The Male Lead Is Trying To Tame Me With Money - Chapter 181

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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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Supplementary Chapter 02-11.

I recalled the concern Maribel had voiced before her departure.

“I’m so sorry, Rozelita. If I’ve caused you any trouble….”
“It’s nothing for us to worry about. If anything, I’m sorry for letting you end on an unhappy note.”
“No, it was a trivial matter. …So let’s promise to see each other again.”

I think she believed she had spoken those words out of consideration for me, but my sentiment was genuine.
Yet as I nodded at her promise of a future encounter, the knowledge that we would never share one pierced deeper with each thought—a pain magnified a thousandfold by her choice itself.
And she was someone who had sacrificed so much: to prevent the world’s destruction, to save the Emperor’s life, and to forge even the smallest hope of a better future.
In return, if she had extracted her own form of vengeance against the Emperor, then it was only right that we honor that expectation and make it greater still.
After Pea mentioned that one of the Emperor’s Memory Seals had come undone, we learned the broad strokes through Maribel’s diary.
And within it, we found this passage:

[If he were to abandon even a trace of selfishness and arrogance, it would all become undone.]

It was the Emperor himself who had drawn Maribel’s judgment upon him—summoning it through his own pain and folly.
So Maribel had merely settled her final account.
By my measure, it was less revenge than simple recompense.
In truth—
‘His Majesty never loved Maribel most of all.’
The Emperor had always been someone for whom he himself came first.
So now, he simply raged and thrashed about, forgetting all she had done for him.

*

“Corrupted Influence? You dare slander me now, Clupea Margrave?”
“It was not my words, Your Majesty, but the Saint’s testimony.”
Correcting the misstatement, the Emperor’s gaze swiftly turned toward Wesley beside me, his voice rising sharply.
“Was the Saint not bent on rejecting and rectifying the corrupt temple of old?”
“Of course, Your Majesty. Which is why I thought it wise to extinguish the ember before it became a flame,” Wesley replied evenly, though his face wore a melancholy cast.
“Unfortunately, it no longer appears to be merely an ember.”
“No longer an ember, you say? What do you mean?”
“It is regrettable that the former clergy were so competent we did not discover sooner—that no priest ever warned Your Majesty of the Corrupted Influence seeping into him since his youth.”
“Speak plainly! I am perfectly sound now. Surely you are not insinuating that I harbor some unnatural desire for a young aristocrat named Marion Dill? That is false! I have not lost myself to such madness—I merely wished to offer my patronage with genuine benevolence!”
“Marion Dill, Your Majesty? But you have been searching for her since yesterday without cease. Who exactly is she? Why do you search for one who does not exist in this world?”
“What?”
Wesley’s bewildered gaze made the Emperor turn sharply back toward me.
“You, you—you must speak truth. More than one person has seen Marion Dill, have they not?”
The Emperor’s words were, strictly speaking, accurate.
But Maribel, as Wesley had said, no longer existed in this world.
She was a presence summoned to fulfill Casian’s wish—that his mother attend his wedding—by warping the very axis of time itself.
Precisely because of this, none could remember her unless they had been present and aware when she was summoned, as “Maribel Reardon.”
Even the chambermaid who had attended to Maribel for six weeks remembered only that a distinguished guest had stayed long at the Reardon Estate.
In short, save for those we had sought permission from beforehand, only the Emperor and Empress Trisha retained a true memory of her.
Yet Empress Trisha had no intention of taking the Emperor’s side in this matter.
She was someone with far too much yet to collect from him.
So I replied with perfect composure:
“Your Majesty, among those we invited to the wedding, there is no one named Marion Dill.”
It was not a lie, either.
We had invited Maribel Reardon.
“Ha! Empress, surely you saw her? The young aristocrat I bade come to the Capital at the ball.”
“You did speak with various debutantes fresh to society, but… I confess I have no recollection of a Marion Dill.”
“Your Majesty!”
Frustrated by the Empress’s answer, the Emperor demanded the guest list be brought to him at once, determined to settle the matter himself.
In truth, this was an overreach on his part—we were in Riedern County, after all—but I obliged him.
“…Truly not here? Impossible! It cannot be!”
Had he simply yielded then, it would have been mercy.
But the Emperor refused to accept that his own memory was flawed.
His denial stemmed from a deeper refusal: to acknowledge the final truth Maribel had left him, that she had chosen him to be something other than first in her heart—and thus, that he should have heeded her warnings more closely.
The Emperor proceeded to summon every young debutante who had attended the ball, questioning each in turn, and inquired further among the wedding guests.
Indeed, even after returning to the Capital, he delayed state affairs bit by bit, commanding that a person named Marion Dill be found.
As a result, His Majesty’s erratic conduct spread and spread—

