I Bought the Villains With Money - Chapter 92

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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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Episode 92.
Rumdracks is innocent. I didn’t want to sacrifice him, to make him a criminal so that I might live.
“Your Majesty, I will absolutely uncover who’s behind this. If you’ll just give me a little time…….”
“So you’re not as clever as I thought, Diana. This is not a negotiating table. This is a seat of grace that I’m extending to you. Don’t forget that.”
“The script…….”
“If you can’t hand over that person, I will cut off all support for Casion.”
With those words, Karman issued me a Banishment Order. I needed to say anything to turn his heart, but no plan came to mind.
Karman sat down at his desk as if to say I should leave at once.
I rose from my seat and left his office.
The heavy door closed, and the crimson carpet came into view.
My feet wouldn’t move. I stood there in silence for a long time, head bowed, when someone spoke to me.
“Diana.”
When I looked up, I saw Casion walking toward me from the end of the corridor.
“Your Highness.”
At my greeting, Casion drew closer, his eyebrows lifting slightly. He glanced around quickly before speaking.
“All of you, turn around.”
At his command, the attendants turned to face the wall in perfect unison. I tilted my head, wondering why he was doing this.
“Don’t cry here…….”
Casion pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to me.
“I’m not going to cry.”
To be honest, tears had almost started to fall. But at the sight of the handkerchief Casion offered, they receded entirely.
This was not the time to show weakness and collapse.
“Let’s go. To the palace.”
I took Casion’s hand. We didn’t let go of each other’s hands all the way down the long corridor.
Our destination was the Third Prince’s Palace.
The entire journey there, he remained at my side without saying a word.
Once we arrived at the palace, he quietly sent the attendants away, closed the door firmly, and simply sat beside me without speaking.
“Your Highness.”
When I called to him, Casion, who had been resting his chin on his hand and gazing out the window, turned to face me.
“Did His Majesty scold you badly?”
Casion asked.
“Did you see the newspaper this morning?”
Casion gave a slight nod. On the desk he indicated, I could see a pile of crumpled newspapers. He’d been so angry that he’d wrinkled them all.
“They printed absolute nonsense. Made it sound like I’m about to stage a rebellion any moment. And you—they’ve turned you into some legendary Femme Fatale.”
I was briefly startled by the word “Femme Fatale”—it wasn’t the sort of word you’d expect from a twelve-year-old boy.
“Someone leaked the script. There’s no other way they could have acted at just that moment.”
“It must be Julia.”
“It’s her plan, certainly. The problem is we can’t find who acted on it. The actress just keeps saying she doesn’t remember—repeating it over and over, apparently. Under her breath. She’s in a panic.”
I let out a sigh.
If only I could convince the actress, but she truly has no memory. It’s strange.
“I told you not to sigh around me. You’ll stunt your growth.”
Casion said.
“I’m frustrated.”
“About what?”
“There’s no answer, but I have to find one.”
Karman had forced a choice upon me.
If I hand over Rumdracks, Casion’s prospects brighten; if I don’t, his life becomes cramped and difficult. That was the choice he was laying at my feet.
Both were impossible to choose. Certainly, looking only at the future, the right choice would be Casion, but……Rumdracks had become precious to me too.
“Do you have an answer?”
“You’ve given me the answer, Your Highness.”
“Tell me. I’m good at these things.”
“Pardon?”
When I opened my eyes wide in confusion—good at what?—Casion laughed.
“The wager, I won. You said His Majesty wouldn’t come, didn’t you?”
The wager from the birthday banquet. I’d forgotten it entirely in the wake of everything that had happened.
I wasn’t the only one who forgot. It was likely that everyone who’d made the bet had forgotten the bet itself ever existed.
“Yes, you won, Your Highness. I’m glad you won.”
My response came out poorly. Whether Casion understood the gravity of the situation or not, he remained light and carefree.
“The answer is simpler than you think. Tell me what it is.”
I looked at Casion. What if he heard why I was wavering and felt hurt?
What if he took it to heart and his condition worsened? He was still under treatment. Stability was paramount.
‘There’s simply no way for him to find peace in this situation.’
I concluded that I couldn’t find the answer alone. So I laid everything out to Casion—my entire conversation with Karman.
“Simple. Don’t tell him who wrote the play script.”
“I’m sorry?”
Casion spoke in a casual tone.
“I’m used to it. His coldness, the loneliness of the palace. So tell him you can’t reveal it to him.”
Casion had chosen the path toward misfortune without hesitation. The way he spoke—as though he didn’t regret it at all—sounded genuine.
“Your Highness, he said if you don’t hand over the person who wrote the play script, he’ll cut off his support for you. You won’t be able to continue your Imperial Studies either.”
“That’s fine.”
“Your Highness!”
I burst out in protest.
Casion offered me a water glass, telling me to calm down as I fumed. I turned my head away and refused to take it.
Clink.
The sound of the glass being set down echoed.
“Diana, get your head straight. We’re talking about His Majesty. Do you really think he’d let this go with just eliminating some playwright? Never. Not a chance.”
Casion gripped my cheek firmly and met my gaze. Looking into those golden eyes that shone like the sun, my mind suddenly cleared.
I’d forgotten that Karman wasn’t a man to be trifled with.
‘My judgment clouded because Casion and Rumdracks are connected.’
Karman was the kind of man who would want more than whatever was offered to him.
