How I Ended Up Becoming the Imperial Princess While Trying to Pay Off an Illegal Loan - Chapter 35
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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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035.
“Ever since we married, I feel like my grasp of financial matters has grown. It’s all thanks to you.”
“Tamia, you’re intelligent. You simply haven’t had occasion to use that mind until now.”
“Really? Could I become as clever as you?”
“Of course.”
“If I’d known marriage could be this happy, I’d have done it years ago. All those years I spent indifferent to it—what a waste.”
Tamia tapped Leon on the arm and laughed—the kind of laugh that lit up her whole face, gums showing, radiating pure joy.
“You’re right. I’m happy too.”
Leon found himself running silent calculations in his head.
He’d been married to Tamia for nearly a month now. Which meant eleven months remained.
‘How could time pass this cruelly….’
“Your Highness! Your Highness!”
The study door flew open, and his aide Kalen’s voice shattered Leon’s reverie.
“What’s happened?”
“Inquiries about purchasing Monster Cores have flooded in—so many that the craftsmen can barely keep up!”
“Really?!”
“Yes, Your Highness. Nobles are lined up offering premiums just to buy unprocessed cores! Congratulations!”
“Oh!”
Tamia’s jaw fell slack, and she burst into a spin, dancing right there in the study.
“Now I can finally say goodbye to the debt collectors!”
She seized both Leon and Kalen by the hand, whirling them around the room.
“Your Highness, I’m getting dizzy.”
“Oh, sorry! I’m just so excited. Hehe.”
She released them hastily, though her euphoria continued to bubble over.
“Leon, should I sell the cores attached to the Wedding Dress I wore at the ceremony? They’re already fully processed, so I could sell them right away.”
“Don’t rush, Tamia. And that’s not happening.”
“What? Why? It’s not like I’ll ever wear it again anyway.”
“It’s just….”
Tamia’s Wedding Dress was carefully stored in the imperial treasury.
When—if—Tamia left the Imperial Palace someday, Leon had decided he would gaze upon that dress and remember this time.
How joyful their marriage had been. How precious each moment with her had felt….
“In any case, it’s not for sale.”
“Tch, not even a proper explanation. Do you know how much I hate paying a thousand delder in interest every week?”
“The interest problem—I’ll settle it soon enough….”
Tamia looked ready to tear the dress apart that very instant.
As Leon struggled to hold her back, the royal attendant burst through the study door, his face drained of all color.
“Your Highness! Grave news!”
“What’s the matter? Why the panic?”
“The Magic Tower has forbidden the sale of Jellyfish Monster Cores!”
“What?”
Leon’s brow furrowed as though carved by a blade.
“What right does the Magic Tower have?”
“They claim that if there’s even the slightest possibility of Magical Power contained in the cores, it’s dangerous….”
Leon slammed his fist on the desk. But someone moved faster still.
“Leon, where is the Magic Tower?”
Tamia, already dressed for travel, locked eyes with him, her composure slipping away to reveal cold determination.
“I need to meet with the Tower Master. Take me there.”
* * *
Not far from the Capital, across a broad plain with a great mountain looming behind it, the Magic Tower stood.
Tamia and Leon rode hard, reaching it in no time.
“Here we are.”
“A place I’d never visit in a lifetime, and yet here I am—furious.”
Tamia dismounted and strode toward the Tower’s entrance, every step radiating a promise to smash everything in her path.
The main doors were, of course, sealed shut. Leon hurried after her, offering explanation.
“The entrance is likely locked by magic.”
“So the doors are sealed?”
“More or less. The Magic Tower is particularly hostile to outsiders.”
“Incredible. Just incredible.”
Tamia placed her foot on the stairs leading to the entrance.
One step. Then another.
Tamia climbed all ten steps and finally reached the main entrance, where she examined the great doors with a careful eye.
On the Magic Tower’s front gate sat an enormous insignia through which Magical Power spiraled in a helix.
“That’s the seal, isn’t it?”
“Seems like it. Probably only people who’ve been chosen—those registered with the Magic Tower—can open this door……”
“There’s no such thing.”
