The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success - Chapter 156
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 156
“Very well.”
The Emperor nodded in acknowledgment.
“I understand what concerns Namia. And I must say, the very fact that you harbor such worries makes you perfectly suited for the position of Crown Princess.”
“Yes, I… I believe so as well.”
“As for your connection to Aran, it’s not as though there are no solutions. Don’t surrender prematurely—let’s see this through to the end.”
My heart raced.
This wasn’t the Emperor saying, ‘I’ll permit you for the sake of my beloved son.’ He was acknowledging, ‘Your abilities are worthy of the Imperial Family, and I genuinely wish to recruit you.’
“So don’t even think of running away. I have no intention of enduring a second ride.”
The Emperor smiled broadly.
“Wherever Namia hides, Kiaros will hound me until I chase you to the very ends of the Empire.”
“Yes, I believe that as well.”
Suppressing the elation of receiving direct recognition from the Emperor, I carefully broached the matter that had been weighing on my mind.
“I… still… I am… in a sense, the daughter of a criminal.”
It was the matter of my mother.
My mother was undeniably a high-ranking member of the Gaejofa Faction. She had even fled in the end.
I still didn’t know the exact circumstances. I didn’t even understand why I had suddenly gained the ability to see the future one day. Perhaps my mother was the only one who knew everything about all of this.
‘That’s why I absolutely must capture my mother again…’
Seeing my anxious expression, the Emperor smiled gently.
“That’s not your fault, is it? That’s Aran Sertiz’s affair. She need only face the consequences prescribed by Imperial law.”
The consequences prescribed by Imperial law…
“If she hasn’t committed direct murder, she would serve imprisonment and perform labor for the Empire.”
“Precisely. And if she were to earn additional merits during that time, there could be some mitigation of her sentence. The law isn’t entirely inflexible, after all. And if she were to demonstrate genuine remorse…”
“Hmm… though I somehow doubt she’ll feel much remorse…”
Watching how she had left my father—whose body and spirit were shattered from experimentation—abandoned for fifteen years and even attempted to erase his memories, I couldn’t place much faith in her character.
The Emperor seemed to share this assessment.
Still, as though mindful of propriety toward my mother, he tilted his head with a somewhat reluctant expression.
“Well, she’ll need to receive proper education—both physical and spiritual—to completely overturn the Tower Master’s failed parenting…”
“I wonder who could possibly accomplish that…”
I murmured in a hopeless tone. The Emperor, too, sighed as though no good solution came to mind.
“…Indeed…”
A brief silence fell.
Aran Sertiz—my mother. The openly acknowledged princess of the Magic Tower.
Incompetent and arrogant, yet coddled by the Gaejofa Faction, and thus one of the few executives who survived to the very end.
Who could possibly administer proper discipline to my mother without fearing the Tower Master’s displeasure?
“Um, and, and…”
The Emperor, rarely showing uncertainty, changed the subject.
“Jayden’s special ability… you helped him manifest it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Thanks to that, I too have recovered so completely. Were you aware of that?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
He had undoubtedly changed the subject when he noticed me growing despondent over Namia’s Mother.
“How much did you know, exactly?”
“Not in detail, but… I only knew that healing was possible for the Dragon-kin targeted, including himself. Something along those lines.”
“In any case, you already had me in mind as one of those ‘healing targets.'”
The Emperor nodded and let out a low chuckle.
“Even if Namia was influenced by your mother’s illegal experiments, she has saved the Imperial Family multiple times as a result. So I hope you won’t think yourself inadequate because of your mother.”
Sincerity dripped from every word the Emperor spoke.
I felt my throat tighten as I nodded.
The Emperor then smiled warmly and took a sip of his tea.
“Then I can trust that Namia won’t run away anymore.”
“Yes, you can trust me on that.”
“I spoke to Kiaros last night as well. I told him not to even think about abandoning the Crown Prince’s position.”
I nodded. The Emperor was a good father, so I was certain he had soothed Kiaros’s wounds well.
The Emperor drank his tea with grace before continuing.
