If I Were Reborn, I Wouldn’t Marry You - Chapter 160

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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 160
Prince cried out with forced confidence, his face drained of all color.
“…A search? You would ransack my palace at will? Without His Majesty’s permission?”
Cornered at the edge of a cliff, he flailed about in utter desperation.
“I grant it.”
Then, the Emperor—who had maintained silence throughout, gripped by shock—spoke in a voice turned glacial and sharp.
“Father!”
Prince, who had been clinging to the Emperor as his last hope, cried out in startled surprise.
The Emperor utterly disregarded Prince’s plea.
“If your innocence is proven, I shall hold Leonhardt personally accountable. However…if traces of poison are discovered in your palace underground as the Young Lady claims, you too must answer with your life.”
At the Emperor’s chilling pronouncement, Prince’s face went white as parchment.
Yet he soon composed himself into an expression of calm acceptance and muttered on.
“You promised. That if my innocence is proven, you would hold Leonhardt accountable.”
Prince still refused to surrender.
Tenacious. Truly tenacious.
‘Well, I still have a few loyal subordinates. I need only have them spirit away the evidence of poison manufacture before the search concludes,’ he likely thought.
Watching Prince’s eyes dart about with calculation, I exhaled silently through my nose.
Throughout this exchange, Prince continued to wear an expression of confidence as he readily revealed the location of his Secret Laboratory.
“…The entrance to the underground chamber is behind the bookshelf on the far left of my Study.”
He even provided detailed instructions to the knights’ commander overseeing the search on how to access the laboratory.
After finishing his explanation, Prince turned to Leonhardt with an oblique smile playing at his lips.
“Brother, you’ve made a reckless gamble. No matter how much you covet the throne, you shouldn’t frame your elder brother like this, should you?”
He conducted himself as though he were a benevolent older brother soothing a foolish younger sibling consumed by greed.
‘He’s confident he can dispose of everything before discovery. Has he arranged signals with his subordinates?’ I thought.
Watching him regain his composure so swiftly, I felt a grudging admiration of sorts.
But thorough preparation was not Prince’s alone.
“Your Majesty, if that place is truly just a ‘simple’ personal laboratory, then we would be committing a grave offense,” I said with a gentle smile, and Prince’s eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly.
“Young Lady, are you growing frightened now? But it’s too late. The moment my innocence is revealed, House of Duke Roderick will also not escape the charge of false accusation….”
Surely not.
“No, I was merely suggesting we also use the Spirit Mirror to eliminate all doubt. Since it’s a space where you enjoyed your hobbies, that should be acceptable, shouldn’t it?”
In that instant, the ease drained from Prince’s face like water through a sieve.
His eyes began to tremble as though struck by an earthquake.
Evidence could be erased, but spirits could not.
The Spirit Mirror had already been verified for credibility by the Mage Tower.
If activated, it would undeniably reflect the scene of him manufacturing the poison—and given how far matters had progressed, no words could prevent the Spirit Mirror from being used.
“….”
Prince’s lips, which had been moving several times, sealed shut completely.
A laugh escaped me at the sight of his eloquence—so fluidly shameless until now—suddenly cut off.
It was, for all intents and purposes, a confession.
It was a de facto confession.
Prince, who belatedly realized what had happened, flinched in shock.
Then he looked to the Emperor, Elodie, and the Empress in turn, as if searching for an escape route.
But none of them met Prince’s gaze.
Elodie muttered in a daze that she knew nothing of it, while the Empress’s complexion had turned deathly pale—clearly devastated by the revelation.
The Emperor, observing the scene with a look of profound sorrow, turned his gaze briefly toward the window, his hands clasped behind his back.
‘You may be troubled, but it is you who failed in raising your children.’
The Emperor squeezed his eyes shut as if steeling himself, then opened them and spoke in a heavy voice.
“1st Prince—no, Prince Arcadia shall be completely struck from the imperial registry and confined to Nakadi Castle for life. Furthermore….”
