The Obsessive Male Leads Want to Eat Me Alive - Chapter 112

—————

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

—————

Chapter 112
The man who entered the Banquet Hall.
A man who could serve as a to Gerard’s illegal operation of the Forest, as Anette had mentioned.
He possessed long golden hair and deep blue eyes, and Gerard knew him well.
Though it had been over a decade since they last met.
“My name is Julius Lipart. I am the Marquis of Eldorado and also the Grand Mage.”
He smiled faintly.
“And I was also the instructor who taught the children of the Forest about noble etiquette.”
“…!”
Julius exchanged pleasantries smoothly with the gathered people, then turned his gaze toward Anette.
His emotions barely concealed.
He had received her summons a day prior—
Last night, to be precise.
* * *
“It couldn’t possibly be coincidence.”
The night before meeting Gerard, at the Valienne Estate.
I sat upon the sofa, lost in quiet contemplation, until finally reaching a conclusion.
Mother’s death now was no accident.
“If not coincidence, then?”
Heinrich, who lounged across from me with his long legs casually crossed, posed the question.
He ran his tongue across his crimson lips.
“…You’re saying someone deliberately harmed your mother?”
“Yes.”
I answered with a composed expression.
“Mother was murdered by Gerard.”
“…!”
“I’m certain of it.”
―The clues lay scattered in fragments, yet when assembled like a puzzle, they formed a picture of perfect logic.
“Victoria told me so. Gerard had been targeting me since before I was even born.”
When Mother refused him, the man who had wrapped himself in the Black Snake and taken me away had raised me in that cradle called the Forest.
Just as I had anticipated with Sordi and Um before, Gerard had already known of my potential.
―The only difference from my expectations was—
‘That he would target me even in the womb.’
“Mimosa was famous from long ago for possessing the ‘Sorcerer’s Eye.'”
So that’s why he had pushed me into the Forest, which he operated in collusion with Mimosa, and raised me there.
Now that I think about it, even the test where I ‘inherited’ Exordium’s soul seemed strange.
I was suddenly thrown into an advanced course due to some inexplicable accident.
It was the first time such an accident had ever occurred in the level tests of the Tree.
…What if that wasn’t coincidence either?
‘It must have been deliberately orchestrated to awaken me.’
It’s common enough for a child cornered to the brink of death to suddenly awaken their abilities and protect themselves.
Still, Gerard might have thought the awakening failed in that test, so he directly adopted me himself to force the awakening.
He’d wanted me far more tenaciously than I’d realized. Gerard had.
‘I must have been his most promising candidate.’
I would have been the jewel he most desperately wanted to possess.
Judging by the fact that I ultimately awakened Exordium’s power, my soul must have shone with an exceptionally valuable hue in Gerard’s ‘Sorcerer’s Eyes’ from very long ago.
I spoke with cold precision.
“This time, he absolutely didn’t want to fail at ‘my adoption.’ And my living biological mother would have been an extremely irritating obstacle in all this. So anything that bothered him even a speck….”
Heinrich picked up my words languidly.
“He wanted to nip it in the bud.”
….
“He’s a complete bastard, isn’t he?”
Heinrich’s delicate brow twisted mercilessly, his anger laid bare across his face. Unlike Heinrich, whose fury was written plainly for all to see, I had grown cold instead.
As though drenched in ice water from head to toe.
“It’s possible that Mother’s initial loss of consciousness and collapse were also Gerard’s doing.”
I’d already told Heinrich that Gerard must have made a contract with the ‘Sorcerer’s Soul.’ So Heinrich understood quickly.
“What are you planning to do, Sister?”
―I couldn’t accuse him of murdering Mother outright. There was no evidence.
Besides, that would be too easy a method.
Not after what Mother and I have endured.
Equally.
I wanted to repay him several times over.
“We need to act carefully. As I mentioned before, your reputation in High Society isn’t particularly favorable right now.”
Heinrich’s reason for visiting Valienne Estate was to swiftly gather the mood of High Society and inform me.
“Sister, strange rumors are spreading in Eldorado.”
“What kind of rumors…?”
“That you committed a fatal crime, fled and hid, and have now reappeared to be adopted again.”
I could guess who started it.
‘A despicable human being like that, yet already image-crafted as a perfect prince and revered by all.’
It was definitely Gerard’s doing—he was skilled at manipulating public opinion.
This was a warning to keep silent and live as his puppet. That there was nowhere for you to stand, not in Eldorado, not on the entire Continent.
An eye for an eye.
A tooth for a tooth.
If public opinion and his own reputation were things he valued so dearly, then I wanted to shatter those first.
“You’re right, Heinrich. I need to act carefully….”
I rose calmly and looked down at him.
“Or else go bold and tear out his throat. One or the other.”
I stood and looked down at Heinrich, speaking coldly.
“I’m going to tear out his throat and strip away that disgusting mask of his.”
…!
I need to expose the hideous skin lurking behind that mask to the entire world.
Heinrich’s cheeks flushed slightly as he asked.
“How?”
“I’ll reverse my public image and shake Prince Gerard’s solid reputation as well.”
“…What’s the method?”
I smiled wickedly and pulled out a ring.
