The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 71

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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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The Forsaken Crown Prince’s Ghost Bride — Chapter 71

“Damn it all!”
Lucian hurled the curse as he threw himself at the door again and again—bang, bang—but it wouldn’t budge an inch.
After fainting and regaining consciousness, he found himself in Leopold’s room, and now he’d been imprisoned here for a week.
At first he’d forced the door open and caused a commotion, but the knights had restrained him. When he tried to escape using Magic, he couldn’t cast it.
They’d installed Magic Nullification throughout the room itself.
‘I hear you’re a mage. If you listen to me without complaint, I’ll lift the restriction. But if you resist, I’ll have no choice but to keep using this method.’
That was what Ruber had said directly when he came on the third day of Lucian’s confinement, as reports of his continued rampage reached him.
As long as he remained in this room, he couldn’t use Magic.
His sword had been confiscated long ago, knights stood guard rigidly outside the door, and every window was sealed to prevent escape.
Complete imprisonment. He needed to return to the Mansion as soon as possible, but he couldn’t, and the frustration was suffocating.
Knock, knock.
“Your Highness, I’ve brought your lunch.”
As Lucian ran his hands through his tangled hair, he noticed Dain wheeling in a cart.
When Lucian merely glared without approaching, Dain silently set the food from the cart onto the table.
“Your Highness, wouldn’t it be wise to accept the proposal now?”
“If you were in my position, would the words ‘I will accept Your Majesty’s proposal’ really come out of your mouth?”
As Lucian huffed irritably before collapsing onto the sofa, Dain quietly sat across from him.
“It’s not a bad proposal for Your Highness, truly.”
“Did His Majesty order you to convince me?”
“This is my personal opinion. Please hear me out and consider it.”
Lucian’s eyes said: go ahead, speak your mind.
“If Your Highness performs the Crown Prince’s role admirably, you’ll receive compensation befitting that effort. And when the Crown Prince eventually awakens and regains his freedom, His Majesty promises to give you a new identity.”
Lucian’s eyes remained obstinate.
“Moreover, you’ll receive all the same education the Crown Prince has been receiving. What an honor that alone would be! Once you learn it, it will surely prove useful later.”
“That sounds more like a disadvantage than a benefit.”
“Ahem! Well, in any case, His Majesty will support your acting performance in various ways, and carefully selected servants will be placed at your side so you can live comfortably in the meantime.”
Dain continued with various other appeals to convince Lucian, but none of it really registered.
Or rather, it would be more accurate to say he was flabbergasted.
“You’re talking about things you’re obligated to do anyway as though you’re granting some great favor?”
“Your Highness?”
“Paying me for the performance is only natural. The fruits of my labor should be mine to keep later. And you’ll have me do every task under the sun but won’t even guarantee rest time? Honor is worthless. Nobody’s going to know about it anyway, so what good is honor?”
As the saying goes, the difference between one sound and another is everything—Lucian had grasped the blind spots exactly.
“What will the Imperial Family be willing to sacrifice? Can the Imperial Family truly grant me full authority over something that isn’t the Crown Prince’s role?”
“Authority, you mean……?”
“For instance, political matters.”
“Y-Your Highness!”
“Of course, I won’t do anything that would jeopardize the Crown Prince’s position or succession to the throne, or cause any reckless disturbances. But I have no intention of simply obeying your every command.”
If he agreed to play the Crown Prince, the Imperial Family would parade him about like a mere puppet, controlling his every word and deed—not to mention what he ate and wore.
‘They wouldn’t do that to Leopold, so why would they do it to me?’
He wouldn’t stupidly move according to their wishes.
“If you take me back to the Mansion, I’ll gladly act as the Crown Prince’s stand-in.”
“Ugh—I’ve told you that’s impossible, several times now.”
Lucian’s face twisted in displeasure.
He’d already made that proposal to Dain multiple times—to take him to the Haunted Mansion. But it was rejected each time. The reason was simple.
“If we took you there, you’d run away, and we’d be the ones in trouble.”
They were convinced Lucian would flee, hiding from people’s eyes.
“I’ve told you a hundred times I won’t run away! I just need to go get something!”
“Do you think you’re the first person to say such things before attempting escape? Besides, Your Highness has combat ability and uses Magic, does he not? How can we be sure you won’t slip away from us in an instant and disappear?”
“Ha, I’m going to go insane.”
“If you tell us what you wish to retrieve, we’ll either procure something new for you or go to the Mansion ourselves and bring it back.”
How could he say here that he wanted to see Lia?
When Lucian, tapping his leg anxiously, insisted he had to go in person, Dain shot back an even more firm ‘NO!’
“Your Highness… if you continue to be stubborn like this, only you will suffer. Right now His Majesty is showing you consideration, but I cannot predict what may happen later.”
“That’s quite the consideration he’s showing.”
“Your Highness…….”
Looking at his pleading expression, it didn’t seem like an empty threat. Lucian also knew he couldn’t keep this up forever.
‘But I have to see Lia.’
They’d parted without making amends, and now he hadn’t come home for days. What if she misunderstood? The worry gnawed at him.
He couldn’t afford to continue this struggle with the Imperial Family.
Lucian squeezed his eyes shut, wrestling with the decision, then opened his mouth.
“Fine. I’ll accept that proposal.”
Dain’s face brightened. Just as he was about to leap to his feet, Lucian raised his index finger.
“But I have conditions.”
After hearing what followed, Dain nodded, thinking the conditions sufficiently reasonable.

