Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 106

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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 106

Adrian had to admit, even from his own perspective, that “Rian” was perhaps excessive. Yet precisely because it was so transparent, there was in fact no one else who might connect it to Adrian.
The Empress could not trust the Emperor, nor could Adrian. The Integria Family, the Empress’s own bloodline, was in no better position.
The Emperor still deferred to the great noble houses, and indeed had taken the only daughter of the Integria Family—one of the traditional great houses—as Empress and even fathered a child with her. Yet even if the Emperor would not go so far as to depose the Empress or take Adrian’s life, if he openly invested Brian as Crown Prince…
Then Adrian’s future would be transparent from that moment onward. The Emperor would eliminate Adrian for Brian’s sake. Adrian had no wish to die without so much as a single act of resistance.
So Adrian had set about secretly acquiring a Mercenary Company. A Mercenary Company was like an untamed wild horse—a lawless band that even great noble houses could not easily bring to heel. Once a contract ended, they departed with the precision of a blade, and being grassroots in nature, individual members had atrocious moral standards. It was no accident that noble houses spent fortunes cultivating knights and soldiers.
So Adrian simply threw himself into it. By his own estimation, it was madness—working as a mercenary under the name Rian….
At first he’d merely tested whether it might work, attempting it half-heartedly. But it had succeeded, and once he’d become a convincing mercenary, he could not change his name again.
Even for a prince who garnered no imperial attention and lived confined to the Empress’s Palace, wasn’t there still a risk of being discovered? That fear lingered. If Cleo learned of it, she’d surely send assassins while applauding how the despicable boy had kindly walked himself into danger—the woman’s malice was that transparent.
Through accepting such risk and working as a mercenary in the Capital, Adrian had managed to bring two solid Mercenary Companies under his control. The Integria Family’s covert patronage had made it far smoother.
Yet even as he integrated the companies and managed them through proxies, he himself had to periodically observe and assess the people. He simply hadn’t expected to be found this way on a day he’d chosen to go out.
“Of course our house doesn’t lack for personnel. The Northern Front’s shortage of troops to face the Magic Beasts is a chronic problem, but surely I wouldn’t ask Your Highness for soldiers from there?”
Her manner of speech when addressing Titania was somewhat… less sharp than usual. Adrian observed Bibi’s crisply formal tone directed at him and felt oddly unsettled by it. Regardless, Bibi let out a soft laugh and continued.
“The person I wished to request from you is someone to monitor the Bradley Family. It would be helpful if you could keep watch on Elaine within the Imperial Palace, but… that’s a matter the Empress should address, isn’t it?”
“No, but—right now. Haven’t extremely sensitive issues just started emerging? The Bradley Family? I and the Empress barely breathe within the palace itself. As for Elaine, the palace attendants have reached the point of wondering if she’s even alive. And more than that, the Emperor himself still pays her some attention.”
Adrian shook his head slowly.
The pride of an ugly man….
If Elaine’s health were truly so poor, it would have been better to send her out of the palace to recover in some clement place. Yet the Emperor preferred that Elaine slowly waste away within these walls—as though commanding that this woman, who refused him for the sake of a dead former lover, die here within the palace itself.
“And. This is connected to Titania, isn’t it?”
Bibi’s eyes sharpened. The honor guard attending her sensed the shift and fixed a keen gaze on Adrian. How troublesome the retinue of the Castrain Family proved to be. Even as that thought crossed his mind, Adrian continued without hesitation. His advantage lay in this: no matter how precarious his position, his words flowed with the clarity of a mountain stream.
“You know I’ve joined hands with Titania, don’t you, Lady Bibi? Why do you think that is—is this not harmful to her? Or rather, I don’t believe it to be harmful. But this is her Forbidden Topic. You mustn’t carelessly touch on matters concerning her birth mother.”
No matter how composed she appeared, Adrian could still recall those days when Titania had desperately sought to draw her biological mother’s attention. Now she’d changed greatly, yes, but….
‘Yet she never once brought up her mother.’
As though she had severed all attachment, as though no mother existed for her at all—yet paradoxically, that very pretense was why Adrian recognized it as forbidden ground. Adrian, the Empress, and Titania herself all carried guilt for having left her unattended; such matters were not easily broached. The darkness in Bibi’s expression suggested she was not ignorant of it either.
“… Communication has been confirmed between Cleo and Elaine.”
Bibi’s voice came quietly.
“And I couldn’t bring myself to tell her, but I investigated the circumstances of Elaine’s entry into the palace and her family background. There were many strange points.”
“What strange points?”
Adrian had been young when Titania was born. He remembered few details—only that an extraordinarily beautiful and extraordinarily sorrowful woman had appeared beside his father, and that his mother had gazed upon him with an anxious face, sighing repeatedly.
“The Bradley Family is a prime example of… being nothing but the Emperor’s dog. They undertake all manner of dirty work, yet their house status remains notably low. The Iron Mine they received in exchange for Elaine’s entry into the palace had such poor prospects it was nearly shut down. More than anything, Titania underwent an In-Womb Betrothal with the Castrain Family, so even if Elaine withdrew her hand from Titania, the Bradley Family had every reason to step in as her proxies…”
“Wasn’t that blocked by Cleo?”
“Perhaps, but would the daughter of an Imperial Princess truly surrender so easily the opportunity to serve as the future Duke’s maternal relatives? No matter how fond the Emperor is of Cleo, his subordinates wouldn’t appreciate kneeling beneath a Consort.”
Beyond that, there was something Bibi could not voice even to Adrian, and it gnawed at her.
‘There is no poison entering the Empress’s Palace.’
No poison?
Then was Titania’s claim that Elaine had poisoned herself a lie?
No—Bibi had trusted Titania’s sincerity. Titania truly must have believed that Elaine was confined and slowly poisoning herself….
Yet a dark premonition gripped her. Before the Regression, starting with Elaine, so many had died of mysterious illness. Even Lasper of the Castrain Ducal House had been among them.
What if.
What if truly….
“…If Her Highness had some other intention?”
If Elaine bore any responsibility for that ‘illness’? If there existed some truth Titania did not know?
Bibi could only pray that this was not so. And if it were, she prayed it could be handled before Titania learned the truth.
“What if we were mistaken, and in fact Elaine has a separate faction backing her?”
Adrian’s expression shifted.
“That’s speculation.”
His voice cut decisively.
“Elaine has no real authority, and there’s nothing she could accomplish. Even if she did, had she wanted such things, she would have simply insisted on raising Titania from childhood. Difficult as that might have been to conceal from Cleo, it would have been easier still to claim protection of her daughter against a poisoning attempt. This way—”
……
“You’ve spiraled into such thoughts out of excessive worry for Titania. How about you calm yourself? And from what you’ve just said, I still don’t see the meaning in requesting people from me. Whether someone’s being monitored or anything else, surely it would be better to ask—”
“We cannot investigate the Bradley Family ourselves. It would become a burden on Titania.”
Ah, then Adrian understood Bibi’s position at last.
The rumor—though not quite a rumor—that Titania was in fact a child from before Elaine entered the palace was well known.
Old as the tale was, it had faded, but if word ever spread that the Castrain Family had looked into those roots, it would truly trouble everyone involved.
“Still, if I move rashly, I’ll only open old wounds. Though… if it’s true that Cleo is in contact with Elaine—”
Adrian’s eyes deepened.
“Then there may well be something I can do. The dogs that Cleo keeps are usually of such poor quality that it’s a problem.”

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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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