[Was the Riedern Priestess of Old Yet Another Saint Sent by the Gods? What Becomes of the Emperor Who Rejected Her?]

At first, he had denied them and vowed to prove himself right by finding her, yet neither the noble registry, nor all his search through Riedern’s borderlands, yielded either a knight house named Dill or anyone called Marion.
Presently, both the Ashwood and Lopez Ducal Houses formally expressed concern over the state of governance.
A year had now passed since our arrival in Riedern. The grateful hand had withdrawn, and those inclined toward corruption began lifting their heads once more.
From among those who encountered such figures came whispers—seeping back into the public ear—about the very existence of the Winter Palace.
And so the Dukes’ pointed criticism inevitably sowed doubt about the Emperor’s own position.
The situation had shifted drastically from those days when he had magnanimously ceded the Crown Prince’s seat to us, and had even abdicated so he might wield power without burden.
In the end, His Majesty could no longer afford to search for a Marion Dill that no one else could recall.
“A man is entitled to a daydream or two, is he not?”
Unable to do anything but publicly retract his words, the Emperor swallowed his humiliation and appealed to us and Wesley for aid.
At our suggestion, His Majesty underwent a formal consecration and kept a Sacred Object provided by Riedern at his side, publicly declaring himself sound.
Yet doubts did not fade with that alone.
We had subjected them to tests so often that all had become rigidly pragmatic.
“First, resolve all pending matters within a week. After that, you must accomplish even more than before if you wish the doubts in everyone’s hearts to settle, Your Majesty.”
“But I have received the Saint’s consecration!”
The Emperor half-believed, half-doubted my words, yet soon he had no choice but to accept reality.
The press had exacted their toll—all the stories they had run unchecked about Casian now came due upon him in full measure.

[Has the Emperor Truly Recovered? Year-on-Year State Affairs Processing Down 5%]
[The Sun Palace Announces All Outstanding Issues Will Be Resolved in the First Half]

His Majesty found himself compelled to take on an intensity of labor he had never endured in his youth, desperate to prove he was no less capable than the Winter Palace and untainted.

Casian let out a low chuckle and answered, “Because he’s the kind of man who walked knowingly into misfortune, blind to how sincerely his mother worked for his sake. He’s lived that way his whole life—what can you do?”
He tilted his head against my shoulder as he spoke, as if by habit.
“It made me realize anew just how much my mother truly cherished me.”
“At least it means His Majesty has no time to meddle in Riedern’s affairs. He used to be forever throwing up obstacles or delaying our work.”
“Right. With faster processing, we’ve managed to wrap up most of what needed urgent attention.”
His own recklessness had left the Emperor with scarce time to deliberately obstruct matters.
According to Empress Trisha, the Sun Palace’s lights rarely went dark before midnight.
Still, the Dukes occasionally sighed, remembering our time there, and papers kept running stories about the Emperor’s incompetence, leaving him ever more exasperated.
In response, we sent him tonics and health-giving items.
Better he exhaust himself than leave the throne vulnerable—it would only bring us trouble.
In any case, half a year passed after the wedding.
We were at last able to embark on a rather extended honeymoon.
Our first destination was the village near Salice Domain, where we had first met.

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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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