Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 144

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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 144

Those fresh, pale-green eyes froze over in an instant, sinking cold as a leaf drifting on a frozen river.
“I gave a warning just in case, but it seems it was useless after all.”
“You even warned him?”
“Brian kept making mistakes in this whole affair, didn’t he? I thought the First Consort wouldn’t let it slide. He was brought up rather gently and has a stubborn streak, so if he could have been corrected through kind words and advice, he would have changed long ago. But…….”
Adrian saw me reflected in his gaze. A headstrong princess who, without a single person to turn to, lived like a puppet in the Consort’s hands within the Imperial Palace—until some moment she chose to move of her own accord.
“Honestly, you’re saying you don’t think it’s really Brian?”
“Yes. But Brian’s face is speaking, Brian’s voice is coming out. Everyone will think, ‘Ah, he’s finally grown up,’ and leave it at that. No one will think his person has changed, or that he’s been brainwashed, or anything like that.”
My mouth tasted bitter as I spoke.
‘Titania’ nearly died, woke, and took a different path—yet no one grieved for her. No one longed for the old, foolish Titania. As for Raymond, perhaps he would have felt less guilt if I had stayed as I was before. But that’s all hindsight. If I hadn’t changed, I would simply have ended as the Imperial Family’s nominal, unwilling betrothed.
Brian was much the same. I don’t know what decision the First Consort, who seemed to care for and love Brian, made—but once she decided to discard the original Brian, everything ended far too easily. It was almost amusing that Adrian and I, who had been closest to silence, were the ones doubting and recoiling in shock. When you live as a foolish villain, no matter how your mind is altered, there is no one left to mourn what you were.
“The First Consort is quite ruthless, in many ways. I knew she was the type to grit her teeth and never yield, no matter what happens.”
Then the Empress, who had been listening quietly to Brian and me, opened her mouth.
“The First Consort replaced many of the servants in her palace. She claims she dismissed those who stole the Prince’s belongings and made a mess of his room while he was away from the palace. But I don’t think that’s the real story.”
“What is the real story?”
The Empress gestured to Barbara, and Barbara, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, turned to me and spoke. The skin beneath her eyes was hollow and bruised.
“……A large number of servants from Daisy Palace have gone missing. They say she sent them home with generous compensation, but few of the servants believe that story.”
Everything about it felt suspicious. Adrian let out a light laugh at my frown.
“In any case, don’t you want to test something? If Brian’s transformation is real?”
“If it’s real?”
“We really should confirm what’s inside him. That way…….”
Adrian smiled, a smile that looked honeyed at first glance.
“We could at least verify whether my half-brother was consumed by someone, suppressed, or simply vanished……. Whether he met a miserable end, abandoned even by his own mother.”

