The Cooking Princess - Chapter 117

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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It wasn’t that Claude was pushed into rebellion by threats to his life and mother,

but if they could make people perceive that he simply started a rebellion out of his desire to become emperor of the Luzhiere Empire.

If that happened, Claude, whose justification was already weak, would fall on his own.

The king of the Northern Continent, who installed a bastard and illegally invaded another country, would also likely face international condemnation and the crushing blow of diplomatic severance from other nations.

‘Unlike when he took the Empress hostage to provoke Claude, the Emperor doesn’t seem to have any immediate intention of killing her.’

Harming the Empress in the current situation would be a bad move.

So it would be safe to assume that Shuel and Chloe were somehow stopping it from the inside.

Having thought that far, Eshir was curious about what specific plan Shurya had in mind to destroy Claude’s justification and listened carefully to her words.

She took a moment to catch her breath, then began listing the elements that would undermine Claude’s justification.

“We could find and reveal evidence of prior exchanges between Claude and the Northern Continent’s princess, or convince people that Claude lacks filial piety toward his mother.”

Having said that much, Shurya pondered for a moment before adding one more thing.

“If not that, then we could say that Shuel had no desire for the throne.”

As soon as Eshir heard Shurya’s words, he responded with a dubious tone as if she was talking nonsense.

“Prince Shuel has no desire for the throne? That last one would be the hardest to prove.”

“So just think about it excluding the last option.”

Not long after Eshir and Shurya had been pondering this way, proclamations were posted.

They were proclamations calling for the swift expulsion of Duke Claude, the traitor who abandons his parents, so that His Highness the Prince could stably inherit the throne.

The people seemed to show great interest in those proclamations, even while murmuring among themselves.

The situation was so sensitive that they couldn’t rashly take sides while watching Shuel and Claude, but it seemed the chaotic succession situation in the Imperial Court had already become a major issue among the people.

Eshir, who had been blankly staring at a copy of the proclamation, said.

“It would be nice if we had a bigger blow.”

Shurya agreed with Eshir’s words.

As he said, rather than such meaningless content, posting proclamations with more provocative content that would make the people turn their backs on Claude seemed more effective.

“But there’s nothing like that.”

At Shurya’s dubious words, Eshir also agreed dubiously.

“If there was, we two wouldn’t be putting our heads together worrying about it now. We would have just gone for it.”

If only they could have smoothly shared the situation with Chloe, Shurya and Eshir would have immediately attacked Claude.

It was troublesome that Pope Shurya and Mage Tower Master Eshir couldn’t know in detail how the Luzhiere Empire’s military was currently moving.

“Among the Imperial Court people, the most popular with the people is… hmm. Only Chloe, who isn’t even an Imperial Court person yet.”

The two exchanged glances for a moment.

Shurya sighed deeply and said.

“Can’t be helped, right?”

The very next day, Shurya scattered proclamations throughout the Luzhiere Empire that he had written after earnest discussion with Eshir.

[The bastard not born from a legitimate Imperial marriage, Duke Claude, is simply blinded by greed and defiling the order of the Luzhiere Empire…]

The Temple announced that it wanted to somehow restore the current situation to normal and recover relations with the Imperial Court, even revealing the fact that the priests they had dispatched had died at Claude’s hands.

This was the Temple’s official declaration of making Claude an enemy.

The conclusion that Shurya and Eshir reached after pondering all night was to pretend to act differently while secretly cooperating internally.

And to solidify this internal cooperation, they would initially pretend to move separately.

This was because Shurya currently had no capacity to suppress internal dissatisfaction.

‘Claude isn’t easy either, so as time passes, complaints will actually rise about why we’re not cooperating with the Magic Tower.’

The idea was that naturally leading it toward a reconciliation gesture in the latter half would also help with the reconciliation between the Magic Tower and Temple.

***

Seeing the Temple designate Claude as an enemy, Chloe fell into deep thought.

The Garnet Estate was still occasionally receiving news that it was safe, but it was in a situation where it could fall at any time.

As for the Imperial army, since the war situation changed dramatically whenever Claude stepped forward, it was difficult to evaluate positively.

‘Shurya stepped forward for my sake… well, maybe not that far, but anyway she came to the forefront.’

Now it was her turn to move, but she had already been caught by Claude once when approaching the tribesmen.

She could make contact once more, but the success rate of negotiation would be lower than before.

‘Maybe the tribesmen will pretend to cooperate with me while using me as bait to gain Claude’s trust.’

Since she had already been caught once, sticking to the same method wasn’t a very wise choice.

Then I’ll do what I can right now.

Chloe barely composed her pale complexion and organized the documents.

And sure enough, she found something strange.

“Shuel, it seems the Northern Continent’s nobles have illegally set foot on Luzhiere Empire territory.”

With this, the Temple could intervene in the marriage between the Northern Continent’s princess and Claude.

Since they had forcibly pushed through a marriage that Felix III opposed, he wouldn’t back down this much, but it could at least cause confusion among his supporters.

“…Father must not have been able to check all of that.”

True to his name as the War Emperor, Emperor Felix III paid almost no attention to domestic affairs.

The reason there were nobles who subtly sided with the Empress even in the current situation was because the Empress had acted as regent in that position while the Emperor wasn’t paying attention to domestic affairs.

Chloe began meticulously examining the parts that Shuel, who had gone to the battlefield, and the Emperor, who seemed half out of his mind, had missed.

And after some more time, news came that Mage Tower Master Eshir was stepping forward.

The Mage Tower Master, who had lost a mage he cherished, was currently extremely angry and was annihilating Claude’s forces wherever he saw them.

With the Temple’s warning and the Mage Tower Master’s joining, the situation seemed to favor Shuel’s side, and there was hope that they might win quite smoothly.

Right at that moment.

“Cough, gasp…!”

The Emperor, who had been sitting with a blank face all day, suddenly vomited dark blood and collapsed.

The news that the Emperor, who hadn’t even gone to war and was most safely protected inside the Imperial Palace, had suddenly collapsed while spitting blood, greatly shook the people of the Luzhiere Empire.

Chloe wanted to call a priest, but there was no way to do so with the Temple’s communication network cut off.

So she called the physicians residing in the Imperial Palace to examine the Emperor’s condition as quickly as possible, but…

“Your, Your Majesty the Emperor… has passed away.”

Despite such efforts, the Emperor died in less than a few hours.

Chloe’s mind went completely blank.

‘What…? The Emperor died?’

Since the original story had been greatly twisted, it was possible that the Emperor had died by poisoning unlike in the original.

But what really bothered Chloe was something else.

‘The Emperor stayed only inside the Imperial Palace because he was worried he would die if he faced Claude.’

The fact that the Emperor, not Shuel, had died in such a situation,

meant there was a culprit inside the Imperial Palace who had poisoned the Emperor.

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