I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 21

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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 21

The Royal Seal.
That stamp of the king had become invaluable to Dan-bi—more precious than life itself.
Hyeon had desperately sought it, and Dan-bi had wagered her very survival against its possession.
When Hyeon came looking for her again, he would surely demand its location first. For now, the Royal Seal was the only lifeline keeping her tethered to existence.
“The Royal Seal. Have you found it, or have you not!”
But found it? What was he talking about?
Dan-bi stared at the man’s contorted face with bewilderment.
According to the fragments of memory that had brushed past her during that clash of blades with Hyeon, she was certain she knew where the Royal Seal lay. She had used that knowledge as bait to secure a noble rank, and leveraged it again to bargain for the Rain Prayer Ceremony to be held.
Every step of that negotiation had been premised on knowing the Seal’s location.
Yet the man standing before her now was saying something entirely different.
“Why do you not answer?”
Pressed by his urgency, Dan-bi fell silent for a moment before speaking with careful deliberation.
“You mean the Royal Seal you commanded me to find?”
“Did I not urge you countless times? The moment you entered the palace, you were to search for it first. So—have you found it?”
Now it was certain. The reason she had been sent into this palace.
Her father had ordered her to locate the Royal Seal.
Like any RPG, the backstories were layered with meticulous detail.
But there was one thing that troubled her.

「You are an assassin who has infiltrated the harem to murder the king.
Kill the king and complete your mission.」

The System Window had explicitly identified her as ‘an assassin infiltrating to murder the king.’ The instruction to find the Royal Seal had not appeared even as a Sub Quest.
If it were something significant enough to be mentioned repeatedly between herself and an NPC, why did it not appear in her status window?
‘Wait.’
He had clearly asked her: have you found the Royal Seal?
That question could only mean one thing—that he had commissioned her to steal it. There was no other way to interpret it.
‘All right. Let me think this through from the beginning.’
Dan-bi suppressed the rising doubt and gathered her thoughts.
Two scenarios were possible. First: she had actually found the Royal Seal.
Under his orders, she had obtained it, then used that fact as leverage to negotiate with Hyeon.
But if that were true, a fatal question remained.
Why hadn’t she handed over the Seal to her father immediately once she had it? Why risk everything and deal with Hyeon instead?
Dan-bi fixed her gaze on the man’s face, which grew more impatient by the moment.
‘Could I have acted unilaterally?’
She considered it, but couldn’t reach a conclusion. She simply lacked enough information about the relationship between this man and herself.
So the opposite assumption was also possible. Second: she had never found the Royal Seal at all.
Following his orders, she had entered the palace to search for it, but finding nothing, she had fabricated a negotiation with Hyeon instead—using claims of higher rank and the opening of the Rain Prayer Ceremony as her bargaining chips.
Under this assumption, too, further branches emerged: the possibility that she had been acting independently, or that even that negotiation had been merely an extension of the search for the Seal.
Confirmation was necessary. If it were the latter, he himself might be complicit in that negotiation.
Dan-bi held her breath for a moment, then spoke in a low voice.
“I am still searching for it.”
“Blast it! I gave you such time, yet what have you accomplished in it!”
“……I beg your forgiveness. But if things continue thus, the Rain Prayer Ceremony will surely not be held.”
Dan-bi retraced the actions her past self had taken.
She had negotiated with Hyeon to have the Rain Prayer Ceremony opened, yet as an assassin she had infiltrated the Costume Storehouse and deliberately damaged the ceremonial garments to sabotage the ritual.
Those two contradictory actions were undoubtedly hers. Perhaps they, too, held a deep connection to the location of the Royal Seal that this man sought.
The man’s face twisted viciously, and he spoke in a low, bitter tone.
“I know. So what now? Not only have you failed to find the Royal Seal, you have also failed to prevent the Rain Prayer Ceremony. Soon I myself will be in danger!”
……What?
Her assumption was wrong.
It had been this man who ordered her past self to sabotage the Rain Prayer Ceremony.
‘Then was it also he who arranged for the ceremony to be held in the first place?’
But it made no sense for someone to issue an order to destroy something only to then pave the way for its success.
‘Or could it be……’
A hypothesis flashed through her mind, but Dan-bi shook her head urgently.
Whether someone had ordered the Rain Prayer Ceremony held, or whether her past self had independently defied this man’s command and orchestrated the whole affair on her own—she still couldn’t say for certain.
“So you’re saying she’s a foreigner?”
“…Yes?”
“I heard. When a blade was at your throat, that was the only excuse you could scrape together?”
Dan-bi lifted her head at the man’s sudden words, which had cut through her thoughts.
A foreigner.
The memory surfaced belatedly—she had confessed to Hyeon that this place was a game, that she herself had come from reality.
If this man had heard of it, then someone who’d been present had carried word to him.
Perhaps Hyeon and the others had understood it the same way.
Well, it wasn’t entirely false. She had indeed come from somewhere else, after all.
But to this man, her words seemed nothing more than a desperate, senseless excuse for clinging to life.
Dan-bi studied him carefully.
Across the belly of his crimson official robe lay a large embroidered insignia badge—the kind she’d only seen in dramas. Those who wore such garments typically held considerable rank at court.
Given that she’d been granted quarters and received an appointment letter the moment she entered the palace, she’d sensed her household was no ordinary one, but to what extent?
A remark Hyeon had made in an earlier encounter suddenly pricked her mind.

