The Crown I Will Take From You - Chapter 215

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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 62

Catherine had steeled her heart before coming here.

With Hoakin dead and even Samon injured, what more could she do in this country?

With her last hope crumbled, nothing remained in her heart anymore.

Wealth and power now felt meaningless.

The unchanging love of her lover filled the empty heart that lacked both motivation and confidence, making her newly aware of it.

Throughout all those long years, this man had only her.

“Really? What about the children?”

Raju asked with a surprised face.

He knew that Catherine cherished her children terribly.

“If they want to come, I’ll take them. But if not… it doesn’t matter. You’re the most important to me now.”

She had made him wait for over ten years.

It was time for Catherine herself to extend her hand for the man who had even stained his hands with blood for her sake.

“I’m sorry, I was too late.”

“Late? Darling. I’m just grateful that you chose me.”

Raju was moved but seemed deliberately hesitant.

“Virna… doesn’t she resent me? For killing her father…”

“Father? That’s you. Don’t worry about Virna. She seems a little… shocked, but she’s still young.”

Catherine deliberately erased from her mind the image of her daughter having a fit while considering Raju an enemy.

“And I’ll tell Virna this time. When she learns that you’re her real father, she’ll understand us. Both you and me.”

“Don’t tell her yet.”

Raju shook his head.

“At least, when I escape from this prison and arrive in Kazen, then I want to reveal it. I’ve been waiting so long for that moment, I don’t want the first moment of revealing who I am to my daughter to be in such a shabby state.”

Catherine nodded.

She fully understood Raju’s heart, having imagined and dreamed of that scene countless times over the past ten years.

“Yes, let’s go to the Empire together. Virna, you, and I – the three of us will finally become a real family.”

The two interlocked their fingers.

Hope took shallow root alongside their anxious and restless hearts.

* * *

Valdina Palace.

“Your Highness, everything is ready.”

At Neryl’s words, Medeia rose from her seat. She was dressed in a black dress.

With a black veil wrapped around her arm, she began to move.

In front of the Princess’s Palace, a carriage bearing the crest of the Valdina royal family was waiting for her.

As Neryl was about to escort Medeia, a long shadow fell before her.

“I greet Your Highness the Princess.”

Removing his monocle and tucking it into his pocket, Sisear stood before Medeia.

“Lord Neryl, allow me to escort Her Highness to the carriage.”

At his brief but firm words, Neryl stepped back.

Now that Peleus was staying on the Central Trade Route pressuring Kazen.

Sisear occasionally visited the Princess’s Palace to discuss official matters with Medeia.

“Lord Sisear.”

Medeia placed her hand on the hand extended before her.

The sight of the somewhat pale but handsome young minister and the beautiful princess walking side by side was as well-matched as a painting.

“Your Highness, are you truly planning to attend Hoakin’s funeral?”

As soon as Medeia took a step, Sisear spoke.

“He has already been removed from the royal registry. He’s nothing more or less than a commoner. No matter what people say outside, if Your Highness attends, it will only elevate his status. His Majesty wouldn’t want that either.”

Unlike the cold-blooded iron minister, he didn’t hide his displeasure.

“Hoakin Claudio’s name has long been sullied in the mud, so there’s no reason for Your Highness to concern yourself.”

Sisear thought that the always sharp and piercing Princess still sometimes yielded to emotion.

He lowered his gaze.

The Princess’s shoes, slightly visible beneath the hem of her black dress, caught his eye.

Like those gleaming shoe tips, would it be too unrealistic of me to wish that not even a speck of dust would mar the Princess’s reputation?

In truth, he wasn’t very satisfied with Hoakin’s end.

‘He’s the one who put Valdina in an unprecedented crisis for decades. He died too easily.’

He had desperately hoped for a more painful and miserable death.

But on the other hand, not only did Hoakin get beaten to death by the very commoners he despised, but that fact was now on everyone’s lips.

It was undoubtedly a shameful death that would make the deceased too resentful to rest in peace.

For Hoakin, who was rotten to the bone with vanity and classism, that is.

“It’s the last time, so being a little generous shouldn’t be a problem.”

Then, Medeia’s indifferent voice flowed out.

“Besides, I’m a little curious to see.”

See what? Just as Sisear was about to ask, they had already arrived in front of the carriage.

“I still don’t understand why Your Highness readily agreed to Roberto Raju’s request for repatriation to the Empire.”

Despite his cynical voice, the hand that opened the carriage door and extended to escort Medeia was that of a flawless gentleman.

“I would have preferred to just execute him here. He’s a cunning man. The Emperor must have set conditions that he couldn’t abandon.”

The fact that he sent a repatriation request despite knowing he had already fallen out of the Emperor’s favor as a former Emperor’s retainer and Jason’s subordinate meant he had something to rely on.

