My Possession Became a Ghost Story - Chapter 86

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Gabriel had staked his own life to obtain a reprieve from the order to immediately execute Evangeline Rohanson. If he failed to find the real culprit to replace Evangeline, Gabriel would also meet his end on the day of Evangeline’s execution.

And less than a day later, Bishop Marik also requested an audience with the Emperor.

“First the Captain of the Plauros Knights, and now even a Bishop. My son was so quiet while alive, but in death he only brings chaos. Bishop Marik. What brings you to see me?”

The Emperor, who was in the midst of preparing the funeral, looked extremely weary. With the Crown Prince’s death, all of the Emperor’s children were now gone. No matter how many times he prepared a child’s state funeral, he never grew accustomed to it. The Crown Prince’s state funeral was temporarily postponed – this was to bury the Crown Prince’s murderer alongside him in the tomb to appease his dead son’s resentment.

“It’s been so long since we’ve met, yet Your Majesty asks no questions about my well-being and only wishes to hear the main point. How disappointing, Your Majesty.”

“Bishop Marik. Are we really close enough to exchange pleasantries?”

Even as the Emperor asked with anger in his voice, Bishop Marik showed no signs of fear. Instead, she acted brazenly.

“Didn’t Your Majesty and I overcome hardships together?”

The ‘hardships’ Bishop Marik spoke of referred to events from over twenty years ago. An incident known to the public as the Heretic Massacre. Once, Bishop Marik had been the Emperor’s greatest ally. When he had just killed his brothers and ascended to the throne, the Emperor had received Bishop Marik’s help to establish legitimacy and consolidate imperial power.

The Finance Minister who had boldly declared the Emperor a ruthless and merciless tyrant for killing his own blood was revealed to have been secretly embezzling from the national treasury to support sorcerers, leading to his family’s extermination. Several other nobles who had stood in opposition to the Emperor, like the Finance Minister, were also revealed to be part of an evil heretic group and could not escape purging.

Certainly, Bishop Marik had provided no small amount of help in solidifying the Emperor’s current position.

“Yes, there was indeed such a time in the past. However, from the moment you tried to steal away my son, who was forsaken by God, to use as leverage against me, our relationship soured.”

How great would the blow be if it became known that the child of an Emperor who had consolidated imperial power through the Heretic Massacre was cursed such that holy water had no effect on him? Bishop Marik had wanted to exploit the Emperor’s weakness.

The Emperor had belatedly realized that Bishop Marik had spirited away the Youngest Prince rather than killing him and sent pursuers, but the child’s whereabouts could not be found.

However, those who could not receive the blessing of holy water usually lived short lives and did not survive past ten years old, so the Youngest Prince would surely be long dead by now. The Emperor consoled himself with this thought.

“I don’t have much time to spare for you, so hurry up and say what you came to say. What story did you come here to tell?”

At the Emperor’s urging, Bishop Marik no longer delayed and brought up the main point.

“There is ‘another’ person suspected of being the real culprit who murdered His Highness the Crown Prince.”

“You mean it’s not Evangeline Rohanson?”

“Of course, the Rohanson young lady is also very suspicious.”

A Holy Knight had promised to share her fate, and now even Bishop Marik had stepped forward. At this point, it seemed there really might be another real culprit.

“Your Majesty must have heard the report that a sorcery circle was drawn on the banquet hall floor. As you know, that’s a sorcery circle used to command demons. And when I entered the banquet hall, there were exactly two people whose presence I found disturbing.”

One of them was undoubtedly Evangeline Rohanson. And the other person would be the one Marik thought was the culprit. The Emperor could not tolerate Bishop Marik’s delay and urged for an answer.

“So who do you suspect?”

“Lady Tenebray.”

Bishop Marik suspected Tenebray, who was an imperial grandchild. Upon hearing this answer, the Emperor gripped the armrest of his throne violently. So enraged was he that he looked down at Bishop Marik with bloodshot eyes.

“Your Majesty. Why do I sense a sinister aura from Lady Tenebray?”

The voice that emerged from beyond the veil was filled with laughter. If one were to remove the cloth covering her face, they would see a face disfigured by burns smiling brightly.

“Bishop Marik. If you were not a Bishop of the Temple, if you had not devoted yourself to the Empire all these years… If this old man had lost even a bit of composure, I would have ordered your head cut off and displayed at the city gates.”

“I am grateful for Your Majesty’s great magnanimity.”

It was disgusting how she acted shamelessly after uttering such shocking words.

“I had forgotten that you were desperate to find my weaknesses. Not content with my son, now you plan to pin the label of heretic on my granddaughter as well?”

“I am merely telling you the truth, Your Majesty.”

The Emperor glared at Bishop Marik with intimidating force.

“Is that all you came to say? The imperial knights will find the culprit, so don’t interfere and leave.”

The Emperor was no longer in the mood to be played by Bishop Marik’s tongue. Bishop Marik obediently rose from her seat at the dismissal. As she turned to leave, she suddenly looked back at the Emperor as if something had occurred to her.

“Come to think of it, I met Count Gabriel after a long time on the day His Highness passed away.”

“What a remarkable coincidence. I met Count Gabriel as well.”

He had just seen him when Gabriel requested an audience to ask for a reprieve of Evangeline’s execution.

“A thought that occurred to me then… Count Gabriel bears quite a resemblance to His Highness the Crown Prince.”

At the mention of resemblance, the Emperor examined Gabriel’s vaguely remembered features. Black hair and blue eyes – in terms of coloring, he was somewhat similar to the Crown Prince, but weren’t there many in the Empire with the same hair and eye color?

“If the Youngest Prince had grown up, he would have become as fine a man as Count Gabriel.”

“Bishop Marik, what are you saying now?”

