Bright, that bastard…!”
Whatever his motive for doing something he normally wouldn’t, I’d fallen into his trap.
I stood up, took a breath, and said quietly to Lloyd, “Duke, if you’re going straight to the site, I’m coming too.”
