“Isn’t education time after dinner? Be sincere.”
The Grand Duke glanced behind her. When she turned around, the head maid in charge of her education was standing about five steps away from me along with the captain of the guard.
“I can’t appear in front of nobles like this.”
After making noise during mealtime, the Grand Duke talked about her qualifications as the next Grand Duchess and even forced her to take etiquette and culture classes.
Every day, all day.
In the end, today too, the witch was taken by the maid and the head of the guard and received training in her etiquette.
“The Grand Duchess rattles her teacup and doesn’t let go. again!”
There were also etiquette when drinking tea. After repeating this countless times, it felt like her stomach was filled with water and she was going to roll over. The witch gritted her teeth as she silently set the teacup down on the saucer. She would turn them all into frogs!
…As long as she could occupy the imperial palace.
A tea table beautifully decorated with colorful refreshments. A dog napping at your feet and a cat drooling in front of a cake plate. An old rabbit doll taking up a spot on the table. Moreover, the rabbit doll was wearing the same dress as the Grand Princess. If strangers had seen it, they would have thought it was a twelve-year-old Grand Princess and a ten-year-old Grand Princess playing with dolls.
“So…”
Unless you knew that this doll speaks and moves.
“Did anything happen during the day today?”
When she asked, Luna and Luca shook their heads.
“It was the same today.”
“The witch is probably now captured by Madame Balea and being imprisoned under the guise of teaching her manners, ho ho ho.”
Luna’s laughter was cheerful and did not match the scary word “confinement.”
“Oh, now that I think about it, I heard some amazing news today.”
Luna clapped her partner’s hand and she leaned towards me as if she was telling a secret.
“The emperor is trying to bring in a new empress.”
“New empress? Already? It hasn’t been long since the Empress and Crown Prince disappeared.”
“That’s right. There is no evidence to confirm that she is dead, but the Emperor seems to believe so.”
She had heard from Elliot that a search party and investigators sent from the imperial palace were going around the Archduchy. Even though she said she didn’t find anything, she was expecting a spark to hit the Archduke House anyway.
“Then who will become the new empress?”
“It hasn’t been decided yet.”
Not long ago, the emperor announced that he was looking for a new empress. It was said that soon after, noble families with married daughters received invitations to the imperial ball.
“Actually, he is looking for a candidate for the new empress.”
In an attempt to avoid sending their precious daughter to the emperor, who was as old as their fathers, the families either betrothed them or gave them refuge in the Holy See under the pretext of prayers.
“Ugh, I really hate it.”
The hair on her whole body stood up like goosebumps.
“Anyway, where did the Empress and the Crown Prince really go?”
If only those two people showed up, the Grand Duke’s family wouldn’t be in trouble, and the innocent noble ladies wouldn’t have to suffer. She caught and checked almost all the frogs in the Black Forest, but she couldn’t find any that had the power of witchcraft. This was really strange.
“Could it have been eaten?”
Luna’s terrifying guess made her hair stand on end once again.
“By the way…”
She changed the topic to good news.
“I’m glad the conversation between Duke Monette and Eliot ended well.”
Elliot has been secretly communicating with lords from various places these days. He was working behind the scenes to bring the emperor to justice. The emperor couldn’t be brought to trial. He said there were no judges here, but instead the lords had jurisdiction over what happened in each estate. The emperor retained jurisdiction over matters that affected the entire empire beyond his territory. So the emperor couldn’t judge his own sins. In other words, there was no one in the empire who could judge the emperor.
‘So, even if a dictator commits tyranny, the only way to hold him accountable is through revolution or treason?’
Fortunately, it turned out that it was not the only way. It was said that the people of this empire were also concerned about him, so they prepared a device to keep the emperor in check. According to imperial law, if a majority of the lords agree, the emperor could be held responsible. At this time, the ruling was made by the lords, excluding the parties, under the supervision of the Pope. It seemed similar to the jury system. But in fact, it was a system that has never been used since the birth of imperial law. So it was a risky gamble with the fate of the family. So Elliot first carefully contacted the lords to gather their will. It was of great help that the number of lords who felt great dissatisfaction with the emperor during the last war increased. Moreover, everyone assumed, even if they couldn’t say it, that the emperor had assassinated his brother and his wife.
