The Poisonous Princess Who Successfully Infiltrated the Enemy as an Employee - Chapter 3

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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 3.

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At that same moment.
In the Milidrene Mountain Range to the North.
Clang—!
A massive blade collided with the sickle-like foreleg of a grotesque insectoid Demonic Beast, and a thunderous crash erupted across the peaks.
“Kiiaaaagh!”
The loathsome creature, three meters tall, shrieked in agony and tumbled backward across the snow.
Its severed foreleg spun through the air before embedding itself in the white expanse, while blood dark as wine scattered across the pristine field.
“Do you have a death wish?!”
Barkan landed lightly after severing the beast’s limb, his voice cutting like ice toward the knight who had nearly fallen to its strike.
“What’s wrong with you? Who told you to turn your back to a Demonic Beast?”
The rebuke was far more cutting than any curse, and the knight sprawled in the snow turned pale as frost.
“I—I’m terribly sorry, Your Highness!”
“It’s coming again. Get up now and ready your blade!”
“Y-yes!”
Barkan charged toward the beast as it lunged again.
Every stroke of his sword was executed without the slightest waste.
Each thrust and cut flowed with such effortless precision that it bordered on unsettling.
Even facing a creature of unpredictable violence, his expression remained that of a man solving a trivial problem whose answer he already knew—bored, almost disdainful.
Within moments, the beast’s life flickered out, and silence fell upon the mountain range.
The knights took the brief reprieve to settle themselves in a clearing within the forest.
“Your Highness has been absolutely terrifying lately, Captain….”
Young Rudi’s voice was thick with distress as he turned to Deros, the captain of their order. Deros sighed briefly and patted the youth’s shoulder.
“Try to understand. His nerves are frayed because of that enemy kingdom’s princess.”
Rudi sniffled and pressed further.
“Then… is it really true? That insane princess will become our Grand Duke’s wife? The princess from Delmar, who’s killed so many of our comrades?”
……
Deros found no immediate answer.
Instead, his gaze drifted slowly toward Barkan.
Barkan stood beside a snow-covered boulder, wiping his blade clean while the corpse of the fallen beast lay at his back.
“…I confess, I don’t understand His Highness’s mind on this matter either.”
It was a bitter admission.
In truth, the North still bore fresh wounds from the war.
There were those who had lost family, those who had lost comrades, and those who had left an arm and a leg buried in Delmar’s soil.
And now, into this North still seething with grief and rage, came a princess of Delmar.
Had he expected that her damaged mind might finally earn her some measure of mercy?
Delmar, for sending her here, was contemptible enough—but the Emperor, who had commanded the Grand Duke to take her as his wife, was contemptible beyond measure.
If even Deros felt this way, what of the Grand Duke, who must carry the weight of his house and his lands?
Deros swallowed his sigh and walked toward Barkan.
“Your Highness.”
The hand wiping the blade stilled for a moment.
“The battle is largely finished now. Might it be wise to head back to the Grand Duke’s Residence?”
Yet Barkan gave no sign of acknowledgment, finishing the blood from his blade before he spoke.
“Why.”
Deros’s expression grew uneasy as he chose his next words carefully.
“Well, today is also the day the princess of Delmar arrives, after all—”
“Why would that matter.”
Sheath—Barkan sheathed his sword and rose to his feet, turning back toward the dark forest.
“What does it have to do with me that she’s coming?”
“Your Highness.”
Deros hurried after him, but Barkan was already searching the shadows for another beast to vent his anger upon.
“It grieves me that my cherished Grand Duke remains unwed. I hereby grant him the princess of Delmar—let him make her his wife, his servant, let him have her scrub the stable floors if he wishes. All is his choice to make.”
Those were the Emperor’s words. Yet they were nothing but calculated mockery.
Barkan’s grip tightened around his sword hilt, and a contemptuous frost kindled in his dark eyes.
“Since it is the Emperor’s command, I, as the North’s loyal hound, shall obey it gladly.”
His expression brightened at Barkan’s straightforward reply.
“Yes? Then, then shouldn’t you return to the Grand Duke’s Residence at once to receive Her Highness the Princess……?”
Barkan cut off Deros’s words with an indifferent tone as he rushed toward the Demonic Beast.
“Give the Princess a rag.”
“……Yes?”

