The Poisonous Princess Who Successfully Infiltrated the Enemy as an Employee - Chapter 13

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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 13.

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Barcan and I descended the mountain as the blizzard began to break.
Well past midnight already.
The path down was pitch-black, so I’d clung to Barcan’s forearm like a lifeline the whole way—yet the Grand Duke’s Residence in the distance blazed with an almost unbelievable brightness.
Like a lighthouse glimpsed from a stormy sea at night.
Despite the late hour, no one in the Residence had thought to sleep.
How could they, when the Grand Duke and the Princess had not returned?
Servants and knights clustered about with torches and lamps in hand, fully armed and ready to scale the mountain the moment the snowstorm ceased.
The instant we stepped into the back courtyard of the Residence, Celine spotted me among the crowd and rushed forward, her face streaked with tears.
“Your Highness!”
Her small frame collided with my waist—thud—and I staggered back with a playful laugh.
At that, Celine clutched me tighter, looking up through her tears, her voice breaking. “Why are you only just now returning?! Do you understand how I’ve been worrying?! I—I thought, I really thought that you wouldn’t come back, and how much I—”
A wail. Celine buried her face in my stomach, tears and snot streaming freely. I slowly stroked the soft crown of her head as she sobbed.
“Celine…”
“Your Highness!”
I patted her back gently, trying to soothe her.
“Bad luck, really,” I said lightly.
“…Pardon?”
Celine looked up at me, still hiccupping. I grinned mischievously.
“You had the perfect chance to claim all that emergency money I’ve hidden under my bed.”
At my joke, the tears that had just begun to slow came flooding back, fiercer than before.
“Waaaahhh! I never needed any of that in the first place!”
Her small fern-like hands gripped the hem of my Cloak so desperately, so endearingly.
Seeing myself find such charm in innocent, gentle Celine’s distress made me realize anew just how rotten my nature truly was.
I held her close.
‘All those years in Billot Village, and no one ever worried for me the way she does…’
As I soothed Celine’s back, I suddenly turned my head.
A short distance away, Barcan was handing his wet Cloak to a servant while listening to reports from his aide Roan and the knights.
For a moment, our eyes met across the emptiness.
“…”
“…”
“The Princess annoys me.”
His voice, echoing through the cave, whispered through my mind.
Along with that arrogant gaze of his—the one that said he wanted nothing more than to slip a Leash around my neck and be rid of me.
‘Fine, Grand Duke.’
Try putting a Leash on me, then.
Even if you collar me, I’d claw my way out of the ground itself.
‘Does someone who settles down tamely the moment you threaten them count as crazy?’
No. Crazy is someone who doesn’t understand even when you threaten them—someone who keeps thrashing about.
I turned my gaze away first.
“Let’s go inside, Celine.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”

Because we were leaving for the Imperial Palace the day after tomorrow, the Residence had been bustling since dawn with preparations.
So I woke earlier than usual and went downstairs with Celine to the first floor.
As we descended the stairs and walked the corridors, I passed the Residence’s servants again and again.
The moment they noticed my approach, they stepped back toward the walls, opening a path, and bowed their heads.
Naturally enough, but their eyes and voices carried no warmth, no emotion at all.
They were stiff and dry—purely professional.
When I reached the first floor, I nearly collided with the head maid Reina coming from the opposite direction.
Her hair was neatly pinned up, her gait impeccably upright. She walked forward with the kind of composure that left no room for fault.