“You know, Lord, that if we execute Raju now, it would actually erase the crimes Jared committed here.”

The Kazen Empire would finally have something to say to Valdina.

Since Peleus detained the envoys and occupied the Central Trade Route, the two countries had been in a stalemate.

Kazen hadn’t taken any significant action yet either, despite being pressured for apologies and reparations.

“Then are you saying it’s fine for Raju to be repatriated like this? If he’s released unharmed, he’ll become a thorn that could stab Valdina again someday.”

“Well, it’s too early to worry. We don’t know, do we? Whether the Emperor of Kazen will really be Raju’s lifeline as he thinks.”

Medeia looked at a bird crossing the clear sky.

“Or conversely, whether he’ll become the noose that strangles him?”

“…”

Sisear hesitated.

He read the hidden clues in Medeia’s words.

“Sisear, wouldn’t it be better to cut off the enemy’s arm rather than bring in new weapons?”

The Princess’s hints were always phrased as questions like this.

“Then Your Highness, perhaps going to today’s funeral is also…”

Part of Your Highness’s plan? As Sisear was about to ask, Medeia only smiled quietly instead of answering.

“Oh, and please tell Peleus. We do need to send a slight message to Kazen.”

Before the carriage door closed, Medeia left her final command.

“There’s a small town near the trade route where the Emperor of Kazen spent his childhood, isn’t there? That place would be preferable.”

If Peleus led soldiers to step on the sacred land of the Emperor’s memories, Perdickas II would automatically realize.

‘That he absolutely cannot completely eliminate the 1st Prince, even to deal with Valdina.’

This was Medeia’s return gift to Chezare.

She had opened the floodgates, so escaping would be his responsibility, but still.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Sisear nodded.

Clatter, clatter.

The carriage departed again.

* * *

As if the gloomy gray sky had swallowed all colors, the old chapel was shrouded in dreary shadows.

Hoakin’s funeral was held at a small chapel located in the outskirts of District B. The smell of old bricks and musty dust stung the nose.

The servants carried Hoakin’s coffin along the narrow passage.

His coffin was chosen by Virna’s strong insistence, overriding his mother and brother.

Perhaps wanting to honor the glory of once being royalty and a power broker who controlled Valdina, the coffin was rimmed with gold and covered with silk embroidered with elaborate gold thread.

However, the excessively ornate coffin that didn’t match the old and shabby chapel only looked awkward and tacky instead.

Thud. Clank.

The eyes of the servants carrying the coffin held no emotion other than a sense of duty.

The interior of the chapel was desolate.

Excluding the deceased’s family—Catherine, Samon, and Virna—and the priest presiding over the ceremony, the attendees could be counted on one hand.

“Tsk. Tsk. In all my life, I’ve never seen such a dreary funeral.”

An elderly aristocratic lady clicked her tongue.

Rather than having personal connections with Hoakin, they were aristocratic ladies who had received favors from or shared friendships with the Queen Mother.

They had attended the funeral as a courtesy to the late Queen Mother.

“Holding it in such an out-of-the-way place, no wonder people didn’t come. Really, Lady Claudio isn’t someone ignorant of proper etiquette, so I can’t understand why she chose such a location.”

“Exactly, just look at that expression. She doesn’t seem sad at all, does she?”

The elderly ladies glanced at the Claudio Family from behind their fans.

Catherine looked exhausted, but there were no traces of tears or signs of weeping to be found.

Rather, she kept missing what the servants were saying, as if her mind was completely elsewhere.

“Well, what could be so precious about a husband who left her behind and committed adultery? I understand her feelings.”

“Even so. The wife is one thing, but for even the son to be so cold…”

Her son Samon also wore an expressionless face.

The occasional grimace on his face seemed to stem more from shame at having to reveal his disability in front of people than from grief over his father’s death.

The leg that had been torn off in the explosion wasn’t immediately noticeable at first due to the stiff shape of his pants.

However, anyone with a keen eye could notice that his posture, leaning against a servant, was slightly askew.

“At least the daughter seems human.”

Only daughter Virna, clutching her father’s coffin with reddened eyes while swallowing her tears, seemed to be the sole source of color in this gray chapel.

Hoakin’s corpse inside the coffin was so horrific that even several skilled morticians had been useless.

Rather, the white powder applied to cover the bruises and swelling had settled into the wrinkles distorted by pain, making him look even more ghastly.

The aristocratic ladies suppressed their urge to scream and turned their gazes away as they carelessly tossed white lilies into his coffin.

And when they returned to their seats, they rubbed their eyes at the sight that greeted them.

“…Th-that is…!”

Through the chapel window, a carriage of the Valdina Imperial Family could be seen.

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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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