A Fortune-telling Princess - Chapter 325

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 15. The Countess of Arume
“How much longer are we keeping that thing like this? I could just dispose of it myself.”
Arsian pointed at the black sealed box created from the power of darkness.
He was trapped in there. Aaron, the man who had killed countless children, had been confined in that box for exactly twenty days now.
“Let him experience it the same way.”
Camilla’s eyes grew cold and sharp as she gazed upon the black box forged from the power of darkness.
“What the children endured.”
Shouldn’t this monster experience at least some portion of that terrible agony?
Within that cramped space, he could do nothing. The darkness itself that Arsian had created was the power of darkness.
‘That too is sacred power.’
Unholy things could never approach it. Dead spirits, that is.
In other words, the power he possessed was utterly useless within that prison.
‘And all those he commanded have already been annihilated.’
The countless spirits that had been used as Aaron’s tools.
As Habel had said, there was no way to save those spirits who had lost their reason and were filled only with resentment, having been exploited by this man. Annihilating them was the only way to free them from his grasp.
“He’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
Right, he shouldn’t die so easily. I took a step closer to the black box.
Arsian followed closely beside me, as if standing guard.
“Open it.”
Twenty days wasn’t as much as what the children had endured, but surely he must have felt something.
The fear and terror of being trapped in a narrow space, and the despair that came with it.
Whoosh!
As Arsian casually waved his hand, the power of darkness vanished in an instant, revealing a new sight beneath.
A man lying collapsed with his entire body curled up. Having been given only minimal water to keep him alive, his appearance was nothing short of a living corpse.
‘Yet he still lives.’
How is that justice? So many children had died because of this monster.
After staring at the collapsed man with cold, frozen eyes for a long while, I finally noticed the ring wrapped around his finger.
‘There it is.’
The source of all this calamity.
I stepped forward toward Aaron. Once again, Arsian positioned himself right beside me, as if standing guard.
Slip.
I removed the black ring from the man’s hand.
“Tsk.”
All this suffering caused by something so trivial.
Holding the ring in my hand, I clicked my tongue lightly.
A strange energy emanated from the ring. The yin energy that spirits emit? A similarly dense aura was contained within it.
Whoosh!
I immediately summoned my sacred power. A ring like this had no business existing in this world.
Crack.
The black ring crumbled to dust far too easily, as if Arena’s holy power itself was testifying to its profane nature.
“I should contact His Majesty now.”
I had already reported everything about Aaron to the Imperial Court, including the fact that it was connected to the recent disappearances of children.
However, I had requested a few days’ grace before handing over the perpetrator. Emperor Edsen had raised no particular objections to this.
It seemed he had roughly guessed what I intended to do, so he simply told me to keep the criminal alive so he could face proper legal punishment.
Now that the time had come to send him to face his true reckoning, I decided to contact the Imperial Palace.
“I’ll do it.”
“…? You?”
Emperor Edsen had said that when I handed over the perpetrator, I should contact him directly without any of those tedious procedures, and he would take care of everything himself.
“Yes, I’ll do it.”
“Alright.”
I had mentioned this to Arsian before, but it wasn’t a difficult task. At his insistence on doing it himself, I simply nodded without much concern.
“But didn’t you say you had plans today?”
“That’s right.”
At Arsian’s question, I let a faint smile play at my lips. As he said, I did have somewhere to go today.
“There’s something I need to take care of.”
* * *
“How much longer are you going to keep this up!”
Someone hastily grabbed a young woman heading toward the door. It was Dotia, a man in his fifties and the owner of Dotia Trading Company.
“….”
The woman holding a handful of flyers turned slowly toward him in response to Dotia’s outburst.
Her neat appearance, with not a single hair out of place, was striking.
“Until I find her.”
She answered in a calm voice, but the anxiety gleaming in her eyes could not be fully concealed.
More than a month had passed since the child disappeared. It was certain she was connected to the kidnapping cases occurring recently in the Capital.
She had sent people to search and went out every day distributing flyers with the child’s photograph, but so far there had been no results.
“Didn’t I tell you an important guest was coming today! And yet you’re going out looking like that!”
I had clearly told her to prepare properly to receive an important business guest visiting the house today!
“This is more important to me.”
Jans, the wife of Count Arum, answered with an unwavering posture despite Dotia’s stern rebuke.
Her task now was to find her lost child.
“Hey, hey!”
“I told you so. It would be useless.”
A voice interjected with a chuckle into the argument between the two—it was Peri, Dotia’s son and Jans’s current husband.
“…I’ll go out now.”
Seeing her husband’s face full of mockery, Jans saw no need to continue the conversation and turned away immediately.
“Your husband’s right.”
As she opened the entrance door to leave, Peri suddenly grabbed her arm and yanked her back. His face was twisted with rage.
Thud.
The flyers she had been holding scattered and fell to the floor. Some even spilled out through the open doorway.
“….”
Upon seeing the flyer with the child’s face scattered across the floor, her composure finally crumbled.
Jans sank to the ground with a soft thud, her trembling hands slowly gathering the flyers one by one.
“Well, how desperately she must want to find him. She can’t have any more children either. With only one child, how precious he must be to her.”
At the man’s caustic words, Jans bit her lip firmly.
Since the remarriage, the lack of children had brought endless criticism—something she’d grown accustomed to. Yet today, those words cut deeper and hurt far more than usual.
Footsteps.
“…?”
As Jans continued gathering the flyers in silence despite her husband’s mockery, she suddenly caught sight of someone entering through the doorway.
A gentle rustle.
“Here.”
When she slowly lifted her head, a young woman bent slightly and handed her the flyers in her grasp. It appeared she had gathered the flyers that had scattered outside moments before.
“The, the Sorpel heiress!”
Dotia was the first to recognize her.
The distinguished guest who was supposed to visit this house today was none other than Camilla.
He had long sought a meeting with her, only to be refused repeatedly. He had even gone directly to the Sorpel Household, but all he received was a cold rejection at the gate—he couldn’t even set foot inside the entrance.
Yet just days ago, word came that Camilla Sorpel, the heiress of the Sorpel Household and proprietor of the Ghost Merchant Store, would meet with him!
Moreover, she would visit his home in person—Dotia had been counting down the days until today.
“I apologize. I’ve arrived far too early, haven’t I? A prior appointment was suddenly cancelled, so I’m two hours ahead of schedule. I hope this isn’t an inconvenience.”
“Not at all! An inconvenience?”
Dotia waved his hands frantically in denial, and Camilla smiled lightly before her gaze drifted downward once more.
“However….”
She could see Jans still gathering the scattered flyers.
“The mistress of this house is on her hands and knees collecting items, yet no one is helping her. Should I lend a hand as well?”
Camilla’s eyes swept across the attendants and maidservants lined up to one side. True to her observation, the lady of the household was in such a state, yet no one moved to assist her.
This alone painted a clear picture of the household’s circumstances. These were surely all Dotia’s people.
‘I’ve heard he couldn’t even pay wages to his employees.’
The original household staff had likely all resigned. Those present now were probably hired by Dotia with his own money.
“…! What are you all doing! Help her at once!”
Dotia’s command proved Camilla’s assessment correct—the attendants and maidservants who had been standing idly suddenly sprang into action.
“But how is it you’ve arrived without a carriage…?”
Dotia ventured a careful question. Not only had she arrived earlier than scheduled, but he hadn’t heard the sound of a carriage approaching at all.
Had he known, he would have sent someone out to greet her, and such an unseemly scene would never have unfolded before her.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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