* * *

“Ugh, I’m late.”
The moment Kaiser arrived in the Odrian Empire, he hurried straight toward the Haunted Mansion.
He’d wanted to make it in time for Lucian’s birthday as quickly as possible, but those accursed elders kept holding him back, and so he’d been delayed.
“Ha, I wonder what Lia will nag me about…….”
He’d mentioned he might arrive late, but he wouldn’t be able to escape her scolding.
Kaiser steeled himself mentally as he headed toward the Haunted Mansion in the distance.
Since he’d come from the forest, he entered through the rear entrance.
“I have arrived—hm?”
Just as he was about to announce his arrival in his usual manner, Kaiser sensed something strange permeating the Mansion.
There was a peculiar heaviness to the dust settling throughout the place, as though it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time.
“Something’s off.”
Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t sense any presence in the Mansion. Lia was a spirit, so he wouldn’t expect to sense her, but the fact that he couldn’t sense Lucian either…….
“Did they go down to the village?”
Lia had definitely hinted that he’d be arriving around today or tomorrow.
Everything felt wrong. As Kaiser passed by the Kitchen, a stench assaulted his nose, and he hastily pinched it shut.
“Ugh! What in the world is this smell?!”
Grimacing, when he investigated the source of the reek, his eyes fell on a dining table laden with food.
Every dish on the table had gone bad.
“Not a single one’s been touched.”
It felt as though everything had been set out and left to rot for days. An ominous chill crept over him.
“Lia! Lucian! Where are you both?!”
Kaiser rushed out of the Kitchen and began searching for them. It wasn’t long before he found Lia.
“Lia!”
[Lucian!]
Lia had been by the Main Gate. She came flying toward him urgently, but then halted when she saw Kaiser.
Her bright smile faltered, her mouth slowly falling, and her expression crumpled into despair.
Her spirit momentarily scattered, and she collapsed onto the floor.
Witnessing the friend who was always confident and fearless crumble like this struck Kaiser hard.
[It wasn’t Lucian…….]
Kaiser realized whose name she had called.
[K-Kaiser! Please, help me! Lucian left me! No—he disappeared!]
“Lia, calm down first. Tell me step by step what happened.”
Lia, who had been so desperate she couldn’t even maintain her spirit form, fell silent at Kaiser’s words.
She then recounted the events as calmly as she could, but as she continued, her agitation grew, and she finally lost her composure entirely.
[At first, I thought he was angry with me and just wouldn’t come home for a day or two. But now it’s been a whole week, and he still hasn’t come back! Something must have happened to Lucian!]
“…….”
[Did the Imperial Family try to eliminate him? Or did they kidnap him? Or did he get caught up in some kind of attack? I’m losing my mind with worry! And I hate that I’m stuck here and can’t leave this place!]
Lia seized the Chain that had manifested around her neck and pulled with all her strength.
The Chain appeared automatically whenever she tried to leave the Mansion.
If it was appearing even though she wasn’t trying to cross the fence and was still within the Mansion’s walls, it meant she’d attempted escape countless times in desperation.
As she recklessly poured her power into pulling, the Mansion began showing signs of damage throughout.
Lia, who had lived as an Earth-Bound Spirit for three hundred years. Because of that, the Mansion and she existed in constant mutual influence.
Sensing that the Mansion might collapse if this continued, Kaiser clapped his palms together, gathering mana between them.
Boom!
As the wave of mana rippled outward, Lia returned to her senses. The trembling Mansion steadied.
“Struggling won’t solve anything. Calm yourself.”
[……okay.]
Lia’s face contorted as though she were about to cry. Witnessing her anxiety at such levels—a first for him—paradoxically sharpened his own mind.
“So if I’m understanding correctly: you two argued on his birthday, Lucian left, and hasn’t come back since?”
[Yes! Exactly!]
“Before he left, did he show any signs? Was he planning to run away, or——”
