The Crown I Will Take From You - Chapter 300
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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 147
If she were an innocent young Princess, she would have been unable to bear the shame and would have run away crying.
However, the First Prince’s Wife remained composed.
As if she wasn’t the one being insulted, her clear face was calm, without any trace of disturbance.
‘That cunning wench who drove Angelique into such a corner wouldn’t even blink an eye at something like this.’
The Dowager Empress smiled and spoke.
“What’s wrong, First Prince’s Wife? Why do you keep standing there? Is there some problem?”
Her tone was as gentle as a spring breeze, but the meaning was clear—why are you the only one causing trouble when everyone else is finding their seats?
She looked into Medeia’s clear eyes and thought.
‘From now on, I’ll torment you one by one.’
This wasn’t all she had prepared.
The bouquet of blooming red flowers placed on the table where Medeia would sit alone was a foreign variant forced to bloom with hallucinogens.
If one inhaled that fragrance for more than thirty minutes, their mind would become clouded and they would begin seeing illusions.
‘In that state, when the bug hidden in the refreshments jumps out—’
The reflexive action of flicking away the bug in surprise would look like throwing the refreshments.
And those refreshments were also a blade the Dowager Empress had hidden.
‘The refreshments that wench will eat are dates, specially prepared because His Majesty liked them as a child.’
That was a fact no one knew.
During Perdickas II’s childhood when he was oppressed by the Former Emperor, driven from the Capital City to live most miserably in a Peripheral Estate.
The dates that nomadic caravan leaders occasionally gave like charity to the pitiful prince were his only joy.
‘If that wench, lost in hallucinations, throws away the memory of the period the Emperor is most ashamed of?’
The Emperor’s madness could easily explode over even such a trivial fragment.
‘Even if she earns His Majesty’s hatred, could the Emperor still insist on being her guardian?’
The Dowager Empress’s beautiful lips curved up even more.
‘Chezare, that bastard protects that wench like an iron wall, calling her his wife…’
She didn’t know when another opportunity would come.
She had to attack as much as possible now to destroy that wench’s foundation.
Just as her precious daughter Angelique was suffering in exile, she would make this glamorous Capital City life equally burdensome.
That’s when it happened.
While the Dowager Empress’s chain of plans was proceeding smoothly in her mind.
“Beaumont? Evelyn…?”
Familiar faces appeared beside the First Prince’s Wife.
The Dowager Empress paused and turned her head. These were people who had been standing by her side just moments ago.
‘Clarisse, why are you too…?’
Then, Countess Beaumont, who had been the Dowager Empress’s childhood friend, curtsied to the First Prince’s Wife.
“The sunlight is quite nice. Perhaps because I’m getting old, the shade makes my back cold and I can no longer bear it. If the First Prince’s Wife permits, I would like to sit there instead. Lady Evelyn thinks the same, don’t you?”
“Yes, if we could make a little more room for my seat as well… Oh my.”
Then Lady Evelyn pretended to accidentally pull the tablecloth, causing the vase to spill.
The red flowers scattered and quickly became dirty, mixed with leaves.
“Oh dear, the table is all wet. We should clean this up.”
The Dowager Empress watched trembling as her steward naturally removed the second trap while handing the flowers to the maids.
Then she quickly turned her head.
She saw Headmistress Clarisse quietly clearing away the plate of dates.
All the schemes the Dowager Empress had prepared were being swept away in advance.
‘This can’t be, you, why are you all…?’
Of all people, her own confidants. The very ones who had helped prepare today’s plan!
They had betrayed the Dowager Empress in an instant.
She was dumbfounded as if someone had struck her on the back of the head with a club.
The Dowager Empress, who had been wearing a stunned expression, soon looked at the First Prince’s Wife and realized.
“I don’t mind much myself, but if everyone comes over here, what will become of Your Majesty the Dowager Empress?”
The First Prince’s Wife’s innocent voice could be heard. Even while everyone was puzzled by the sudden actions of the Dowager Empress’s confidants, she remained calm.
‘That wench…’
The tranquility that sounded almost harmless cut the Dowager Empress to the bone.
“We would ask the First Prince’s Wife to guard the Dowager Empress’s side in our place.”
The confidants making this suggestion couldn’t bear to look at the Dowager Empress and turned away. Their eyes, mixed with fear and guilt, could be recognized even from afar.
“Then shall I do so?”
Watching the First Prince’s Wife walking toward her with a faint smile, the Dowager Empress finally realized.
‘That cunning wench has gotten to my people.’
* * *
Meanwhile, when the Dowager Empress’s confidants suddenly stood up for the First Prince’s Wife, the clash between the two Imperial Court leaders ended anticlimactically.
The attendees were disappointed by the hollow conclusion, but it couldn’t compare to the disappointment Princess Straus felt.