I thought the Emperor had shown mercy after all, for despite what he had done, execution was not the sentence.
Yet for Prince, this decree seemed to be the collapse of his entire world.
“Ahhh….”
Prince staggered backward, emitting a bestial wail.
The mask of the “affectionate and perfect Crown Prince” that he had so carefully maintained throughout his life shattered into fragments, and the madness concealed beneath it was laid bare in its entirety.
His bloodshot eyes turned slowly, serpentine, toward me.
“…This is all because of you.”
A chilling murderous intent seeped through Prince’s lips.
“If it weren’t for you! If you hadn’t dragged Leonhardt out of the Separate Palace!!”
In that instant, Prince lunged toward me with a bestial shriek, his body hurtling through the air.
His hands stretched out as if to throttle my neck.
“Young Lady!”
The Emperor cried out in alarm.
I attempted to flee as the situation finally registered, but Leonhardt moved first.
Crash—!!
“Gahhh…!”
Before his outstretched fingers could even touch me, the air in the Inner Chambers became literally, oppressively heavy.
As if an enormous invisible hand were pressing down from above, Prince’s body was hurled pathetically onto the carpet.
Crack.
A sickening sound of rupture echoed across the floor of the Inner Chambers.
Bones were being crushed and flesh was tearing, yet Prince lay flat on the ground unable to move a single finger, gasping for breath.
Leonhardt, standing before me as my shield, had not even placed his hand on his sword hilt. With merely his indifferent gaze looking down, he completely suppressed Prince.
“How dare you.”
The voice that flowed from Leonhardt’s lips was extremely low and dry. Rather than burning with rage, it carried a chilling contempt as if he had witnessed something filthy.
“Presume to lay hands where you have no right.”
“Ugh, uhhh…!”
As the pressure intensified further, Prince released a pained whimper.
Leonhardt, who had been coldly observing Prince’s pathetic state, soon withdrew his gaze.
Then he quickly turned his body toward me.
The merciless aura of a predator that had blazed moments before had vanished without a trace.
In his crimson eyes, as he examined my condition, there was only anxiety and concern.
“Miela, are you alright? You weren’t frightened, were you?”
His large hands urgently wrapped around my shoulders, checking if I had sustained any injuries.
I shrugged nonchalantly and offered him a reassuring smile in return.
“Startled? You were right beside me.”
At my composed response, laced with bravado, Leonhardt’s shoulders, which had been rigid with tension, finally relaxed ever so slightly.
It was the moment he exhaled in relief and gently adjusted his grip on my hand.
“No… no, this cannot be….”
The Empress, who had been denying reality all along and standing motionless, finally collapsed to the floor.
“Mother! Your Majesty! Please, open your eyes!”
Elodie, who had been in a daze, rushed to the fallen Empress and cried out in distress.
The Emperor, who had silently witnessed this tragic spectacle, finally opened his mouth with grave weight.
“…I have raised a monster as my son.”
It was a murmur laden with bitter regret.
No matter how heinous the crimes committed, he had intended to spare his bloodline’s life and confine him—yet Prince showed not a shred of remorse even in his final moments.
The Emperor finally accepted that Prince’s redemption was utterly impossible.
The Emperor’s eyes, which had been tightly shut, opened, and his gaze turned as cold as ice.
“Imperial Guard, listen. Drag that treacherous impostor, stripped from the imperial register, to the deepest depths of the Underground Prison at once.”
His resolute voice echoed through the Inner Chambers.
“Confinement is hereby revoked. He has defiled the Imperial Court’s honor and threatened both my life and the Young Lady’s. Show no mercy.”
The moment the command fell, the knights who had been waiting rushed forward and roughly dragged Prince upward.
Still pinned beneath Leonhardt’s power, Prince glared at Leonhardt with eyes bursting with bloodshot veins, as if he could kill him with his gaze alone.
Yet Leonhardt’s gaze remained fixed upon me, unwavering.
The moment when a long and bitter enmity finally came to an end was strangely indifferent.

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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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