The Age Of Arrogance

Gabriel put his finger to his lips and continued his story.

 

“The drug Deatoxin, which you give to His Highness Matthias, instills confidence and courage, but on the other hand, it greatly lowers caution and vigilance.”

 

“I haven’t heard about that side effect!”

 

“Isn’t it inferable? You have to throw away caution if you want to have the courage to run into the enemy’s camp. Anyway…….”

 

He shook his head and turned away from Beatrice to look out the window.

 

“It’s already happened. We need to find a next method.”

 

Anyway, the moment he brought up the annulment of the marriage, Carlyle would have insisted that their marriage was fine.

 

He wouldn’t have brought it up in the first place if there was a way to be overturned there.

 

‘The daughter of Duke Dupret went down to the recovering territory, but she was there.’

 

Indeed, it was awkward to think that such an ambitious woman had gone down to the territory where there was nothing to do.

 

Moreover, it was suspicious that Carlyle seemed to be receiving news from the capital too quickly.

 

When his thoughts reached that point, Gabriel naturally thought of the dovetail of Count Dupret.

 

A faint smile appeared on his lips.

 

‘The young lady Dupret must be living in Pervaz with the dovetail trainer. As the next wife and useful manpower.’

 

Carlyle was already living with two people, the ‘real’ wife who had already been appointed and the ‘fake’ wife who would be his shield.

 

Even for Cecilia, he had prepared a room on the 2nd floor where he was staying.

 

‘The daughter of Giles Raphelt is probably just a blindfold.’

 

He didn’t have to worry about her.

 

Anyway, this was something that deserved to be nullified and judged by God.

 

The real wife would be treated nobly and stay by Carlyle’s side every day, and the fake wife must have been blinded by the money and accepted the humiliating relationship.

 

‘So Countess Pervaz is a shield that blocks the interference of the imperial family, and a prostitute that can be called out whenever he wants. Tsk tsk…….’

 

Carlyle was dirty, but Asha Pervaz, who had accepted such a role for money, felt even dirtier.

 

Indeed, she had not received proper education and had even said that she would take up the sword herself and fight on the battlefield.

 

There is no way such a woman could have the concept of proper conduct.

 

Anyway, the important thing was that she was a great cover for Carlyle.

 

“It seems that the situation in Pervaz cannot be judged by just a few lines of text. We need to go there and see the truth for ourselves.”

 

Beatrice sighed at Gabriel’s words, which he had finally thrown out after a long silence.

 

“Who doesn’t know that? But who are you going to send? The ability of the person to be sent is also a problem, and there is no way Carlyle will not notice a stranger lurking around.”

 

“Of course. So…… We need to send someone who can’t be refused to look around openly.”

 

“That’s ridiculous……! Who the hell are you telling me to send?”

 

Beatrice, who seemed to be half-joking, smiled again at Gabriel.

 

“I will go.”

 

At that, Beatrice’s face brightened.

 

“High Priest!”

 

“It has been a year since the prince and princess were married, and there has been no news of pregnancy. Shouldn’t the imperial family send a priest to give them the blessing of conception?”

 

“You are right! Hohoho!”

 

Beatrice felt her heart sink, which had felt like a weight on her chest until just now.

 

She could absolutely trust Gabriel.

 

His goal was to make this country a holy empire, and for that, Matthias had to become emperor.

 

‘And the High Priest will surely find a way to bring down that Carlyle bastard.’

 

Beatrice felt her shoulders lighten as if she had been relieved of a great burden.

 

She turned a blind eye to the fact that the roles between her and Gabriel were being reversed.

 

She believed that as long as Matthias became emperor, her future would be secure.

 

***

 

Carlyle arrived in Pervaz a fortnight after leaving Zyro.

 

If it had been only the knights and the warriors, they would have ridden faster and arrived earlier, but this time, the baggage and carriages accompanied them because they had to pick up various things from the imperial palace.

 

“Open the gate!”

 

“His Highness has returned! Open the gate!”

 

The guards, who saw the procession from afar before Carlyle even reached the moat around the castle, hurriedly opened the gate.

 

The atmosphere was much different from when he first came to Pervaz, when he was sharply on guard.

 

Carlyle, who was riding at the head of the procession, took a deep breath as he waited for the gate to open.

 

“Ha. The air in Pervaz is good after all.”

 

“There shouldn’t be much difference between Zyro and Pervaz. The temperature in Pervaz is a bit lower, so it may feel refreshing.”

