Chapter 45
Earlier, the shadows had made it hard to see, but now, with the moonlight shining softly down, there seemed to be no danger.
‘But you don’t look like you’ve been working out much… Are you sure you’re okay?’
I knew it would be too much for Ethan, who wasn’t a knight. I nervously glanced back and forth between Ethan and the railing.
Ethan used his long leg to put his leg over the railing. His other leg naturally followed suit, and before I knew it, I was wobbling and clinging to the railing. Ethan’s wide eyes met mine.
“You’re going to get in trouble, Ethan. It’s too dangerous!”
I hastily walked toward the railing, as if to say no, and his mouth curled in embarrassment as he averted his eyes.
“Oh, it’s nothing, I just almost lost my footing.”
“It wasn’t just nothing,” I said, “it would have been a lot if you actually lost your footing.”
“Haha, I see… But I’m really fine. I’ll give it one more try and if it doesn’t work, I’ll just give up.”
No, I say I’m not okay. Dude!
I almost screamed. He looks like a sweet, intelligent, handsome man who wouldn’t do anything stupid, but what he did was so ridiculous. The more we talked, the more I looked at him, the more irritated I became.
Ethan must have noticed my stare, because he lowered his eyebrows and began to play pitifully. I sighed in half-giving up, feeling like a puppy about to whimper at any moment.
“I wanted to show you something cool… I’m afraid I failed, so next time I hope to see you nice.”
“What about… not being cool, not getting hurt is the most important thing, and I hope next time we meet somewhere we don’t have to do this.”
His face brightened at once. A boyish grin crossed his face.
Ethan was about Thierry’s age, but he had a strangely innocent boyish quality to him. I stared at him, wondering what kind of person he was.
Meanwhile, Ethan glanced in the direction of the terrace door and said an urgent goodbye, as if he really had to go.
“I hope to see you again. Good night, Princess.”
With a snap, he let go of my hand and fell back down.
I scrambled to the railing, furious and surprised. I looked quickly down to where Ethan must have fallen, but there was no sign of him, only the bushes swaying in the wind.
I looked up and down like a man possessed. I looked up and down like a person possessed by a ghost, but I couldn’t see a single ant. Could he have fallen into the bushes?
The sound of a gentle breeze blowing behind me brought me back to reality.
“… Is that magic?”
As I said it, I was convinced. I glanced down in disbelief and spat out a laugh.
“… Why are you hanging onto the railing?”
Reassured, the breeze suddenly felt chilly. I squared my shoulders and shivered.
‘Oh no. I’m going to catch a cold.’
I turned around to hurry back inside. I hadn’t taken a step when I suddenly heard an angry voice.
“Stop right there!”
It was coming from the opposite terrace, but it sounded like there was some distance between us. If it was just a quiet conversation, I wouldn’t have heard it at all, but he was so excited that his voice cut through the wind rustling the bushes and penetrated my ears clearly.
‘Oh, it’s so cold… But I’m also so curious… Why don’t we go see what’s going on?’
To turn your back on this to watch a fight? You’re not interested in life. How can you ignore this and turn your back on it?
I had an answer. I ended the conflict in a second and moved with agility. I crouched down close to the side of the railing where the sound was coming from, ducked, and focused my eyes through the tightly spaced gaps in the railing.
‘Huh? That’s…’
My eyes narrowed, then widened.
***
The Duke of Joubert’s forehead popped, and he grabbed Sylvia’s wrist as she made her way through the bushes with a furious look on her face.
“What do you think you’re doing, you fool!”
Sylvia’s body jerked as her slender arm was grabbed.
Standing face-to-face in the middle of the bush, the Duke of Joubert and Sylvia’s gazes clashed in the air, their silver hair and wall-to-wall glasses showing no sign of warmth as they glared at each other.
‘Damn it, if it weren’t for that bastard, things wouldn’t have gotten so twisted.’
The Duke of Joubert’s steadily expanding power had begun to suffer when Thierry staged a coup.
