Since It's My First Time Being a Lady, I'll Cause Some Trouble - Chapter 26

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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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A Lady for the First Time Will Cause Some Trouble — Episode 26
Jereon bit down hard on his lip.
Arka was the Crown Prince. For a Crown Prince to ascend the Imperial Throne was the natural order of things.
Had his maternal lineage been nothing more than Imperial nobility, Jereon might have at least pretended to side with his mother.
But the Former Empress who bore Arka was a foreign princess.
The Emperor’s marriage to her had been the seal of an alliance, and the Crown Prince born between them was heir to rule both nations.
Yet when the Former Empress died, the Emperor swiftly took a new Empress.
She was Jereon’s mother.
Had the Former Empress not perished, his mother would have inherited her father’s title and been ruling her own Territory by now.
“I never had any intention of becoming Empress.”
The Empress gripped Jereon’s arm tightly.
“When the Former Empress died, His Majesty came to me himself and commanded that I become Empress. He needed a wife to aid him in governance, and a mother to raise his young son.”
……
“At first, I tried to raise Arka as my own son. But the longer he grew, the stranger it felt. Like a dungeon that appears quiet and orderly, yet conceals hidden traps that spring the moment an unwary foot treads upon it. And I became certain of it — Arka is not fit to ascend the Imperial Throne.”
Anguish settled across Jereon’s face.
The reason he had deliberately cast himself as a wastrel and libertine, so at odds with his true nature, was his beloved mother.
Whenever Jereon showed signs of brilliance, she had been overjoyed. As a child, he had simply believed she was proud of him.
But that illusion shattered in an instant.
One late night, young Jereon stood outside his mother’s chambers. He was old enough to sleep alone now, but a nightmare had left him unable to drift back to sleep, and so he meant to ask her if he might rest with her.
The moment he opened the door, her voice reached him clearly.
‘In truth, no one is more deserving of the Imperial Throne than my son.’
Hearing those words, Jereon’s entire body went rigid. The person the Empress called “my son” was only him.
A Crown Prince already existed in the Empire. And he lacked nothing.
Though he was barely nine years old then, he understood what his mother meant.
She intended to depose his older brother, the Crown Prince, and place himself on that throne instead.
It was an event he had read about more than once in history lessons.
There were always those who coveted the Imperial Throne, and it was the Emperor’s duty to protect it.
Those who grasped at imperial power were sometimes domestic nobility, sometimes foreign royalty.
They had even been the Emperor’s own siblings or children.
‘To overturn a nation for mere lust of power.’
Jereon had considered them pathetic, like moths drawn to a flame.
He never dreamed his own mother harbored such ambitions.
‘Mother might die!’
It was more terrifying than any nightmare.
His mother plotting such a terrible scheme to make him a usurper.
Jereon did not want to see his beloved mother become a traitor. He could not bear to watch her executed amid humiliation and contempt.
He could not possibly sit upon a throne erected over a mound of corpses and rule with such ease.
Quietly closing the door, Jereon returned to his room and wept through the night.
With his young mind, he considered how he might protect his mother while dismantling the forces seeking to elevate him.
To sit upon the Crown Prince’s throne required both the support of powerful factions and his father’s expectations. What they desired was the benefits that would fall to them and proof that he possessed the ability to rule as Emperor.
And one reason his mother sought to make him Emperor was precisely because he excelled.
‘Then I need only destroy their expectations.’
From that day forward, Jereon began to go astray.
Even when his attendants coaxed and pleaded with him, he refused to listen. He would ignore his mother’s reproach, and certainly had no intention of heeding words from unrelated adults.
As expected, his reputation declined steadily.
His father did not publicly humiliate him or scold him. Instead, he treated him like a pebble in the road.
It stung a little, but he nevertheless congratulated himself on his success.
He had planned to live this way until Arka ascended the Imperial Throne, then accept the rank of Grand Duke and depart to his Territory with his mother.
‘Yet it has come to this.’
It had been well enough to expose the traitor and prevent civil unrest, but the backlash had made expectations and favor toward him grow far too great.
As a result, the Empress’s ambition burned all the more fiercely, like embers kindled by paper.
“Mother, I beg your pardon, but I do not have the capacity to be Emperor. Preventing the rebellion was pure chance, and besides, my brother has the ability.”
“Chance? Arka has ability?”
The Empress laughed hysterically.
“Listen well, Jereon. Learning of the rebellion was chance, but using that to save Rodinya was you.”
Her violet eyes gleamed.
“Arka appears superior only because you have done nothing until now. If one of two racehorses runs while the other stands still, would you not naturally think only the running horse excels?”
“That does not mean my brother is inadequate.”
“You are right — he is not inadequate. That is precisely why he will ruin the nation.”
“What do you mean by that……?”
“Think about it. If you had the ability, why didn’t you detect the rebellion? Gathering and analyzing intelligence—that’s fundamental to being Crown Prince. If those under you lacked the competence to assist, then he bears responsibility for letting it slide. And what of the tax question? Do you remember what he said about this latest tax increase?”
Jereon didn’t know how to answer. There was nothing wrong with what she’d said.
The Crown Prince had been lukewarm on the tax matter.
And Toglo’s crimes… that vast cartel. Could he truly have known nothing of it?
The Former Empress cupped his cheek with a gentle hand, drawing him from his thoughts.
“You are our hope. Stop acting like a wastrel, as you did before.”
“Mother…”
She whispered.
“After this affair, the Crown Prince will already be sharpening the blade meant for your neck.”
* * *
The most famous structure in the Imperial Capital Araf was the Imperial Palace.
Then what was the second most famous?
The Prison.
And I was in it now.
Not as an inmate, of course.
I’d come with the Countess to visit the Gordon family currently detained here.
Barely had I returned from Seia’s tea gathering before being rushed here. It seemed to be a matter of considerable urgency.
All the traitors and high-ranking criminals arrested recently were held in this place.
“I thought this was an underground prison, but it looks like all the cells are above ground?”
“There’s nothing but cells below, you see. Well, other things, I suppose. Something like that.”
The guard dodged the question clumsily, but I gave it little thought. There’d be torture chambers, naturally.
“But why did they want to see us?”
I murmured to the Countess.
“Beats me. I’d like to know too. We were never particularly close—can’t imagine why.”
Not merely not close—relations had been decidedly poor. In the end, hadn’t she tried to attack me?
“We’ll find out once we meet. What she’s plotting by summoning us.”
Truthfully, there was much I wanted to ask as well.
How she’d known in advance that they’d come to arrest her from the Imperial Palace, and fled to the Baron’s Residence. Why she’d fled to the residence of Nezer, with whom relations weren’t exactly warm. Why she’d insisted her own mistake was my fault and so on.
‘She couldn’t have known I’d resolved the Resolution Guild’s commission.’
“Surely she doesn’t mean to insist we’re somehow involved too?”
As I whispered my concern, the Countess answered in an even tone.
“Don’t worry about that. She already tried that argument, and we were proven innocent.”
She’d already done that? The wretch.

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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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