Chapter 14
* * *
The next day.
Gustav prowled around Max like a dog desperate to relieve itself. It was because he was curious about the deal with the witch. He kept chattering, asking, ‘Didn’t she demand some ruinous price?’ and ‘How in the world did she say she could break the curse?!’ He was no different from a buzzing insect.
This guy’s annoying me to death. A vein bulged on Maximilian’s forehead.
“You agreed to leave this matter to me, so why don’t you stop worrying about it?”
“Because that woman’s a witch. Aren’t they the sort whose specialty is saying two or three different things with the same mouth? They ruin the job and run away as easily as they eat a meal!”
“And who was the one who recommended her, saying she was skilled?”
“I only half-believed the rumors. The fact that she readily agreed to break the curse makes her even more suspicious. Surely you aren’t going into the forest alone, are you? You must bring guards and aides with you…”
“You want me to expose my most private weakness for everyone to see? What kind of rumor do you think will spread this time? It sounds like you’re the one who wants to screw me over even more.”
“……”
“Don’t make me say it twice. Stay out of it. If that woman’s conduct seems suspicious, I’ll handle her myself. The cleanup after the problem will be solved as well.”
He had drawn a clear line, telling Gustav not to interfere any further.
The man’s gaze was cold as he scrawled a signature across the document and shoved it aside without care.
Gustav understood the meaning of ‘cleanup’ at once. Then again, was anyone more suspicious and ruthless than his master when deciding whether someone lived or died? If he continued nagging, it would be the same as saying his superior looked weak enough to be deceived by a mere woman.
He got me. He really got me. The red-haired dwarf with tightly curled hair pouted and brought up another topic. Since he had conceded one matter, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he received a definite answer on this one.
“Yes, yes, alright. Then what will you do about the celebration? Shall I send a reply saying you’ll attend?”
“Celebration?”
“I told you about it last time. The Princess’s birthday banquet is coming up soon!”
“Ah… Bianca.”
“You aren’t planning to skip the occasion where you’ll be received by the bedridden Emperor’s most beloved and only daughter, are you? Surely not.”
Gustav refused to back down any further.
He planted both hands on the desk and glared with his triangular eyes, displaying his fierce determination to dress Max in formal attire and send him to the capital no matter what. His superior clicked his tongue, then unexpectedly responded with a different question.
“So how has the Crown Prince been lately?”
“His Highness Cedric? Well, until recently, there were rather ominous rumors that he wanted to kill the Warden Duke and was looking for assassins. Since you also had his mistress reported, won’t he need quite some time before he lets go of that grudge?”
“I don’t mean that.”
“Ah. You mean the struggle with the Old Emperor faction.”
Ardena’s ailing Emperor had yet to pass on the imperial scepter to the Crown Prince.
However, just as Maximilian was already being called Grand Duke, the forces within the imperial palace had already divided completely into the Old Emperor faction and the Crown Prince faction.
Naturally, the Old Emperor faction, representing the setting sun, was in a poor position. They had made a proper enemy of the Crown Prince. In the past, they had attempted to install the Emperor’s illegitimate son as the new Crown Prince and remove Cedric, the existing Crown Prince, from power.
Then the illegitimate child died before reaching the age of three, and the Old Emperor faction’s ambitions dwindled to nothing.
It had happened under impenetrable guard, but the identity of the person behind it was far too obvious. Cedric, the prime suspect, came to harbor a deep grudge against the Old Emperor faction because of the incident. Everyone could predict that the moment the man who had sharpened his blade for years ascended the throne, a bloody purge would begin.
“Now that their lives are hanging by a thread, the Old Emperor faction seems to have become properly desperate. I hear a new confidant recently appeared beside Princess Bianca. His name is Count Edgar de Valmont, an idle young noble who returned after studying abroad… They say the Princess, who has a particular fondness for handsome faces, keeps him especially close and dotes on him. Rumors are everywhere that he’s a spy planted by the Old Emperor faction.”
“Hmm.”
“It looks as though the situation will become a three-way struggle, so we should start deciding which faction to side with… Ah, Warden Duke, didn’t you just subtly change the subject again?!”
As befitted someone with connections everywhere, the dwarf had many ears planted in the capital. Gustav had been quietly laying out the political situation in the imperial family when he belatedly realized that the main topic had slipped away again. He had fallen into Max’s trap to avoid an annoying subject. Truly, his superior was every bit as cunning as he was.
Discussion
0 CommentsNo comments yet.