I Transmigrated as an Extra in a Trashy Dark Romance Game - Chapter 81

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※ This work contains depictions of coercive relationships, explicit language, and other graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

* * *

‘The candidates are treating her more leniently than I expected.’

After the banquet, Edie’s reputation among them seemed largely uneventful. He pressed a hand to his forehead.

This wasn’t the reaction he had anticipated. He had deliberately let the rumors spread, hoping the candidates would grow wary of her.

‘Palace intrigue has always been brutal—past and present.’

He had planned to push her to her limits, then appear suddenly to rescue her. That way, Edie would come to recognize him.

She would, without even realizing it, imprint him strongly in her heart. And once that was done, he intended to ask her to be his princess consort.

He had thought it was going well… Frustrated and longing to see Edie, Kazaniel summoned an attendant to bring her to him.

Edie entered his chambers in nothing but a thin robe, settling before him as he waited, sipping wine.

“Mr. Kazan, why did you call me at this hour of the night?”

She had come so casually to his room so late, sat on his sofa, and now asked him why he summoned her. Her innocence was almost absurd. He sat beside her, wrapped an arm around her, and buried his face against her—hoping she might understand his feelings.

But aside from a brief tensing, she showed little reaction. Only a faint floral scent drifted from her.

When he asked about the banquet, she gave an absurd answer about the Sunlight Berries being delicious. She obediently ate the fruit he fed her, chewing with full cheeks, then complained she was sick of them. Watching her, his frustration slowly, gently dissolved.

Instead, the feel of her body beneath that thin robe began to stir a familiar heat.

“…If you like it here, would you stay in this kingdom even after this year is over?”

Kazaniel asked cautiously. He treasured these moments with her. He wished, desperately, that she might feel the same. That she might reconsider.

“No. Once this year is over, I’m definitely going home.”

But her voice was so firm. The heat that had been building, threatening to spill over, suddenly cooled.

So she intended to leave him, no matter what.

“Can’t be helped.”

“Huh? I didn’t catch that.”

He loosened his arms from around her. Kazaniel returned to his thoughts, to the plan he had been forming.

Rumors alone weren’t enough. He needed to drive the wedge deeper.

To create an established fact.

By the time he came to this conclusion, Edie was asleep against his shoulder, breathing softly.

“This is your fault. For always trying to leave.”

Even to himself, the murmured words sounded absurd. He lifted Edie carefully into his arms.

By dawn, the rumors would spread. That she had visited his chambers late at night. That he had personally carried her back to her room.

‘There are always eyes and ears, no matter where you go.’

Smiling darkly at what was to come, he pressed a kiss to her sleeping forehead and left the room.

‘Still, she needs room to breathe. Push too hard, and she might run.’

The next day, thinking of the harassment awaiting Edie, he assigned Perry to her.

Perry was the captain of the Desert Guardians. Having him as her personal guard should deter the candidates.

The reports that followed painted a pitiful picture of her. But it couldn’t be helped.

‘If you hadn’t said you would leave, I wouldn’t have to go this far.’

“Mr. Kazan…!”

A familiar voice, as he crossed the corridor. She called out to him desperately. Surrounded by candidates—harassed, again.

He had been genuinely busy lately, yes. But he had also been deliberately avoiding her. It had been a long time since he’d seen her face. She was still beautiful. An unspoken greed stirred within him, unbidden.

‘What should I do… It’s still too early.’

Her desperate gaze pleased him. He almost smiled. He held it back. He turned away.

Behind him, the candidates’ laughter echoed.

Let them laugh, he thought. There isn’t much time left.

* * *

‘A prince returned to the kingdom carrying an Imperial woman in his arms.’

‘An Imperial woman frequents the prince’s bedchamber at night; the two share a special relationship.’

‘The consort candidates, jealous, are aggressively hostile toward her.’

The rumors spread quietly beyond the palace walls, reaching the kingdom’s citizens. The implication was clear: a mysteriously beautiful Imperial woman had appeared, the prince and she were intimately entangled, and the consort candidates were so threatened they had resorted to palace intrigue. Everyone understood what wasn’t being said.

At last, public opinion within the kingdom had shifted. And Kazaniel, as if he had been waiting for this very moment, drove the wedge deeper into the council of elders.

‘We cannot simply accept an Imperial foreigner as princess consort without question.’

‘But if she were made a candidate, she would be qualified to become consort.’

‘The merchant’s daughter, already informally selected, remains the most suitable choice.’

The council erupted into three factions, clamoring against his declaration to make the Imperial woman his consort. But in the end, none could break the will of the man who would be the next king.