“Duke Monette’s network is deep and his allies are large, so it will be easy to persuade other lords.”
Luna agreed with her and nodded her head. This morning, a secret letter arrived at the Grand Duke’s residence saying that the Duke of Monette would also join in questioning the Emperor’s guilt. The duke said he also planned to hold the emperor responsible for the last war. Once all these preparations were completed, the plan was to lure the royal guard, who was said to be the emperor’s confidant, out of the system and arrest him. His trial was the first gateway to realizing justice. So Elliot has been busy these days. He would leave the bedroom early in the morning and as soon as he came back late at night, he would fall asleep holding her.
‘A grown man sleeps holding a stuffed rabbit.’
How cute and yet pitiful. She looked at the empty seat across from me, where Elliot would normally have been sitting, and sighed.
“By the way, did Luca eat less lunch?”
Her eyes turned to Luca, who was cutting a large piece of cake and putting it on a plate. Luca usually only eats one piece of cake during tea time. But for some reason, today was the third piece.
“I came here after receiving training.”
“Okay? You must be very hungry.”
She wanted to feed him this and that so he could eat this and that, but these short, fat hands are the problem. Since she didn’t have any fingers, she couldn’t just flick it. Instead, she stood up and patted Luca’s arm.
“We eat a lot, Luca.”
Although she didn’t prepare it.
‘Sobbing. I can’t cook or bake because I look like this.’
It wasn’t just one sad thing.
“Luca is like that because he doesn’t eat lunch well.”
Luna looked pitifully at Luca, who was eating the cake hungrily.
“Why? Have you been busy during lunch?”
Luca shook his head and answered, gulping down his mouthful of cake.
“If you sit at the same table with that witch, you won’t pass on food.”
As soon as she heard that, her ears drooped down. Her heart became as heavy as her ears. She felt sorry for Luna and Luca just as much as Elliot. In particular, Luca, who was in charge of monitoring the witch due to his purifying powers, has to face the enemy every day who accidentally killed his parents while trying to kill her. A child of only ten years old.
Her heart breaks.
“I’m okay.”
Luca lifted her ears up.
“It’s actually good. When the time comes, I will definitely purify it. “Maybe the reason I have purifying powers is to avenge my parents.”
The child added with a bright smile. That’s why she was training hard these days. She patted the back of Luca’s hand and made a promise.
‘I need to train even harder.’
So that Luca could purify the witch and unburden her heart. The training he had been doing these days has been practicing soul substitution techniques. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was a witch’s black magic book in the cabin, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out how to do it. Actually, she did it right after she possessed that body, when she didn’t know anything about it.
‘I tried to swap Lady and Daisy’s souls, but I failed.’
She failed even with the witch’s body, which had a well of mana gushing out, but there was no way she could succeed with this body, which contained nothing but a ball of cotton. So, the practice failed time and time again.
‘I think we need to solve the fundamental problem first.’
So, this body.
‘Is there a way to increase mana in this body?’
After tea time, they headed to the library. With the help of Luna and Luca, she searched through all the magic books in the library. Still, she couldn’t find a particularly sharp number.
“Not anymore.”
Luna shook her head as she closed the last book. Her ears, which had been drooping sullenly, perked up again.
“There are a lot of magic books in the cabin. There are a lot of rare books, so I’ll have to look there too.”
“The witch isn’t there now, is she?”
In response to Luca’s question, Luna checked the clock on the wall.
“She must be taking Bible classes at the chapel? And since it’s almost dinner time, we won’t have to go to the cabin.”
She became a calm doll in Luna’s arms again and went out of the library. It was time to walk down the hallway leading to the boudoir area.
“Oh my, Luna.”
She heard her voice from behind. It was a witch.
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Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. I hope you liked it <3
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