The Cooking Princess - Chapter 116

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

The tribesmen, shocked by the weight of Claude’s words about “collusion” spoken aloud, couldn’t even make excuses and could only nervously watch his reactions, not knowing what to do.

No matter how much they commanded monsters, they had never brought any monsters inside the encampment, and even if they attempted a surprise attack on Claude from behind now, the chances of success weren’t very high.

After all, Claude was the Luzhiere Empire’s only Sword Master.

Knowing this fact better than anyone, Claude maintained his composure and even seized the letter to examine it thoroughly. Then, uncharacteristically, he spoke to the tribesmen with a warm smile.

“Whoa, whoa. Don’t be so scared. When I said collusion, it was just a light joke.”

Claude’s face bore a bright smile unlike any they had seen before.

“Future actions are more important than past ones, don’t you think?”

“Y-yes, that’s right.”

His subordinates had been caught secretly colluding behind his back, yet instead of being angry, he looked pleased. The Tribal Chief felt even more anxious and watched Claude’s reactions carefully.

“I’d even like to praise you all. This is the most satisfying thing you’ve done so far. Very well done.”

“…Excuse me?”

Yes. They deserved plenty of praise.

He had been wondering how to draw out Chloe Garnet, but he never expected her to pull such a cute stunt.

Claude smiled with elation at finally catching her tail.

“You demanded trustworthy evidence from Chloe Garnet, didn’t you? That’s what it seems like from the letter’s context.”

“Yes, yes. That’s correct.”

Claude muttered that the timing was perfect and gave instructions with a chilling smile.

“Accept the proposal, but since this alone isn’t enough to believe that she is Chloe Garnet, write back telling her to come to Milk Rock in two days.”

Claude gestured for the tribesmen to take dictation of his words.

“Add that she must come alone without bringing anyone else, and I’ll overlook this collusion attempt.”

He seemed ready to massacre the tribesmen immediately if they didn’t comply.

Having been caught red-handed trying to betray Claude, the tribesmen had no other options available,

so they had no choice but to write the reply according to Claude’s words.

After some time passed, Claude watched the letter naturally disappear through teleportation and pondered for a moment.

“It doesn’t seem like she created new magic specifically for letter delivery.”

He quickly noticed that the magic cast on Chloe’s letter wasn’t complex.

It didn’t contain any particular magical power, and if Claude’s guess was correct, that letter probably couldn’t travel very far distances.

“Lucky break.”

It seemed like she had temporarily resorted to this method while trying to find ways to contact Claude’s allies after communications were cut off.

If the distance increased even slightly, proper contact would be impossible.

He decided to relocate the tribal encampment to a much more distant location and continued his thoughts.

Behind this would be cooperation between the Magic Tower and the Temple.

Given Chloe Garnet’s nature, she would try to somehow persuade people on Claude’s side to reduce casualties during the war. Keeping this in mind, he had monitored the barbarians who were most likely to betray, and the results were good.

Even if Chloe noticed it was a trap and didn’t come out, it didn’t matter.

Having raided and caught them in the act of collusion, the barbarians would stay quiet for a while.

***

Chloe tilted her head while reading the letter sent by the tribesmen.

‘Come alone?’

As soon as Chloe received the letter, she felt a strange sense of unease and took it to Shuel to ask.

She asked if he thought it would be good for her to go to prove that it was indeed sent by Chloe Garnet.

“Absolutely not, Chloe.”

Shuel’s thoughts were identical to Chloe’s.

“Come out alone because they’re suspicious? It would make more sense if they asked for more physical evidence, but wanting to meet with you? That’s actually dangerous for them.”

Shuel also pointed out that unlike usual, the handwriting in the reply was hastily scrawled.

“It seems they were caught by Claude while writing the letter.”

Chloe’s complexion turned pale upon hearing Shuel’s words.

‘Given Claude’s personality, there’s no way he’d leave alone someone who tried to betray him.’

When she became distressed thinking that the tribesmen had suffered great harm because of the letter she hastily sent, Shuel gently consoled her.

“Calm down, Chloe. It’s not your fault that the letter was intercepted.”

Shuel spoke in a gentle tone, telling her there was nothing for her to worry about and that they would surely win.

However, the battlefield situation wasn’t very good.

No matter how good a strategy Shuel devised, whenever Duke Claude, the Luzhiere Empire’s only Sword Master, swept through once, their previous advantages would return to nothing.

The mention in the original work of him being the strongest Sword Master wasn’t there for nothing.

Moreover, they were completely cut off from contact with the Magic Tower and Temple, so they couldn’t expect their cooperation either.

‘I don’t think Shurya and Eshir would just sit back and do nothing, but…’

Even if they wanted to cooperate, they needed proper communication to attempt anything.

Claude had very thoroughly cut off all communication channels in advance, preventing the Temple, Magic Tower, and Imperial Palace from having any contact with each other.

Not only did he deploy people at places where letters might go, but he even personally conducted patrols.

So even though the Luzhiere Empire’s Imperial Palace was being invaded by Claude, who had joined hands with foreign forces, they couldn’t send any meaningful reinforcements.

***

Contrary to Chloe’s conviction that the Magic Tower, Temple, and Imperial Palace were each isolated, Shurya and Eshir were currently in the same space.

Regarding the crisis facing the Luzhiere Empire, Eshir clicked his tongue and said,

“Look how well the country is running.”

Eshir openly showed his displeasure, and Shurya also didn’t hide her grim expression.

The reason they were together was simple.

Claude’s side hadn’t noticed yet, but

when the Luzhiere Empire’s internal conflict erupted and the Magic Tower’s communication magic went dead, Shurya and Eshir happened to be meeting at that exact moment.

The periodic meetings between the Pope and the Merchant Prince were top secret, so even Claude hadn’t yet realized that the Pope and Merchant Prince were together.

“Whether it’s misfortune or fortune, really.”

“Since the timing was good, I think we should consider this case fortunate.”

Shurya began devising justification for how to gain recognition for the cooperation between the Magic Tower and Temple with cold eyes.

“Say that I anticipated Claude would wage war and made the first move to secure your cooperation.”

“That’s quite clever thinking, but what about being completely cut off from contact with Chloe?”

Since they might accidentally kill Shuel’s forces if they made a mistake, Eshir was extremely cautious.

“Then what else can we do? Are we just going to leave Claude alone after he killed mages?”

“Mages aren’t punching bags. Of course we absolutely won’t let it slide.”

Claude had openly killed skilled mages they had dispatched.

It seemed he was taking Eshir lightly since he had become the new Merchant Prince without any major incidents.

Shurya quickly organized the scenario.

“Regarding the secret murder of priests as well, we can say that Claude is invading the Empire without regard for means and methods, purely for power. If we say he even borrowed foreign forces for this, people will accept the cooperation between the Magic Tower and Temple in God’s name.”

The priests could openly judge the death of their colleagues ‘in God’s name,’ which wasn’t bad either.

“Here’s the key point. Claude didn’t lead the war reluctantly to survive due to the Emperor’s checks, but dragged others in out of greed to obtain the throne himself.”

“Ah. Spread the word that he forcibly created justification due to his greed for the throne? That’s not a bad scenario.”

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