***

A week had passed.
‘Time really does fly, doesn’t it.’
I lay sprawled across the luxurious bed with its flowing canopy, rolling from side to side.
A mattress so plush my body sank into it, quilts infused with the scent of sunlight and flowers whose names I didn’t know.
Compared to the shabby house I’d lived in at Bilot Village in the South, this place was almost enough to bring tears—wastefully extravagant.
But that novelty lasted only a day or two.
“Siiigh.”
I gazed up at the ceiling and stretched languidly.
A week had already passed since I’d entered the Grand Duke’s Residence.
And yet the man who supposedly owned this house hadn’t shown his face once.
‘At this point, he must be creating Demonic Beasts himself and fighting them somewhere, right?!’
I found myself impressed by the original Princess in a new light.
‘How in the source material did she even manage to marry the Grand Duke?’
I mean, you need the person to actually show up if you’re going to seduce them, don’t you?
All I’d done for the past week was eat, sleep, wash, space out, and eat again.
The first two days had at least felt restful—my body grateful for the reprieve after nearly dying. But by the third day, restlessness had started to creep in.
My body was one that scaled mountains and climbed cliffs daily to gather medicinal herbs without missing a single day. To suddenly stand motionless in the Grand Duke’s Residence hallway like a statue—it was torture.
‘At this rate, I won’t die from the Hellvein in my belly—I’ll die of boredom first.’
I sighed and placed a hand over my stomach.
Beneath my palm, I felt the smooth fabric of my dress first. But when I thought of what lay beneath it, my mood darkened in an instant.
I sat up and opened the first drawer of the nightstand.
Creak—and there it was, a small glass vial inside the drawer.
In place of the empty glass vial I’d drunk from yesterday, a new one sat quietly, its Suppressant sloshing gently inside.
A Suppressant to inhibit the Hellvein’s activity.
‘Who on earth is putting it here, and when?’
Every morning when I opened my eyes, it had been replaced with a fresh one like clockwork.
‘Medicine that keeps me alive.’
And at the same time, a silent threat that I was being watched.
It was proof that the Guild people who’d fed me the Hellvein had put down deep roots within this residence.
‘That Grand Duke fellow hunts Demonic Beasts all day long, which is exactly why those scoundrels can run rampant, isn’t it?’
Hmph. Creak, click!
I closed the drawer and sat back down on the edge of the bed.
‘I need to get rid of this soon……’
I’d come to the Grand Duke’s Residence hoping to find books about Hellvein.
But the Grand Duke—the one person who could grant me access to the Library—never appeared.
I’d dropped hints to Hendrick about wanting to look around the Library, but I’d only gotten an iron-clad refusal: “I’m afraid that would be impossible without His Grace’s permission.”
Then the bedroom door opened.
“Your Highness! I’m here!”
A bright, young voice came rolling into the room.
I found myself smiling without thinking.
It was Celin, a ten-year-old maid who’d been assigned as my personal attendant the moment I entered the Grand Duke’s Residence a week ago.
With her auburn hair neatly tied back and a white apron tied around her waist, she looked every bit the proper maid.
Except that she was so small, in both height and stature, that she seemed less like someone meant to serve me and more like someone I ought to be looking after.
The way she called me “Your Highness” at the end of every sentence and followed me around made her feel like a little sister from my past life, and somehow that had made me grow fond of her.
“You’re here, Celin?”
“Yes, Your Highness! The weather cleared up a bit today! We still can’t go outside to the Garden, but there’s a long patch of sunlight coming into the hallway near the Garden!”
Celin grasped my hand with sparkling eyes.
“Let’s go! You can’t stay cooped up in your room all the time, can you?”
I couldn’t help but marvel at her boundless enthusiasm.
She could have gone through the motions of attending a supposedly mad Princess, but instead she was genuinely trying to care for me.
And then, as I looked into Celin’s round eyes, a thought suddenly struck me.
