The Baddest Villainess Is Back - Chapter 9

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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 9
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The Chamberlain answered in an even tone.
“Nonsense! That’s absurd! Anyone can see I’m the victim here! Do you know how many times this woman struck me? Why am I under confinement and she isn’t? Crime of Insulting the Imperial Family, my foot! It’s Attempted Assassination of Imperial Family!”
“It is His Majesty’s command.”
The Chamberlain answered with perfect composure, not even blinking.
The Second Prince gritted his teeth and seized the Chamberlain by the collar.
“Don’t give me that! Ask him again! This is ridiculous!”
“…Second Prince.”
When the Chamberlain called to him quietly, the Second Prince—Yuldian—hesitated and released his grip.
“I shall convey your words to His Majesty. However, the orders have been issued as I’ve stated, and I trust you will return to your quarters.”
“…Damn it.”
“His Majesty is a just ruler. Should you have grievances, they will be resolved swiftly.”
“…Just, my eye! Everyone knows he only favors his brother and that bastard!”
He muttered fiercely, glared at Roselin, then spun around and disappeared down the corridor.
“I shall escort you.”
“I—I’ll come with you, Lady Roselin!”
“No. Go and see a physician. It would be shameful if my betrothed were seen like this.”
Roselin spoke with cool, almost ruthless precision, then turned away.
“Show me the way.”
“Of course, Lady Roselin.”
Roselin turned from Arma and followed the Chamberlain down the hall.
* * *
The chamber they entered was lavish and immense—a study of commanding grandeur.
Everything was inlaid with gold, and the space resembled a treasure vault bursting with the rarest of artifacts.
On one side lay a collection of precious gems; on the other, preserved specimens of exotic beasts.
Yet it was the figure seated on the sofa at the center that arrested her attention.
Hair that had once gleamed golden now faded to a dull brown, eyes a pale blue verging on gray.
Though he was approaching fifty, the lines etched across his face aside, he did not appear particularly aged.
His hair was disheveled, his garments so loose and casual they seemed to reject any notion of formality.
Had the clothes not been so costly, she might have mistaken him for a vagabond loitering in some back alley rather than an arrogant and noble emperor.
Yet he was perpetually smiling, making his true thoughts impossible to discern.
In that respect, perhaps even more inscrutable than Gerun.
Roselin offered a proper bow to the master of the empire.
“I stand before the brilliant and noble sun.”
“Oh, from a woman who has caused quite the amusing incident in the very palace of that brilliant and noble sun, don’t you think that greeting is a touch embarrassing?”
His rebuke, wrapped in courtly elegance, drew a quiet laugh from Roselin.
As she stood there, uncertain what to do, the emperor regarded her meaningfully, stroked his chin, and gave a slight nod.
His voice was casual and dismissive.
“Well, sit down.”
At the emperor’s terse command, Roselin complied without hesitation, settling into the sofa opposite him.
“The Lady of House Bellion seems rather different than I recall. Am I mistaken?”
The emperor looked her over from head to toe, then lifted his teacup and offered his assessment.
“I’ve had much to occupy myself of late.”
“Yes, I’ve heard. Quite the unfortunate affair.”
He spoke with an expression that betrayed not the slightest sympathy.
“So then.”
The emperor set down his teacup and looked up at her.
“I’m curious—what possessed someone so cautious, so relentlessly devoted to self-preservation, to commit such a reckless act?”
What was possibly running through the mind of such an irresolute, cowardly fool?
Roselin easily translated the emperor’s ‘elegant courtly speech’ into plain meaning.
“I wish to annul my engagement to the Third Prince.”
Roselin spoke those words with perfect composure as she lifted the teacup the Chamberlain had brought for her.
For a moment, the emperor seemed not to comprehend. His expression shifted to confusion, and he let out a hollow laugh before repeating the words back to her.
“…I beg your pardon?”
“I wish to annul my engagement to the Third Prince, Your Majesty.”
Roselin repeated the words slowly and deliberately, enunciating each syllable.
The emperor then smiled and spoke with benevolent condescension.
“I hear you’ve suffered a terrible shock. Perhaps you’ve sustained a head injury. Let me send your physician for a proper examination.”
Roselin held the emperor’s gaze for a moment, then smiled faintly.
