The Poisonous Princess Who Successfully Infiltrated the Enemy as an Employee - Chapter 23

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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 23

***

Barkan and the princess returned to the Separate Palace of the Imperial Palace, having completed all their scheduled outings.
Deep darkness had already settled over the Imperial Palace. The princess withdrew to her chamber with exhaustion written across her face, and Barkan entered his own quarters.
As Barkan draped his overcoat across a chair, Roan followed a step behind and reported carefully.
“The herb shop owner says he’ll keep the shop open that day without fail. And around the Capital Square, I’ve discreetly stationed knights in the vicinity of nearby herb shops. As you commanded, I sent men skilled in Tracking.”
Barkan nodded as he removed his gloves.
“Tell them to observe and report only.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t intimidate him or behave disrespectfully. All that matters is learning where he stays.”
His voice carried its usual austere tone.
“The persuasion will be my work.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I shall remember.”
The report had ended, yet Roan did not withdraw.
Ever since they’d left the restaurant, Barkan’s complexion had grown subtly darkened.
“Forgive me, Your Highness, but did something occur between you and the princess at the restaurant?”
As Roan studied Barkan’s expression and posed the question, Barkan set down the gloves he’d removed onto the table, and instead of answering, his brow furrowed deeply.
What the princess had said in the restaurant moments before returned to him: “I haven’t wanted to mention this about myself either, but I’m a genius. Unknown lands, suspicious mountain ranges, mist of unknown composition and nameless vegetation. I’m absolutely extraordinary at ferreting out such things, yes?”
And then there was this.
What she’d continued with:
“I haven’t wanted to bring this up either, but I’m a genius herbalist. And I make antidotes extraordinarily well. Isn’t that mad? Even I think it’s truly mad.”
The words spoken by the commoner herbalist in the herb shop echoed in his mind at the same moment.
A coincidence?
Though the circumstances were entirely different, something about the two resonated considerably.
Now that he thought about it, the eye color was also in the blue spectrum.
The herbalist had pulled the hood deep over their head, shadows pooling darkly across their face. Thus it could not be said with certainty that they matched the sapphire eyes of the princess revealed in bright sunlight.
“Your Highness?”
As Barkan’s silence stretched, Roan called to him again, uncertainty coloring his voice.
Barkan rubbed his furrowed brow with his fingertips, speaking as he did.
“It strikes me that there are an unusual number of geniuses in my immediate circle.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Such things happen.”
Having offered this cryptic remark, Barkan walked toward the sofa and settled deeply into it.
He gazed out into the darkened window as he spoke.
“Clear all external engagements from my schedule two days hence.”
“Pardon? But there are still merchant contracts requiring coordination…….”
“That day I move with the princess.”
“Your Highness?!”
Roan’s eyes widened in shock.
Barkan continued to gaze out at the darkened window, his expression remaining quietly composed.
“There is something I must verify with my own eyes.”

