The Male Lead Is Trying To Tame Me With Money - Chapter 36

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

36.

“The mages are being more cunning than last time, so it’s a difficult situation.”

Casian turned around to face me with his back against the sink.

Unfortunately, bright light was streaming in through the kitchen window, making his expression hard to read.

“It’s serious enough to interrupt Rose’s well-deserved vacation.”

“Not that.”

When I squinted, Casian leisurely approached me from the kitchen side.

“Then?”

It was such a relaxed smile that I almost thought I had seen wrong.

But the possibility that I, who had watched him for a year and a half, was mistaken was too low.

I even recalled his childhood appearance when his posture had straightened as his physical condition improved.

Instead of playing twenty questions with him.

“-Rose.”

I grabbed the hem of his shirt and lifted it up abruptly.

“A lovely fiancée’s seduction is very welcome, but now isn’t the time for-“

“How badly are you hurt?”

I asked, ignoring Casian’s evasive nonsense.

Yesterday I was too flustered and looked away too quickly to notice, but now I could see it clearly.

The distinctive suture marks from a magical first aid kit, faintly visible on his side.

A low sigh escaped from him.

“I’m fine, Rose.”

“If you were really fine, you would have told me.”

While Casian rarely got injured in the first place, he used to deliberately mention minor wounds to tease me.

‘Look at this, I blocked wrong during sparring and this spot turned red. Rose will have to stamp the prince’s seal for me instead, won’t you?’

I still remember how he’d push his sparring partner to near exhaustion, then hand me the prince’s seal I hated touching over a truly insignificant scratch.

“You seem angry.”

Why are you smiling while saying that?

Really annoyingly, when I’m worried about you.

Casian looked at my sullen face, pulled a chair closer, sat down, and spoke.

“My prediction was wrong, so I don’t know whether to be happy about this or not.”

“Don’t tell me you made a bet on something like me not noticing?”

“Aren’t you seeing me as too much of a devil?”

“All the Empire’s citizens would think so.”

You’re the famous Winter Palace demon, after all.

Seeing his way with words, at least his mouth seemed perfectly fine.

With his monster-like recovery ability, even the rough voice I’d felt yesterday had completely disappeared.

It was the same as usual – soft and low, and to me, that annoyingly good voice that sounded somewhat irritating.

“You didn’t see a doctor at all, did you?”

“Yeah.”

Perhaps thinking there was no point in hiding it further, he answered obediently.

What could possibly make him so happy that he’s grinning like that?

When I narrowed my eyes, he even burst into audible laughter.

“I just didn’t want to show Rose anything unsightly.”

“I’m not that squeamish.”

“That’s not what I was worried about.”

If not that, then what?

When I looked at him with a suspicious expression, Casian spoke as if it were nothing.

“There’s no real problem with moving around – you know how long I’ve been on battlefields.”

So you can judge whether it’s truly a dangerous wound or not?

Then why do doctors even exist?

“…Will you definitely call the imperial physician when you return to the capital?”

“Yes.”

Even while thinking this, I ended up overlooking it again this time.

Since he had endured well even at the young age of eleven, I had no choice but to believe his words.

*

“This cottage is a place you rented just in case, isn’t it?”

“As expected of Rose.”

The place Casian originally stayed was probably one of the well-made accommodations in downtown Ilium.

“I heard that thieves broke into the most famous lodging building in Ilium last night.”

This was a story a maid had told me worriedly when I went to the Countess’s villa.

“They’d want to secure the cube you solved yesterday by any means necessary.”

“I told the Countess’s villa that I’d return to the capital.”

“With me?”

I nodded.

Before coming to the cottage, I had deliberately stopped by the train station and bought first-class tickets to the capital.

I even thoroughly showed Casian the receipt I had issued for future expense verification.

“So some of them will definitely follow to the train station.”

“If it’s an empty car, they’ll catch on quickly.”

“Of course I requested cooperation from Your Highness’s knights.”

I had long known how to summon the hidden knights.

That was proof of Casian’s trust in me, or rather, proof that he intended to work me to the bone.

I asked those with suitable builds to disguise themselves as me and Casian, date around downtown Ilium, then board the train.

‘I also spread word to the villa’s servants, so the information confusion is certain.’

Being knights, they would skillfully avoid being followed while acting thoroughly according to the plan I gave them, making it difficult for the mages to notice whether they were us or the knights.

