Let the Whales Fight, This Shrimp is Leaving! - Chapter 37

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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 37
The servant tasked with tending to Joaquin Perez’s shoes sprinted toward the annex in a panicked flurry.
“Yo—Your Highness!”
He had raced back to deliver the news, but the moment he beheld the devastated chamber, his breath hitched in his throat.
Joaquin, pacing the room to vent his unappeased fury, snapped his head up and fixed him with a lethal glare.
Those blazing eyes made it terrifyingly clear that a porcelain vase would fly at his skull if he made a single misstep.
“Did you confirm it?”
“Y—Yes, Your Highness.”
The servant hastily dropped his chin, straining to avoid eye contact with the enraged royal.
His downcast gaze pinned itself directly onto the tips of Joaquin’s leather boots.
“What did you see? What was Idir Hubert doing?”
“There—There truly was a guest staying in the chamber near the central corridor on the third floor.”
“I asked you who it was,”
Joaquin snarled, his voice dropping to a dangerous growl.
The servant drew his neck into his shoulders, shrinking away as he spilled everything he had witnessed.
“I couldn’t glimpse his face, but he was exceptionally tall. Built as sturdily as any laborer, and he seemed quite close with the Lady Hubert.”
“Was he a noble?”
“He bore the bearing of one, sir. The way he escorted her appeared entirely natural.”
“Why would he escort her? Where were they going?”
“The Lady Hubert stepped into the guest’s chamber for a brief moment, but then they emerged together and walked down the corridor.”
“I am asking you where they went!”
His thin thread of patience snapping completely, Joaquin finally roared.
An unnatural gale erupted within the room, whipping the heavy curtains aloft as scattered debris rolled across the floor in unison.
“H—Eek!”
The bizarre phenomenon struck sheer terror into the servant’s bones.
Merely standing in Joaquin’s presence made his knees knock violently and his heart hammer against his ribs.
“I—I am deeply sorry.”
The servant slapped his own cheek hard, punishing himself for stammering so pathetic a defense.
“I hurried back instantly to report to you, so I failed to observe their exact destination.”
“You dare offer that as an excuse? I explicitly ordered you to watch that bitch and report…!”
Forcing down the shout rising in his throat, Joaquin let the tail end of his sentence tremble with raw malice.
He stared blankly down at the shivering servant with bloodshot eyes before dragging his voice back into a deceptively calm cadence.
“Did you overhear the conversation they shared inside that room?”
“I heard nothing, Your Highness.”
“Then what exactly did you accomplish? You don’t know who he is, you don’t know what they said, and you have no idea where they went—what did you actually see?”
“T—The Lady Hubert was smiling at the guest.”
“Has she not been grinning and wandering about every single day?”
“It wasn’t like that, sir. She looked truly happy… Ah—Ah! She treated him as though he were her lover.”
“What?”
Joaquin’s voice spiked with renewed fury.
Losing all composure, he reached out and clamped a hand around the throat of the innocent servant, chewing over the words in a venomous whisper.
“As though he were her lover?”
“Cough, y—yes!”
“Was that guest Idir’s paramour?”
“Gah, I—I don’t know. But it was plain that their bond was far from ordinary. Urgh.”
Squeezing out his dwindling breath, the servant barely managed to choke out the reply.
Joaquin tightened his fingers around the struggling man’s neck and hoisted him clean into the air.
“So consumed by the succession that she forgot her place, and now she suddenly has a paramour?”
“Ack, ugh.”
The servant’s consciousness was rapidly fading.
Joaquin watched the thrashing man with dead, hollow eyes before finally loosening his grip.
“Cough! Urgh!”
Tumbling onto the floor, the servant frantically gulped down the air.
Joaquin silently observed him writhe like a trampled worm, desperately clawing for survival.
[Kill him and give him to me.]
Screeech.
A grating sound, like rusted iron gears grinding together, scraped against Joaquin’s eardrums.
[Kill him. Then give him to me.]
This time, a heavy masculine voice layered over the noise.
[Hmm? Give him to me.]
Then followed the petulant whining of a young child.
“Ah, shut up.”
Joaquin struck his own temples repeatedly, trying to quiet the cacophony echoing inside his skull.
Yet the harder he struck, the louder the whispers swelled.
Let’s kill them all.
You’re furious, aren’t you?
You think he’s utterly useless, right?
Come on, hurry.