“Since Your Majesty has ordered my dismissal, I shall take my leave now.”

Ignoring the Emperor’s question, Bishop Marik left the audience chamber. The Emperor stared blankly at the closed door in the room where he now sat alone.

“That can’t be…”

Bishop Marik was suggesting that the Youngest Prince was Gabriel. That Gabriel is my son?

That couldn’t be. Among the rituals of becoming a Holy Knight was the process of being blessed with holy water. The Emperor had been present when Gabriel was selected as Knight Captain. At that time, Gabriel had shown everyone the scene of bleeding on the holy sword and being healed.

Could that have been a deception to escape the Emperor’s notice?

Certainly, there was no better place than the Temple for Bishop Marik to raise the Youngest Prince while avoiding the Emperor’s eyes.

“Gabriel is my son…”

He tried to recall what the newborn youngest child, to whom he hadn’t even given a name, had looked like, but his memory was hazy. However, examining the grown Gabriel closely, he could see similarities to the Crown Prince. If Gabriel really was a prince… The Emperor, who had been lost in thought for a long time, raised his sharply honed gaze.

The Emperor immediately summoned knights he trusted. He needed to confirm whether Gabriel really was a prince. Bishop Marik might have simply rescued someone who was not affected by holy water and insisted he was the Youngest Prince. Fortunately, there remained a way to distinguish a prince. If he were a prince, traces of an incomplete dragon would remain as scars on his body.

“Go and check if Count Gabriel has any scars on his body.”

“Scars?”

“Yes. Since Count Gabriel is a Knight Captain, he must have various scars on his body. But what I’m curious about is not scars acquired while living as ‘Gabriel,’ but something distinctly different. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The knight loyally submitted to the Emperor’s sudden command.

And the Emperor received the answer he did not want.

“Your Majesty. They say Count Gabriel has a round scar on his chest.”

Though they could not strip Gabriel’s clothes to check directly, inquiring was sufficient.

“It seems rumors have spread among the maids.”

The Temple originally valued abstinence and had a culture that avoided exposing bare skin, so Gabriel normally did not reveal his body. However, on the day the Crown Prince died, Gabriel, who had wine spilled on him, changed clothes, and a maid who attended him then saw the scar on Gabriel’s body. Finding it curious, she told several colleagues about it.

“Did you confirm this with the maid who saw it directly?”

“Yes. Since she cannot speak, we received a drawing she made.”

The knight unfolded a paper to show the Emperor. The Emperor pressed his brow firmly, trying to calm his throbbing head. What was drawn in the picture was crude, but it was indeed the dragon pattern that was only inscribed on members of the imperial family. Someone who had not seen it directly could not have drawn it so accurately.

This confirmed that Gabriel was the Emperor’s son who had been abandoned long ago.

“Of all times, now… Moreover, now that Laudes has been murdered…”

The reason Bishop Marik had revealed Gabriel’s identity now was obvious. If it became known that Gabriel was the abandoned Youngest Prince, he would become first in line for imperial succession, surpassing Oratorio.

Bishop Marik would try to establish a regency using Gabriel. But that was not what the Emperor wanted.

If it became known that a child forsaken by God had been born to the imperial family, which should be perfect, he could not even imagine how much the imperial authority would fall. The one who should inherit the Emperor’s legacy and ascend to the throne was Oratorio, the imperial grandchild who resembled him closely.

“So who do you suspect?”

“Lady Tenebray.”

Perhaps fortunately, what Bishop Marik wanted was not Oratorio but Tenebray.

If the Emperor protected Tenebray, it was clear that Bishop Marik would reveal Gabriel’s existence. One was a child the Emperor had tried to kill, and the other was a life the Emperor had spared despite calling her ominous.

The Emperor weighed the two on a scale. Would he reveal to the world that Gabriel, who could not be blessed with holy water, was a prince and the secret stories surrounding him, or would he make his granddaughter into a patricide who murdered her father, the Crown Prince?

Both were ultimately acts that would eat away at the Emperor’s flesh, making it extremely difficult to choose one.

Hoping Bishop Marik would reconsider, the Emperor wrote a letter and summoned a knight to deliver it to Bishop Marik.

(#border)The Count’s treasures are locked in the underground vault – do you intend to add this old man’s necklace there as well?(#border)

Bishop Marik’s reply arrived quickly.

(#border)Goddess Rahel would not want two gems.(#border)

The Emperor let out a deep sigh and held his head.

Just as the Emperor had originally feared, Bishop Marik was using Gabriel as leverage to blackmail the Emperor. This was why he had tried to kill the prince the moment he was born, fearing he would be manipulated like this… What the Emperor would choose was obvious. He was sorry to his granddaughter, but for now he had to appease Bishop Marik.

The Emperor leaned back against the ornate backrest of his throne. Was his head heavy because of the weight of the crown he wore?

***

It’s already been three days since I was imprisoned.

According to what Jelly conveyed when surveillance was lax, Hena had safely returned to the manor. She and Kanna apparently had an emotional reunion, clinging to each other and crying, but since I haven’t returned yet, Kanna is still crying.

All outsiders like Misha were sent away from the manor, and the Rohanson Estate was locked up tight. They tried to send Dolline away too, but she said she would stay and share the fate of the Rohanson Estate. Daisy’s siblings, who were rescued from the nobles, also seem to be remaining at the Rohanson Estate.

And the Viscount was apparently ready to disown me at any time. I’m in this situation because of the sword the Viscount gave me as a gift, so I really feel betrayed. I was seething with anger, so Jelly promised to catch the Viscount the moment he abandons me and hand him over to the guards to apply guilt by association.

By now, something should have changed – either I’d be confirmed as the culprit or released – but I was still just a suspect.

Sigh… I’m really tired.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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