The prince, who was not even known to be alive, came out of nowhere and quickly overthrew the empire with only a handful of men. The people, lulled into complacency by the long peace, were easily overthrown, and Thierry captivated the people by exposing the imperial family’s corruption.
Since the imperial family was largely responsible for widening the gap between rich and poor in the first place, Thierry’s actions were welcomed as he seemed to favor the people over the nobility.
The nobles, however, were quickly forced to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, and found themselves on the sidelines.
Thierry was insanely strong and overly dogmatic, and while he managed to walk the tightrope at the last minute, a stronger imperial power meant a weaker nobility, and it was very difficult to establish yourself as an aristocrat under him.
So the Duke of Joubert decided to do the next best thing: marry Sylvia off to the Emperor to increase his power. Even if it was an arranged marriage, if the Emperor fell in love with Sylvia, it would be a win-win.
“So this is a poach?”
“Yes. They’re asking for a deal in exchange for a knighthood. They say it’s a mysterious herb that’s been secretly passed down in their family for generations, and they’ll even share all of their cultivation methods.”
“Ohho, it’s pretending to be a medicinal herb, but it’s actually a poisonous one… If you’re sure, I guess it wouldn’t be a bad idea to respond.”
“I’ve checked and there’s nothing false about it, so what do you do?”
“Keep him calm until he hands over the herbs. It will be easier to deal with him afterward.”
But the poisonous herb was brought to the Duke of Joubert’s hands by a nobleman from the fallen kingdom of Cassifel, who had fled to the Empire.
After a long period of preparation, and a lot of people and money under the table, the gods did not abandon him, but gave him his own power, not just money, but the power to buy the nobles.
‘All I had to do was wait a little longer… Why did that stupid wench use the pochi on her own!’
He hadn’t expected to have his tail stepped on by a Princess who seemed to be so stupid, and the whole deal was ruined when the Pochi was revealed to the surface.
‘I shouldn’t have left her alone after all.’
He hadn’t realized that Thierry’s interest in Alicia would get in the way of his plans to take advantage of the lull and expand his business.
The Duke of Joubert’s anxiety was at an all-time high, as Thierry had now taken control of the porch and then the maids’ house. At this rate, the distribution line would be siphoned off and, if he was unlucky, the Duke would be found out. No matter how thorough he was, he was still nervous.
‘I know I’ll never be found out, but it’s driving me crazy, living with a ticking bomb.’
Besides, Thierry had been keeping a close eye on the nobility in general lately. Given the situation, he couldn’t afford to sneak anything out of his house.
I hid the rest of my pochi in a secret underground vault that only my family had known about for generations, but with Thierry on the other side, I felt like I was walking on thin ice every day.
The situation was maddening in more ways than one, and it clouded the Duke of Joubert’s judgment. He knew it was dangerous, but he told Sylvia to do whatever it took to seduce Thierry, because he didn’t want to be caught and have his head blown off at any moment.
‘I’m asking you to go into the bedroom to give me time to tidy up, and you’re running down the hall because you can’t do that?’
I had no idea that my daughter, who I trusted to be so obedient, would rebel at such a crucial moment.
All Sylvia wanted to do was to capture the Emperor, who had no woman by his side, and take the Empress’s seat. She’d given birth to a beautiful child and raised her to be the best she could be.
The Duke of Joubert was stunned. What the hell is the point of having a child if it can’t even do this!
The nape of the Duke’s neck reddened, and his eyes bulged with blood.
“How dare you disobey my orders?”
Normally, he would have been cautious. The Duke of Joubert’s impatience at being cornered one day at a time had reached a fever pitch, and he was losing what little composure he had left.
“Father.”
Sylvia stared at the Duke of Joubert with a mixture of disappointment and insult.
“I try not to disobey you as much as possible, but this time I cannot help myself.”
Despite her calm tone, his anger was palpable. The Duke of Joubert’s mouth dropped open, momentarily forgetting his anger at the unexpected momentum he’d encountered.
“If I had the slightest leeway, I’d at least make a pretense of trying, but as it is, I’m digging my own grave, and even I, with my inadequacies, can’t see that, can’t you, a man of your caliber, see that?”