‘……Could she be connected to those strange people too?’
So to this mad princess, you show such devoted care……
‘No, wait.’
I shook my head.
‘What am I thinking, suspecting a mere ten-year-old child?’
I felt a pang of guilt for doubting her, even for a moment. I turned to Celin with a bright smile and took her hand, pulling myself up.
“Yes, let’s go.”
At my answer, Celin’s face lit up at once.
I left the room and walked down the corridor with her.
The landscape of deep wooden molding and aged paintings held no grandeur, yet possessed a certain weighty elegance.
With each step, the carpet beneath our feet muffled the sound, lending the passage an even deeper silence.
Just then, Celin, holding my hand as we walked, asked hesitantly.
“Um, Your Highness.”
“Yes?”
“Doesn’t it feel uncomfortable?”
Celin’s gaze was fixed on my gloved hands.
In fact, I had worn gloves since before entering the Grand Duke’s Residence—a precaution against any possibility of injuring someone.
Without the gloves, I could not have held Celin’s hand, much less stroked her hair.
It was not just the gloves. Since my blood became toxic, I had been protecting myself by wearing clothes that left no skin exposed.
It was the same even after arriving at the Grand Duke’s Residence.
‘I was fortunate that the Grand Duchy is in the North, actually.’
Because of the harsh winters with blizzards year-round, no one found it strange that I wore thick, long garments.
I smiled softly and spoke.
“I just hope you live a long, long life, Celin.”
“……What?”
Celin blinked her round eyes in confusion at what I meant, then seemed to accept it as a blessing from the mad princess. Soon she began prattling cheerfully again.
“Your Highness, that building over there is the Western Annex. And the Spire behind the Annex is still under repair, so you mustn’t go near it. And also—.”
Celin moved her small mouth busily, adding her explanations.
How adorable. Truly adorable.
As she laughed while explaining, tiny dimples appeared on her cheeks.
“And Your Highness, this way there is—.”
It was the moment Celin was about to continue.
“How could you say such a thing?!”
“……”
“……”
Celin and I stopped dead in our tracks. The voice came from beyond a slightly open door at the end of the corridor.
It seemed like maids were having a conversation while cleaning.
“What do you mean? Are you going to disobey the Grand Duke’s orders?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m saying how can I relay to her that His Grace ordered the Princess to do maid’s work? She’s still the Princess, after all.”
At the conversation drifting toward us, Celin flinched.
“A princess, really.”
A voice tinged with scorn continued.
“The kingdom rejected her, and His Grace finds her so distasteful that she doesn’t even enter the Grand Duke’s Residence.”
“Still, I can’t do it.”
I blinked slowly.
What……?
‘They’re assigning me maid’s work?’
The corner of my mouth twitched, and my fists clenched involuntarily.
What luck! My whole body was already itching to move!
This would give me legitimate authority to roam the Grand Duke’s Residence freely, wouldn’t it?!
As I clenched my fists tight, Celin, mistaking my anger for genuine fury, grabbed my arm urgently.
“W-wait, Your Highness. Let’s go back to your bedroom first—.”
Before Celin’s urgent whisper could finish, I strode forward and wrenched open the door to the room where the maids were.
“You there!”
At my sharp, ringing voice, both maids’ shoulders jumped.
“H-help!”
“W-Your Highness?!”
Upon recognizing me, both maids went pale and prostrated themselves flat on the floor.
“We’re—we’re terribly sorry, Your Highness! We only relayed His Grace’s orders, we absolutely meant no disrespect to Your Highness—!”
“I’ll do it!”
I cut off the trembling maid and cried out brightly.
At that, the maidservants who had been pressing their foreheads to the floor lifted their heads and stared at me with bewildered expressions.
“……I beg your pardon?”
“Pardon?”
I pointed directly at myself with my finger and shouted with tremendous enthusiasm.
“I’m really, really good at it!”
Give me a chance, won’t you? Hire me as a maidservant!!

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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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