Royal Coup d'État - Chapter 5

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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 5
Turning her back on her father, Seon returned to her room and came face to face with Jo Seok-chul.
He stood pacing with his usual brown briefcase in one hand and a tablet in the other.
His appearance was no different from usual, and Seon felt some of her tension ease as she exhaled a shallow breath.
Seon crossed the room toward the sofa and asked.
“Did you get it?”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“That’s why I asked you in the first place.”
A low groan escaped her as she sank onto the sofa, and as the plush cushions wrapped around her body, the tension in her muscles began to melt away. When Seon gestured, Jo Seok-chul adjusted his glasses with a quick motion and settled into the seat across from her.
Seon always made an effort to present herself flawlessly to others, but there were certain people in her presence where that guard fell away. Seok-chul was one of them—a companion for seven years now, since she turned twenty.
As she had expected, Seok-chul showed no sign of disappointing her. He picked up the tablet from his lap and handed it to her. Seon received it naturally and turned on the screen.
The illuminated display showed several official documents.
Documents from the Imperial Household Administration, the Police Agency, and others—even from agencies to which Seok-chul had no authorized access. He had already obtained them.
“I wasn’t able to retrieve the photographs from the time of the accident. I was able to acquire documents classified up to Class 3 Secret, but anything beyond that will require a bit more time.”
The Crown Prince’s accident was a critical matter that could have devastating consequences for the entire nation.
It wasn’t just any member of the Imperial Family—it was the Crown Prince himself. Even Seok-chul, well-connected as he was with channels running through various quarters, couldn’t extract materials of higher classification.
Seon’s fingers swept rapidly across the tablet’s screen. As the text changed with each motion, her eyes absorbed it quickly and her mind worked to organize the situation.
Her eyes, which had been moving busily, came to a halt at one particular spot. Her finger trembled as she read the characters aloud slowly.
“Both drivers were pronounced dead at the scene?”
The Police Agency’s accident report stated it plainly: both the driver of the Crown Prince’s vehicle and the driver of the other vehicle were declared dead on site. Seon’s fist clenched as she fixed her gaze on Seok-chul.
“Yes. It’s exactly as you see.”
Seok-chul adjusted his glasses once more and continued.
“The other driver is scheduled to undergo an autopsy, but based on current findings, it’s estimated that he was in a state of license-revocation-level intoxication.”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
Seon let out a bitter laugh, her eyes narrowing.
“Even if His Highness advocated for public accessibility and didn’t want road closures, that wouldn’t mean the streets were completely uncontrolled, would it?”
The Imperial Family. And more than that—the Crown Prince, highest of the high.
This wasn’t a private excursion but a journey to prepare for a state function. He wouldn’t have wanted the entire road blocked, but certainly there should have been security measures and at least some traffic control along the route.
How could a drunk driver have gotten through such a place?
“How is it that he wasn’t stopped at any checkpoint?”
“The detailed circumstances are still under investigation, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
At Seok-chul’s curt reply, Seon clicked her tongue.
“No matter how I think about it, something doesn’t add up.”
She was beginning to understand why the Emperor had mentioned suspicious points and urged her to participate in the investigation.
There were far too many strange things about this accident.
A drunk driver had suddenly appeared and hit the Crown Prince’s vehicle, causing the crash.
The accident had been severe enough to severely damage the black box, and there were no witnesses, or so she’d been told.
Was this really the kind of thing that could happen to someone like the Crown Prince?
Death, by nature, was indiscriminate. It came to everyone equally, regardless of rank or station.
But could this kind of death really occur within the Imperial Family?
One could say that fate was merciless and such things might happen. But shouldn’t there be at least some providence that prevented such an occurrence twice within the Imperial Family?
Seon’s thoughts had touched the deepest wound. No matter how she tried not to connect them, the memories kept surfacing.
Perhaps the reason the Emperor had summoned only her and entrusted her with this task was because he harbored the same thoughts.
“Prince Yi-young’s accident,” Seon said quietly.
She broke the silence. Seok-chul’s gaze, laden with questions, turned toward her.
“Don’t you think it’s similar to this one?”
“I understand your point, but… hasn’t that already been concluded as an accident?”
At Seok-chul’s question, this time Seon fell silent for a moment.
An accident. An accident, indeed.
It had certainly ended that way.
But that too had been strange. And that strangeness had lingered in her heart, shaking her life ever since.
If she didn’t unravel this doubt now, it would be buried once again as an accident. Because something about it didn’t sit right, this time she couldn’t step back.
