Just before Tiel woke up, the sound of something breaking continued to echo throughout the Empress’s greenhouse. Since this was a common occurrence, the maids and attendants bowed their heads and only waited for his anger to subside. Today was relatively good just by the fact that he wasn’t grabbing someone and wielding violence.
“How did that cunning bastard get Jerain to open his mouth?”
At dawn, Jerain, a mage and astronomer, confessed under the Empress’s orders that he had intentionally failed to announce the future solar eclipse. Because of that, as soon as day broke, Bellona received notice to attend an interrogation. Because he was the Empress, he wasn’t immediately dragged to prison, but the intensity of the interrogation was obviously going to be considerable.
“He’s someone we worked so hard to bring in!”
Since he was one of the people the Arsein Family had spent a very long period cultivating and recruiting, they couldn’t have imagined he would betray them like this.
“They say he had a bastard child. The Crown Prince took him hostage…”
“He opened his mouth over a mere bastard child? If the things he’s done at the Mage Tower until now are revealed, he won’t be able to preserve his life, will he?”
According to what the Arsein Family had discovered, Jerain had embezzled a considerable portion of his research funds. It would have been good if it had stopped there, but they had also obtained evidence that he bought slaves under the reason of helping with research and conducted human experiments fusing them with monsters. If he had merely killed slaves, it wouldn’t have been a serious crime, but the problem was that he had conducted human experiments forbidden by the Empire. Arsein had used this as leverage to recruit Jerain and his forces through threats and persuasion.
“If the truth is revealed, he’ll obviously be executed—what’s the problem with a mere bastard child!”
His shouting now sounded almost like a scream. For someone who had lost his own child not long ago, it was incredibly cold-hearted words.
“They say it was the child of a prostitute he cherished greatly… In exchange for telling the truth, he was guaranteed that bastard child’s life.”
“How ridiculous. This is why lowborn things are…”
Empress Bellona threw whatever was in his hand to the floor as if dumbfounded. The elegant teacup shattered into pieces with a bursting sound. Even after throwing a tantrum to his heart’s content, his anger wasn’t relieved, so Bellona glared at the informant with sharp eyes.
“In the end, they still haven’t announced that the Crown Prince’s bedroom was attacked, right?”
If they had created false testimony that Bellona was the perpetrator of that attack, they could have tightened the noose around the Arsein Family’s neck more, but Kairen didn’t do that. Bellona’s eyes gleamed ominously as he tried to find Kairen’s weakness somehow.
“Yes.”
“As expected. He definitely doesn’t want to be found out about that corpse. There’s something, there’s definitely something… How is the tracking of the corpse going?”
“It’s certain it was taken out of the palace.”
“That’s not enough! Use any means necessary to search for it.”
“Yes. However, we’re short on manpower, so it will take some time.”
The informants planted in the palace were lost in large numbers when the Second Prince was defeated. Bellona gritted his teeth recalling his son who had been too stupid, resembling neither the Emperor nor himself. The Second Prince had moved while ignoring orders even though Bellona had said so many times that it wasn’t the right time yet, and as a result lost all the limbs of the noble faction.
If it weren’t for the fact that he had been in conflict with the Second Prince for some time and his other child, the Third Prince, who lived as if dead, it wouldn’t have been strange at all if he had been swept up in that incident and dealt with together.
‘I need to seize this last chance.’
Bellona bit his lip.
“You need to find it as quickly as possible. When it’s a life-or-death matter, where is there time to dawdle sluggishly?”
“I will convey the order.”
If Kairen became Emperor, not only himself but the entire Arsein Family would be finished.
‘I should have killed him when he was a child with weak Imperial powers.’
When young, Kairen, who was merely the First Prince at the time, was the legitimate eldest son but didn’t particularly stand out. He was intelligent, but that was all. He revealed his true colors after participating in war at age thirteen. At that time, a nomadic nation that was rapidly expanding its power was trying to extend its reach even to countries under the Empire’s rule.
The Emperor, who had just finished a conquest war and was organizing the nation, couldn’t go to war himself, but he couldn’t just leave alone a force that was growing in size.
