The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 110

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

The Forsaken Prince’s Ghost Bride — Episode 110

“This is the last of it.”
Thud!
Harry set a mountain of documents onto the desk. They were books on prisoners and trials that Lucian had asked him to find.
At the sight of so much material, Lia felt her motivation already beginning to crumble.
“That’s a lot. Will you be all right? Should I help?”
Dio looked at Lia and Kaiser with concern in his eyes.
The two of them stared blankly for a moment before snapping to attention and shaking their heads.
“No need. You wouldn’t understand the material anyway.”
“You’ve got plenty to do already. We can manage this ourselves, so go take care of what you need to. Thanks for finding these for us.”
Harry and Dio exchanged a glance, told them to call if anything was needed, and left.
Lia rolled her shoulders and neck, preparing herself mentally for the work ahead.
“Well then, shall we begin?”
There were five people total they needed to track down.

Year 131 – Ivan
Year 179 – Rabio
Year 202 – Dadan Gruut
Year 210 – Francis
Year 274 – Henry Rayfle

These were the people mentioned in Lia’s diary among those who had lived in the Mansion.
Thanks to keeping a diary, Lia knew exactly which years they had arrived at the Mansion.
She had memorized their vital information beforehand, suspecting a secret lay hidden in their deaths, so she didn’t even need to check the diary.
“I can’t be certain they were sent to the Mansion right after their trial. At minimum, I need to check records from at least one or two years prior.”
“They were all masters in their respective fields, so they shouldn’t be hard to find. Ivan was Music, Rabio was Archaeology, Dadan Gruut was Alchemy, Francis was a Weapon Master, and Henry Rayfle was a painter of the century.”
“…Did they deliberately select only geniuses to offer as sacrifices?”
“It’s possible.”
As Lia and Kaiser exchanged views, neither could tear their eyes from the documents.
Some time passed like this.
“Hey, isn’t this the guy?”
They found their first lead.
What Kaiser discovered was Ivan’s prison record.
In Imperial Calendar Year 130, he had been suspected of using Music to steal people’s souls.
People who heard his music fell unconscious or suffered cardiac arrest, and rumors spread that he had made a pact with a demon.
And among those affected was royalty.
“The Third Prince died of cardiac arrest…….”
“That doesn’t make sense. How could someone die just from listening to music?”
“But it does seem to be a fact that the prince died, doesn’t it?”
Kaiser consulted the Imperial Family’s genealogy and found that the Third Prince had indeed died during that same period.
“Did he really make a contract with a demon?”
“That’s absurd. He was simply a genius ahead of his time. I never felt any demonic or supernatural power from him.”
Lia recalled Ivan playing Music in the Mansion.
He always played melancholy pieces, but they were so beautiful that Lia would stay at his side whenever he performed.
“The charge is Regicide. If I were him, I’d never survive the injustice of it.”
“Look here. The verdict was execution. But he didn’t actually die, did he?”
The record clearly stated that the execution had been carried out at an unofficial venue.
Yet he had come to the ghost Mansion and lived there for roughly six more years.
“Do you remember how he was when he first arrived?”
“He looked rather emaciated. I thought it was just because he was naturally thin, but maybe it wasn’t.”
And he hadn’t come alone with just his body. He had brought all his instruments — the piano, violin, harp, and everything else he used to own.
The Imperial Family must have been responsible for transferring those.
Beyond that, throughout his stay at the Mansion, he did nothing but play instruments.
“He seemed like someone living against his will.”
There were times when he appeared so precarious that Lia worried he might take his own life. But whenever such moments came, he would lock himself in his room and express his emotions through Music.
And when Ivan disappeared in Year 137, Lia assumed he was dead and cleared out his room.
After that, the two of them were able to locate the trial records for both Rabio and Dadan Gruut.
Rabio was an archaeologist who loved history. His work was to excavate the past and correct falsified histories.
His accomplishments were considerable. He uncovered history from before the Empire’s founding, and made a mark on the archaeological world by discovering new artifacts.
But in the process, he came to realize that incorrect histories existed from the Empire’s early days and set out to investigate them.
Ultimately, he was imprisoned on charges of Historical Distortion, and the distorted histories he had been researching were apparently primarily related to the Imperial Family.
Next was Dadan Gruut, who was an alchemist.
He was so devoted to Alchemy that he had no interest in anything else.
Having pursued Alchemy single-mindedly, he created new substances and proposed new theories that overturned previous alchemy.
Then one day, he received a proposal from the Imperial Family: to create an Elixir of Immortality.
As an alchemist who had always been interested in such things, he readily accepted the proposal.
But the research made little progress. Then he created an incomplete Elixir, and when the Emperor consumed it, he began vomiting blood.
As a result, Gruut received a death sentence for Attempted Regicide.
But like Ivan, these two were not actually executed; instead, they were spirited away to the Mansion.
“Tsk tsk, how pitiful.”
“……It is pitiful, but it’s not something that couldn’t have happened.”
Lia had thought they were falsely accused, but except for Ivan, they had genuinely committed crimes. And all of them were deeply connected to the Imperial Family.
“But even so, isn’t it rather ambiguous to call it a crime? Gruut’s only guilt is making the Elixir at the Emperor’s command. The others were also unjustly punished. These are things they could easily have avoided if they’d been more careful.”