 

Although Giles slightly contradicted Carlyle’s opinion, it was all good.

 

He felt at ease at the thought of returning ‘home’.

 

‘Home, huh?’

 

It was a ridiculous thought, even to himself.

 

After leaving for the first time at the age of fifteen, there was no place he had stayed long enough to call ‘home’.

 

Even after returning to the imperial palace after the war, he had to leave again after a few months, and he didn’t like staying in the imperial palace for those few months, so he spent his time as a guest here and there.

 

He also stayed at his own mansion in Zyro, but it felt more like a small fortress of his own than a home.

 

But now, as he returned to Pervaz, he felt like he was returning ‘home’.

 

It was funny and ironic that the first place he felt like home was not the imperial palace, his own mansion, or his maternal grandfather’s house, the Gould County, but Pervaz.

 

Clang!

 

Thanks to the quick work of the guards, the gate opened without much waiting.

 

As the gate descended across the moat, people from the territory who had come out to welcome his return came into view.

 

Carlyle quickly scanned the people on the other side as he crossed the gate that had become a bridge, and soon he found someone and fixed his gaze.

 

“You’ve worked hard, Your Highness. Welcome back safely.”

 

“You’ve worked hard too, Countess Pervaz.”

 

Asha, whom he saw for the first time in two months, seemed the same, but also different.

 

‘Did she lose a little weight…….’

 

Her jawline seemed sharper.

 

But what bothered him more was the feeling that she kept avoiding his gaze.

 

‘What happened? Did she have a problem with Lionel or something…….’

 

He was quite worried, but he couldn’t just focus on Asha.

 

After having the luggage brought from the capital unpacked and rewarding those who had worked hard, Carlyle immediately called a meeting.

 

In his office, Lionel, Giles, Asha, Decker, Isaac, and Cecilia were gathered together.

 

“It’s good to see your faces after a long time.”

 

After a brief greeting, Carlyle began to talk about what had happened in Zyro.

 

Although everyone already knew the details because he had sent a letter to Cecilia first, Carlyle explained the situation in detail again just in case there was anything he had missed.

 

“To summarize, my father is still an idiot, the empress still wants to kill me, Matthias is acting strange, and High Priest Gabriel is quite suspicious.”

 

“It’s impossible to know what His Highness Matthias and High Priest Gabriel are thinking.”

 

At Lionel’s words, Giles interjected from the side.

 

“His Highness Matthias’s thoughts don’t really matter. He’s just the empress’s puppet.”

 

“In a way, he’s pitiful. He wasn’t fit to be crown prince in the first place… .”

 

“I don’t know if it’s because of the pressure, but he seems to be quite emotionally unstable. His voice suddenly gets loud, and he’s also very distracted… .”

 

Giles said, recalling Matthias’s changed state. However, as he had said before, Matthias was not that important.

 

“The empress must have caused Matthias’s condition. From what I can see, he seems to be either dependent on alcohol or taking some kind of medication.”

 

“And are you saying that Her Majesty the Empress helped her son become so ruined?”

 

Asha, who had asked the question, and the others who were listening shook their heads in disbelief.

 

“Does Her Majesty the Empress want to be emperor herself?”

 

“Well, from what I can see, she seems to just want to get her hands on the emperor’s power… It’s doubtful that High Priest Gabriel would just stand by and let that happen.”

 

“High Priest Gabriel?”

 

“The more I dig around him, the more strange stories I hear.”

 

Carlyle thought about Gabriel, who was even stranger than Matthias, and his surroundings.

 

“All of the priests who were recommended by High Priest Gabriel and the priests in the prayer hall who spread malicious rumors about me seem to be something wrong.”

 

“What do you mean by ‘something wrong’?”

 

“They are all blindly devoted to God. At first glance, they seem to be ‘purists’.”

 

The fact that they were so extreme as to interpret the scriptures literally had already been known through Nest’s intelligence network, but it had taken a considerable amount of effort to dig deeper into that fact.

 

In order to find out what the priests that Nest had identified really wanted, they had to investigate each one of them thoroughly, but the investigation itself was rather easy. Compared to the effort they had to put in to avoid being caught by the empress or Gabriel.

 

“They say those guys are talking nonsense that’s out of touch with the times, so they’re ostracized by the other priests, and they don’t have much to do with people, so they’re just the kind of people who only read books.”

 

“Why did such people attach themselves to High Priest Gabriel?”