Slaughter that insect and offer his blood to me.
What are you waiting for?
“I said shut up!”
Just as Joaquin screamed out into the empty space,
the servant, drowning in his own blood, expelled the final, ragged remnant of his life force.
Joaquin watched the man’s terminal, twitching convulsions with an indifferent gaze, then exhaled a heavy sigh.
“Another tantrum.”
He summoned his personal attendants.
“You called, Your Highness?”
“Clean this up.”
“Yes, sir.”
The retainers who rushed into the room moved swiftly, showing no signs of panic.
A knight brought over a large, black cloth, wrapping the corpse securely to carry it away, while other servants rolled up the blood-stained carpet with practiced ease.
“Tsk.”
While the chaotic chamber was being restored to order, Joaquin pulled out a vial filled with a clear liquid and sank onto a corner sofa.
Lately, the auditory hallucinations and sudden losses of reason had grown frequent.
Obtaining the power he required was well and good, but he despised his inability to fully dominate it.
The more he enacted his desires, the more intense the whispers in his mind became.
The Demon was growing greedier.
‘Damn it.’
He had not even claimed his true prize yet.
Merely because he had been born a few years later, he had spent half his life denied even the status of a proper spare.
Despite sharing the same royal blood, the fact that all power belonged to the eldest son rankled constantly.
His older brother, who had naturally claimed the position of heir, was a pathetic fool.
Spouting nonsense about the revival of the Kingdom while possessing no ambition for conquest, it was obvious that Cordi would remain a pathetic realm clinging to the edge of the continent.
‘We must advance into the inland.’
To escape this fish-scented coastline, crush that arrogant Empire, and claim the prosperous territory—only then would his true majesty be realized.
Ever since entering his formative years, Joaquin had harbored those exact thoughts.
However, the King who was supposed to wage the war was far too ancient and lacked the stamina.
His older brothers possessed no competitive spirit, offering nothing but soft-hearted nonsense about how peaceful trade would benefit everyone now that an agreement had been forged.
‘It would be better to just take it by force.’
By the time Joaquin arrived at that conclusion,
the King collapsed.
The cause was a long-standing chronic illness compounded by advanced age.
The King spent more days recuperating in bed than he did managing state affairs, and Joaquin knew this was his golden opportunity.
Yet the two blood relatives above his head remained an obstacle.
[It would be quite simple if you just killed them.]
That was the very first time he had heard the Demon’s voice.
Joaquin found himself drawn to the sweet, straightforward solution the entity presented.
[Form a Contract with me. I shall bestow upon you an incomparably robust power, and in return for the chaos brought upon this land, you shall offer me countless lives, bodies, and souls as payment.]
An absolute sense of trust swelled within him at that majestic voice, prompting him to nod his head.
After that, every problem was resolved with ease.
The Crown Prince contracted the exact same illness as the King and was confined to his sickbed.
The 2nd Prince, who took over the Regency in their stead, lacked competence and failed to win the trust of the ministers.
Joaquin seized that gap to steadily expand his own influence, achieving several victories that brought massive profits to the Kingdom.
Consequently, public sentiment shifted, and the factions supporting him began to multiply.
All that remained was for the King to choose him.
The summit was finally within reach.
“Shut up!”
He could not afford to reach his limit like this already and meet a wretched end.
“This wasn’t the deal, you wretched Demon.”
Spitting out curses into the empty air, he popped the cork of the vial with his teeth.
A cheerful pop echoed like celebratory gunfire as the pressure escaped.
Joaquin chugged the transparent liquid inside.
A scorching sensation traveled down his esophagus, making his entire frame shudder.
“Argh!”
Unable to bear the agony, Joaquin’s body rolled across the floor.
It felt as though his entire entrails were boiling over and molten lava was coursing through his veins.
Bloody tears spilled from his eyes, which had turned crimson from burst blood vessels.
“Ahhh!”
When his hand brushed against the liquid that had spilled from the vial, his skin began to burn away.
However, the noise inside his head quieted down completely.
‘Miserable Demon bastard.’
How dare you try to dominate me?
Not a chance!
“Heh, heh, hehehe.”
After rolling on the floor and panting for a long while, Joaquin began to laugh.
The laughter, which had started as something closer to a groan, gradually grew in volume until it became a mad, hysterical cackle.
The maid who was cleaning up the messy room tightly shut her eyes, unable to endure the sheer terror.

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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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