Queen of Revenge - Chapter 67

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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 67
Yes, now this is entertaining.
Emeric spoke with mischievous delight.
“She proposed an alliance with me. In exchange for your loyalty to me, we agreed to expel the Second Prince. Thanks to the Princess, the timing worked out perfectly. She even offered her gracious thanks. Well done, wouldn’t you say?”
Kairon paused, considering how to respond to him.
Iolet had given him prior counsel on this matter.
“With the Third Prince, try to speak as little as possible. He seems to be the type who only moves as you wish if you cater to his ego.”
It was a terribly difficult request. With Dietrich, one could manage through calculated indifference and patience, but Emeric was different.
His malice operated on an entirely different plane than Dietrich’s.
“To think of using no one but you as your weapon—how clever. It makes me wonder why such a brilliant mind remains trampled beneath the feet of the Crown Princess of Elovis.”
The mere fact that he brought Iolet into the conversation made Kairon’s stomach churn.
Emeric tilted his head with peculiar interest.
“Yet simultaneously, it’s pitiful how little she understands about you. Strange, isn’t it? If she truly knew Kairon as a person, she would know that even if you died and were resurrected, you would never form an alliance with me.”
Emeric picked up a pointer that rolled beside the map.
After taking a sip of whiskey, he jabbed it lightly at Kairon’s abdomen.
“One kidney, the spleen, portions of the liver and lungs.”
…
“And where else was it—the intestines?”
Emeric pressed the pointer’s tip successively across various parts of his body, then shuddered as though the mere act of speaking of it was abhorrent.
“To have been torn apart like that and still not die—it’s rather frightening.”
Throughout it all, Emeric’s eyes remained curved like a boy’s.
Yet those who knew him well could easily discern the truth.
When Emeric displayed such exaggerated playfulness, he typically did not regard his opponent as human.
At best, a beast; at worst, an object or an insect.
It was one of Emeric’s methods of subjugating his opponents.
Emeric took another sip of whiskey and casually tossed the pointer aside.
Within his languid eyes lay an irritation akin to spotting a cockroach one had failed to exterminate.
“I left you in that frozen snowy field with your insides completely torn open, yet you lived.”
…
“Because you survived, my plans fell apart. You have no idea how much my dear lover suffered. The thought of it still wakes me from sleep. Ha ha.”
Emeric chuckled as though the world contained truly amusing things.
Yet in truth, it was not amusing at all. Because that incident had nearly brought him a devastating reversal.
‘Had things gone well, I could have properly strangled my elder brother’s neck.’
Kairon’s mother had been a maidservant in the Queen’s Palace.
The Queen herself had taken in a young noblewoman from a fallen house as her maidservant.
When that maidservant became pregnant with the King’s child, it was inevitable that the Queen’s Palace would be thrown into upheaval.
Precisely because the King favored only that maidservant over the Queen and her concubines, the mother and child could not leave the palace.
The Queen and the First Prince tolerated them for fifteen years. They could not abandon the image of a benevolent and magnanimous sage king.
Only after the maidservant’s death did the Queen expel the illegitimate child from the palace. It was the Queen herself who designated Winterbark as his place of exile, under the pretext of his poor conduct.
Dietrich had remained silent on the matter, while Emeric had begun scheming.
‘What if that bastard is brutally killed before he even reaches Winterbark?’
What if I frame it as the First Prince’s doing?
What if I expose him as a hypocrite who pretends to be virtuous but is actually consumed by inferiority and jealousy—a man who tears his half-brother to shreds?
Then wouldn’t I be able to rip off that sanctimonious mask?
It was an excellent plan.
Emeric mobilized the Northern Guild to sell the boy heading toward the Border to the Organ Trafficking Ring. Then he deliberately exposed the mutilated boy to the people of Winterbark Village.
Rumors spread faster than the wind, so he had no doubt that within a month, the Capital would be flooded with tales of this cruelty.
But the boy survived.
And far too intact at that.
“Shock, excessive bleeding, sepsis, or at the very least death from inflammation—it should have been inevitable. But because you lived, your survival exposed my involvement. Thanks to that, I’ve earned our eldest brother’s disdain, youngest.”
Emeric drained the whiskey to the bottom of his glass.
“Anyway, that’s why I’ve been curious ever since I met your bride. Whether you’re truly capable of working for me. Whether you truly love her.”
“….”
“I’m curious whether you love that woman so much that you’d even lick the feet of your enemy.”
“If I could love anyone, it would be no one but Princess Iolet.”
Kairon answered flatly.
Emeric let out an impressed “Oh,” as if he hadn’t anticipated such a response.
“Is that so? Then why do you leave the Princess free?”
“How else should I handle it?”
“Well, I don’t mean to lock her away. If it were me, Kairon, I’d desperately hide anything that could become my weakness. Somewhere so safe that no one could ever imagine it. The safest place in the world.”
Kairon scoffed at that arrogant advice.
Even Emeric, who sat atop all humanity’s heads like a tyrant, couldn’t see the future.
And yet that brilliant fool couldn’t even protect his own lover when the time came.
But Kairon answered obediently.
“Yes, I shall remember your words.”
“Then do well. Don’t give me reason to doubt you.”
Emeric patted his shoulder.
Pleased with his submissive demeanor, the viper spoke with false tenderness.
“Do this well, and I might even make you a nobleman.”
* * *
The first thing Emeric did after seizing the Fortress was to drive Prince Dietrich and his Capital Guard into the Unregistered Territory.
“You’re telling me to patrol the Unregistered Territory? Mine the gold myself?”
Dietrich’s face flushed crimson.
Dietrich had been confined to the Underground Dungeon for three days after the royal decree arrived.
He suppressed his rising rage and prepared for negotiations with Emeric. He had never fared well when leading with emotion against his brothers.
Being trapped in that moldy underground had thoroughly wounded his pride as a prince.
On the second day, even the Princess of Elovis came to comfort him.
“The sibling conflicts within the Kalande Royal House are truly as brutal as I’ve heard. My heart isn’t at ease either. Do you happen to know any weaknesses of the Third Prince? Family, perhaps? A lover?”
“Family? Emeric’s mother died years ago, and he’s never married nor had a single lover so far… Ah.”
“Is there someone who comes to mind?”
That day, the Princess was particularly persistent, but Dietrich lacked the leisure to contemplate even her demeanor.
Ultimately, her visit redirected his thoughts in an entirely different direction.
“Ulrich… Yes, Ulrich existed.”
“For months now, haven’t the Fortress Army and village laborers shouldered everything—from the Mining Site’s toil to patrols of the Unregistered Territory? Even slaves and livestock aren’t worked that relentlessly. Everything must be rotated. Fairly.”
Emeric’s grating voice pulled Dietrich from his reverie.
“If you wish, you’re welcome to depart for the Capital this very moment. I’m not deliberately keeping my brother here, am I?”
“…Very well. Since I initiated this endeavor, I must see it through to the end.”
“Ha, indeed. How unfortunate it would be to earn a reputation for being brutal, dull-witted, and irresponsible.”
Do your best!
Emeric thrust both fists forward with determination.
Dietrich barely managed to lift the corners of his trembling mouth.
‘Let’s see how long you can smile like that, Emeric.’

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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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