“Where are you headed, Your Highness?”
“I thought I’d take a brief stroll in the Garden. I’ve been cooped up in my room far too long, and it’s suffocating.”
At my words, Reina’s gaze swept over my clothing. Without a word, she gestured to another maid standing nearby.
Moments later, the maid returned with a thick Fur Scarf. Reina accepted it and draped it around my neck herself.
“You mustn’t take the Northern Region’s winter winds lightly.”
“Are you worried about me?”
“Should you catch a chill, it would disrupt the schedule for the Imperial Palace visit.”
Reina adjusted the scarf, her voice perfectly composed.
“After lunch, I’ll need to inspect the Dress you’ll be wearing at the Imperial Palace, so I ask that you keep that in mind, Your Highness.”
“Of course.”
The moment I finished speaking, Reina bowed lightly and walked past me without hesitation, going about her business.
I watched her retreating figure for a moment before turning my steps toward the Garden.
The Grand Duke’s Residence Garden lay blanketed in white from the snow that had fallen throughout the night.
Whenever the wind blew between the neatly trimmed shrubs and the frozen fountain, the accumulated snow scattered in swirling eddies.
“Aren’t you cold, Your Highness?”
Celine hurried alongside me, matching my pace, and asked.
I shook my head.
“Not at all. The winds bearing down on my future are far harsher than anything the notorious cold of the Northern Region can muster. This is nothing.”
“Your Highness?”
“Such things exist, Celine.”
As we walked along the Garden path, we encountered two knights on patrol.
They stopped the moment they caught sight of us.
“We are honored to meet Your Highness.”
Both knights offered their greetings in perfect unison.
I nodded lightly and smiled brightly in return.
“You work tirelessly, I see.”
“Not at all, Your Highness.”
The knights gave their brief reply and stepped aside to allow me passage, then resumed their patrol once I had moved past.
I exhaled softly, watching their rigid figures recede.
Everyone employed at the Grand Duke’s Residence—servants and knights alike—was much the same.
‘Not discourteous, certainly, but neither warm nor particularly kind.’
That wasn’t necessarily a fault.
The fact that I felt no rudeness from the people of House Escar meant they were making a genuine effort.
War had taken their parents and siblings, their comrades and friends.
They must have harbored a hatred fierce enough to kill toward the princess of the enemy nation that had waged it.
Yet the people of the Grand Duke’s Residence showed neither bloodlust nor open enmity.
Only once.
Aside from those two servants who had spoken with me about the time Barcan assigned me maid’s work, no one had gossiped about me behind my back.
‘It’s probably because of the Grand Duke.’
Even if I was a princess from an enemy nation, to treat me with rudeness would be to tarnish the honor of Barcan, who had brought me into his household. Perhaps that was their reasoning.
‘Though, of course, Barcan himself is the one most likely to look upon me with disdain in this entire Residence.’
The Emperor had forced him to escort a mad foreign princess all the way to the Imperial Palace, so his tension was, to some degree, understandable.
‘As for the Imperial Palace itself…….’
When I first arrived at the Grand Duke’s Residence, I’d thought only of eliminating Helbain or surviving under the Guild’s watch.
But then this vast stage called the Imperial Palace had appeared out of nowhere.
The situation had shifted.
I could no longer ignore the events of the Original Work.
Even in the Original Work, relations between the Imperial House and House Escar had been strained.
House Escar had long desired independence as a duchy.
Guarding the harsh Northern lands, holding back the endless tide of Demonic Beasts with their blood—all of it fell to them.
Yet the Imperial House, while fearing their formidable military might, refused independence with every petty excuse they could conjure.
House Escar had been the Empire’s shield and sword for far too long.
That precarious relationship, held together by a thread, began to unravel catastrophically once Barcan met Florian, the Original Work’s female protagonist.
The Crown Prince Cain and Grand Duke Barcan became rivals with blood between them—all for the sake of one woman.
‘When I read the Original Work as a mere reader, that conflict was thrilling and entertaining, but now…….’
The saving grace was that I hadn’t heard any rumors of Florian awakening as a Saint yet.
According to the Original Work, her summons to the center of the Imperial Palace would come later.
So at least the chances of Barcan and Florian crossing paths on this visit to the Imperial Palace were slim.
The real problem was Crown Prince Cain, the Original Work’s male protagonist…….
‘My plan to avoid entanglement with the protagonists and live quietly has long since fallen through.’
In that dark forest, I had witnessed the true princess’s death, and the moment I stepped into the Grand Duke’s Residence wearing her identity, I had to accept that I too was now thoroughly woven into the fabric of this vast, churning narrative.
‘But that doesn’t mean I’ll walk meekly into that whirlpool.’
Until now, I had refused to recall or use anything from the Original Work, determined to stay untangled from it.
Yet with my life hanging by a thread, I no longer had that luxury.
If only I could eliminate Helbain and flee this accursed continent.
‘If I can manage that, then I’ll have no choice but to milk the Original Work for all it’s worth.’

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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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