The Crown I Will Take From You - Chapter 207
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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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Part 2, Chapter 54
“This matter is too grave for me to cover up. I have no choice but to inform His Majesty. Kazen’s laws apply equally to Your Highness the Prince…”
“I know. Here.”
Chezare extended both hands.
The knights of the Kazen Royal Family who accompanied him wore bewildered expressions as if asking ‘Is this right?’ as they wrapped rope around his arms.
“Your Grace the Duke must also come with us. Currently, you are the one who remained at the scene.”
Jason was also taken along with him.
“As for Valdina’s Princess—”
“Head Servant. You should tie it more tightly. If you bind it so loosely like this, it sounds like you’re telling me to escape.”
Chezare spoke sharply with an indifferent face.
The Head Servant was at a loss for words.
He realized that the First Prince’s words deliberately blocking him were pressure to conclude the case here without further questioning Valdina’s side.
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
He bowed his head for now while quietly warning the First Prince.
“This incident may put Your Highness’s position in jeopardy.”
‘What on earth is this person thinking?’
The Head Servant couldn’t understand with his mind.
‘Jared? Isn’t he just a nobody who belongs neither to the Emperor’s faction nor the First Prince’s faction? Why is the First Prince taking on this burden?’
The tide of the succession struggle was already turning toward the First Prince. If nothing special happened, this man would grasp the Imperial Throne without difficulty.
If only he hadn’t caused trouble like this.
“You’ve returned with great difficulty. His Majesty is not one to miss opportunities.”
As if finding it absurd, Chezare raised the corner of his well-shaped mouth and asked back.
“When has he ever not done so?”
When has the Late Emperor not plundered what was mine?
The Head Servant was speechless. Chezare patted his shoulder.
“I cherish those who have integrity. That’s why I like you.”
“…Escort His Highness.”
Watching the back of the First Prince walking slowly with more dignity than anyone else, the old Head Servant became troubled.
Medeia watched Chezare being dragged away bound in rope.
Even in that moment, their eyes never met.
She now understood that this was that man’s consideration.
It was strange.
That the man who left the pleasure of revenge to Medeia and shouldered the price in her stead, showing such kindness, was called a black demon in the world.
That she had become the object of his protection.
“Your Highness need not fear me. Even if I say this, you probably won’t believe it anyway.”
“Dea.”
Medeia, who couldn’t take her eyes off his back, had to turn around at her brother’s call.
Somehow, she felt that retreating figure would remain in her mind for a long time.
The First Prince, who had indifferently avoided Medeia’s gaze, actually raised his head to stare at Peleus when she turned around.
His vivid golden eyes did not avoid Peleus’s gaze. Instead, he slightly indicated somewhere with his eyes.
Peleus discovered a blade slightly protruding from the edge of the curtain behind the altar in the direction he indicated.
‘A dagger.’
The dagger thrown beside the dead Jared.
“…”
Peleus nodded slightly.
It was a moment when the two men’s intentions aligned in protecting Medeia.
Peleus lowered his gaze to Medeia in his arms.
His eyes turned cold upon discovering the red wound on his sister’s neck.
“Your Majesty. This matter—”
“Head Servant. Valdina no longer needs Kazen’s explanations.”
Peleus’s cool voice echoed.
“So Kazen should also do nothing more.”
At the Valdinian Emperor’s words, the Head Servant swallowed a sigh.
The hidden meaning beneath the words he deliberately didn’t voice was clear.
It meant he clearly rejected all of Kazen’s influence trying to intervene in this matter.
But there was nothing to say. The weight of responsibility Kazen had to bear in this incident was too heavy.
If Valdina’s Princess had killed Jared instead, they could have somehow covered it up similarly.
Since First Prince Chezare had voluntarily confessed, even that was hopeless. What would Valdina extort from them this time?
‘His Majesty will be furious.’
He glanced at the Emperor who was emanating cold air.
Upon hearing news that Jared had kidnapped the Princess, the Head Servant had also moved urgently.
In the process of finding this place, he coincidentally encountered Valdina’s young Emperor dealing with an assassination squad that had burst in.
The masterminds seemed to have targeted the gap when the Emperor would waver due to his only sister’s crisis.
The will to definitely eliminate the target could be read from the assassination squad composed entirely of magic swordsmen using aura.
But the Emperor’s greatsword was like emotionless, ruthless ice.
Under the trajectory of light that penetrated without hesitation like solid ice, the assassins were cut down like autumn leaves in the wind.
Even that speed was simply astonishing.