Fortunately or unfortunately, while Casian had no luck with administrative subordinates, the story was different with knights.

Having rolled together on battlefields, and it was none other than Second Prince Casian who had saved more of their lives, so it was natural if you think about it.

The Empress wanted to control the entire Imperial Guard, but those who had run battlefields with Casian were famously upright.

‘Even in the original work, not a single traitor emerged from the knight order Casian commanded.’

Well, of course I can’t completely trust the original content that I’ve messed up in various ways.

‘If they tried to trap me and Wilma together, the original should maintain at least that much, shouldn’t it?’

If it has any conscience, the original content should understand that I’m destroying everything, considering it already saddled my family with that enormous debt.

The protagonist position I was going to voluntarily return saying I was incompetent, yet trying to force me back into it.

I complained inwardly to a god whose existence I couldn’t even confirm, telling him one by one about the measures I had taken while he slept.

“Really, how would I manage work without Rose?”

When the report ended, Casian sighed deeply and spoke as if reciting.

“I haven’t said a word about submitting my resignation.”

I still have a lot of debt to repay, Your Highness.

And I’m too chicken-hearted to start a business recklessly.

As a safety-first person, I’ll definitely start as a side business.

“That means you’ll submit it someday.”

So you want me to be buried in work by Your Highness’s side for life?

What a horrible thing to say.

When I looked at him with distaste, Casian let out a shallow sigh and stood up.

“To keep you by my side longer, I should make good use of this opportunity you’ve prepared.”

At the same time, Casian’s face and hair color changed.

It was time to capture the mages involved in illegal drug distribution.

*

“That’s Wilma’s cruise ship…”

Unlike the place Casian and I had boarded a few days ago, this dock was bustling with crowds and adorned with splendid decorations.

Befitting a cruise ship gifted by Count Lopez, its splendor and size were more impressive than what we had ridden last time.

“Is that one more to your taste?”

“I’d like to speak generously since it’s a friend’s cruise ship.”

But honestly speaking, it wasn’t.

She said she’d left it to an agent and just neglected it all this time, so Wilma’s refined taste wasn’t visible anywhere on the cruise ship.

When I frowned, Casian spoke as if disappointed.

“As expected, Rose likes Princess Wilhelmina too much.”

“That’s true, but why suddenly?”

At my words, Casian noticeably feigned a bitter expression.

Acting again.

“They say that after 5 years under the agent’s management, he arbitrarily changed the interior multiple times.”

“Then there must have been embezzlement too.”

“Probably.”

Even without looking through the books, it was obvious how sloppy it would be.

Since it was a cruise ship that fell under the collapsed Duchess Lopez, the Duke and lower-ranking sons probably paid no attention to it at all.

‘The agent must have been delighted to sell off all the expensive furniture and fill it with things that only looked flashy on the surface.’

He definitely pocketed those profits and probably embezzled a lot of the operating costs too.

“We’ll be able to prepare gifts for the ladies staying in the capital.”

“Since it’s a rare occasion, we might as well.”

Casian got out of the carriage first with a pleased expression.

He was disguised with light brown hair and a relatively ordinary face, plus wearing formal attire that focused more on decoration than practicality, like footmen often wear.

Even so, there was his naturally ingrained posture, so it was slightly flawed that he didn’t look like a servant.

I was wearing my dark history dress that I had carelessly stuffed among my luggage while packing in my sleep.

It was a gaudy and tacky dress that only looked flashy on the surface, which I had been pressured into buying while confused when I first came to the capital and entered a dress shop knowing nothing.

A dress with a large green satin ribbon on slightly faded red fabric.

It was practically like they disposed of something that wasn’t selling to naive and weak me.

Of course, that dress shop later met its end by closing due to tax evasion.

‘I really didn’t want to wear this.’

The dress I had forgotten about was now serving a functional purpose like this.

Today’s me looked like a nouveau riche businesswoman or her daughter to anyone who saw me.

Poor taste and as long as it looked expensive on the surface, that was enough.

On top of that, with my hair changed to blonde and heavy makeup, it would be difficult for anyone to deduce that we were Prince Casian and his advisor.

Though I felt really sad having to go out looking like this.

“You can’t even escort properly, when will you ever do it right!”

The setting of being a spoiled nouveau riche young lady was, well.

“I’m sorry, Miss! Please, please let me escort you.”

Not bad, right?

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————