Surviving as the Wife of the Swordsmanship Clan’s Troublemaker - Chapter 131

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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 131

Elise carefully stepped out from the wardrobe.
“What on earth is this!?”
Her eyes widened in shock as she cried out, and Eva winked at her with a playful grin.
“I created a perfect doppelgänger to take your place on the carriage to the Southern Empire. I used an absolutely enormous amount of flour for it.”
“A fake? Stepmother… don’t tell me you’re a mage?”
Elise asked hopefully, and Eva burst into laughter.
“If I were a mage, would the Duke have taken me as his wife?”
“Then what is it?”
“Just a bit of alchemy I learned from my grandmother. It’s a homunculus that looks exactly like you.”
At those words, Elise’s eyes sparkled and she bounced excitedly in place.
“Alchemy?! That’s insane!”
There was no way Elise, who loved magic, could be uninterested in alchemy.
“You created a homunculus—something I’ve only heard of in legends—out of flour? Stepmother, you’re an absolute genius!?”
Watching Elise bounce around in excitement, Eva laughed shyly and continued.
“It was something Hallara asked me to do in advance.”
She had secretly asked if I could create a doll to send in her place should such a situation arise.
At the time, I wondered why it would be necessary, but her plea was so earnest that I prepared the materials beforehand. I wanted to help Hallara so badly.
“Hallara…”
“She asked me to hide you so you could safely remain in this Castle. I have no idea what you’re actually trying to do here.”
At those words, Elise felt as though she’d been struck by a hammer. Not only had her stepmother kept the secret that she could use magic, but she had even prepared the conditions for me to complete the Gate all the way through.
Who was Hallara, really? Who was she that she would seek me out and ask me to create a Gate? To find out, I first had to complete it.
“Now, you hide again for a moment. I’ll quickly send this doll off in the carriage and perfectly deceive the Duke before returning.”
“Okay!”
At Eva’s kind instruction, Elise nodded vigorously.
​
***
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After sending off the carriage carrying Elise.
Duncan furrowed his brow as he reviewed once more the secret message he’d sent to the Bresbon Ducal House, the hero family of the Northern Empire.
According to Francesca, Prince Aurel had stubbornly insisted on dragging the pregnant Hallara back to the Northern Empire by force.
No matter how high the authority of the Imperial Family stood, unilaterally forcing a newly pregnant daughter-in-law from another nation was a blatant disregard for international law.
‘He’s crossed the line. This is practically a declaration of war.’
Duncan’s eyes turned cold as he made his way directly toward Prince Aurel’s chamber. As the patriarch of his house, he intended to confront this absurd situation and put a stop to it himself.
“Your Highness.”
The moment he opened the door to the Crown Prince’s bedchamber.
Duncan was startled to see Johannes standing before the door as if he’d been waiting.
“I present myself. I am Duncan, Duke of Cardia of the Southern Empire.”
Johannes, however, held his breath at that introduction.
‘That repulsive beast stench.’
Cardia.
The family that tamed every beast in the world.
The First Cardia Patriarch who had sealed him away in Seraphim’s Paradise centuries ago had reeked of that filthy beast odor as well.
Merely seeing Duncan enter this room awakened those ancient, terrible memories, gnawing away at Johannes’s reason.
‘Yes. That creature is also descended from the seal’s bloodline.’
“So they say he’s treated as a hero here.”
Johannes’s eyes narrowed sharply with contempt.
Though his bloodline possessed the most troublesome abilities, the weakness of a tamer who commanded beasts was clear: without those beasts at their side, their true form was nothing but a fragile human.
Duncan had no beasts with him now.
‘I should sever that irritating breath while I’m at it.’
There was no need for a messy display.
Johannes raised his finger to snap it, then paused.
‘I promised Lara I wouldn’t carry the scent of blood.’
Instead, he tilted his head. In an instant, the flow of air reversed.
Duncan’s eyes flew open.
“Wait!”
He had sensed it too.
Not through rational judgment, but through the instinctive sense passed down through generations of Cardia bloodline for centuries.
The presence before him was no mere Crown Prince.