* * *

Valentina stood deep within a forest so desolate it seemed a ghost might emerge at any moment.
Even at midday, the trees would block out the sun, making it rather dim and cool. Now that night had fallen, only the faint light of the moon and stars barely illuminated the treetops.
It was a place where small children would cry out about ghosts and run away. Yet Valentina stood rigid in the heart of the forest, as though steel had been driven through her spine. Then it happened.
“You remain without a trace of fear, I see.”
With a tut-tut of the tongue, someone emerged from the opposite side of the forest.
He appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary old man, with a neat and unassuming demeanor. The only distinctions were his simple but well-kept attire and the Walking Stick gleaming with age and use, held firmly in his hand.
Yet Valentina smiled as though greeting an old friend.
“It’s been far too long, Marlon.”
“Why do you summon a body long since retired? Do you think this old dog becomes someone who comes at your call and goes at your command?”
“You’re the only one who still calls me that—a young lady.”
“There is no time to dwell on the past. I’ve come to warn you.”
The old man tapped his aching joints as though they were killing him, then sat down on a tree stump nearby.
“The hunting dogs of the former Emperor—all of them are retired now. What remains are nothing but laughable clowns playing Royal Guard, those junior fools. Besides, even if the former Emperor treasured you greatly, he cannot now order about the servant of a household long disbanded with a mere finger.”
“Yet you came when I called.”
“That was simply to hear what odd nonsense you wanted to spout. No, didn’t you resolve in your heart to remain in your Villa until your very bones rotted? What wind possessed you to come to the Imperial Palace? The rumors that reach even these ears are most peculiar—tales of your grandchildren’s antics and matters that would turn the world upside down, robbing me of sleep. Sleep, I tell you!”
“My brother failed rather spectacularly at raising his children, didn’t he?”
Valentina broached the subject without hesitation. The old man’s eyebrows twitched with distaste at the topic.
“Though my brother and his wife tried as best they could, new children came far too rarely. In that sense, I feel I’ve wronged my brother. Had I borne a decent child, perhaps he would have set aside even his own son and placed my nephew on the Imperial Throne.”
“How dare you speak such impiety!”
“But from the beginning, the man I chose as my husband was rather lacking. How could a proper child be born from such an inadequate mate? Even with the best education and careful raising, when the father and all his relatives are contemptible…… I cannot exterminate an entire house just to remedy that.”
“The Current Emperor was the sole and most beloved son of the former Emperor. How could there be such an unreasonable, outrageous notion of placing the child of the former Princess—who never even bore a son—as his successor…….”
“Then let it be outrageous. Otherwise, how do you explain why my brother, who spent his whole life checking the Castrain Ducal House, did not pass those well-trained hunting dogs to his own son but set them all free?”
There are realms even the wealthy and honored cannot master as they wish. The raising of children.
The former Emperor was, by and large, an ordinary sort of emperor. He distinguished between what should be done and what should not. And like any ruler of an Imperial Family losing ground to the Castrain House, he desperately sought to check them while cultivating forces to bolster the Emperor’s power.
One such undertaking was the secret cultivation of hunting dogs who would covertly serve the Emperor. It was not entirely without success.
Yet when the former Emperor realized his end was approaching, he cut loose the leashes of those hunting dogs he had so carefully bred in secret.
Even to the Crown Prince, he did not reveal the existence of Count Palsus, who secretly served as both the master of the hunting dogs and the former Emperor’s closest confidant.
Valentina understood the reason well. The Current Emperor was someone who wielded the Royal Guard—nominally serving only the Emperor—as his private tool, lending them to the First Consort and Brian.
A blade to be wielded in secret? The existence of hunting dogs? He would have used them well, to covertly eliminate nobles who openly defied him.
Nobles are no fools. Even if assassination and intrigue run rampant, they could not fail to notice the blind sword wielded by the Emperor.
Then what?
“He must have feared a rebellion might break out.”
……
Count Palsus looked at Valentina in silence.
The former Emperor had deliberately withheld true power from the Current Emperor.
“To speak frankly, I think my brother was too lenient with his family. An Emperor of a great nation needs resolve for the empire’s future. Yes, he cared for his wife……. So he grew soft toward his nephew too. He even worried over me, having dragged the Imperial Family’s honor through the mud. But in the end—a man indifferent to where his own son is or what happens to him, a man who wouldn’t care even if he knew—that man as emperor seems rather excessive, doesn’t it?”
“What sacrilege is this you speak?”
“It seems something has happened to Prince Brian. The Lande Marquis either ignores it or means to help……. As for our Emperor, well. I suspect he will come to treasure this ‘new’ Prince Brian very dearly. He’ll have no mind to distinguish whether what dwells within is a monster mimicking human form, or a fake wearing his son’s skin like a mask. And if he makes that thing the Crown Prince…….”
Valentina still believed her brother had been far too soft.
If one’s sole heir is a rotten shoot, one must prune it away. If there are no children, one must make them. If you worry that taking a new empress would hurt the current Empress’s feelings, you find a suitable partner and take only the child.
If one cannot grasp even that much, one has no right to wear the Empress’s crown.
Had Valentina borne proper children, she might well have considered secretly killing that heir and adopting Valentina’s child in his place. Perhaps, had she been commanded to divorce by force and remarry, she would have obeyed that command.
But the former Emperor loved his sister far too much. He could not bring himself to be honest with his sister, who had already failed at one marriage, telling her that for the Imperial Throne’s sake, he needed her children just in case.
So Valentina had resolved simply to live as though dead. For the sake of her brother’s affection, in a world where a nephew she had never approved of became Emperor. Simply…… Even if news of her hated ex-husband and his bastard prospered beyond all measure, she would simply live like a corpse.
“The Imperial Throne of this empire falls into the hands of all the wrong people, doesn’t it? Hmm? At this point, well. It’s a story substantial enough to warrant exhuming a hunting dog buried in the grave.”
But now her brother—the bloodline Valentina had guarded, the Imperial Family—that nephew was so blinded by his own indulgence, so lacking in both the information and the will to notice or prevent whatever befell his son and heir to the Imperial Throne, that he believed whatever lies were spun for him.
“Have I misjudged this?”
Then it was time to replace him.
Valentina smiled with absolute confidence.

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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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