It was the Pluto Ring, which I hadn’t used in ages. First, I needed a witness who could testify to running the illegal orphanage in the Forest.
Should I put my high-grade Mage slave to work after all this time?
As I laughed maliciously, Heinrich, whose face had been oddly flushed since earlier, covered his mouth. Then he whispered with his strikingly handsome face.
“Sister, if I get excited seeing you like that right now, does that make me crazy?”
“….”
…What?
You’ve always been crazy, Heinrich.
As if it’s something new.
* * *
Julius stood with his hands clasped behind his back, quietly observing Anette before sweeping his gaze across the room.
The reason he’d come here as a “witness” was simple.
After ten years, the ring’s owner had summoned him (he’d been about to sleep in his favorite heart-patterned underwear at the time—it remained a mystery why he always got summoned in just his underwear), and she’d made a sweet proposal.
―One he absolutely couldn’t refuse.
“Please testify that Prince Gerard was the actual force operating the Forest.”
“…Damn it, you summon me after ten years just for that? That’s excessive!”
Wearing only his underwear, Julius had bounced around frantically.
“If I do something like that, I won’t be able to live in Eldorado. Are you telling me to antagonize the Prince?”
Although the Forest’s existence had been exposed to the public, Prince Gerard had indeed been the one actually operating it, so he’d used his influence to have all the teachers’ sentences commuted.
Instead, Mimosa had received a minor punishment as the representative.
Thus, Julius had been living peaceful days in the Mansion. If he antagonized the Prince, that peace would certainly shatter.
“You owe a debt to those children.”
“…!”
Her unwavering gaze pierced deep into Julius’s conscience.
“You taught the children in the Forest, and while there were certainly inadequate aspects, you were quite a competent teacher. But.”
“….”
“You were complicit in selling those children to the nobility. Julius.”
It was inevitable to develop affection for the students you taught. Julius, despite his protests, had secretly cherished the members of the Tree.
“Revealing even a little of the Forest’s truth is how you repay your debt to those children.”
“…Why must it be me? There aren’t only me as teachers, so why.”
“Because you’re the only one who can do it. A Grand Mage like you could live comfortably outside Eldorado, beyond the reach of Prince Gerard’s hand.”
The other teachers would be killed if they tried.
“Damn it. You’ve really grown up, Anette.”
To think she’d dare persuade me. Peace was off the table for a while.
As Julius pressed his forehead with his hand, Anette finally broke into a bright smile.
―Like the girl he once knew.
“As a token of my gratitude, I’ll return the ‘Pluto Ring’ to you. You’re free now.”
This magnanimous woman (Julius’s internal assessment of Anette had suddenly skyrocketed) returned the ring to him on the spot.
Thus, coming here was Julius’s own free will.
He spoke before the High Priest.
“I vouch here and now that everything Duchess Valienne has said is the truth.”
“…!!!”
―What, Prince Gerard was running an illegal breeding facility?
The assembly erupted into chaos.
It was unimaginable given Gerard’s usual image and reputation.
One of the valiant nobles among the assembly asked in shock.
“Isn’t that essentially human trafficking?”
“…!”
Gerard’s face had already flushed crimson and pale in turns. He looked as though he’d lost his composure.
He was unaccustomed to being humiliated before so many people.
“There was an operator called ‘J’ who received funding from Mimosa, who runs the Forest. A patron and long-time partner of the Forest.”
Julius spoke with a composed expression, looking directly at Gerard.
“All the instructors knew that ‘J’ was Prince Gerard.”
“Can you vouch for that claim?”
At the High Priest’s question, Anette spoke.
“I can vouch for it, and I have evidence.”
Anette submitted the documents she’d received beforehand to the High Priest.
They were records kept by Julius—a ledger showing the profits Mimosa had gained from selling children, which she then transferred to Gerard.
Gerard barely managed to speak, breathing heavily with forced composure.
“Falsifying ledgers and bribing Julius? My dear daughter, that doesn’t erase your own crimes, does it?”
The serpentine, cunning man suddenly shifted his expression and began spouting words toward the assembly.
“I told the woman who would become my daughter that even for crimes from over a decade ago, she must willingly pay the price. Only then could I accept her as my daughter.”
“…!”
“But out of fear, she’s slandering me and trying to flee again. Just like back then, over a decade ago.”
Even in this situation, Gerard manipulated circumstances in his favor by exploiting Anette’s poor reputation.
Anette laughed softly, as if she’d anticipated exactly this.
There wasn’t a trace of fear on her face.
Deliberately and clearly, she opened her mouth while gazing directly at Gerard.
“No, Your Highness. The reason I fled was because I was afraid of you.”
It was finally time to reveal the truth. The truth about the words Gerard had foolishly fallen for so long ago.
“That night, I witnessed with my own eyes, hidden in the Grass Forest, Your Highness murdering Arthur High Priest.”
“…!!!”
A violent impact struck the back of Gerard’s head.
As if struck hard by a blunt weapon, he blinked his eyes in a daze.
―What did she just say?

—————

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

—————