An absolute being.
Calamity itself.
‘I must evacuate my family at once.’
Without hesitation, Duncan gripped the pendant in his breast pocket, activating the yellow mark. It was an evacuation command transmitted to the pendants of his wife Eva and Elise.
“How is this possible in a human body!”
But it was too late.
At Johannes’s gesture, the air within the room compressed into a near-vacuum state. An invisible, colossal spatial pressure descended upon Duncan’s entire body, threatening to crush him.
“Ugh!”
Duncan’s eyes widened in shock. This was a pain he’d never experienced before—an overwhelming force that left him unable to breathe, unable to move even a single finger.
His organs began to twist under the invisible pressure.
“Father!”
A deep blue magical barrier materialized before Duncan, snapping taut with force. Elise, who had been hiding, burst forward with a surge of mana.
“Elise, you were supposed to go to the Southern Empire—”
“Is that really what matters right now? Did you think I’d abandon you?”
Elise had no intention of remaining hidden the moment she released the doll.
After all, Eva had gone to such lengths to craft it through alchemy, only for it to become useless.
“How am I supposed to face your stepmother after this? It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“What?”
“Never mind! Don’t send signals like that!”
Of course, even if she’d learned of this from the carriage heading to the Southern Empire, she would have returned.
Cardia was always with her.
She was still Cardia, after all.
“Elise!”
“What? Surprised I came to rescue you so quickly?”
But that wasn’t what truly shocked him.
“How are you using magic?”
Duncan stared at his daughter in astonishment.
“Does that matter right now? What is that thing? Is it even human?”
The shock of discovering his daughter had been concealing her magic was momentary—the barrier Elise had conjured began to crack under mounting pressure.
Johannes was drawing upon his power with contemptuous ease, increasing it ever so slightly.
“It doesn’t matter who disappears first. Everything here will vanish anyway.”
With his indifferent murmur, Elise’s barrier shattered completely.
The magical barrier transformed into a jagged spear at his gesture, its point aimed directly at Elise.
“No, Elise!”
Duncan threw himself forward.
The magical spear that had been descending upon Elise pierced through his back instead.
“Ugh…”
Duncan cried out in agony. The clean strike tore through his organs, burning them from within. His eyes rolled back as he collapsed.
“Father! Father, stay with me!”
Elise cradled the unconscious Duncan, her body wracked with sobs.
Just as Johannes raised his hand with indifference, preparing to crush both of them, the door opened once more.
“Your Highness?”
Knights of the Northern Empire rushed in, having heard the commotion.
The knights hesitated upon seeing Duncan collapsed on the ground.
“W-what is happening here?”
Johannes clicked his tongue, regretful that he hadn’t finished Duncan.
He could simply crush everyone here to death.
But doing so would inevitably spill blood, which would violate his promise, so he withdrew his power.
Looking at Duncan’s condition, it seemed he would die soon if left alone like this.
As long as that human with the holy power who had saved him from poison was eliminated.
Johannes was considering withdrawing now and dealing with Casio first.
“Wait!”
Then, parting through the Knights, the Knight Commander appeared with a loud commotion. The situation was as good as over. Since I was still wearing the Crown Prince’s shell, I was thinking about using what I could use.
The Knight Commander drew his sword. The blade’s point immediately turned toward Johannes.
“Commander, what are you doing right now!?”
The Knight Commander’s face drained of all color as he alternated his gaze between Johannes and Elise’s group collapsed on the floor.
He swallowed hard and spoke in a voice filled with despair.
“News just arrived through the continent’s intelligence network.”
“What news are you referring to?”
“The Emperor of the Northern Empire currently sitting on the throne… is not actually of true Imperial bloodline.”
A false Emperor.
That meant the Crown Prince before my eyes was also a fake with not a single drop of Northern Empire blood flowing through his veins.

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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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