“Instead, I shall resolve two of the problems currently plaguing Your Majesty’s mind.”
“……Two problems plaguing mine?”
The Emperor posed the question with an expression of mild amusement.
Roselin nodded without so much as a blink.
“Yes. The negotiations with Kaluta, which shares our northern border, and the series of disappearances occurring across the realm of late. I shall resolve both.”
At Roselin’s almost listless words, the Emperor’s eyes narrowed with sudden interest.
Roselin waited for his response, tension coiled tight within her. It was, in truth, half gamble.
‘But if my instincts hold true, the major events should unfold much as I predict.’
And the negotiations with Kaluta, along with these disappearances, were precisely the sort of matters that could reshape the empire’s history, if handled correctly.
The Emperor’s brow twitched once, then he turned to Roselin with a smile that brimmed with meaning.
The Kaluta negotiations, the disappearances whose scope grew steadily wider—both were indeed preoccupying him at present.
Few knew of this matter.
To prevent baseless anxiety from spreading, he had seen to it that information leaked no further than his immediate circle.
‘……Yet here a sickly princess sits, scarce able to leave her chambers, and she knows of it.’
Her pallid complexion offered no appearance of health, yet her eyes were sharp and lucid.
‘This is timid and frail?’
From her eyes alone, one might believe she had taken lives.
There was no wavering in her gaze, no uncertainty. Yet neither was it arrogance or conceit.
To dismiss her words as fancy would be foolish—she had struck directly at what the Emperor himself deemed most troublesome.
“How curious. The Roselin Bellion I know is not the sort of lady to speak thus.”
“I attempted to end my life, Your Majesty. What greater fear could I harbor? Death is the deepest terror mortals know.”
Besides, Roselin had endured a week of savage torture. There was little left in this world that could frighten her now.
The Emperor’s manner, however, seemed considerably lighter than one might gather from such recollections.
His face was captivating in its beauty; his voice was light and easy.
He possessed a certain careless, almost flippant air—as though he were some sheltered young nobleman who had never known hardship—and there emanated from him no trace of imperial gravitas. The smile that played about his lips held not a glimmer of circumspection.
He sat with arms folded, one leg swinging idly.
To judge by his smile alone, he seemed to regard the entire affair with the lightest of hearts.
Yet Roselin knew the Emperor’s true nature.
This man was never to be underestimated. So she revealed no weakness, no opening.
He was capable of severing a man’s throat while wearing that very smile—a creature of terrible cruelty.
Whether someone committed the heinous blasphemy of insulting the imperial family or what his own children did mattered little to him.
The Emperor simply observed, watching from the shadows.
Once, all had called him the Clown Emperor—a man bereft of dignity or decorum.
‘Yet a year hence, he will purge the realm with terrible thoroughness.’
One dawn, the Emperor suddenly dispatched inspectors across the land, visiting every noble house in secret.
Even House Bellion was not spared.
When those who habitually scorned the Emperor went to remonstrate, demanding to know what madness possessed him, his face remained fixed in its smile.
Smiling, he nodded as though in understanding, and with a smile, he beckoned one of the boldest questioners to his side—and then……
With a laugh as easy and mirthful as ever, yet somehow hollow, he severed the man’s head in a single motion.
He was the first noble the Emperor had executed on the charge of insulting the imperial family.
The crimes uncovered afterward proved to number in the dozens.
Three months of purge.
By the time those tumultuous events concluded, a third of the nobility had perished, and another third had lost half their fortunes.
House Bellion could not escape the fallout.
The Emperor, having scrutinized every branch and line, identified those he deemed refuse—the unworthy, the disposable—and pruned them away entirely.
None dared resist. The Emperor’s power was absolute.
And in that reckoning, the Duke’s second son—Roselin’s second uncle—was executed.
He had been notorious for his debauchery, and the scandal laid bare was so shocking that even the Duke could not shield him.
Yet Roselin, being betrothed to the Third Prince, was left untouched.
In any case, the Emperor was a madman.
‘He called it education, listing each of the heir’s parents’ crimes before their children before taking their heads.’
Then he conferred their titles upon the heirs right then and there.
Before the corpses of their own parents.
“Hahahaha!”
As Roselin sat lost in contemplation, the Emperor burst into loud, ringing laughter.

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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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