As my eyes regained their clarity, Casion released me.
I rubbed my cheek, which ached from the pressure of his grip, and asked, “So Your Highness has thought of a way?”
A way to navigate through this crisis.
If I’d decided to refuse, there had to be an alternative.
Casion settled onto the windowsill. He stretched his hand out through the open window. Snow was falling outside.
After watching the snowflakes melt against his palm for a long moment, Casion finally spoke.
“Well… there isn’t one.”
It was a truly deflating answer.
“You’re telling me to just leave it be, and you don’t even have a plan? What confidence is that?”
“Time will sort it out.”
His carefree attitude somehow melted away my own tension as well. I shook my head and rose to approach him.
I pulled back the hand he’d stretched out into the cold and shut the window.
“You’ll catch a cold, Your Highness. If things go back to how they were, you won’t have the luxury of a warm room like this anymore. Enjoy it while you can.”
As I spoke while warming his cold hands, Casion let out a soft laugh.
“It’s all right. I haven’t even grown used to it yet.”
Casion hopped down from the windowsill and settled onto the sofa.
His words made my chest ache. He says he’s fine, but I know he truly isn’t.
I wondered how I could protect Casion.
But there was another problem.
‘His Majesty is definitely disappointed in me.’
The trust I’d carefully built up had crumbled to pieces over Julia’s one play.
‘How do I protect Your Highness and rebuild His Majesty’s trust at the same time?’
I wrestled with the problem fiercely. Then suddenly, a good idea occurred to me.
“Your Highness, do we really need to stay here?”
“What do you mean?”
“His Majesty’s threat to cut support was directed at the Third Prince’s Palace.”
“And?”
“If we’re not in the Third Prince’s Palace, then it doesn’t apply.”
“Ah, explain it more simply.”
Casion looked exasperated.
“Let’s go to another region for a while.”
Sometimes stepping back from the fight itself is a strategy. I’d make this Karman’s battle instead.
And in that region, I’d work my heart out.
“What?”
Casion waved his hand, dismissing the idea as absurd.
“It’s not absurd. I’ll come pick you up, so make sure to pack the important things.”
A way to protect both Rumdracks and Casion—I’d finally found it. There was no time to sit around and despair.
“Thank you for coming to get me today! I should head home now.”
“I didn’t come to get you. We just happened to meet on the way.”

Casion shouted at my back.
‘You have no reason to be near the Imperial Palace, yet here you are, spinning lies.’
I couldn’t fathom why he was spouting such transparent falsehoods. I climbed into the carriage with an exaggerated wave, knowing perfectly well that Casion was watching me from the window.
***
“It’s time to gather our strength.”
The night I returned from meeting Karman, I summoned Cho, Rumdracks, Jennis, Lebert, and Matthew.
Everyone stared at me with vacant expressions at my sudden pronouncement.
“Gather our strength?”
“The attacks are fierce. In times like these, we need to catch our breath.”
Rumdracks scratched his head, demanding a fuller explanation.
I recounted my conversation with Karman and Casion’s choice.
“Oh, the young prince protected me. How touching.”
Despite yesterday’s grave turn of events, the atmosphere at the Irenber Mansion remained buoyant.
“Good. Avoiding a fight is a sound strategy too. Putting His Majesty on the board that Julia has prepared—that’s a clever move. But will he actually step in?”
“I’m certain he will.”
Replaying our encounter in my mind, I sensed that Karman’s demeanor was anything but ordinary. He was desperate to suppress the incident before the rumors spiraled beyond control.
There was something he wanted to protect.
‘Could it be Casion?’
Based on our conversation alone, the odds were against it being Casion.
‘That leaves Violetta, the Queen Dowager.’
Karman had abandoned Violetta. But why?
“You’re going to get wrinkles between your brows. Smooth out that expression. So where are we going?”
Rumdracks tactfully cut short my brooding.
“Nobel.”
“Nobel?”
It was Cho who gasped in genuine shock.
“I can’t go.”
Cho refused before I’d even finished proposing. She had come to the Capital because she disliked Nobel. Now I was curious about her story.
‘Mother always spoke well of Nobel, though.’
How could two sisters be so different?
“Why Nobel in particular, miss? It’s freezing there.”
Nobel lay at the northernmost tip of the Kingdom. Being positioned in the north alone didn’t make Nobel a hardship—countless nations had northern territories.
But Nobel was exceptional. That land existed slightly outside nature’s normal progression.
There, ice walls never thawed, regardless of season.
The ice wall bore the name the Wall of Lamentation—so many had perished attempting to cross beyond it.
Nobel’s territory boasted cold so abnormal that ice never melted even in summer, yet it still knew spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
And now, at the threshold between winter and spring, it was colder than here, but the worst of winter’s grip had passed.
“I’m not going simply to escape this affair.”
“You have another reason?”
Rumdracks stuffed five of Cooker’s meringue cookies into his mouth all at once and spoke through the crumbs, asking the question.
I Bought the Villains with Money (Ongoing Serialization)
Author │ Lee In-hye
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Publishing Company │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd. – Tiramisu
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 11th Floor, Ace Tech Tower 8th Building, 33 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, 1101)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ http://blog.naver.com/jayplemedia1
ⓒ Lee In-hye 2021
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder.
The content may not be used in any form or manner without permission from the company and the author.
Violation of this prohibition may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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