“I suppose we won’t be able to meet for a while now.”
“…Pardon?”
“I can’t leave the Capital vacant for long. With an underground facility of this scale, the Red Knight Order and Kiaros should be sufficient.”
The Emperor’s special ability was long-distance teleportation.
It would be slower than my teleportation scrolls, but he could still return to the Capital very quickly.
“You’ve set quite an impressive trap. I’ll wish you luck—rest easy while waiting for the enemy to fall into your snare. And we’ll meet again at the Imperial Palace.”
The Emperor chuckled and took another elegant sip of his tea.
I smiled brightly and nodded.
With that, the Emperor truly departed for the Capital.
And several days later.
I received word that the blood and note left in the mailbox that Victor had shown me had disappeared.
Biberus had taken the bait.
* * *
“It’s done. All done.”
Biberus spoke with a low chuckle.
“Everything is complete.”
He had secured the Dragon-kin blood that the High Priest had promised to deliver.
Of course, it hadn’t come through the planned route but through an unexpected one, though he assumed Victor had intervened somewhere along the way.
“Useless as a child… and now he finally serves his purpose.”
Victor still didn’t know that the leader of the Gaejofa Faction was his Biological Father.
Biberus had no intention of telling him. The time wasn’t right yet.
It seemed Victor had become the adopted son of Marquis Awin, and when Victor inherited the Marquis’s position, he planned to keep him close for future use at that time.
‘It was good that I kept him alive back then. After all, it’s blood relation.’
Biberus thought only of what suited him, never dwelling on the past when he had abandoned the child.
In any case, now that he had the Dragon-kin blood, he was eager to begin the experiments.
I needed to know the future. If I understood how the Dragon-kin would respond, I could revive the Gaejofa Faction once more.
‘I’ll have to do this myself this time. I’ve succeeded in experiments before, after all.’
It was all or nothing anyway. Since I’d already succeeded twice, the stability of the experiment itself should have improved significantly.
And to undergo the experiment, I had to go directly to the Southern Laboratory.
To that place where the researchers and other materials remained intact.
“…I’ll go too.”
But Aran, whom I’d brought along without realizing it simply because she was too beautiful to leave behind, spoke up.
“I need to see that laboratory too.”
Aran had survived the experiment twice, yet possessed no abilities whatsoever. Every time she opened her mouth, she spoke only of how everyone should defer to her, and she complained endlessly.
Yet surprisingly, she had excellent practical skills and an extraordinary memory. Even her stamina was good, so she wasn’t a burden.
Since I’d already planned to keep her with me until the very end anyway, Biberus agreed readily.
“Fine. Let’s go together.”
I could vaguely guess why Aran wanted to go.
‘That experimental subject.’ It had to be because of him—her husband, the man who had succeeded in experiments recklessly until even his appearance had changed completely.
She probably wanted to confirm with her own eyes whether ‘that experimental subject’ was doing well.
In truth, Aran wanted to go to check whether Cedric had escaped, but Biberus couldn’t have known her true intentions.
“Then let’s depart. Quickly.”
And so Aran and Biberus headed toward the Grand Temple once more.
The Grand Temple’s garden and interior were both completely devastated, and the magical beasts and experimental subjects had all perished in a single attack from the Emperor.
It was fortunate that all those who could speak of the laboratory had already been killed beforehand.
“There’s a passage leading to the laboratory? Here?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Biberus opened the entrance to an external passage that no one else knew about.
It was located far from the Grand Temple, and the method to open it was so complicated that even the researchers remaining inside the laboratory had no idea of its existence.
So it was obvious the Red Knight Order would have no knowledge of it either.
“Is it really okay to just go in? What if someone noticed us or something?”
“It’s fine. Doesn’t matter. The Emperor has already returned to the Capital, they say….”
Biberus stood at the entrance of the passage, holding a torch aloft, and smirked.
“Besides, I’m currently manifesting my abilities.”
His pale blue eyes gleamed with light.
“There’s no one who can harm me.”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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