“So you’re the daughter of that cunning Woo-sang? You’re far more transparent than I expected.”

Hyeon had distinctly called her “the daughter of Woo-sang.” Could it mean that this man’s title was Woo-sang—the Prime Minister?
If so, then this man would be in quite a precarious position indeed.
A Prime Minister normally stood beside the king in close counsel, one of the highest offices. Yet his daughter had crossed blades with the king and was now imprisoned in the Cold Palace.
Not only would unsettling rumors swirl through the palace, but suspicions would fall upon his very intentions in sending his daughter there—making his position dangerously precarious.
There was one other thing she knew for certain: this man stood opposed to Hyeon.
A subject had only one reason to send his daughter as an assassin to secretly retrieve the king’s seal, the Royal Seal.
So then….
“If we fail to find the Royal Seal by then—”
“Of course!”
The man seized the bars with both hands, then thrust his contorted face through the gap between them. His voice emerged as a torn, urgent whisper.
“We must kill him at once!”
Kill him?
“If the true Royal Seal falls into Hyeon’s hands before the Rain Prayer Ceremony—if that happens, we are all as good as dead!”
“…!”
Every thread of the tangle led back to the fate of the Royal Seal.
Now she finally understood why her past self had crossed blades with Hyeon while damaging the ceremonial garments—it had all been to prevent him from obtaining it before the ceremony took place.
The thrill of that moment when steel had met steel lingered still in her fingertips, vivid and raw. One thing was certain: she had been determined to kill Hyeon.
“As matters stand, the ceremony will proceed. Should we fail to find the Royal Seal, we must kill him by any means necessary before that happens. Do you understand?”
But there was more to it than that.
The way the man had panicked at the mere mention of failing to find the Royal Seal made one thing unmistakably clear.
The Rain Prayer Ceremony held deep significance in relation to the Royal Seal, and she herself stood at its dangerous center, walking a razor’s edge.
“Yes. But I’m confined here now, and I cannot leave the—”
“…I will find a way to manage that. Besides, he’s likely bewildered thanks to your display of half-madness.”
Half-madness?
Was he referring to that moment when she’d cried out “foreigner”?
Certainly, to any third party, it must have looked like she was feigning lunacy to save her life.
Dan-bi watched wordlessly as the man hurried down the corridor without so much as glancing back at her. Only after he had vanished entirely did she release the breath she’d been holding and sink back onto the floor.
Whether or not it was his command, it was something she had no choice but to do.
Dan-bi lifted her gaze to the empty air before her. There, the Main Quest window still hung, glowing with its cold light.
Whether this world was real or false, one fate remained inescapable: she would have to kill Hyeon to escape this game.

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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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