Even his master’s Royal Guard couldn’t dispose of those with such martial prowess so swiftly.
The single thread of thirst felt within the quiet, refined violence that showed neither blood nor emotion was surely directed toward his sister.
While admiring that brotherly love, an unconscious groan escaped the Head Servant’s wrinkled lips.
‘Valdina has now slipped from our grasp.’
He realized that his homeland would never again be able to dominate the Valdina that man protected.
“Yes. I will report soon.”
The Head Servant swallowed a sigh.
The wind of the gloomy forest wailed mournfully as if expressing his gloom.
* * *
The sun rose.
“Oh my, my whole body aches.”
A man stretched as he raised his stiff body. His back was loaded with goods.
He had left home early in the morning with deliveries to make inside the castle walls.
“Geez, asking me to deliver things right after unloading them from the ship… If they hadn’t added extra payment, I would have refused. What’s this? Why is it so crowded?”
The man who entered the square while grumbling stopped short. The street was packed with people.
“Why are there so many people at this hour, huh? Oh my goodness!”
He soon turned pale.
Above the murmuring crowd’s heads, he discovered long objects hanging from poles erected high in the square.
What swayed bleakly in the wind were corpses.
“Good heavens, what are all those?!”
“What do you mean what! They’re assassins who targeted Valdina’s Royal Family and tried to assassinate our Majesty!”
“What? Who on earth?!”
“Who else! Those damn Kazen bastards. Do you recognize that one in the middle?”
A passerby pointed to the red-haired corpse hanging on the central pole.
On the golden scroll hanging beside the pole, large letters that anyone could read were written:
[This man is a Kazen general who failed in his attempt on His Majesty’s life. Kazen’s vain ambitions will remain here with this man’s corpse as a laughingstock.]
“That’s right, that’s him! That Kazen bastard general who harassed our Princess three years ago!”
“That bastard even attacked our Princess. He tried to make His Majesty come out of the palace to assassinate him.”
The passerby added in a lowered voice as if conveying a story heard somewhere.
“That, that evil…! He’ll fall to hell and be struck by lightning!”
The man quickly assimilated with the passersby and cursed the dead Jared with a heated face.
“If those Kazen bastards are involved again, we can’t tolerate it anymore! Let’s go behead the Kazen Emperor! We must show that incompetent bastard the price of touching our Valdina!”
The Valdinians’ anger blazed up.
Those passing through the square spat at the hanging corpses without exception.
Even the foreigners still remaining in the strait expressed doubt and horror at Kazen’s excessive behavior.
Meanwhile, it was also chilling to the bone.
The corpses hanging in the square all had their hands and feet grotesquely twisted.
Even Jared’s corpse was in a far more miserable state than the assassins on either side of him.
One of his hands was completely severed, and his body was riddled with stab wounds everywhere.
Among them, what caught the most attention was Kazen’s torn national flag wrapped around his body.
Though his eyes were closed, his expression remained frozen in distortion, making it easy to imagine the chaos and pain they felt in their final moments.
If this was a warning sent to enemies targeting Valdina, there could be nothing clearer than this.
“I heard that Valdina’s Emperor is young but just, yet he also has quite a talent for incitement. He must know Perdickas II’s character well.”
Knight Commander Leonor of the Holy Kingdom’s Temple Knights gave a sigh of admiration.
He was leaning against a window that overlooked the entire square.
Deep shadows of contemplation crossed Leonor’s face as he quietly gazed at the square beyond the window.
What reason could there be for deliberately wrapping Jared’s body in Kazen’s flag, torn to shreds at that?
It was both an indication that he belonged to Kazen and a clear provocation that Peleus was sending to Perdickas II.
Even the Pope he served probably couldn’t mock Kazen so openly like that.
“Does he really intend to have an all-out war with Kazen? That won’t be easy for a fledgling nation.”
“But even so, what could Kazen possibly say? They secretly sent a 10 Fortress General to Valdina to kidnap the Princess and force her into marriage, and on top of that, they were caught red-handed trying to assassinate the Emperor—”
“Really, he was trying to marry the Princess?”
Just then, someone abruptly cut off the knight’s words. It was Theo.
His fellow knight raised his eyebrows slightly in puzzlement but nodded.
“Yes, though he was eliminated by the 1st Prince’s hand before the vows.”
“…”
Upon hearing those words, flames surged up from within Theo’s chest.
It was an emotion resembling anger, but even he didn’t know why he was reacting so emotionally to the Princess’s affairs.
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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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