At the time, young Kairen, instead of saying he would go to war himself, demanded that the nobles provide private soldiers. When someone they had looked down on came out like that, the noble families including the Arsein Family sneered that he must be afraid to go alone after all, and readily lent their soldiers. They even said to kill him if possible on the battlefield.
But the result was disastrous. More than 70% of the dispatched private soldiers died, and Kairen survived. Since the war ultimately ended with victory for the army led by Kairen, they couldn’t even criticize him. Considering that the military strength difference in the final battle was more than 5 times, it was truly a tremendous victory. Only after he returned did the nobles sense something was wrong. However, Kairen, who came of age and ascended to the Crown Prince position simultaneously with his triumphal ceremony, was no longer someone who could be dealt with carelessly. From then on, he showed not a single weakness.
The only time such a person showed an emotional response was at that insignificant knight’s funeral. It was enough to give wind to the noble faction that had been immersed in a sense of defeat.
“If we could at least steal that corpse, we could fabricate that Kairen was obsessed with black magic. Damn, damn Imperial blood.”
Just as nobles have powers, the Imperial Family also has their own unique power. Namely, recovery ability beyond human. There were individual differences, but if one believed the numerous evidence, Kairen seemed to have been born with that power particularly strong. They say the power weakens at a very young age or with aging, but the fact that poison doesn’t work on a body in its prime was quite troublesome. Just as Kairen had noticed and Tienas had suspected, while the public power was ‘detoxification’, in fact the Arsein Family, who could freely handle ‘poison’, was their natural enemy.
“Is there no other news? Once I enter interrogation, I won’t have time for a while, so I need to do something right now.”
Just then, one attendant hurriedly entered the greenhouse.
“Your, Your Majesty!”
“Who are you raising your voice in front of!”
The one who had been reporting rebuked the one who had entered in a hurry, as if for show.
“I apologize. But urgent news has arrived…”
“What is it?”
Bellona, who had been frowning, urged the still panting attendant, showing a bit of interest.
“They say His Highness the Crown Prince has entered his bedroom together with an omega in heat.”
It was a new development.
* * *
“Ah, is that knight perhaps from that rumor?”
“How did he manage not to get kicked out?”
“Perhaps His Highness is pleased with him?”
Simultaneously with returning to duty, gazes followed. I knew rumors would spread in the palace where news traveled fast, but I didn’t know I would hear murmuring wherever I went to this extent. I resented Aila’s excellent hearing that had been useful.
‘What is all this?’
In contrast, I still had no sense of reality. It was even more so because I didn’t know His Highness’s intentions.
‘Perhaps he liked Aila’s body? But until now, His Highness seemed to feel no carnal desire at all unless it was rut.’
From my perspective, Aila was an outstanding beauty, but it didn’t seem like His Highness would feel attracted for just such a reason.
‘At first, he was even hostile toward Aila.’
But when such rebuttals came to mind, I came to doubt myself.
‘What do I really know about His Highness? Am I not just pretending not to know why Tienas won’t do but Aila will?’
What had changed was only that I was an omega and my appearance. When I was being self-deprecating like that, another question followed. Then what was the reason for his reaction to Tiel’s corpse? The tangled and intertwined problems were quite difficult to grasp.
“Aila, you mustn’t fall behind like that. Come to my side.”
What made it more difficult was His Highness’s attitude. It was different from how he treated me in the past and from how he originally treated Aila.
“But Your Highness. Unless one is a senior knight, standing behind is the principle…”
“Who is that principle for?”
“Of course it’s to protect Your Highness.”
“Then quietly come to my side. Having you in my sight is what’s for me.”
I could have overlooked the firm yet never rough attitude and the expression of smiling with eyes folded. Though it seemed more concentrated than when dealing with Tiel, it wasn’t like it had never happened before.
“I will do so.”
What was different was the pheromones. The moment I stood beside His Highness, subtle pheromones poured out. Rather than for seduction, it was closer to an act of putting a name on what was his. This was the kind of thing done by alphas with very strong jealousy or teenagers who had just started dating. It was such a clear act that even I, who was ignorant about pheromones, could notice.
‘Why is His Highness toward me…’
This wasn’t something His Highness, who never blatantly revealed pheromones unless it was rut time, would do.