***

After returning to my chambers in the Separate Palace, I lay draped across the sofa for some time.
A long sigh escaped me.
My chest felt heavy—whether from frustration or something else, I could not say.
Eventually I threw a loose outer robe over my shoulders and made my way with Selin toward the palace gardens.
I needed to breathe in the scent of growing things.
‘In the end, I didn’t get his permission.’
When I proposed that he entrust the Lacrion Mountain Range to my care, Barkan had regarded me as one might look at a madwoman and refused outright.
“I find I have no reason to grant such a proposal.”
Though I’d anticipated it, the sting of rejection was impossible to ignore.
As I wandered along the corridor, my footsteps hollow against the stone, I came upon the entrance to a garden different from the one where I’d encountered Cain.
Beside an arched entrance overgrown with vines, a dignified plaque reading “Saiha’s Garden” hung quietly beneath the glow of a Magic Stone Lamp in the twilight.
Upon entering the garden, the soft light of Magic Stone Lamps burning on all sides cast an ethereal, dreamlike quality over the night.
Saiha’s Garden was a typical maze-like structure.
The landscaped shrubs, densely planted, rose far higher than my line of sight. As a result, just a few steps inward and the surrounding view vanished entirely.
A quiet space hemmed in on all sides by green barriers.
But it didn’t matter.
I moved forward with the mindset that it wouldn’t trouble me to wander aimlessly and lose my way, nor would it bother me to reach a dead end and turn back to try again.
The garden paths were quiet and peaceful.
Selin, who had been trotting along behind me, gasped in wonder with every turn of her head, her exclamations tumbling out endlessly.
I smiled softly at the sound of her voice.
‘Well, what now?’
Because Barkan had rejected my proposal, it fell to me to concede further ground.
‘I revealed that I’m a genius, but he clearly didn’t believe it.’
I nodded to myself.
‘True to form for a northern lord—suspicious and cautious to the bone.’
Yes, it stung to be refused, but had Barkan agreed too easily, I myself might have suspected him of harboring ulterior motives.
Which meant I needed to produce something else he could trust—something far more compelling.
‘I’ll have to share more about the Lacrion Mountain Range and reveal that I possess the means to pioneer it.’
Of course, once I did that, my expertise—more than expertise—my encyclopedic knowledge of medicinal and poisonous herbs would be exposed.
And along with it, the fact that I knew how to brew special potions that could withstand the Toxic Miasma of the mountains.
In other words, I might have to abandon one of my survival shields entirely: the guise of a mad princess.
‘I’ll certainly be suspected.’
Of course, no matter how sharp Barkan’s instincts were, it would be nearly impossible for him to deduce that the real princess was dead and that I—an impostor—had taken her place.
‘All right. Then I’ll have to shift my approach.’
The princess of Delmar wasn’t truly mad; rather, for some reason, she was deliberately feigning madness to deceive someone’s eyes.
And then, suddenly, a sigh escaped me.
They say one lie spawns another.
How many more lies would I have to tell? How long could I keep from being discovered?
‘What if I just laid it all bare and asked for help?’
For some reason, I felt that Barkan as he was now would take pity on my situation and lend me aid.
‘No. That’s foolish.’
He might just as easily smile and say, ‘Well, isn’t that convenient!’—and slit my throat on the spot.
Worse still, my true identity wasn’t even a princess; I was nothing but a commoner.
A commoner who hid her station and infiltrated the Grand Duke’s residence?
That was a scenario ripe for summary execution.
‘And what do I really know about the Grand Duke, anyway?’
I shook my head and cast away the foolish hope along with it.
I brushed the tip of a shrub leaf with my fingertip. Night dew clung to it.
The cool moisture touched my skin, and for a moment, the tangled thoughts in my head seemed to freeze.
‘Ah…. At this rate, I really will go mad.’
My thoughts had begun spiraling, one after another, burrowing down into some deep underground chamber.
When I’d been silent for too long, Selin, who’d been lagging behind, suddenly rushed to my side and thrust her face toward mine.
“Your Highness, why are you so quiet? Did something bad happen?”
I rounded a corner of the maze at a leisurely pace and answered without inflection.
“Just thinking. There’s a lot on my mind.”
Selin’s eyes flew wide open, her expression one of having heard the most bizarre words in her entire life.
“……Pardon?”
Her reaction was so honest that I stopped walking and looked down at her.
“What is it?”
“Oh, no, nothing, Your Highness.”
“Did you think I was the sort of person who goes through life without thinking at all?”
At my question, Selin’s eyes began to dart sideways.
“I… I never said such a thing.”
“Your eyes are saying it for you right now.”
“No, no, that’s a misunderstanding!”
Selin waved her hands while still avoiding my gaze, and her flustered manner struck me as so endearing that I let out a small laugh, turned my eyes forward, and resumed walking.
“Selin, I’m the kind of person who thinks a great deal. And the world drives those who think too much to madness.”
Selin tilted her head curiously and matched my pace.
“Is that so?”
“It is. The reason I’ve ended up living like this is partly the fault of mad fools, and partly because I had to go mad along with them.”
“……Mm.”
Selin didn’t understand my words and continued to tilt her head back and forth.
“So to sum it up, the world made me this way. But why? Why does it have to grind down someone just trying to survive quietly? Who dragged me all the way here? I don’t even know who’s behind it. How did my life end up like this?!”
As I spoke, my frustration boiled over.
What in the world are these cursed Guild people?!
Then Selin grabbed my hand urgently.
“I understand, Your Highness! Please, calm yourself!”
I looked down at her and replied.
“You understand? You? Understand what?”
“That everything is the world’s fault!”
…….
“Your Highness isn’t just a mad princess!”
…….
“The world drove you mad, but you’re honest and kind!”
“Oh…….”
“Of course, sometimes what you do is impossible to predict and what you say is hard to understand, which is exhausting. But to me, Your Highness isn’t just any mad princess—you’re kind and beautifully, wonderfully mad in your own special way!”
…….
I supposed I should be grateful I wasn’t simply mad.
It was unclear whether her words were a compliment or an insult, but either way, it was clear that Selin thought of me with a mixture of admiration and pity.
‘Well, what of it.’
It was something that at least one person in the manor thought of me with admiration.
I laughed softly.
“Fine, blame the world then. Let’s go with that. You’re right—only our Selin truly understands my heart.”
Selin’s face brightened.
We walked the garden path once more.
Though I wasn’t particularly hungry, I fell into habit and plucked leaves from whatever plants I could see, popping them into my mouth and chewing absently.
Then I spotted a yellow flower blooming between the cracks of broken pavestones below.
I crouched down instinctively, carefully pulled the flower free along with its long stem, and slipped the broken end into my mouth.
Hm!
“Wow, Your Highness!”
“Yes, that’s lovely.”
Hearing Selin’s nervous voice now sound like encouragement to enjoy my meal, I wondered if I really was going mad.
Munch, munch.
As I chewed the stem end, the yellow petals jutting from my lips fluttered cheerfully with each motion.
Perhaps because this was where the royal family lived, even the nameless flower underfoot had an elegant taste.
That was when it happened.
“……Is it good?”
“Mm?”
I spun around in shock at the eerie voice so close to my ear.
My eyes met a pair of crimson irises.
“Oh, hell!”
I nearly swore aloud from the fright.
On the garden’s pavestones, heedless of soiling her dress hem, crouched a figure beside me—a figure with an expressionless face staring blankly at me.
It was none other than the First Princess, Eleonor Castillo.

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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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