“That’s just how the world works. Whether you deny it or not, if the majority says you’re guilty, then you’re guilty.”
“Tsk. This is why I can’t stand humans.”
It was amusing to hear him say that while he was currently helping that human.
“So we have two left?”
“Francis and Henry Rayfle. I found both.”
Lia and Kaiser checked Henry Rayfle’s record first. The moment they saw it, both of them frowned.
“This is too much.”
“……There’s no reason given?”
Henry Rayfle’s death sentence was simple.
His painting displeased the Emperor.
Unlike the others, he had committed no minor transgression. He simply received execution because it displeased the Emperor.
“Why are there so many garbage emperors in this world?”
Kaiser let out a hollow laugh, muttering whether all humans were truly like this.
Only Lia continued to think deeply.
“Generally, tyrants were said to behead people on the spot if things displeased them, so it doesn’t seem entirely unusual…….”
“But he was sent to the Mansion! Doesn’t that mean this was planned from the beginning?”
This time, Lia couldn’t refute Kaiser’s words.
“Well…… since there doesn’t seem to be anything to find from this person, let’s check the last one.”
The only one left was Francis.
Kaiser checked what he had already noted, and this time he was shocked for an entirely different reason.
“Treason…….”
“Complicity in the Second Princess’s treason. He was her guard knight at the time. As a Weapon Master…… he alone would have matched the strength of the entire Knight Order.”
The scale of the charges was entirely different from the others.
“Imperial Calendar Year 210. The Second Princess plotted to assassinate the Emperor and commit treason. In response, the Emperor arrested the Second Princess, and during that process, Francis attacked the Knight Order to rescue her…….”
The Emperor’s rage must have been severe. The Second Princess and all factions that supported her had three generations exterminated, and the principal conspirators were executed after extensive torture.
The Second Princess certainly could not escape the Emperor’s wrath.
‘So that’s why they spirited her away.’
Of course, it didn’t last long. She was recaptured just a week after escaping the Imperial Palace.
“The Second Princess was executed on the spot. Francis…….”
Lia couldn’t bring herself to read the rest. The details of how horribly the Second Princess died were written there.
After the Second Princess died, Francis immediately attacked the Emperor, and the Emperor sealed Francis’s Aura. It was essentially a death sentence for him as a knight.
“……He must have been quite remarkable. The fact that despite doing such a thing, the Emperor didn’t kill him outright but tried to keep him close shows how much he valued Francis’s Martial Skill.”
Unlike the others, Francis was not sentenced to execution immediately. The Emperor had wanted to sway him because he valued his Martial Skill.
“When he failed, they sent him to the Mansion.”
“A beautiful trap with nothing inside.”
A man too valuable to kill, too dangerous to let live.
When Francis had first arrived at the Mansion, he recalled him unfolding his Martial Skill with a venomous aura.
‘That was definitely the gleam of one vowing revenge.’
But in the end, he never escaped the Mansion and ultimately became an offering in the Underground Chamber.
“Perhaps…… Francis loved the Second Princess.”
“Huh? How would you know that?”
“Just intuition.”
It went beyond a simple master-servant relationship; Francis was consumed by deep loneliness. And at times, he displayed a manner of deeply longing for someone.
Lia felt that Francis then resembled herself — waiting endlessly for Lucian for five years.
“Year 210. It’s now Year 330…….”
Kaiser muttered something under his breath then, still examining Francis’s documents.
“What is it?”
“This…… I feel like I’ve heard about this before.”
“You’ve heard about it? Where?”
“What was it again…… I’m pretty sure someone mentioned something about the Emperor…….”
Kaiser squeezed his head, trying to recall the memory.
“Argh! This is so frustrating! What on earth was it!”
“……Just tell me when you remember. That’s not the important part anyway.”
“No, but it seems like it was important information…….”
Leaving Kaiser to his muttering, Lia gathered the documents she had organized.
Though she hadn’t exchanged feelings with them the way she had with Lucian, they had still lived under the same roof with her.
Now that she knew their pasts, she was curious about what state of mind they must have been in while staying at the Mansion.
‘Did they find relief in merely surviving? Or did they live on because they couldn’t die?’
Whatever the case, they surely didn’t want to become sacrifices without even knowing it.
After a moment of contemplation, Lia lifted her head.
“Kaiser, let’s visit the Mansion tomorrow.”
“Huh?”
Kaiser, who had been pulling at his hair, froze and turned to look at her.
“The records here are only sketchy. If we examine their belongings at the Mansion, we might be able to find something.”
“Hmm…… But didn’t we find nothing when we looked through the diary?”
“We were so focused on the Underground Chamber business that we didn’t really examine it properly then. And even if it’s not the diary, I have a feeling there might be some clue.”
Seeing the determination in Lia’s expression, Kaiser nodded reluctantly.
“Fine then. Should we go today instead? Age mentioned yesterday that he might need to stop by the Mansion for a moment.”
Looking out the window, the sun was setting. There was nothing stopping them from going now, but Lia’s thoughts turned to Lucian.
‘……Did he talk to them all right?’
She had asked him to speak with his parents first, but she was worried that Lucian might have been hurt in the process.
‘Either way, I need to talk to him before going to the Mansion.’
“I’m going to go see Lucian for a bit. You organize things here.”
“What? Just me? Hey! Where are you——!”
Kaiser called out from behind, but Lia cleanly ignored him and headed toward the Imperial Palace where Lucian was.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————