She had dressed up for today specifically to witness the moment the First Prince’s Wife would be humiliated.
‘Hmph, she acted so arrogant as a favored consort, but she’s nothing special? The Queen Mother would have at least slapped someone.’
She pursed her lips slightly.
“The kind Dowager Empress deliberately made an effort to give up that seat, yet the First Prince’s Wife comes straight over here as if she had been waiting.”
She opened her innocent-looking eyes wide.
“I heard Your Highness lost her mother early… It would be nice if you could appreciate that this seat was the Dowager Empress’s consideration to ease your longing, even briefly.”
Though her words ended gently, within them was a blade that stabbed at the fact that First Prince’s Wife Medeia’s mother had been some wandering dancer.
“…”
A breathless tension flowed through the surroundings for a moment.
People looked back and forth between Princess Straus and the First Prince’s Wife in shock.
‘It must be true that the Duke of the North dotes on his daughter terribly. Look how recklessly she runs her mouth.’
While people were shocked, they also watched with interested eyes to see how Medeia would respond to this blatant insult.
Princess Straus had picked up the Dowager Empress’s misfired arrow and aimed it at the First Prince’s Wife again.
The greenhouse was much more thrilling now than the dancers’ passionate performance earlier.
“…”
Medeia looked around the gathering.
No one spoke rashly, but she could feel them waiting for her reaction.
The Princess wore a triumphant expression as if to say, “What can you do about it anyway?”
What indeed.
This place was a jungle.
A place where even if you weren’t hungry, you’d be torn apart as prey if you appeared weak.
She needed to properly show those cunning hyenas who had been watching her all along.
As Medeia straightened her back, the quick-witted Saya offered her white gloves.
People quietly watched the First Prince’s Wife put her gloves back on.
They felt a quiet but precarious danger, like the eye of a storm that could sweep through at any moment.
Pressed by that weight, Princess Straus was mustering her defiance to speak when—
“While we’re at it… perhaps you could show us whether your mother’s talent was passed down to Your Highness—”
Smack.
But a crisp sound stopped their imagination.
Princess Straus clutched her cheek with wide eyes.
“Just, just now…”
The First Prince’s Wife had struck her cheek.
Moreover, since she wore white gloves, it gave off an elegant atmosphere of appropriate punishment for one who had insulted her, rather than simple emotional outrage.
“What problem could there be?”
When the First Prince’s Wife asked back nonchalantly, Princess Straus glared at her fiercely as if she would devour her.
“My father, the Duke of the North won’t stand for this…!”
Then, the Princess’s cheek was struck once more.
“Oh my, was it the Duke of the North who was ignorant of Imperial Palace etiquette, not the Princess?”
“Oh my, it seems the Northern Marquis, not the princess, is the one ignorant of imperial palace etiquette.”
Her wrist in white gloves was lightly dusted off. It was a gesture both elegant and insulting.
“When a title exceeds one’s vessel, this sort of thing is bound to happen. So I have no choice but to teach you directly.”
The First Prince’s Wife spoke as if it were regrettable, not forgetting to mock the current Duke of the North who had taken the position of the Duke of the North who died three years ago.
Princess Straus’s face burned red as she was not only slapped repeatedly but also had her father publicly humiliated.
“Even if His Majesty is your guardian, I am also a noble! You have no right to punish me privately like this! You will surely pay the price!”
As she trembled with rage, Medeia smiled softly.
“Ah, everyone seems to keep forgetting who I am.”
She slowly turned her body, gazing at each and every spectator behind Princess Straus one by one.
“Besides His Majesty’s protection, I also have immunity privileges. The privilege to get away with any crime committed on this land of Kazen.”
In an instant, the audience stirred.
Immunity privileges?
That was the Emperor’s absolute privilege that could even bypass treason charges. It was close to having a spare life.
“N-no way…”
People gasped in shock.
Just how much did their Emperor want to apologize to the Princess of Valdina at that time?
These people had no way of knowing the heart of Perdickas II back then, who couldn’t see even an inch ahead and only wanted to overcome the crisis before his eyes.
“Of course, I intended to keep my place and only receive it as a lifetime honor without ever thinking of using it, but now I’ve changed my mind.”
“…”
“Still, the generous sovereign of Kazen—”
Thunk. A small tea fork pierced straight through a bug crawling across the table.
Everyone had to watch in breathless silence as the bug writhed and then stopped moving.
The First Prince’s Wife’s gaze as she stared at Princess Straus was suffocatingly calm. That made it feel even more chilling.
“I think he would overlook something like stepping on and killing one squirming little rat.”
“…”
“Don’t you think so, Princess?”
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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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Mara55
Ohh I love her so much, these people will regret this for life.