Tamia let out a derisive snort. Then she placed both hands on the door panels and pushed with sheer force.
“T-Tamia! A Magical Seal doesn’t just break apart because you push it with brute strength……”
For a moment, Leon doubted his own eyes.
The serpentine pattern that had been writhing stilled as if drained of all life.
And then the iron doors that had been firmly shut groaned open with a shriek of metal!
‘……I’ve terribly underestimated my own wife.’
Handprints marked the thick iron door where Tamia had gripped it. She kicked the massive portal wide open with her foot and strode inside.
“Hey! Show yourself!”
Tamia’s shout rang through the tower with such force the entire structure seemed to reverberate. As if waiting for that very summons, the Magic Tower’s master, Dominique, appeared before them.
“Breaking a seal through sheer strength alone—truly remarkable.”
“Are you out of your mind? What right do you have to prevent the sale of jellyfish cores? On what authority?!”
“Was my explanation unclear? If a core contains even the slightest possibility of Magical Power, it cannot be sold. All must be confiscated by the Magic Tower.”
“Enough of this. Take it.”
Tamia seized Dominique’s wrist in an iron grip and yanked hard. At the tremendous force, something cracked in his wrist.
Without giving the sound a second thought, Tamia forced three Jellyfish Monster Cores into Dominique’s hand.
“……What is this?”
Dominique glanced between his own wrist—now hanging loose and broken—and Tamia, asking bewildered.
“Can’t you see? The Jellyfish Monster Cores you were so keen on.”
“You expect to settle this with merely three cores? That’s impossible.”
“Settle? These are for testing. So you and your people do whatever you like with them—burn them, boil them, whatever—and figure out whether they contain Magical Power or not. Clear?”
Tamia spoke with absolute certainty.
Before her marriage, when she’d still lived in the Arderin Territory, there was a biologist her father had been quite close to.
A peculiar fellow who would occasionally appear at her father’s house and expound at length to him on the fundamental nature of monsters, creatures, and living things.
‘That gentleman said it back then. That jellyfish cores contained no Magical Power.’
‘Look here! Do you know what I’ve brought? Jellyfish Monster cores that emit light all on their own!’
‘Oh, really?’
The scholar from Tamia’s memory had taken the core and spent days and nights studying it.
And he had finally reached this conclusion.
‘This isn’t Magical Power. It’s merely a Chemical Reaction caused by the components and cells within the core.’
At the time, she hadn’t understood what he meant, but now when the need arose, the words came back to her vivid and exact.
Tamia suppressed a smile of victory and issued another warning to Dominique.
“Use the money from selling those cores to pay for your wrist treatment, or don’t. I have no money. Not a single copper. Understood?”
“Ah, yes. Well……”
“Make it as fast as you can. If this drags on, it won’t work, absolutely won’t work! Then I’ll just sell the cores without permission!!”
Tamia turned away sharply from Dominique, her expression fierce, and descended the stairs without hesitation.
In the Magic Tower’s lobby, only Leon and Dominique remained.
Dominique spoke first.
“You have quite the formidable wife.”
“Do as my wife says. If you drag your feet, your wrist won’t be the only thing that breaks.”
“How frightening.”
Dominique swept his hand casually across his wrist. In an instant, the broken, dangling limb was perfectly healed.
Leon’s and Dominique’s gazes collided violently in the empty air.
After only a moment, Leon spun around and left the Magic Tower without a word.
“……How entertaining.”
A figure had appeared in Dominique’s life who didn’t merely bend principles—who shattered them into fine dust.
Yet that fracture brought no displeasure; instead, it felt oddly delightful.
“This will be amusing.”
A subtle, enigmatic ripple formed at the corners of Dominique’s mouth.
As he lifted his hand lightly, the iron doors bearing Tamia’s handprints closed in perfect silence.
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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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So, Dominique didn’t need money to treat his hand after all–all he needed to do use magic to heal it. Did Tamia underestimate what magic could do, or is the Magic Tower Magic just more skilled than she thought?