His words trailed off; Kaiser fell silent. Lia’s expression had twisted like a demon’s.
“Ahem. I suppose that’s not it, then.”
[There’s no way Lucian would do that! Right before he left, he……!]
“He what?”
Lia’s lips quivered. She couldn’t bring herself to say that he’d been confessing his feelings to her all along.
[Anyway! There was absolutely no sign he wanted to leave the Mansion! When he went to the village, it was more of an angry impulse, really…….]
“Then what in the world were you two fighting about that made him go out like that?”
[When I saw Lucian coming up from the basement…….]
“What?”
Kaiser’s expression darkened.
[Eight years ago, when priests invaded the Mansion, the Barrier Magic I had set was lifted. I’d forgotten about it until now. So when I saw Lucian coming up from the basement, I was startled. The problem was…… Lucian going down there wasn’t a simple mistake.]
“So he was going in and out of the basement repeatedly?”
[Apparently.]
If Lia had indeed been startled upon seeing Lucian emerge from the basement, she might have scolded him right then. But it didn’t seem serious enough to warrant him leaving the house in anger.
[When I tried to hide the basement matter, he said he was still seeing him as a child who needed protection…….]
Ah, if that was the reason, Lucian’s anger was entirely justified.
Wasn’t it similar to how, during his Hatchling years, the Adult Dragons never told him anything, treating him as too young to understand?
“It’s difficult to assign blame. Certainly, the basement is hard to explain to Lucian, and Lucian would naturally be upset about things not being shared with him, being kept in the dark.”
[I…… I made Lucian angry. Does he not even want to see my face now? Is that why he hasn’t come back?]
Had Lia been human, her eyes would surely have been brimming with tears.
“Why do things have to happen this way? Lucian isn’t the type to act like that. The fact that he hasn’t come home for a whole week suggests something happened when he went down to the village.”
‘The real issue is that Lia’s anxiety is far worse than I expected.’
In the nearly three hundred years he’d known her, she was never one to be shaken by such things.
Lucian was human, after all—he wouldn’t live long. Lia knew that well, yet somewhere along the way, she’d grown deeply attached to him.
‘But this case is different from before.’
He was the first person to ever face Lia directly, speak with her, and regard her as a person with her own will.
Before him, Kaiser had communicated with her via a blackboard, but surely direct contact was more effective and touched the heart more deeply than that indirect exchange.
And Lia had cared for Lucian with genuine sincerity. They’d moved beyond the realm of a fleeting connection into something far deeper.
‘I feel the same way.’
Lucian had become just as precious to Kaiser as he was to Lia.
He too would take this matter seriously and track down Lucian’s whereabouts.
“A week is plenty of time for trouble to brew. I’m going down to the village to search for Lucian.”
[If only I could leave the Mansion like you…….]
Kaiser turned back as he reached the Main Gate.
Lia stood there, eyes vacant, the Chain draped around her neck.
He found himself moved by pity for her, bound by her spirit to the Mansion.
More than anyone, it was she who wanted to find Lucian—not himself.
So Kaiser resolved inwardly to do his utmost on her behalf as well.
“Don’t worry. I’ll find him no matter what it takes.”
[……I’m counting on you.]
Kaiser blazed up in flames and Teleported to the village in an instant.
Watching the fire scatter in the wind, Lia sank deeper into her despair.
Writhe, writhe.
The floor of the Mansion undulated, crawling up along Lia’s legless form and coiling around her entire body.
Though her spectral form could not feel true sensation, Lia felt her entire being grow crushingly heavy in the depths of her soul.
In an instant, the space she had cherished as her sanctuary transformed into a prison.

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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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