“Is this why Grandmother entrusted me with this task?” Seon murmured.
She spoke half to herself.
“Pardon?”
“The accident with Prince Yi-young—you know I was the only survivor, don’t you?”
“…Yes, I do.”
Seon remembered that day with perfect clarity.
The moment she barely escaped serious injury by being cradled by her older cousin, covered entirely in blood—whether it was hers or her cousin’s, she couldn’t tell—her consciousness fading, and then someone approaching her. The intense scrutiny to confirm she was alive. The kicks against the window of the overturned car to check if it would move. The cold-blooded indifference of leaving without calling for help despite knowing the severity of the situation. All of it remained vivid.
“It was the same back then. The driver, Prince Yi-young, and my cousin Cheongsong Hyunju—they all died.”
Twenty years had passed.
The small child who had once lain silent in her sister’s arms, weeping without sound as she watched her die, had grown into one of the Imperial Family members who commanded the nation’s deepest attention. Even the praise—that despite the terrible accident, she had grown up well—had clung to her like a lifelong label.
Sun could never forget that day, no matter how hard she tried.
Every relative who had been laughing and chattering with her in the car moments before was dead. The shock of the accident had sent her mother into such distress that she lost the child she’d been carrying.
How could she forget a day when everyone had been wounded? With a memory this vivid, how could she not connect it to this new accident?
“If the civilian driver who was following behind hadn’t reported it, I would have died too. My sister, who was shielding me, bled out in the ambulance. If only that man—the one who checked whether we were dead—had reconsidered and made the call…”
“What do you mean? Are you saying there was a witness?”
Jo Seok-chul’s voice trembled thinly. This was a secret known only to a select few within the Imperial Household.
“Then why didn’t they report it? There’s no mention of it in the official incident records, and that troubles me.”
Jo Seok-chul’s alarm was understandable. An ordinary person would not simply walk past someone suffering from such a massive accident without stopping. Any human being possessed the capacity for compassion.
But Sun was certain of one thing precisely because that witness had walked away: that accident had never been mere chance.
“I was too young, and my injuries and shock were so severe that I lay unconscious in a hospital bed for a long time. Back then, there weren’t many Black Boxes around, and there weren’t really any other witnesses.”
It had been a location almost deliberately perfect. A quiet road with few CCTV cameras and little passing traffic. And we just happened to have our accident there.
“By the time I had recovered enough to testify, the case had already been closed. That’s why it wouldn’t be in the official records.”
I wasn’t even old enough to be in elementary school yet. At seven years old, there was little Sun could do.
“Did you report this to His Majesty? I hear the Prince was his most treasured son.”
Sun thought of Prince Yi-young.
The Emperor’s most brilliant and clever son. As the third son, he had no chance of becoming Emperor, but he was the one who received the most of his parents’ love.
A man who gave that love freely to those around him. Even now, Prince Gyeong-an—a lawless man no one could control—would yield on any matter if it concerned Prince Yi-young’s wishes.
Because he was such a warm person, he couldn’t simply leave his young niece in a driver’s care; instead, he rode in the car himself and even came out to see her off. For Sun, that kindness had remained a lifetime of guilt.
“I told His Majesty as soon as I regained consciousness.”
Sun spoke as calmly as she could.
“His Majesty conducted his own careful investigation, but since the case had already been closed, evidence was lacking. In the end, it was ruled an accident.”
The futility of that time was beyond words. I had seen it clearly. If only I had awakened a little sooner. If only I had revealed the truth a bit faster.
“I still believe that accident wasn’t a simple accident. And this one feels the same way.”
“Do you have anyone in mind as a suspect?”
At Jo Seok-chul’s question, Sun fell into thought.
It would have been faster to list the people she didn’t suspect. The Imperial Family was such that one could smile with you today and drive a blade through you tomorrow. In this court, there were precious few people Sun could truly trust.
“In the case of Prince Yi-young, it was hard to focus suspicion on a single person. It wasn’t easy to accept that someone would deliberately target the Emperor’s third son.”
The reason why, despite Grandfather’s trust and his separate investigation, the case had ultimately been buried as an accident.
Because of the certainty that no force would have reason to deliberately kill Prince Yi-young, who was only the Emperor’s third son.
“But the Crown Prince is different.”
“Are you referring to those who advocate for abolishing the Imperial Family?”
Sun shook her head at Jo Seok-chul’s cautious question, a bitter smile crossing her lips. The face of a man had come to mind.

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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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