The Poisonous Princess Who Successfully Infiltrated the Enemy as an Employee - Chapter 11

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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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Episode 11.

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I hung from Barkan’s thick forearm, nearly dragged along the frozen ground.
A ferocious blizzard raged across my face so fiercely I couldn’t open my eyes—only when we stumbled into the cave could I finally peel them open.
“We should shelter here until the blizzard subsides,” I said.
Barkan brushed the accumulated snow from his hair with detached indifference.
“The Pedrica Mountain Range is dotted with refuges like this, prepared for God’s Curtain.”
He moved deeper into the cave as he spoke.
“They’re stocked well enough to sustain someone for about a week, should the worst occur.”
“……A w-whole week?!”
I gasped in alarm, and he glanced back at me briefly before continuing forward.
“Most blizzards pass within half a day.”
“Ah…….”
Well, that’s a relief, I thought to myself, nodding.
Only then did I examine my surroundings, my cheeks still raw and stinging from the blizzard’s relentless battering.
Stacks of firewood and wooden crates were piled against one cave wall.
Surely provisions meant to keep us from freezing to death and surviving a full week.
I watched Barkan’s back as he moved toward the firewood.
“That’s precisely why I came,” he said.
In the midst of the howling blizzard, his dark eyes and voice had been unusually sharp and clear as he turned toward me.
Those words—from the man who’d driven me into danger—sounded like he’d come to rescue me.
Perhaps my reason had numbed in the face of that murderous blizzard.
‘Ah, I understand nothing.’
Still, what mattered was that he hadn’t abandoned me and left alone.
I turned away from him, hugging my trembling frame, and examined the cave’s interior more carefully.
Outside, the blizzard continued its savage assault, swallowing every scrap of midday light; inside, not a single torch burned, yet somehow things remained visible.
It was strange—there was enough illumination to make out shapes.
‘Why is it so bright?’
Puzzled, I searched the surroundings and quickly found the answer.
‘Oh……! That’s Luminescent Moss!’
Along the cave ceiling, moss glowed with a soft blue radiance, thick and clustered—like the Milky Way streaming across a night sky.
On the Luminous Continent, Luminescent Moss itself wasn’t particularly rare. It thrived anywhere damp and remote.
Yet this moss harbored a hidden ability—one only I could know, having ground and mixed and applied and consumed countless herbs and toxic plants.
‘If someone like me existed somewhere else on the continent, they might have discovered it…….’
But few knew of it, and no text recorded its true properties.
‘Steam it five times, roast it five times.’
Dried to brittleness and ground into powder, then mixed with the thick violet sap of the Velostin Flower, it created a natural luminous dye that glowed only in darkness.
The dye was ordinarily colorless and odorless, revealing itself only in shadow, and once it touched skin, even ordinary cleanser or magic couldn’t wash it away.
‘I needed this anyway—how convenient!’
I suppressed my excitement and slowly scraped my fingertips along the cave wall.
The moss under my touch was damp and soft. A faint scratching sound, and where my fingertip passed, the blue glow intensified, responding to the disturbance.
Even in this freezing cold, it refused to freeze and retained its moisture—truly hardy moss, as the legends claimed.
I fiddled with the moss for a moment, then carefully glanced sideways at Barkan. He was moving the stacked firewood in the corner, preparing to build a fire. His broad shoulders turned away as he shifted the wood.
‘Now’s the time.’
I carefully withdrew the hoe from my pocket and scraped the wall as quietly as possible.
Scrape, scrape.
The hoe scratched against the cave’s hard stone with barely a whisper, masked by the sound of shifting firewood.
Thunk, thunk. Clumps of glowing moss fell away, their soft blue radiance vanishing. The light was gone, but the moss’s properties remained intact.
I quickly shoved the moss fragments into my herb pouch. Behind me, Barkan’s low voice sounded as he coaxed a fire from the wood.
“You already look suspicious enough—you should stop that and come here.”
“…….”
I quickly hid the hoe and herb pouch and turned to face him with practiced nonchalance, offering a bright smile.
“Suspicious? I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”
“…….”
Barkan’s brows furrowed slightly. His gaze settled on me as if watching a mad woman—which meant I was pulling it off perfectly.
Then he exhaled sharply and gestured toward the spot across from him with his chin.
“Come here and warm yourself by the fire. Unless you’d prefer to freeze to death.”
“…….”
I let out a dry cough, rubbing my moss-covered hands across the damp cloak. Then, after stealing a glance at Barkan’s expression, I walked toward the campfire with feigned nonchalance.
After all, I had no desire to freeze to death.
I dropped myself down across from Barkan, with the campfire between us. Through the wavering flames, his face shimmered before me.
The sharp line of his jaw and the high bridge of his nose, shadowed by the firelight, seemed unnecessarily striking.
In that instant, a voice brushed through my mind unbidden.
“All you need to do is seduce the Grand Duke and bear his child.”
‘Lunatics.’
I cursed inwardly while holding Barkan’s gaze.
Those cold eyes seemed ready to cut down anyone who approached, radiating a lethal intensity that would tear apart anything daring to come near without permission.
‘He’s already showing considerable restraint just by not killing me. How am I supposed to seduce someone like that?’
Eventually, after the wedding ceremony in a few months, Barkan and I would naturally spend the First Night together.
But the Guild doesn’t know that. They don’t know that according to the Original Work, the princess and Barkan would be the ones married.
‘That’s why they told me to hurry and seduce him, to conceive before the princess dies or gets cast out.’
I couldn’t comfort myself by telling them that the two of them would definitely have the wedding ceremony in the near future anyway.
‘And I certainly can’t go around seducing the Grand Duke myself to conceive.’
I thought of Helbain, holding his breath inside my womb.
No matter how much my life depended on it, the thought of spending a night with a man I had no affection for and bearing his child was…….
‘Simply……I don’t want to.’
But the Guild didn’t seem the type to wait very long.
They would certainly use Helbain inside me to pressure me.
Could I resist their commands while enduring the agony of my organs being torn apart?
‘How much of that torture could I really bear?’
What if I eventually succumbed and found myself crawling into the Grand Duke’s bedchamber of my own accord, following their orders……?
Of course, it didn’t seem likely that such a man would fall for my clumsy seduction—
Then it happened.
Barkan suddenly rose to his feet. My mind, moments ago turbulent with worries about my future, went perfectly blank.
The Grand Duke had begun undressing without warning.
‘Wait……what?!’
With an utterly composed expression, he untied the clasp of his cloak and let it drop to the ground. Beneath it, broad shoulders that had been constrained suddenly lay bare.
Then he began unfastening the buttons of his black uniform, one by one. The gold-plated buttons across his firm chest came undone beneath his long, sturdy fingers, click by click.
‘No, wait. Why is he……?!’
Unable to tear my gaze away, I swallowed hard without meaning to.
His gaze—indifferent and austere, yet deep and dark as an abyss—turned toward me.
Looking down at me calmly, he unfastened the final button of his uniform and spoke in a low voice.
“Remove your clothes.”

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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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